Lord: Starting with Summoning the Regular Army of Earth

Chapter 105 Physics and Magic, One Must Go Mad

"Everyone is here."

A gentle but undeniable voice came from ahead.

The LCD screen lit up, displaying the words: "First training camp for the 'Deep Blue Scholars' reserve force."

Someone had appeared in front of the screen at some point.

She was a woman around fifty years old, wearing a well-tailored dark gray suit, with her short hair neatly combed and frameless glasses perched on her nose.

She didn't hold a microphone, but her voice reached everyone's ears clearly.

"My name is Su Wanxia, ​​and I'm the head of this training camp." She surveyed the room, her gaze as calm as if she were examining experimental data. "Over the next seventy-two hours, you will undergo a series of tests and training. Those who pass will participate in a top-secret national mission codenamed Deep Blue. The details of the mission will not be disclosed until final selection."

The room was so quiet that you could hear the faint hum of the air conditioner vents.

"Now, please give a brief self-introduction in order of your seat number. You are only allowed to say three things: your name, your academic background, and—" Su Wanxia paused, "your most personal, non-academic views on paranormal phenomena. Start with number one."

The girl who had been taking notes to the left looked up.

She was pretty with fair skin and big eyes, but her gaze held an almost cold focus.

"Chen Yu graduated with a PhD from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University, specializing in algebraic geometry and number theory." She spoke quickly, as if reciting formulas. "Regarding supernatural phenomena—if they exist, they are part of nature; it's just that we haven't yet found the mathematical language to describe them. Everything can be modeled."

Number two is that young man in the training uniform with a buzz cut.

The chair made a slight scraping sound as he stood up.

"Liu Jun, formerly a tactical analyst in the Southeast Military Region Special Operations Brigade, is currently a doctoral candidate in Systems Engineering at the National University of Defense Technology." His voice was firm and powerful. "If a supernatural phenomenon is observable, repeatable, and verifiable, it becomes a new element of combat. If not, it becomes an obstacle that needs to be eliminated."

Lin Xiaoyang was number three.

He stood up and adjusted his glasses.

"Lin Xiaoyang, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, works on high-dimensional topology and quantum gravity. Uh, supernatural phenomena—"

He blinked, his mind flashing through countless science fiction and comic book plots. "From a physics perspective, anything is possible as long as it doesn't violate the laws of conservation. But the prerequisite is that it has to be willing to come into the lab for us to measure."

The introductions of the following people were largely the same.

There were people who studied cryptography, people who researched cognitive psychology, people who specialized in ancient writing and semiotics, and one who called himself…

He was a self-proclaimed "amateur science enthusiast" but was actually a freak who held three different doctoral degrees.

Each person's "supernatural views" bear the heavy imprint of their own profession. Cryptographers believe they are "unbroken codes," cognitive psychologists think they are "projections of the collective unconscious," and paleographers speculate that they are "the legacy of lost civilizations."

Su Wanxia listened expressionlessly and nodded.

"Very good. Now, please put on the helmets under your seats."

A hidden compartment pops open simultaneously beneath each of the twelve chairs, revealing a streamlined silver helmet lying in each compartment, with no ports or buttons on its surface.

Lin Xiaoyang picked up the helmet; it felt cool to the touch and was very light.

He noticed that the helmet lining had many tiny protrusions, like electrodes.

This thing looks like a rudimentary version of some kind of brain-computer interface?

But to his knowledge, even the most advanced non-invasive EEG collection equipment in the world is not this small.

"Once you put it on, relax and concentrate," Su Wanxia said. "This will test your mental focus, information processing bandwidth, and tolerance to non-standard logic structures. You may experience slight discomfort during the test, which is normal. Now, please..."

Lin Xiaoyang took a deep breath and put the helmet on his head.

The lining automatically conformed to the shape of his head; the protrusions gently pressed against his scalp, causing no pain but a subtle sense of pressure.

Darkness descends.

No, it wasn't complete darkness.

Flowing points of light began to appear before my eyes, like star trails in the night sky, or like particle trajectories under a microscope.

The points of light begin to form patterns, the Mandelbrot set in fractal geometry, and infinite details unfold before your eyes;

This is then transformed into a three-dimensional visualization of the wave equation, with wave peaks and troughs surging like ocean tides;

Then came a series of rapidly flashing, complex symbols, some resembling cuneiform, some like circuit diagrams, and some simply gibberish.

"Please concentrate, memorize, and analyze the sequence of symbols you see." A neutral electronic voice sounded directly in your mind.

Lin Xiaoyang forced himself to calm down.

He is a theoretical physicist who deals daily with abstract operators in Hilbert space and metric tensors in dimensional spacetime.

Although these things are strange, they are still "information".

Information can then be processed.

He began to try to find patterns.

The transformations of those symbols seem to follow a certain non-Euclidean geometric symmetry, but are also mixed with random perturbations.

He drew upon all his knowledge of group theory, topology, and dynamical systems to build a model in his mind.

I don't know how much time passed, maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours, but the scene in front of me suddenly disappeared.

The helmet pops open automatically.

