Greetings, Mister Principal

Chapter 34: Expensive Journals

Reiner naturally didn't know that Sharon praised him in her heart. He confirmed Sharon's work progress and asked her to take a break before returning to his principal's office, where Claire was already waiting for him.

"This is the latest issue of 'Alchemy', 'Truth', and 'Rainbow Tower Observer Monthly'..."

Claire read a long list of names against the catalog in hand, and finally added.

"...Of course, there is also 'Monthly Alchemist Griffin', which is sent to you by its editorial office for free."

She pointed to the thick stack of books on the table. These were the top academic journals. The purchase of these journals alone cost nearly fifty gold coins, which made Claire very distressed.

The latest issues of various academic journals were the most expensive. After multiple issues, the price of the previous issues would gradually decrease. Therefore, in order to save costs, many academies choose to postpone the purchase of journals for a few months. For example, in the past fifty years, Luna Nova Magical Academy had always maintained a one-year delay in purchasing these journals.

On the one hand, not all academies have the need for cutting-edge magic research. Many academies that attached importance to basic education only aimed to train the first-ring mage, or even to popularize the common sense of magic for the nobles. Academic journals were not a necessity for them.

On the other hand, these academic journals were really expensive. Take the most comprehensive journal "Truth" as an example, a current issue of "Truth" required two gold coins. In this continent, a standard minted gold coin could be exchanged for one hundred silver coins, and a silver coin could also be exchanged for a hundred copper coins. Simply put, a copy of "Truth" was worth six thousand bottles of Cola.

In this world where knowledge represented power, intellectual property could be said to be the most precious right.

Fortunately, Reiner had made a lot of money by relying on Cola in the past two weeks. For the following research, this kind of expenditure was necessary.

"Thanks."

Reiner said to Claire. This dean had changed her maid outfit and put on the old robe again, which made Reiner really feel a little pity.

"Is there any problem with Cola?"

Claire already knew about the theft of Antoine's alchemy workshop. At this time, she was a little worried. After all, Piram had a big business, and he would use any means to compete with his competitors. So there was no guarantee that he would not do something harmful.

"The bait has been released. It depends on whether this big fish wants to take the bait or not."

With a smile, Reiner looked at the journal in front of him.

"Professor Claire, can you pour me a cup of coffee?"

"I'm not a maid!"

Claire puffed up her cheeks and said, but seeing that Reiner had opened the academic journal, she could only sigh and go to make a coffee.

Reiner was already engaged in learning at this time.

He has always been thinking about his lack of understanding of cutting-edge knowledge in his paper review comments. It made him a little suspicious of the knowledge in this world.

After all, this was a magical world. Although according to experimental phenomena, most of the laws of physics were no different from those of the earth, Reiner still wanted to be more open-minded. Otherwise, if something unexpected happened in the future, maybe his head would explode.

Reiner now decided to verify his knowledge bit by bit from the beginning, while carefully constructing his own worldview to avoid accidents.

First, Reiner opened "Alchemy" and scanned the catalog.

"Some conjectures about the order of elements and the process of verification" Lanchester Steinen, legendary mage.

"The Nature and Compound of the New Element 'Gmuir'" Maria Instein, The seventh-ring mage.

"The properties and compounds of the new element 'Kayla' obtained by electrolysis of caustic alkali, and the application of electrolysis." Cornwall Penzance, The seventh-ring mage.

......

There was no doubt that the mainstream of the alchemy study at this time was to find new elements. The mages used various methods to disassemble the material, some succeeded, some failed.

"But electrolysis?"

Reiner looked at the paper and thought. Electrolysis was an important discovery in the history of earth's chemistry. Because many elements are active in nature and easily react with other substances, it has been difficult to see their true content for a long time. It was not until scientists used electricity to decompose substances that these naughty elements were discovered.

Of course, this included hydrogen and alkali metals.

Although hydrogen was not discovered by electrolysis, electrolysis of water was still one of the chemical experiments that people were familiar with the most, and its chemical reaction equation could be regarded as the first reaction equation most people were exposed to.

Reiner quickly finished reading that paper. The new element "Kayla" obtained in it should be some kind of alkali metal, sodium-like or potassium-like element. Obviously, because of the long-term recognition that water was the basic element, so this high-level mage did not try to electrolyze water.

"Or the electrolysis of water would not get normal results?"

Reiner jotted down his thoughts in his notebook and decided to prepare related experiments when he had time. Now that someone had proposed the electrolysis method, the decomposition of water was imminent.

"Here."

Just as Reiner was thinking, Claire had already come back with a cup of coffee.

Already she said no, she still made a cup of coffee for him.

Reiner thought and took a sip of warm liquid after thanking her.

The temperature of the coffee was just right, and the amount of sugar added was what Reiner liked most. It seemed that the maid life of the previous week had allowed Claire to grasp Reiner's taste.

"You are getting better at making coffee, Professor Claire."

Reiner smiled, making Claire blush, stomping her foot, and leaving the principal's office without looking back.

Shaking his head helplessly, Reiner looked at the catalog again, and the title of a paper caught his attention.

"Discussion and conjecture on several properties of fire element in the combustion reaction." Fleming Ernst, The Sixth-ring mage.

Was this paper on combustion reaction the "cutting-edge theory" mentioned in the review comments?

With curiosity, Reiner turned to the page of the paper.

In the paper, the author first showed several combustion experiments, and raised questions about the mass problems that appeared in them. The process and the logic were both very clear. Even Reiner also found that it was pleasing to read.

"It seems that there are also mages who are aware of the incompleteness of the combustion theory and tried to solve it. My paper is just one of them."

Reiner laughed at himself, then carried on reading.

The author quickly put forward a conjecture, that was, the fire element had a negative mass. The higher the content of the fire element in the substance, the lower the mass of the substance. He applied this theory to the previous experiment, which perfectly explained the phenomenon of mass changes in the experiment.

"This explanation is really unconvincing."

Reiner said to himself. Without mentioning whether the fire element existed, the concept of negative mass was very suspicious. If there was a negative mass, then why did the fire element have this property? Was there any other substance that also had a negative mass, and why was there a negative mass?

The proposal of this concept was accompanied by a series of questions, but the authors of the paper answered none of them.

It was late at night after reading all the journals, and Reiner simply ate the dinner prepared by Mrs. Freya, and then went to bed early.

Because from tomorrow, he would start designing experiments