It was a truly counter-intuitive law to the students.
After all, energy and momentum were supposed to be conserved, not 'value.'
They hadn't quite understood what conservation of value even meant entirely.
"For example," the professor enthusiastically continued, stroking his white beard, "what would be harder to create, a kilogram of gold or a kilogram of sand?"
Given that both options weighed a kilogram, one would expect that both were equally hard to create.
"But that is wrong!" the professor anticipated this thought. "The kilogram of gold is orders of magnitude harder to create! The same goes for any two objects of the same mass but vastly different market values! A diamond ring or a seashell. A ruby or a pebble. If you don't believe me, you can try out yourselves when you learn to wield magic. However, this law isn't merely limited to creation magic, but all magic. 'The value of a given spell is directly proportional to the mana it consumes.'"
He wrote down the words on the board with a wave of his wand and a soft incantation.
Cæ, on the other hand, thought back to all the secret magic experiments that he had conducted in isolation in the slums.
He recalled how certain things were harder to create than other things. Specifically, a conjuration of a dragon or a phoenix was vastly more taxing than the conjuration of other things that would be commercially trivial but of equal size.
"Now then," the professor put his wand away as he leaned on the edge of his table. "Any questions upon this basic explanation of the law of conservation of value?"
Many hands went up, much to the passionate professor's delight.
"Let's see, how about this young lady in the first row? Please stand up and introduce yourself," he gently gestured to a short girl with smooth dark skin and neatly groomed dreadlocks, who promptly stood up.
Uniforms reduced the visual indicators of class, but the way she carried herself, the raised chin, straightened back, and puffed chest made it clear that she was from a wealthy family.
"I am Ibris Es Soraria of the Great Soraria Family," she began with a measured tone. "I do not entirely understand the context of the word 'value' in regards to this law. It is more ambiguous and contextual than what you would expect from a fundamental law of magical reality."
"That is a good point indeed," Professor Marolen enthusiastically nodded as he gestured for her to sit down. "The truth of the matter is that nobody is actually quite certain what the actual empirical metric is when we say 'value.' It's just what appears to be closest and remarkably accurate. For example, what do some of the examples I mentioned earlier, gold, a diamond ring, a ruby, have in common versus the compared alternatives?"
He paused for a moment before continuing. "Their value! There is no other meaningful thread of commonality that groups gold, diamonds, and rubies versus sand. There is no other meaningful trait of commonality that distinguishes currency notes from normal paper of the same dimensions and mass. In fact…"
He tapped a textbook on the table. "Your textbooks detail some of the most popular experiments conducted to prove that it is what we regard as the value that decides how much mana a given spell consumes. Mana is the energy we get by 'owning' things of value, as you will learn in Introduction to Mana Mechanics, taught by Professor Laila. Thus, there appears to be an extremely fundamental and universal law of conservation of value. Which Great Magus Merlin sharply noted a thousand years ago!"
The students grew even more intrigued and fascinated as the Professor's infectious passion passed on to all of them.
His energetic and alacritous gesticulation and tone added to the thrill of learning new things.
"Professor Marolen."
Cæ's voice drew the attention of not just the professor but also the students as they peered at him judgmentally.
"Mr. Cæ, what is it?" he asked with a curious expression.
"Value, regardless of its context, is fundamentally subjective, is it not?" he asked with an intrigued tone. "Economically, value would essentially be a function of demand over supply. Demand is very much subjective and is the product of the desires of human beings. It's rather strange that a fundamental law of magic is in relationship to a variable that is based on human subjectivity. That would imply that the fundamental metaphysics of reality is such that human subjectivity is its own cosmological, metaphysical force…"
He let his words linger, conveying the incredulity he harbored towards this possibility, "…or our desires affect the difficulty of magic or perhaps the more we're aware of the civilizational desire of magic, which increases its 'value' in our minds which, for whatever reason, causes it to require more mana to perform the same spell. In other words…"
He gestured with two hands. "There are two models for how this law works. One is metaphysical, where human subjectivity, desire, and demand are universal metaphysical forces of the very fundamental structure of reality, and the other is a psychological model where human subjectivity, desire, and demand affect our mind, which affects our magic. Distinguishing between these two would be extremely difficult, would it not?"
The class stared at him for a moment.
Even the professor was stumped for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Brilliant! This nuance is not included in any of the textbooks, much to my regret. And yet, you have accurately tapped into the deeper controversies and disputes regarding the nature of the Law of Conservation of Value that occurs at even the highest echelons of the magical community. And indeed! There are two interpretations of Merlin's Law. The first is known as…"
With a wave of his wand and a magical circle, the marker has already written down the name on the board instantly.
