Chapter 48

The wooden podium, along with several pots of flowers placed on it, and even the carpet, floated up.

A gasp erupted from the crowd, and some people even started clapping.

Damn it, they really think this is a trick.

"Has anyone figured out how I did it?" Murphy asked.

"Wire suspension," a slightly chubby man in the audience shouted.

"Luolinsi Bog. Come, come up here." Murphy recognized him and invited him to walk onto the podium. "Make bold assumptions and verify them carefully. How do you plan to verify your conjecture?"

"Give me a stick, and I'll sweep around these things," Luolinsi replied.

"Good idea." After Murphy finished speaking, he pointed his wand at a flower pot nearby. "Viravito."

The flower pot turned into a long wooden stick.

There was another gasp at the scene, and Luolinsi was also stunned. It was only after Murphy signaled that he stepped forward to pick up the stick, stroked it back and forth for a long while, swung it twice, and tapped it lightly on the ground before confirming that what he held in his hand was indeed a wooden stick.

"This, how was this done?" Luolinsi asked.

"That is the second question. Let's verify the first question first," Murphy said.

So Luolinsi took the stick and poked around the floating objects, but he did not find any traction devices.

"What is your verification result?" Murphy asked.

Luolinsi shook his head, "It doesn't look like there's anything hanging them."

"Then do you have any new ideas?"

Luolinsi shook his head again.

"Does anyone else have other explanations?" Murphy asked the crowd.

"Anti-gravity field!" someone shouted from below.

"Very bold, Weilianm Boier?" Murphy smiled. "You come up. How do you plan to verify your idea?"

Weilianm walked onto the podium and thought for a moment, "Give me something light."

Murphy took out his wand and aimed it at the wooden stick again. "Reducio."

The wooden stick shrank rapidly and finally turned into a small wooden rod the size of a pencil. Murphy handed the rod to Weilianm, "You can begin."

The latter weighed the wooden rod in shock, feeling its weight consistent with its appearance, and felt quite unwell, "This, this is unscientific, this is impossible! Where did its mass go?"

Murphy smiled, "I don't know, that's the third question. Do you still want to verify your guess from just now?"

"... Okay." After hesitating for a moment, Weilianm threw the wooden stick into the area where Murphy had pointed his wand earlier.

However, the wooden rod did not float up as he had hoped.

"This..."

"Do you have any other explanations?"

"Perhaps... the anti-gravity field is not area-based, but acts on each individual object," Weilianm said.

"You can try to verify your idea."

Weilianm jumped up to pull a flower pot floating in mid-air. He dragged the flower pot down, held it, moved it to the edge of the podium, and let go. The flower pot floated back into mid-air again.

"You have preliminarily proven your conjecture. Can you continue to provide a deeper explanation? Where does their anti-gravity effect come from?"

Weilianm looked at his hands. Just now, his hands had gotten some soil from the flower pot on them. Now, that soil was floating away from his palms, grain by grain.

"I... still don't know," he stared at all this in a daze. "They still have mass, you can feel inertia when they move horizontally, and the density is clearly higher than air, so it's not buoyancy."

"Perhaps, magnets? Are there magnets installed in these objects?" Weilianm said, then shook his head again. "But this soil, such tiny objects, it's hard to maintain balance during movement. Its poles are extremely easy to flip, it's impossible to push it up through repulsion... unless, magnetic monopoles?"

"No, no, that's too exaggerated. Maybe they just added iron powder to these things and put magnets on the ceiling."

"Is this your conclusion?" Murphy asked.

"No, of course not," he took a keychain out of his pocket, "This keychain is made of steel, but it wasn't attracted. There is no such strong magnetic field here..."

"I need experiments, a large number of experiments. This is too amazing. I have never seen this phenomenon before. There must be something in it, something I didn't know before."

Murphy smiled, "Congratulations, you have found an interesting problem."

"Then does anyone want to try to answer the second or third question now?" He picked up the small wooden rod and used a Transfiguration Spell on it again, turning it into a small bird.

"Illusion!" someone said. "Holographic projection!"

"Oh, is that so?" Murphy aimed at him. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The man screamed as he floated up and was controlled by Murphy to fly two laps around the room. Murphy asked, "Do you still think it's a holographic projection now, Sita Fan Weierqi?"

Sita Fan Weierqi's face turned pale, but he was also somewhat excited, "Incredible, magic! This is magic!"

"Congratulations, you got it right!" Murphy said, waving his wand. Suddenly, a black aura wrapped around him. His body rose slowly, then suddenly rushed above the crowd, appearing behind the people. And when everyone looked at him, he flew back to the podium again.

"Magic." Murphy used a Silencing Charm to suppress the gasps in the audience and let his voice echo in everyone's ears, "This is indeed magic."

He said, using his wand to conjure a fountain on the podium out of thin air, "This is magic."

Then, he summoned many flying birds, "This is also magic."

He made grass and flowers suddenly grow on the carpet in the hall, and in a few moments, he turned the carpet into a lawn, "This is still magic."

"However, the word 'magic' is meaningless." Murphy said, waving his wand again, erasing everything that had just happened.

"Just like how we explain all phenomena as nature, miracles, or science, that is meaningless. It is just a convenient noun we have assigned to the unknown."

"Magic cannot just be magic. If we do not understand the details of science, we do not understand science. If we cannot explain the phenomena in magic, then we are no different from our ancestors who viewed thunder as the wrath of gods, having no progress in cognition."

"Yes, I am a wizard, and I can use magic."

"This makes me different. But believe me, my understanding of magic is not much more than yours."

"I am like a primitive man now. I can use fire to keep warm, drive away wild beasts, and cook food, but I still know nothing about the essence of fire."

"Where does my magic come from? How does it work? Why can this spell conjure fire, while another spell makes people float? I am very curious about this, but I do not have enough energy to study them one by one, so I need you all."

"Now I can answer that initial question. What exactly is your research content."

"The answer is magic. You were invited here to explore that unknown."

"To salvage results from this blue ocean of magic to your heart's content is your job."

(End of chapter)