When Turner carefully lifted his expensive lizard skin robe and stepped out of the carriage, the feeling of unhappiness along the way due to the bumps in the road disappeared the moment the castle came into view.

Although I had heard of the polished floors and walls of the castle made of stone, the fine mosaic tiles, frescoes and pendants, the elegant sculptures and expensive tapestries, the silver fountains in the courtyard, and the exotic flowers and plants planted in the shady gardens, it was better to hear about it than to experience it in person.

Even just standing at the gate of the castle, Turner couldn't help but look forward to inviting his castle owner - to have such a magnificent castle as a residence, or in a scenic valley, the owner who wants to come here is also a very stylish person, right?

"Oh, praise the goddess of the earth, to see such a tasteful castle, my bad mood for the past week has turned into the same degree of happiness. ”

A somewhat exaggerated compliment came from behind him, and Turner froze at first, then slowly turned his head away.

Less than a hundred meters behind him, a small half-elf was walking over with a smile.

"Humphrey, I'm glad to see you, so I don't have to eat dinner. Turner replied nonchalantly.

"Oh my God, don't do that, my dear friend. ”

The half-elf shrugged, obviously used to Turner's style, "We're just a little bit of an academic disagreement, so it's unlikely to affect our friendship at all, right?"

"Then wait until you prove that your theory is correct. ”

Turner snorted, shook hands with the other reluctantly, and walked quickly through the castle gates.

"Hey, you're too stubborn! Isn't the most attractive thing about the magic energy conversion theory that constant ......?"

Humphrey stamped his foot and hurried after him.

In fact, although he made an angry appearance, he was not really angry. Turner's performance is not as disdainful of his race as it appears to be—Turner, as a bronzed dragonborn, is no better off than he is in this regard—but rather a purely academic battle, with a few personality factors.

When the two of them entered the hall, they realized that they were the last to arrive.

In the bright and spacious hall, the lord of the castle, the young man in the gray aristocratic dress, was sitting upright on the throne. Below him there are four other golden silk nanmu seats, almost identical to the main seat, with comfortable cushions.

Headed by the owner of the castle, these seats are arranged on either side of a long table, like a real gathering of nobles, with delicate tablecloths, exquisite cutlery, sumptuous refreshments, and the smell of tea.

For a moment, even Turner, who had a somewhat cold personality, felt a hint of excitement about being taken seriously.

Moreover, in addition to them, there were two other people who had come to the castle hall in advance.

One of them was sitting on the left-hand side, like a female scholar full of intellectual atmosphere, who looked to be about thirty years old, although he was not young, but he was just right to reveal the beauty that had been precipitated over the years.

The other person surprised them a little: sitting opposite the female scholar was a tiger beastman who was five big and three thick, his face was fierce, and his strong muscles almost crowded the simple white coat to the brim, which made people feel a kind of fear when they saw it.

The female scholar didn't seem to mind, however, and continued to talk to him until she noticed Turner and Humphrey appearing.

"I said, we're not in the wrong place......"

When the strong man of the tiger beastmen looked over, Humphrey decisively shrank behind Turner.

"You should say, he's not in the wrong place. ”

Turner pursed his lips and bowed slightly to the young nobleman sitting on the throne, and then dragged Humphrey, who looked frightened, straight to the empty seat and sat down. In this process, the seemingly fierce tiger beastman did not make any demonstrative actions as he imagined, but sat in place and drank tea very peacefully.

Of course, Turner's words were not offensive, he knew the nature of the party, so he probably knew a little about the identity of the guests. Because of this, he was sure that the tiger orc would not come to trouble when he was fine—even if the other party really wanted to make trouble, Turner believed that the owner of the castle would not let things go unfolded.

"Hello scholars. ”

Seeing that all four guests had arrived, Iroh waited no longer and stood up and greeted the people with a smile, "Thank you for coming to the party hosted by one of my little counts, how grateful you are. ”

"Sir Earl is gracious," Humphrey was the first to speak, waving his hand, "to spend a wonderful afternoon in such a beautiful castle, but I could not ask for it—you know, my afternoons have never been very good. ”

As he spoke, he said a few more words with a somewhat exaggerated expression, which made the female scholar and the tiger beastman laugh, and Iroh also smiled facefully, only Turner still maintained a calm demeanor.

