Reiner naturally didn't know what Charlotte was praising him, so he checked Charlotte's work progress again, asked her to pay attention to the rest, and then returned to his principal's office, where Claire was already waiting for him.

"This is the latest issue of Alchemy, Truth, and Rainbow Tower Observer Monthly......"

Claire read out a long list of names against the table of contents in her hand, and finally added.

“...... And, of course, there's the Monthly Alchemist Griffin, which was sent to you free of charge by the editorial office of the other party. ”

She pointed to the thick stack of books on the table, these were the top academic journals, and the purchase of these journals alone cost nearly fifty gold coins, which made Claire very painful.

The price of academic journals published in the current issue is the highest, and when there are multiple issues, the price will decrease with the timeliness and inventory clearance, so many schools choose to postpone the purchase of journals by a few months in order to save costs, for example, in the past 50 years, Crescent College has maintained the progress of postponing the purchase of these journals by one year.

On the one hand, not all schools have a need for cutting-edge magical research, and many schools that value basic education only aim to produce a ring of mages, or even simply popularize magic knowledge for the aristocracy, and academic journals are not necessary for them.

On the other hand, these academic journals are really expensive, take the most comprehensive "Truth" as an example, a current issue of "Truth" needs two gold coins, on the mainland, a standard minted gold coin can be exchanged for a hundred silver coins, and a silver coin can also be exchanged for a hundred copper coins, in short, a "Truth" is worth 6,000 bottles of Coke.

In this world where knowledge is power, intellectual property can be said to be the most valuable right.

Fortunately, Reiner has already made a lot of money in the past two weeks with Coke, and this kind of funding is necessary for the next research.

"Thank you."

Reiner told Claire that the dean had changed out of her maid outfit and put back on her shabby robes, much to Reiner's deep regret.

"Is there a problem with Coke?"

Claire already knew about the theft of Antoine's alchemy workshop, and at this time she was a little worried, after all, Piram's family was big and unscrupulous, and it was difficult to guarantee that he would not do anything out of the ordinary.

"The bait has been released, so it depends on whether this big fish can be baited."

Smiling, Reiner looked at the journal in front of him.

"Teacher Claire, can you pour me a cup of coffee?"

"I'm not a maid!"

Claire puffed out her cheeks, but seeing that Reiner had already opened the academic journal on her own, she could only sigh and go to tinker with the coffee beans and hot water.

Reiner was already engaged in his studies by this time.

He has been haunted by the lack of knowledge in his dissertation review, which makes Reiner a little suspicious of himself.

After all, this is a world of magic, and although according to experimental phenomena, most of the physical laws are the same as those of Earth, but Reiner still doesn't dare to easily condemn his cognition to death, and if he encounters an unexpected situation in the future, maybe his head will explode.

Reiner has now decided to verify his knowledge bit by bit, step by step, from scratch, while carefully constructing his worldview to avoid surprises.

First, Reiner flipped through "Alchemy" and scanned the table of contents.

"Some Guesses about the Order of Elements and the Verification Process" - Lanchester. Stanion, a legendary mage.

"The Properties of the New Element "Gmuel" and Its Compounds" - Maria. Instan, Master of the Seven Rings.

"The properties of the new element "Kayla" obtained from electrolytic caustic alkali and its compounds, and the application of electrolysis method - Cornwall. Penzance, Master of the Seven Rings.

......

There is no doubt that at this time, the mainstream of alchemy is to find new elements, and mages use various methods to disassemble matter, some succeed and some fail.

"But electrolysis?"

Reiner looked at the paper, electrolysis is an important discovery in the history of the earth's chemistry, because many elements are active and easy to react with other substances, so it has been difficult to glimpse their true face for a long time, until scientists use electricity to decompose matter, and these naughty elements are not discovered.

This includes, of course, hydrogen and alkali metals.

Although hydrogen was not discovered by electrolysis, water electrolysis is still one of the most familiar chemical experiments, and its chemical reaction formula can be regarded as the earliest reaction equation that most people come into contact with.

Reiner quickly finished reading the paper, and the new element "Kayla" obtained in it was supposed to be some kind of alkali metal, sodium or potassium, and it was clear that because of the long-standing understanding that water was the basic element, the high-ranking mage did not try to electrolyze water.

"Or maybe electrolyzed water doesn't give you normal results?"

Reiner jotted down his thoughts in his notebook and decided that he would have time to prepare for the experiments in the near future, and since the electrolysis method had already been proposed, the decomposition of water was imminent.

"Give."

While Reiner was thinking, Claire had already brought a cup of coffee.

This guy said no, and his body is quite honest.

Reiner didn't think about it, thanked him, and took a sip of warm liquid.

The coffee was at just the right temperature, and the amount of sugar added was Reiner's favorite, and it seemed that Claire's previous week as a maid had allowed Claire to grasp Reiner's taste.

"You're getting better at making coffee, Mr. Claire."

Reiner laughed, causing Claire to blush, stomp her foot, and leave the principal's office without looking back.

Shaking his head helplessly, Reiner looked at the table of contents again, and the title of a paper caught his attention.

"Discussion and conjecture on several properties of the fire element in the combustion reaction. —Fleming. Ernst, Master of the Six Rings.

Is this paper on combustion reactions the "cutting-edge theory" that the review comments say?

Curious, Reiner flipped to the number of pages of the paper.

In the paper, the author first showed several combustion experiments and questioned the quality problems that arose in them, and the process was clear and logical, and even Reiner was pleasing to the eye.

"It seems that the mages are also aware of the incompleteness of the combustion theory and are trying to solve it, and my paper is just the tip of the iceberg."

Reiner laughed to himself, and looked down.

The author quickly came up with the conjecture that the fire element has a negative mass, that is, the more fire is present in the matter, the smaller the mass of the matter.

"This explanation has always been unconvincing."

Reiner said to himself, without mentioning whether the fire element exists, this concept of negative mass is very suspicious, if there is really a negative mass, then why does the fire element have this property, is there any other substance with such a negative mass, why does it produce a negative mass?

The concept came with a series of questions, none of which the authors of the paper answered.

It was late at night when he had finished reading all the periodicals, and Reiner had simply eaten the dinner prepared by Madame Freya, and went to bed early.

Because starting tomorrow, he's going to start designing experiments.