At his first encounter with the astronomical telescope, Reilo was like a child, completely absorbed in it.
"Where's the moon?"
Just as Reilo was about to adjust the telescope's angle to find the moon, a voice suddenly came from behind him, making his heart leap.
"To observe the moon, you need to adjust the telescope to a thirty-five-degree angle."
Reilo hurriedly turned around. His mentor, Gubo, was standing behind him in loose black pajamas. He had no idea when Gubo had arrived.
"Mentor, you haven't gone to bed?"
In the darkness, Reilo couldn't make out Gubo's face. He could just barely see Gubo raise his head and gaze through the astrological window at the boundless starry sky overhead.
"I'm used to coming up here every night."
With his hands behind his back, Gubo stood in the night wearing his loose black pajamas. His tone was somewhat forlorn, unlike the stern, rigid mentor Reilo remembered.
After a pause, Gubo continued, "Because of the exacting craftsmanship required to make the convex lenses for astronomical telescopes, the celestial bodies we can observe are still blocked by the Star Curtain's radiation background. Only by breaking through that radiation background can we observe the true universe and prove what the pioneer White Niven said: Heaven does not exist."
"Ah..."
He shook his head and sighed.
"There are some astrological manuscripts left behind by the pioneer White Niven. Since his death, there have been fewer and fewer astrologers in every country. Cosmology has been crippled by the Church's monopoly on instruments, and almost no one studies it anymore. If you're interested, you can take a look."
Late at night, Gubo had unexpectedly run into Reilo on the rooftop. After exchanging a few words, he turned and left again. Jiahei also went downstairs.
The astrological hut fell silent once more.
Following Gubo's directions, Reilo found some yellowed manuscripts, protected by a special waxy structure. They contained numerous mathematical calculations and complex diagrams of the stars' trajectories. Although he knew nothing about the Mathematical Foundation, that didn't stop him from understanding the results of the calculations.
"Because of the distance, the true size and mass of celestial bodies are far greater than they appear to the naked eye. The sun's actual mass is about three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand times that of the Star Curtain World!? Th-that's enormous!"
Reilo couldn't imagine a mass and volume like that, nor could he make sense of the calculation.
There were dozens of human principalities, large and small. The combined area of the many tiny principalities was roughly equal to that of the six great principalities. Yet all the principalities together amounted to only about two-thirds of the Great Empire of Light of Aurora.
The many principalities and the Great Empire of Light of Aurora made up the vast human realm.
In the rugged, desolate, barren regions surrounding the human realm lived countless other races. The maps showed only vast blank outlines for the lands they occupied, yet their territory was several times larger than the human realm. People commonly referred to the human realm and the nearby territories of familiar races together as the Starveil Land.
Beyond the Starveil Land lay the sea on three sides.
The nearby waters teemed with human and nonhuman pirates, and terrifying tales of the deep sea were too numerous to count.
The only land connecting the Starveil Land to the continent's interior was cut off by the vast Furnace Desert. On the other side of the Furnace Desert lay the Night's Veil Land, the birthplace of the evil Blood Demons that the human Church spoke of so often—the very place the Crusade Army had set out to conquer!
Like humans in their realm, the Blood Demons ruled the Night's Veil Land.
As for what lay beyond the Night's Veil Land, nobody knew...
But even this meager understanding of the Star Curtain World seemed boundless to Reilo. Yet the complicated calculations in the manuscripts claimed that the sun's mass was hundreds of thousands of times greater than that of the Star Curtain World?
If that was really true!
Rather than study the natural specimens around him to learn about the evolutionary forces within the Star Curtain World's food chains, wouldn't it be better to turn his gaze directly toward the Cosmic Starry Sky, toward the sun that held unimaginable power, and draw upon the Law of Truth of the cosmos—its power hundreds of thousands of times greater?
The sun, the sun...
Wait!
If he could use his Bubble Technique to change its form into a convex lens, focusing sunlight to attack an enemy, wouldn't that mean he was indirectly using the sun's power?
If the calculations in the manuscripts were correct, then as long as his convex lens was large enough, even though it would be utterly insignificant compared with the sun's vast, boundless energy, it would still harness an incalculably terrifying amount of power by the standards of the people of the Star Curtain World.
In other words, he only needed to borrow one three-hundred-thousandth of the sun's energy... No, maybe only one millionth, one ten-millionth, or even one hundred-millionth would be enough to completely destroy the world beneath his feet!
If the sun really was the center of the universe, if there was no Heaven in the Cosmic Starry Sky, if the Law of Truth surpassed the Creator of Light, if everything was as the pioneer White Niven had said, then perhaps even a ripple of power from the Cosmic Starry Sky would be enough to unleash a destructive force upon him and the Star Curtain World!
Although, for now, this theory could only be used on clear days, it would still be a groundbreaking field of study if he could make it work.
This was the Law of Truth from the Cosmic Starry Sky!
In the Cosmic Starry Sky, in White Niven's macrocosmic world, the Star Curtain World was just one of countless celestial bodies orbiting the sun.
And if he became a senior scholar and gained the support of a powerful Energy Magnetic Field, then even with this elementary technique that borrowed sunlight, he could make the convex lens formed from bubbles gather sunlight above the clouds, provided it was large enough. He could disperse the clouds with absolute heat, and the terrifying beam would descend upon the world, instantly vaporizing any enemy on the ground!
"Hiss!"
At that moment, Reilo suddenly saw the light. At the same time, he drew a sharp breath at his own wild idea.
