Advent of the Archmage

The young man whose body Link now inhabited had studied in the Flemmings Academy for quite some time. He might not have learned true magic, but he had a decent understanding of the basic foundations of it. What knowledge the young man had gained was enough for Link to start writing his thesis.

And perhaps because he already had a solid understanding of the basics, his analysis and deductions went smoothly. He found that he could effortlessly focus his attention, easily ignoring any stray thoughts or distractions, and all his mental processes were concentrated solely on the thesis.

Because of that, as he began to write, he was completely immersed in the task, forgetting the flow of time.

Under this kind of sustained rigorous thinking, Link began to logically analyze the hypothesis of the omnipresent force’s mutual attraction that he had postulated earlier.

At first, Link thought that all would go according to plan—he would put in all his efforts into writing an impressive thesis that would leave everyone in awe, then he would find a way to get the money for the fees, and voila! Into the East Cove Academy, he would go.

But just as theory and practice usually clash, Link realized, as he went further into the deductions for his thesis, that he had a problem.

Link knew that he would eventually arrive at the universal gravitational law at the conclusion of his thesis, he thought that it wouldn’t be difficult to come up with the final mathematical equation for the universal gravitational law. But as it stood, the further and further he went along the path that logic set out for him, the more he realized that he was actually falling down a completely bizarre rabbit hole.

As he came back to reality, he saw that the goatskin parchment was full of scribblings of mathematical formulas, of Mana runes equations, and he was nearly brought to the brink of insanity.

I was only trying to infer the law of universal gravitation, but what on earth has it come to?

A ghost of the gravitational law did actually emerge on the paper, but so did remnants of the theory of relativity, and many other perplexing things that Link knew nothing about.

And so… well, naturally, he was stumped. He didn’t know how to go forward with this line of thought.

What he didn’t realize was how postulations like the universal gravitational law or the theory of relativity, if you scrutinize them to their logical roots, all defined the nature of the fabric of space and time in imperfect ways. They might describe nature in fascinating detail, but ultimately there were cracks and flaws and they were not truly universal. There were always exceptions and circumstances where the laws broke down and became useless.

Link also didn’t realize that his current mental capacity was much more powerful than he suspected, frighteningly so, in fact. As he followed the path of pure logic, his mind was automatically repairing the flaws and cracks in the theories until it discovered a handful of novel equations that even Link himself had no full comprehension of its significance.

But even when these strange equations did describe the nature of reality, they still came short of doing it perfectly, and it was this imperfection that rendered it befuddling and impenetrable.

To the inexperienced Link, this was just too much, and he was unsurprisingly overwhelmed.

He tapped at his warm forehead, then cleared his head completely of the complex ruminations and stacked the sheets of paper away in a neat pile. His stomach grumbled, so he decided to have a meal, then he would take a walk outside to unwind and breathe easy for a while. Maybe then he would find some solutions for the problems in his thesis.

That’s just how Link was. When confronted with a problem, he would never back down or give up, instead, he would step back and think up of ways to solve them to the best of his ability. If the problems were too big to see the light at the end of the tunnel, then he would forge on anyway like a snail, slowly but surely.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, so I can’t expect to wrap up a grand thesis in a day either. Maybe all I need is a rest, he thought, to soothe himself.

Once he got to the inn hall, he took a loaf of coarse wheat bread and a cup of water and settled down to eat on his own. Once his stomach was filled, Link set out and headed for the waterfront of the River Cove town.