Lin Xiaoyang was panting and realized that his back was soaked with sweat.

He looked around; everyone else had just taken off their helmets, their expressions varying.

The girl named Chen Yu had frighteningly bright eyes, and her fingers were gesturing in the air.

Liu Jun frowned, as if reviewing the "battle" that had just taken place.

The paleographers, on the other hand, were filled with fervor, muttering to themselves.

"Test complete." Su Wanxia's voice rang out again. "Congratulations, all twelve of you have passed the basic screening. Now, proceed to the next stage."

She clapped her hands, and the walls on both sides of the room slid open silently, revealing a bookshelf covering the entire wall behind it—or rather, not a bookshelf, but a storage cabinet made of some kind of alloy, with each compartment filled with thick folders.

"Over the next sixty hours, you will need to study and master this material," Su Wanxia said. "The content covers fundamental energy theory, topological modeling, non-standard logic systems, and a kind of—"

A special symbolic language.

The staff began distributing materials. When Lin Xiaoyang received his copy, his hand felt slightly heavy.

The folder cover has a line of text printed on it:

Introduction to the Theory and Application of Fundamental Energy in Another World

He was stunned.

Turning to the first page, instead of the expected complex formulas or unfamiliar terminology, one finds a handwritten, somewhat hastily written preface:

To future explorers:

When you open this document, it means you have been granted access to one of the most significant secrets in the history of human civilization.

The following content may completely overturn your worldview.

Please maintain an open mind, but do not lose your critical rationality.

We are about to enter a realm where the laws of physics are completely different from our own.

There, "energy" can be directly intervened by consciousness, and "reality" can be temporarily rewritten by specific "symbols" and "models".

We call this power—magic.

Lin Xiaoyang stared at those lines of text, feeling his brain buzzing sharply like an overloaded CPU.

magic?

He suddenly looked up at Su Wanxia, ​​opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Suppressed gasps and the soft creaking of chairs moving could be heard from the surrounding area.

The folder in the hands of the usually composed cryptographer fell to the ground with a "thud".

"Teach...Professor," Chen Yu's voice wavered slightly for the first time, though barely, "You just mentioned...magic?"

"Yes. Magic." Su Wanxia adjusted her glasses, her gaze behind the lenses calm and unwavering. "More precisely, it's a system of supernatural phenomena based on specific rules, which can be learned and manipulated. It exists in a world where the physical constants are different from ours."

The room was deathly silent.

Then, the amateur science enthusiast, a man named Wang Hao, suddenly stood up, and the chair crashed backward.

"Another world? A parallel universe? A higher-dimensional projection? Or a wormhole connection?" His voice was shrill with excitement. "What about observational evidence? Mathematical descriptions? Interaction models? Magic—what form of energy is magic? What is its medium of propagation? What are its quantum particles? Does it obey conservation laws? If so, are they energy conservation, information conservation, or something else? If it violates them, what are the limits of the violation? What are the methods of measurement? Error—"

"Dr. Wang," Su Wanxia interrupted his rapid-fire questions, her tone remaining calm, "the answers to all your questions may or may not be found in your subsequent studies. That's why we need you."

She paused, her gaze sweeping over every face that was shocked, bewildered, doubtful, or fanatical.

"I know this sounds like crazy. Two months ago, if someone had told me magic existed," I would have suggested they get checked out by a psychiatrist. "But now, the evidence is conclusive. There is a world where people can ignite flames, condense frost, heal wounds, and even distort space with their minds. And we need to understand it, analyze it, and ultimately—if possible—master it."

"Why?" Liu Jun asked in a deep voice, his hand unconsciously clenching into a fist, a posture of instinctive vigilance for special forces soldiers.

"Because that world intersected with ours," Su Wanxia said. "Because intersections can bring opportunities, but they can also bring threats. Because ignorance is the greatest risk, and knowledge—even knowledge about magic—is the only shield and sword."

She walked to the center of the room and looked around at everyone.

"You are the chosen ones because you possess the most brilliant minds in this country, and even in the human species, as well as the courage to question and embrace new paradigms."

She paused, then continued, "For the next sixty hours, you will learn the basic theories of magic. Not the magic of fairy tales, not the magic of fantasy works, but real, predictable phenomena that can be systematically studied and applied."

"And then what?" Lin Xiaoyang finally found his voice and asked hesitantly.

"After you finish learning," Su Wanxia looked at him, her gaze profound, "those who pass the final assessment will be qualified to carry out the Deep Blue mission. You will go to that world, witness magic with your own eyes, touch it with your own hands, and use your wisdom and knowledge to understand, deconstruct, and reshape our understanding of reality."

She paused, then said, word by word, "This may be the greatest scientific expedition in the history of human civilization. Now, does anyone want to withdraw?"

No one moved.

Lin Xiaoyang felt his heart pounding violently in his chest, as if it were about to shatter his ribs.

Magic. Another world. Rewriting our understanding of reality.

Then he remembered what was said on the phone: "It may rewrite human cognition, but it cannot be published publicly."

Why bother publishing papers? This task is too exciting!

He thought to himself.

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