My physics masters couldn't possibly be grand mages.

He took two steps closer.

Three runes were drawn on the left side of the blackboard, surrounded by densely written derivations. He recognized one of them—it was the "Energy Release and Transformation" he had just inscribed.

But in Einstein's writing, it is presented in a different way.

The three spirals are labeled with arrows and angles, and a formula is written next to them:

∇× E =-∂B/∂t

"Maxwell's equations?" Char blurted out.

“Curl,” Einstein said, pointing to the rune. “You see this structure—a changing magnetic field produces an electric field. It’s a kind of ‘transformation.’ From one form to another.”

Char stared at the rune. He had seen the formula before, but to match the abstract mathematics with this unique geometric structure... he couldn't do it yet.

Einstein's finger moved to the second rune.

"This describes the direction of energy flow. From concentration to dispersion, from order to disorder."

Then comes the third one.

"E = mc². Mass-energy equivalence. The conversion of mass into energy."

Xia stared at the three runes, then glanced at the formula beside them. He vaguely noticed a similarity...

...the direction of the spiral, the position of the axis of symmetry, and the curvature of the boundary.

But he couldn't fully grasp the connection between them.

"So you are...?"

"I'm taking them apart," Einstein said, taking the pencil off his ear and twirling it in his hand. "The method of meditation has magicians 'visualize' runes, etching them into their consciousness. But before visualizing, I'd rather know what I'm visualizing."

He put the end of the pencil in his mouth, remained silent for two seconds, and then drew another rune on the blackboard.

"This one," he said, "has the same symmetry as the previous three. If you rotate it 120 degrees, the boundary conditions change, but the kernel remains the same."

He took a step back, looked at the blackboard, and frowned slightly.

"What I need to do is find the dependencies between them. Which ones are fundamental, and which ones can be derived from others."

Char didn't speak. He stood next to Einstein for a moment, then turned and went downstairs.

Ten minutes later, he brought up a cup of hot tea.

I also brought a large stack of paper and pens and placed them on the table.

Einstein took the teacup, took a sip, then put the teacup on the ground and continued writing.

Char sat down on the old sofa in the attic.

He looked at the blackboard and suddenly realized something. If ordinary magicians learn runes by "copying," using experience, imagination, and their understanding of nature to copy them.

Einstein, on the other hand, was "deriving".

He broke down each rune into its most basic lines, angles, and curvatures.

Then ask: Why this angle? Why this curve? What would happen if you changed a parameter?

He can answer some questions. He can't answer others.

When he couldn't, he would stop, look at the blackboard, and twirl the pencil between his fingers once, twice, three times.

Then he would walk to another blackboard and start from another direction.

Char noticed a pattern:

Einstein's derivations were not linear. He wouldn't obsess over a single rune until he fully understood it.

He would jump back and forth between three or four runes, like a weaver weaving between warp and weft threads, methodically weaving them into a net.

Around 2 a.m., Einstein stopped writing.

He took two steps back and looked at the six runes drawn on the blackboard.

"Classify them," he said softly, as if speaking to himself. "First, classify them."

He picked up the chalk again and drew a table on the right side of the blackboard.

Char stood up and went over to look.

It was a huge table. The vertical columns were the positions of the twenty-four truth runes, and the horizontal columns were words—classical mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, relativity, quantum mechanics.

Each rune's corresponding cell is either empty or contains a formula or a keyword.

Some of the squares have already been filled.

"Conservation of energy," Einstein pointed to one of the runes. "The first law of thermodynamics."

"The curl of the field."

Another one. "Maxwell's equations."

"Mass-energy equivalence".

The third one. "Special relativity".

He paused for a moment, looking at the few empty columns on the far right of the table.

"There are still some, I need more time."

Xia stared at the blackboard for a long time. He could follow some of the concepts, but others were completely beyond his knowledge.

He sat back down on the sofa.

He no longer tried to follow Einstein's train of thought. He simply watched from the side, occasionally handing him a piece of paper, or, when Einstein needed a formula, retrieving from his memory the knowledge he had acquired at a university in another world.

Most of the time, Einstein didn't need to.

"This computation is too much..." Einstein seemed to have thought of something, and suddenly looked up at Char. "By the way, where's your computer?"

Char then took the computer out and placed it on the table.

Then they started teaching Einstein how to use the computer. In fact, they didn't even need to teach him; it had onboard AI that taught him more accurately than Char Aznable.

Three o'clock in the morning.

Char was startled awake from his light sleep by the rapid sound of a pencil scratching across the blackboard.

Einstein stood in front of the blackboard, writing a long derivation. He was moving much faster than before, the chalk making a sharp scratching sound on the blackboard.

Xia glanced at the rune he was writing.

That was the most complex of the twenty-four runes. According to the "Meditation Method," it was usually only accessible to sixth-tier mages.

Einstein stopped writing.

"There's a hierarchy among these runes. If that's correct, then the bottom layer should be this..."

Einstein pointed to one of the runes, his eyes gleaming.

In meditation, this rune is called "existence" and "observation".

It has some connection to quantum mechanics. Normally, to characterize it, all twenty-three runes must be characterized.

But now that we have a certain understanding of the first twenty-three, perhaps we can try a different approach...

He sat cross-legged on the ground and closed his eyes. Xia knew he had entered meditation once again.

As time goes by,

A rune appeared around him, illuminating the actually somewhat dim area like a lamp emitting a warm light.

Then comes the second one.

The third.

One by one, the lights lit up and swirled around his body.

Char counted.

Ten, fifteen, twenty...

By the time the twenty-fourth light appeared, the points of light were no longer isolated. They began to connect with each other, outlining a structure like constellations.

The air in the room changed. The trajectory of the falling dust particles began to bend, as if some unseen force field was disturbing them.

Einstein closed his palms. All the light went out at the same time.

The pages stopped turning, and the dust resumed its normal falling trajectory.

Business as usual.

He slowly opened his eyes, put his hands in his pockets, and looked at Xia. There was no arrogance in his gray-blue eyes, only a faint calmness.

Char snapped out of his reverie and looked at Einstein. Then he froze.

The old man's hair gleamed in the sunlight.

At least half of the gray areas have now turned darker. The wrinkles on her face have also faded, making her look more than ten years younger.

—This is the enhancement of the body by magic.

"You...you've inscribed all twenty-four Truth Runes into your sea of ​​consciousness?"

"Once you can successfully depict that 'existence' and 'observation,' the remaining twenty-three will appear in your mind like dominoes."

Einstein tucked the pencil behind his ear and gave a faint smile.

"Physicists don't memorize formulas, kid. Physicists understand formulas."

Char remained silent for a long time.

This clearly confirmed his conjecture.

Scientific talent is equivalent to magical talent.

He recalled what he had learned at Imperial College London; perhaps some of them had already realized that mathematics, physics, and chemistry could help them understand the world and the runes of truth.

But no one has mapped the runes of truth to the laws of physics; at least, there is no such description in meditation.

Perhaps some people have thought about it or tried it, but none have had the vision of Einstein.

Considering the magical world's monopoly on magic, this makes sense.

After all, Einstein didn't rely on his own analysis of these runes; behind those formulas were the painstaking creations of one physicist after another.

From Maxwell to Newton, from Clausius to Planck...

Behind him stood an entire civilization...

.....