The Lab (Part 2)

After a while, Hestia came to her senses when Erela stood by her side.

"Is everything alright princes??", she asked.

"Yes, I was just. Uh," the princess noticed that everyone's gaze was on her. She eyed Ezra and saw a look at concern which made her slightly happy.

"I was just shocked that Ezra could have had such a brilliant idea," she finally admitted. In a sense it was like conceding a fight, but of course, she knew how far the gap she and Ezra had when this revelation came to her. She wanted to change her state of mind instead of trying to compete with Ezra. She was curious about Ezra's ideas.

"Hmph" Erela eyed her with slight contempt." It's nothing much, even you could have thought of a similar contraption. It is because Lord Ezra focuses on books while you spend your time training your body. I doubt that Lord Ezra is a match for you in combat." Erela said out loud without paying attention to the glares from Ezra's retinue.

"I even doubt he can retain the Earldom wasting time with contraptions such as these." Erela continued.

"Now see here Actrix, Lo-" Rycharde was outraged and wanted to defend Ezra's pride. He knew how proficient Ezra was in battle. However, Ezra raised his hand as a gesture for him to stop talking.

Hestia didn't look at Erela and was too shy to reply.

The Actrix position was different from normal servants. She was esteemed highly and came from a noble house. A pureblood, the Actrix were assigned to take care of royal seed at birth they were supposed to be their second mothers and the prince or princess could not command them at will. Their decision could override the prince or princess if they saw that the decision was bad and they could not be commanded by their patron unless it was of their free will, their true master was the emperor and only he could command them as he pleased.

Hestia knew how strong Ezra was, it was well known in the Rexasticus that Ezra took down several Arcanists in battle at the age of two. She didn't know if she could even stand her ground fighting a Baron even if she did wield two Elements so the statement of her made her even more embarrassed. Her ears flushed with white.

There was an awkward silence in the room.

"Come let us go to the next area," Ezra finally broke the silence after a while.

"There are several laboratories in this facility." Ezra marched and his eyes filled with pride. It was as if he was showing off his toys.

"The whole building is divided into five floors, the first floor is the reception area, and as you see I plan to remodel half of the floor into a library. The second floor contains a chemical laboratory, the third an electronic mechanical engineering laboratory, the fourth, a biology a laboratory, and finally a Magical Research laboratory on the top floor." Ezra elaborated.

"Uhm, excuse me what do chemical and electronics mean?" Hestia asked.

"Hmm, you'll see when we get there," he didn't directly answer the question.

Ezra led the way to another stairwell and led them to double door area. The party entered the room and Hestia gazed her eyes on the room

"Beautiful" she gasped.

The room was filled with different glassware, beakers, test tube graduated cylinders. It showcased how good Bren was at making glassware. Some of the containers had different coloured liquids. On the shelves, there were different coloured powder on them. They were greeted by four people clothed in a draped white linen. They bowed to the Lord and Princess and stood still. The three people looked young they seemed to be led by an older gentleman with rough features. However, his outfit managed to make him look noble

"Welcome to the chemistry lab princess this is my chief chemist Anton, and those three are Louis, Dewey and Hugo, they are servants under his wing."

"You mean alchemist right?" asked Hestia.

"Not exactly. Chemistry is in pursuit of truth, alchemy is different it aims to purify base metals into noble metals. Anton here knows that such pursuit is folly. It is the goal of chemistry to find out about the materials that compose everything without the aid of magic." Ezra smiled.

"Aye, princess what Lord Ezra says is the truth." Anton agreed.

Throughout the empire, alchemists were looked down upon, due to an incident where the Emperor's chief alchemist was revealed to be using tricks. The result was that alchemy was merged into a field of study called quintessency, a field which studied magic cores and their properties. However, quintessency in his opinion was lacking since it did not improve much over the years. There were very few pure alchemists in the empire and those that practised the craft were regarded as charlatans.

It took time to scout, Anton. He posed as a doctor in the outlying borders of Fulmen but he was found by Rycharde and was brought to Bren. Anton thought he would meet his end, however, what he discovered was something more shocking. A four-year-old who knew the secrets of alchemy. For him, it was a sign from the Great Omnipotence.

Anton was shocked at the boy's knowledge, he even knew how to synthesize ammonia and saltpetre. The boy had taught him so much that he believed that he was a messenger from the Great Omnipotence.

At first, he observed the boy's precise fluid motions and he was happy to be called his lab assistant. Being gifted with the heavenly book "Chemistry: Atoms first," he was forever loyal to this little lord. The whole world seemed to unravel to him it was like he knew almost every secret there was in the universe, but there were deeper questions which only the little lord could seem to answer.

It was only recently that Lord Ezra had assigned him as chief chemist of Fulmen. Though he was told that this was only his title in private. Ezra told him that he was an essential part of his plan. Which made him very proud.

Anton remained quiet and observed the discourse between Ezra and Hestia.

Hestia looked puzzled. "Isn't everything explained by magic?"

This statement made Ezra realize why Rex Imperia was so poorly developed. He saw it as an oversight on his part. The easiest way out of a difficult description of a process was magic. Everything was answered just like that. He thought that the acceptance of people around him about explanations was too rapid. The word "magic" was the cause of this. They were more open-minded because of magic, however, this became detrimental to innovation, if there was an operation they could not understand they would just attribute it to magic and no further inquiry was made. They just simply took it as is.

The empire focused its efforts more on magic research than any technological pursuit. However, in Ezra's opinion, they didn't get really far. The mentality of "I must be physically stronger or I will lose my position" was prevalent.

He had to get rid of this philosophy and show the imperials a new path. This mentality only promoted a divide between commoners and nobles and without the other understanding the plight of the other class they could never improve the overall standard of living.

"I'll show you something princess." Ezra grinned. "Anton prepare the lab equipment."

Erela harrumphed but she was curious as well. Anton and his lab assistants prepared the equipment hastily.

"Let's do the basic sodium bicarbonate and acetic acid experiment." Ezra grinned.

"Yes milord," Anton grabbed the proper canisters on the shelves.

Hestia looked curiously it looked like they were about to cook something.

"Watch princess." The three of the demonstrators put the goggles on at once.

Hestia looked at a clear liquid but she could smell a pungent vinegar aroma from the liquid.

"Okay do it." Ezra nodded.

"The lab assistants will pour the white powder in the liquid" Ezra narrated. "What you will see is called a chemical reaction." Ezra smiled.

Hestia stared at the glass. To her surprise as soon as the powder touched the liquid it bubbled up. The effervescence gave off the vinegarish vapour as she gazed.

"Wow, you can make water bubble up like that without fire! That is amazing It's magic!"

"See, princess this is what I mean, not everything is explained by magic. The essence of the acetic acid and the essence of the powder produced that effect.It can be thoroughly explained. It is a natural phenomena and a part of how nature itself works. Not everything in this world is run by magic, Princess."

Anton chuckled in the distant past he was the same. Now however the little lordling prophet revealed to him the actual inner workings of this. He was a young squire back then who couldn't use magic and was quickly discarded by his Lord, he tried to seek the aid of alchemists promising him potions that could make him use magic. However, all of them failed. His pursuit of how the potions worked became his path toward alchemy. As he confided this to Ezra he remembered the words Ezra said: "Just because you can't use magic doesn't mean your useless. Commoners can overpower Nobles even without magic"

Hestia continued to stare at the glass, wondering what Ezra meant.