Chapter 321 – The Composition of Matter

Magic didn’t require understanding much of the process or underlying principles. As long as you knew the result you wanted to achieve, you could give it a try.

In her memories from Earth, the microscopic particle structures of various materials discovered by humans were innumerable.

Considering her current level of magic, Mo Lan picked something with a relatively simple structure — methane.

She directly visualized methane’s structure and channeled her mana, but the moment it began showing signs of converting into another form of energy, it dissipated.

The spell had failed.

She tried many times, and the result was always the same.

After numerous experiments, Mo Lan made only one discovery: the energy that her mana was attempting to convert into was unfamiliar — unlike any form of energy she had encountered before. Moreover, her mana had split into three parts, and judging by the trend of each conversion alone, she could sense subtle differences between them.

Could it be because she was overcomplicating the magic?

Magic was inherently idealistic in nature. Based on Mo Lan’s prior experience learning magic, one didn’t need to understand the principles behind how magical effects were produced or the process of transformation. All that was needed was a clear directive and a resolute will to cast.

Both magical power and mana inherently possessed the ability to transform in infinite ways.

Could approaching spellcasting from the microscopic level actually be increasing the difficulty instead?

But if creative magic were truly that simple, why were there so few spells in Witch Magic that could genuinely be called creative?

The senior witches who came before her understood magic far better than she did.

Mo Lan had already mastered magic from all elemental branches. The elemental forces associated with Elemental Magic were inherently related to matter.

Elemental force existed within many substances in Valen.

Yet Elemental Magic either involved transformations of various energy forms — like the Metal Arrow spell, Thorn Spike, and Water Dragon spell — or physical reshaping of matter, like the Metal Shaping spell and Stone Shaping.

The former never left the realm of energy, so the changes they produced vanished once the spell ended.

The latter could persist after casting ended, but ultimately didn’t involve any deeper transformation.

The only spells that truly qualified as transformations from energy to matter — something akin to creation — were the Spring Water spell and Flame spell.

Their casting essentials simply involved converting water elemental force or fire elemental force into ordinary water and fire.

But why did only the water and fire branches have such magic? What about the other elemental branches?

And if ordinary water and fire were both composed of their corresponding elemental forces, would the microscopic composition of matter in Valen really be identical to that on Earth?

If not, then how had alloys been successfully created? Although alloy-making didn’t involve directly creating matter, the performance of alloys was largely determined by their microscopic structure!

Recalling the Headmistress’s true self who had just appeared, Mo Lan asked directly:

“Headmistress! Are you still there? I have some questions about creative magic I’d like to ask you.”

“Go ahead.”

It seemed her true self was still present. The Guardian Headmistress generally couldn’t answer these kinds of questions.

Mo Lan voiced the doubts she had just been mulling over.

“Actually, it’s not just the water and fire branches that have creative magic. The wind, lightning, ice, light, and dark branches have them too. It’s just that the real wind, lightning, ice, light, and darkness they create don’t last much longer than those produced by elemental force transformations. In nature, wind, lightning, ice, light, and darkness must rely on certain conditions to persist.

“So the creative magic of those five branches was abandoned due to practical limitations.

“As for the metal, wood, and earth branches, they’ve never succeeded. The reason remains unknown.

“The prevailing view is that the tier of energy we command isn’t high enough, which is why we can’t freely use creative magic,” Amisha said.

The question of energy tiers gave Mo Lan some inspiration. The extraordinary beings of Valen had classified energy into tiers, with mana currently ranked first. But that didn’t mean mana was omnipotent — the nature of the energy itself might be part of the problem.

However, there was still one lingering question:

“If that’s the case, then why can the Spring Water spell and Flame spell succeed? They’re the same type of Elemental Magic, the same basic creation of matter. If one can succeed, the others should be able to as well!”

“Exactly. That’s precisely why it remains only a hypothesis — the true reason has yet to be determined.”

Mo Lan, however, had some different ideas: “Is it possible that it’s because the energy everyone commands can only achieve creation of matter composed of a single form of elemental force? And since there are no substances in nature composed solely of a single form of metallic elemental force, wood elemental force, or earth elemental force to serve as a reference, the casting directives everyone has been issuing have exceeded their own capabilities, making success impossible?”

“A single form of elemental force? What do you mean?”

“Take metallic elemental force as an example. All metallic substances are composed of metallic elemental force. But are all metals really composed of the same kind of metallic elemental force?

“If they were all composed of one kind of metallic elemental force, then there should only be one type of metal in the world.

“Furthermore, many metals involve other elemental forces as well. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have needed to use the Wood-Shaping Spell and Stone Shaping when making alloys. Although my inspiration for creating alloys came from Earth’s knowledge, the fact that I had to use wood-branch and earth-branch magic means that alloys contain substances composed of wood elemental force and earth elemental force too, doesn’t it?

“Humans on Earth believe that matter is composed of microscopic particles like atoms, molecules, and ions, and they’ve observed the microscopic composition of many substances through various instruments.

“Different microscopic particle compositions form different substances.

“They’ve even used this knowledge to create new materials through something called chemical reactions.

“If the substances of Valen are all composed of elemental forces, then when each type of elemental force forms matter, there should also be certain differences, right?

“Either the structural configurations are different, or the arrangements are different — or possibly both.”

Mo Lan tried to explain it as simply as she could.

Mainly, she felt that compared to Earth’s exploration of matter, the conclusion that Valen’s substances were composed of elemental forces was far too simplistic — just ten types in total.

How many variations could their combinations really produce?

Amisha roughly understood what she meant: “You’re saying that the elemental forces we see through Witch Sight aren’t the most fundamental form composing matter? That they may have further variations within them.

“The elemental force composition of metals, wood, and soil is more complex than that of water and fire, so our magical power isn’t capable of directly creating a type of metal, wood, or soil?”

“Exactly!” Mo Lan said.

As expected of the Headmistress! Mo Lan had nearly confused herself with her own explanation, yet the Headmistress had understood her meaning.

“Moreover, microscopic particle composition may exist in Valen as well, because I actually succeeded in making alloys by following Earth’s alloy compositions.

“I just don’t know what the relationship between that and elemental force actually is.”

“That’s certainly an interesting interpretive angle,” Amisha said.