Naturally, this is not that Turner is deliberately embarrassing, but as Humphrey's old friend and old rival, he has long been immune to this set.

However, after a few words, the half-elf's sleek way of doing things obviously made people get closer to each other.

In a simple small talk, the four of them also introduced themselves to each other. Iroh didn't put on a superior attitude, but participated in people's conversations from time to time, which made the few people who were still a little restrained relax a little.

It's only a small number of people, but it seems like a good start......

Looking at the atmosphere becoming more and more enthusiastic, Iroh silently recalled the information of the four in his heart.

Needless to say, they are all scholars and researchers from all over the Western Continent. To be precise, the four people gathered here are not the usual champions of the magic school today, but the supporters of the opposite school, the material school.

Here we have to mention the current situation of the development of theoretical science in the world of Elohim.

Although this world has gone through three epochs of obscurantism, initiation and secrecy, a large number of civilization achievements accumulated in the previous three epochs were destroyed at the end of the Occult Age, along with an extremely developed civilization with the war of the gods.

At the beginning of the Glorious Age, the gods redefined the order of the world, and the survivors lost almost all of their knowledge during the long Dark Ages between the two eras.

It's like saying that everything basically has to start from scratch.

The Age of Glory has lasted for thousands of years, and during this time, countless scholars, mages, and alchemists have come and gone, exploring the essence of this world little by little.

After the research and summary of the predecessors, the current theoretical science is divided into two major schools, one is the magic school that starts from magic and explores various phenomena in the world, and the other is the material school that starts from matter and then explores the changes of all things.

The school of magic is the mainstream in today's world, and almost more than 95% of people believe that only magic is the best tool to access the essence of the world.

This idea is not without reason, because in the course of long-term research and study, people have found that magic can interfere with almost all phenomena on the material level, and some magic can even interfere with spirits, not to mention that in addition to magic, there are countless wonderful arcane arts.

To put it bluntly, magic and arcane are the same thing, and those that have not yet been fully recognized by people are arcane.

In other words, if you control the nature of magic, you will be close to the origin of the world.

As for the fact that the magic element school and the magic fluctuation school are subdivided into the magic school, it is not something that needs to be concerned now.

Compared to their counterparts in the School of Magic, the proponents of the Materialist School can be said to be very unsatisfactory.

If the people of the School of Magic tend to start directly with the near-primordial power of magic, then the Materialist School focuses on a gradual process. They believe that basic natural phenomena should be studied first, and then these phenomena should be summarized in order to deduce universal laws.

Although this idea is indeed very reasonable, and there are some scholars of the material school who have made great achievements, it is a pity that the speed of such research is too slow compared to the magic school.

For example, a mage apprentice who has just been exposed to magic is not too difficult to master a low-level fireball technique. In the process, apprentices often become very easy to understand the workings of magic and how concepts such as "burning" and "heat" are embodied on a magical level.

At the same time, this apprentice can naturally go through this process and transform knowledge into partial strength, whether direct or indirect.

It can be said that the members of the world's famous magic schools are either archmages with their own strength, or wise and sages who are highly respected and have a large group of students, and rarely need to worry about their own safety.

But the material school is different, their students after studying hard, it is difficult for them to intuitively understand the changes in the knowledge they have mastered in their own hands like the magic school. Again, in the example above, an apprentice magician can condense a fireball to review the workings of magic, while a student of the Physics School can only light a fire by striking a flint or something else and then observe the surface of the phenomenon of fire.

One side can directly feel the essence, while the other party can only observe the appearance and make judgments.

Moreover, the knowledge of the scholars of the material school cannot be transformed into strength, which makes the scholars of the material school more vulnerable to threats and exploits.

The result of the combination of these factors is that the materialist school is dying away, so much so that in many places today it is even excluded.

But even in such an environment, there are still scholars as determined as the four in front of them who are silently studying and exploring in various places......

After finding out about this, Iroh has been wondering if he can use these people who are not recognized?

After all, according to Noele's discovery, the knowledge left over from the Hidden Age is likely to have something in common with the research methods of the Material School......