Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 193 The Conflict between Academics and Faith
Harvey almost kept track of his watch to distract himself from the tedious experiment, and sat in front of the magic brain instrument when the castle clock struck nine o'clock in the evening.

He didn't really want to miss this week's spellcaster exchange meeting. An incident involving a factional conflict within the Federation had been discussed repeatedly in the forum. Although it was all private discussions among small groups of members, Harvey, as a forum administrator who could eavesdrop and monitor from all directions, basically knew the ins and outs of the matter.

The incident was caused by the research paper he published anonymously. After the Federation's Bulletin was widely distributed throughout the magic world, it finally led to the final result of a conflict between secular public opinion and ideas.

There have always been spellcasters within the Federation who have a clear stance towards the Church, or who are shallow believers. Most of them come from the ancient spellcasting families of the seven wizarding kingdoms and are typical conservative believers.

Most of these spellcasters have seen their research on magic stagnate as they grow older and their family power weakens. The growth of their magical abilities has gradually reached a bottleneck, and they have inevitably fallen into confusion in their concepts and cognition.

"The source of magic, the existence of the soul, the laws of the world..." These questions will undoubtedly trouble them deeply, but they are simply unable to get answers from the existing magical knowledge system. In the end, they can only choose to believe in the existence of gods, attribute all unknowns to the power of gods, and become a special group among wizards who have faith in gods.

This led to Harvey's anonymous paper completely offending this group of spellcaster believers after Chief Kemo Salas made a separate paper evaluation and published it publicly.

Son of Flame: Humph, these fence-sitters aren't really questioning the Council's paper evaluation; their real concern is offending the Church, causing the covenant to break, and making it impossible for them to have a good relationship with both the Union and the Church.

Frost Giant: Don't forget, the administrator, Mr. Turing, has personally said that this forum is for "casters." If you can't stand on the same side, I suggest you get out of the forum as soon as possible!

Harvey reached out and knocked on the table. The two forum members, who usually had completely different personalities, now sang in unison with extraordinary tacit understanding. It seemed that they had formed a temporary alliance in advance and began to openly and covertly ridicule those conservative members of the forum who had a neutral attitude.

[Spell Shield: A large number of spellcasting families with close ties to the Federation have publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with this paper and... its author. They are jointly protesting and demanding the revocation of the research paper's merit review, and that the review committee disclose the author's identity.]

As expected! Harvey couldn't help but feel fortunate that he had chosen to publish the paper anonymously through the forum. If he had submitted it publicly to the federation, or revealed his true identity in the forum and had another member forward it on his behalf, he would have been pushed to the forefront of public opinion by now.

The conservatives within the federation had a very clear purpose: to appease the church's dissatisfaction and divert the conflict between the two organizations. Undoubtedly, they needed to launch an independent target to prove that this was not an official action instructed by the federation.

On this issue, Harvey could be said to have empathized with everyone. As a necromancer who was discriminated against within the Federation and at the same time suppressed and hostile by the Church, the various unfair treatments suffered by the spellcasters of his faction were simply too numerous to describe.

Stormrunner: If even the members of the Spellcaster Forum cannot reach a consensus and allow our members to be targeted by the Church, then it would completely violate the original purpose of establishing the forum. I believe Mr. Turing would definitely not agree with this!

This gentleman was also one of the first members in the forum to publicly oppose the church's actions. After all, one of his students died innocently in the bloody purge of the church's witch hunters.

That tragedy also directly triggered the first offline cooperation of the Spellcaster Forum, a secret revenge operation in which several high-level spellcasters led by the "Son of Flame" participated. The result was naturally a great victory and the witch hunters were completely wiped out.

Harvey had secretly marked Stormwalker, Son of Flame and several people who participated in the revenge action. This group of people were obviously the radicals who hated the church the most in the Southern Wizard Kingdom and the Spellcaster Federation. They could be trusted and won over to a certain extent.

Among the old members, "Fa Shield", an internal official of the Federation, and the two "Mirror Men" of the Alchemy Exploration Society, are unable to disclose their biased positions due to the sensitive nature of their identities and choose to remain silent on this issue.

Although several alien spellcasters expressed strong opposition, they would not actually help unless their own interests and those of their ethnic groups were involved, so their attitude seemed somewhat ambiguous.

But what Harvey is most concerned about at the moment is actually the two legendary spellcasters of the Federation, "Scorching Lord" and "Shadow Knight", whose true identities have been exposed to him long ago.

He wanted to see whether, in the absence of Administrator Turing personally showing up, these two nominal top leaders of the Federation would choose to withstand the pressure of public opinion from within and the open opposition of the church and stand up to protect an independent spellcaster whom they had never met.