The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. Then a thought suddenly struck him, and he jolted in alarm. "The power of the Law of Truth from the Cosmic Starry Sky! Could that be why the Creator of Light performed a miracle outside the Aurora Grand Cathedral of Light, personally burning the great pioneer Bainenwens to ashes?"
Whether it was Natural Law, the mysteries of evolution, the mysteries of the human body, the mysteries of the mind, Alchemy, or anything else...
If the Heliocentric Theory was true, then all the Laws of Truth human scholars were currently studying were merely offshoots—branches of the Law of Truth that had extended into the Star Curtain World!
The Cosmic Starry Sky was where one could find the true essence of the Law of Truth!
The next day.
Aya was a third-year student at the Grand Natural Academy. Her Elite Rank score had long hovered around one hundred, making her one of the students most easily overlooked at the academy.
Aya didn't care that she seemed transparent to others, and she hardly ever worried about what they thought. In her eyes, they could never understand the joy she felt—the freedom of losing herself completely in a sea of books and knowledge, reading without needing to understand everything.
That was why Aya was almost always the first to arrive at the library each morning.
But today, when Aya arrived at the library entrance at dawn, breathing in the fresh morning air, she stopped in surprise.
"So early?"
Someone was already waiting outside the library.
This didn't happen often. Aya stood to one side and glanced at him a few times. He had a youthful face she didn't recognize, and the dark circles under his eyes nearly reached his chin. He looked as though he hadn't slept all night. How could anyone study in that state?
He was probably a first-year student.
Without paying him any more attention, Aya pulled out the biographical novel she carried with her and began reading with relish. She soon forgot all about him.
As Reilo waited outside the library, he thought about whether he could harness the Law of Truth of the Cosmic Starry Sky. He automatically ignored the female upperclassman who had arrived a little after him.
"Looking for an auxiliary technique that can alter the Bubble Technique's shape."
Suddenly.
The majestic bells of the Saint Grand Cathedral in the distant Saint Grand Fort rang out. Almost at the same time, the first ray of morning sunlight leaped over the horizon, and the library doors of the Grand Natural Sciences Academy slowly opened.
Reilo rushed in at the front, unable to wait another moment.
He found The Craft of Making Convex and Concave Lenses, sat down in a corner of the library, and began to read.
The most common optical instrument, the magnifying glass, was where the craft of making convex lenses began.
Because of the limitations of the glassmaking process used for concave and convex lenses, high-grade astronomical lenses required extremely precise glass-grinding techniques. Craftsmen in Utolan spent months, or even years, painstakingly making them by hand.
But as the magnification of a convex lens increased, the required glass transparency and precision of the grinding process grew exponentially!
In the Mathematical Foundation, exponential growth was the most terrifying kind of growth in the world.
The time required to make them doubled and doubled again. A high-grade telescope might offer only a fraction more viewing distance, yet a master glassworker would have to spend most of his life grinding a single optical convex lens—and even then, he risked failure.
"The craft of making astronomical lenses is so demanding. It looks like I'll have to wait until I become a senior scholar before I can go to Utolan and use the Bubble Technique to observe celestial bodies and the microscopic world. For now, I should focus on using the Bubble Technique to make the most primitive convex lens."
With that in mind, Reilo began searching the library for basic techniques that could alter the shape of the Bubble Technique.
There were countless basic techniques, and almost every living thing had several. Even humans had some insignificant auxiliary abilities from birth. For instance, ears could distinguish the sound of hot water and cold water being poured into a teapot.
After spending three hours, Reilo found several zero-level basic techniques with similar functions.
"Centrifugal Technique, Shape-Shifting Technique, Spirituality Technique."
To transform the Bubble Technique into a convex lens, Reilo needed to stack another technique on top of it. After carefully comparing his options, he decided these three zero-level basic techniques suited him best.
First was the Centrifugal Technique.
By making the inside of the bubble spin continuously, he could turn the Bubble Technique into a convex lens. But he would need to find a zero-level elemental creature called a Vortex. Such creatures were extremely rare in the human realm, so finding one by luck was nearly impossible. A natural specimen shop would probably charge a price measured in gold coins.
Next was the Shape-Shifting Technique.
The Shape-Shifting Technique used mental force to shape things. High-level Magical Beasts with telekinetic abilities were very common, but zero-level creatures with the ability were even rarer than Vortex elementals. Reilo had never even heard of Wangsheng Turtles or Fire Candle Snails.
Last was the Spirituality Technique.
The Spirituality Technique added spiritual properties, changing the outward form of material energy. It could make certain energy forms produce an effect similar to a Natural Law scholar summoning an elemental creature, though the underlying principle was entirely different.
What surprised Reilo was that although he could learn the Spirituality Technique from the specimens of many strange zero-level creatures, such as Sprout Coral Turtles, Cockscomb Snakes, and Fire-Eye Peacocks, its most common natural specimen was actually the coconut!
A coconut tree?
Reilo continued reading.
Among zero-level biological specimens, the coconut tree was one of the plants with the greatest affinity for spirituality. People sitting beneath a coconut tree would never get hit by a falling leaf. By examining the coconut tree's changes at the moment a coconut fell, scholars could uncover the mysteries of the Spirituality Technique.
"That's incredible!"
Reilo pursed his lips and checked the time. It was already noon.
His stomach was growling with hunger, but he hadn't noticed at all. Muttering to himself, he said, "The map shows that there should be vast stretches of these spiritually gifted low-level plants near the Salt Sea in the Furnace Mountains!"