Inside the library of the Orvisto Wizard Tower, Roland walked past shelves that stretched like mountains and seas, as though he had entered a sacred hall of wisdom.
A faintly glowing Book Spirit, resembling a woodland fairy, guided him to the section he wanted.
Although Atrelin had already entered the age of the Magic Network, many habits from the classical period remained. These paper books also contained magical mysteries, much like spell scrolls.
Purely informational material could be accessed through Magic Network terminals, but physical books were still better suited to holding magic.
Thus, a library's collection often determined the depth of a Mage Tower's resources.
A Study of the Duality of Symbols, The Transformability of Language, The Arbitrariness of Language, A Signifier Chain Model and Contextual Backtracking Algorithm, An Artificial Intelligence Conversation Model Based on Recurrent Neural Networks...
As he looked at these book titles, translated in his mind and strangely familiar, Roland could not help feeling a certain warmth.
Interdisciplinary research was everywhere in Atrelin's field of Arcana. And because Arcana was the foremost magical power, subjects such as artificial intelligence, which should originally have fallen under computer technology, were also closely linked to language and writing.
The resulting classifications differed, but the interdisciplinary thinking was the same.
Before Roland could reach into the shelves, however, the tower spirit projected a screen of light, and the face of Senior Froya, his senior, appeared on it.
"Roland, I finally got hold of you! We're coming up to see you!"
Roland was somewhat puzzled. When he stepped out of the library, he found his fellow students Skord and Yvonne, along with several senior students he did not know, waiting outside under Froya's lead. They all looked at him with excitement.
Roland asked in surprise, "Everyone, what happened?"
Froya waved the newspaper in her hand. "Roland, the paper you submitted on Oracle-Bone Character Studies has been accepted by Arcana! And it's been given extremely high scheduling priority—it'll be published in October!"
"Here, this newspaper was just teleported over. Hurry and read the reviewers' comments..."
Roland took the newspaper from Froya.
It was the Arcana Communications Journal from Sky City Nevis, affiliated with the journal Arcana. It specialized in news from the arcane community, while also serving as a means of communication and public notice. All major Grand Mage Towers were required to subscribe, and the price was far from cheap.
Its counterpart was a media account on the Magic Network, which posted updates daily to remind mages everywhere to keep abreast of developments in the Arcana community. Even mages residing on other planes paid close attention to it.
Naturally, an authoritative national outlet like this did not publish just any news.
Only top-tier journals such as Arcana, along with leading mainstream journals such as Runes, Elements, Alchemy Monthly, The Age of Magic, and Looking Up at the Stars, were qualified to post news there regularly. Journals below that tier rarely had the chance.
"This work establishes an entirely new writing system through a rare ideographic approach. Its ingenious design, rigorous structure, comprehensive rules, mature system, and detailed dictionary are all seldom seen in the modern Arcana community..."
"An unfettered imagination, and a credit to Fictional World Theorists! By abstracting and simplifying two-dimensional images, this paper emulates the way our ancient ancestors created writing, resolving the problem of signified meaning that has troubled the Arcana community for years."
"Its rules for characters, words, and sentences, its tenses, and its changes in parts of speech all differ greatly from the many scripts familiar to us, vastly enriching the construction of rules in the study of writing..."
"Setting magic aside and considering only linguistics itself, this work is indeed beyond reproach in every respect...
"Nevertheless, I must offer a reminder: only integration with magic is the proper path for linguistics. To bring this work into practical application, the author must continue his efforts and overcome this hurdle as soon as possible..."
The newspaper had published comments personally written by the three Grand Mages Ovesto, Lunifis, and Watson, though their names had been withheld in accordance with the rules.
What Roland did not know was that these very comments had caused quite a stir in Sky City Nevis.
Many of Grand Mage Watson's students knew just how stubborn their teacher was. Once he opposed something from the outset, almost nothing could change his mind.
This time, however, he had merely offered a rather sour little "reminder."
Had he taken the wrong medicine?
For the moment, the people in the tower were not concerned with any of that.
They only knew that it was astonishing for an apprentice mage to publish an article in a top-tier journal like Arcana.
"Roland, you're incredible!"
"As expected of the outstanding student His Excellency the Grand Mage personally recruited..."
Embarrassed, Roland said modestly, "You're all far too kind."
"No, no, not at all! You know, plenty of our fellow mages go their entire lives without ever publishing an arcane paper in Arcana."
The senior students spoke with deep feeling.
This time, Roland's starting point could well be called someone else's finish line.
The Arcana Communications Journal's advance publicity and announcement continued to grow in influence.
It began on the evening he learned the news, when Roland dug the formal notification from Arcana out of his Magic Network inbox. Messages kept arriving from all quarters, and people he knew and people he did not flooded his mailbox with letters.
Fortunately, the tower spirit was a spiritual intelligence. Although it processed things more slowly than an electronic computer and tasks often had to queue, its low energy consumption and high intelligence were undeniable advantages. Working with magic arrays that possessed some computing capacity, it considerately filtered out a good many pointless interruptions.
"Mr. Roland, you have an email from the Yther Wizard Tower."
A few days later, Roland had only just gotten out of bed when he received another notification.
"The Yther Wizard Tower? That seems to be a public, multidisciplinary Mage Tower."
With that thought, he accepted the Projection spell. An email promptly appeared on the screen of light before him, filling it with flowing, ornate Elvish script.
"Dear Mr. Roland,
"It was a great honor to read your two papers, 'An Overview of Oracle-Bone Characters' and 'Oracle-Bone Character Studies.'"
"As arcanists of the Yther Runes School, we also conduct research into language, writing, and Magic Runes, and we deeply admire your theoretical accomplishments in the field of ideographic writing. Your paper, 'A New Practical Script—A Study of Oracle-Bone Character Studies,' has attracted widespread attention and discussion in this month's Arcana Communications Journal, pointing out an entirely new direction for the creation of new magical scripts. I have taken the liberty of enclosing several related questions, and sincerely hope you might spare some time from your busy schedule to answer them. I very much look forward to an in-depth exchange with you..."
"Respectfully, Lunifis."
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