It is human nature that no one will do anything without gain. Harvey had already extended an olive branch to them earlier, representing his own value - the powerful anti-magic energy weapon that was ahead of its time.

If they were willing to shoulder all the pressures of reality and external troubles on his behalf, Harvey would naturally be willing to hand over the weapon's replica formula or mass-produced product, fully assisting the Federation in its subsequent battles against the demons, thereby securing a crushing advantage and a reputation among the southern kingdoms and secular aristocrats that surpassed the Church. If the Federation could independently resist the demon invasion without forming a war alliance with the Church, then the alliance would become insignificant, and those fence-sitting nobles and wizarding families would have to make a choice.

[Scorching Overlord: Mr. Kel'Thuzad, please do not worry about the opposition and protests from the Church. Mr. Shadow Knight and I personally guarantee that we will never reveal the identity of the paper's author, nor will we disclose the specific members of the Spellcaster Forum...]

Shadow Knight: However... members of the Union representing the Southern Territory wizard families, led by a high-ranking archmage from the Blackrock City Battle Mage Corps, have publicly declared their intention to challenge Mr. Kel'Thuzad to a "Debate of Truth." This is a tradition passed down from the ancient wizard era, and we cannot refute or oppose this proposal.

Harvey was stunned, and tried hard to recall the various related events about the "Truth Debate" from the historical knowledge he had learned in the Undead Academy in the past. This was indeed a tradition that had existed since the ancient wizarding era. When conflicts and disputes arose between two factions of spellcasters due to certain magical doctrines and theories, in order to avoid fighting over a disagreement, most of them would choose to conduct one-on-one academic debates under the joint witness of legendary spellcasters or the ancient wizard council to solve the problem.

After all, if spellcasters, who have acquired extraordinary abilities, start a fight in groups due to factional academic struggles, the damage and impact they cause will be devastating. If one is not careful, a small town will be crushed into ashes in the blink of an eye. This absolutely needs to be strictly controlled and prohibited.

But Harvey's magic theory and academic research direction are really very unconventional and involve prohibited areas. If he really wants to have a face-to-face debate with a well-known wizard, he will probably be defeated within ten minutes and will be completely unable to resist.

After all, he was just a mid-level wizard who disguised himself as a high-level wizard in the spellcaster forum. His reserves of magical knowledge and breadth of thinking were not at a high level at all.

Frost Giant: Fine, fine! This "Truth Debate" doesn't happen often in recent years. I don't think any member of our forum would be afraid of such a challenge. Humph! A battle mage wanting to engage in an academic debate with Mr. Kel'Thuzad is simply courting humiliation. Doesn't he know that the author of the paper is a research-oriented spellcaster?

[Scorching Lord: The high-ranking mage originally wanted to propose an equally ancient tradition for resolving disputes—the "Spell Duel." However, Mr. Shadow Knight and I rejected his request on the spot, forcing him to change it to the "Truth Debate"...]

[Flame Son: What? A "spell duel"? He's a high-level battle mage, challenging a research spellcaster to a spell duel? How shameless! A disgrace to mages! I firmly oppose this!]

[Man in the Mirror: Indeed, this is completely inconsistent with the tradition of fairness and justice, and I firmly oppose it!]

Stormrunner: Despicable! He's afraid he can't win an academic debate against Mr. Kel'Thuzad, so he's so rudely demanding a duel. So? He wants to physically destroy a researcher's body in order to destroy his academic ideas and research results?

For a time, the forum exchange meeting was full of anger. Most of the spellcasters who supported Harvey cursed and ridiculed him, expressing their dissatisfaction and contempt for this behavior of suppressing and persecuting independent spellcasters in a roundabout way by taking advantage of ancient wizarding traditions.

The two legendary chiefs were helpless. After all, they could only stand up to the opposition from the church outside. They were also helpless against this ancient tradition that had been followed and existed within the Federation for hundreds of years.

It's true that the truth lies in the hands of a few, but if further explanation is needed, the true meaning is that the truth lies in the hands of the "living" few, because most of the losers have already been blasted into pieces by high-level spells in magic duels...

[Kel'Thuzad: Thank you all for your support. Since some of my fellow spellcasters have protested and challenged me, out of my commitment to truth and knowledge, I must respond to their provocation.]

Son of Flame: Excellent! Mr. Kel'Thuzad, do not be afraid. I will personally attend the "Truth Debate" in Alayeh and publicly express my support for you!

[Man in the Mirror: I will also be there in person to publicly support Mr. Kel'Thuzad!]

Kel'Thuzad: Uh... everyone, what I mean is that since the opponent is a battle mage, the challenge I intend to accept is actually a one-on-one "magic duel" with him.

……

(End of this chapter)