[Meta Model]
"The Meta Model is the interpretation of the Law of Conservation of Value that demand, economic demand, specifically, is a metaphysical force of nature! One that transcends even the four fundamental forces of the universe!"
A wave of stunned murmurs washed over the students as they frowned at the absurd notion.
Economic demand being a metaphysical force of the universe?
Who could possibly believe such a silly worldview?
"The most popular interpretation is…"
With another wave of his hand, a magical circle had the name jotted down on the board.
[Psychometric Model]
"This interpretation asserts that it is our psychological and subjective measurement of the perceived value of a spell that decides how much mana the spell consumes," he explained. "This model is far more popular because, frankly, it is much more believable than the Meta Model, is it not?"
The students were in universal agreement on this one point.
Economic demand, being a metaphysical force of the universe, was absurdly nonsensical. At the same time, the theory of it affecting mana cost through its impact on psychology, which impacted magic, was just more realistic.
After all, both subjectivity and magic casting were were within the mind, it served as a channel for the former to affect the latter.
"You would think so," Professor Marolen grinned with thrilling enthusiasm. "But, here's the shocker! There is actually some evidence against the Psychometric Model, while no contradictory evidence exists against the Meta Model!"
Another wave of surprise swept through the crowd of students, who only grew even more invested in the professor's lecture.
Even Cæ couldn't help but be surprised at this. "Evidence against it, you say?"
"Indeed!" the professor nodded. "For one, there is the infamous Isolated Magic Test that served as powerful evidence that the Psychometric Model is wrong. What they did was they took a bunch of mages and isolated them from civilization and the economy, and had them perform the exact same spell at frequent intervals over the span of a few months. And…"
He stressed the word. "They waited for the prices of certain goods and services to rise and fall in the market. According to the Psychometric Model, one would expect that the mana consumed to perform these spells would remain constant unless one's value of the spells changed, which was also accounted for. But…"
He paused as he directed a sweeping gaze across his students, allowing a sense of tension to build. "…their predictions were wrong. Specifically… at that time, the price of eggs skyrocketed because of an epidemic that killed most of the chicken population. And without any knowledge of this event. All the mages reported that conjuring temporary manifestations of eggs had grown more mana-consuming."
Cæ's eyes widened with surprise. "…What?"
He wasn't the only one who was stunned by the revelation.
Why did the mana needed to conjure eggs rise if the mages were isolated and did not know that the price of eggs rose? According to the Psychometric Model, such a thing would have been impossible unless they came to value eggs to a greater degree psychologically.
"Self-reported value of eggs didn't rise in that timeframe," Professor Marolen smirked with excitement at the confusion and immersion of his students.
He loved when he had such a firm grip on the attention of his students.
It was the best part of being a teacher.
"…Doesn't that mean that the Psychometric Model has been debunked?" Sorenon asked with a thoughtful expression. "At least by scientific standards, it should have been disproved, no?"
Cæ shook his head. "Not if the Psychometrists claimed that the self-reporting value of eggs was a bad way of measuring value. This way, they can discredit the control group and dismiss the proof."
"Correct!" Professor Marolen's eyes lit up with fascination. "This is nuance is not covered even in the senior portions, it is rather remarkable that you managed to come up with that on the spot!"
Cæ acknowledged the praise with a soft, brief smile. "So then, what has been the ultimate conclusion to this dispute, Professor?"
The elder laughed. "It does not have a conclusion, and if you ask me, it never will! These two sides have gone at with each other over the prize of being the correct fellows. I strongly suspect that egos and incredulity have tainted this particular field of scientific pursuit, causing it to become more of an intellectual tug-of-war rather than a purely inquisitive scientific pursuit. Of course…"
He smiled down, relaxing after having taken his students through a rollercoaster of ideas and thoughts. "…It does not matter too much to the world. It doesn't even matter to mages. Whether it is a complex psychological mechanism that upholds the law or a metaphysical mechanism, the fact is that the law cannot be broken. People have tried for a thousand years since Great Magus Merlin discovered it, and no one, not even the most powerful of magi, has succeeded in even making the slightest dent in the law."
The students relaxed at that realization.
Indeed, if the law couldn't be broken, then they would have adhered to it regardless of what the fundamental mechanism was.
However, it was a thrilling avenue of consideration nonetheless.
"And that, dear students…" he glanced at his watch regrettably, "brings us to an end to the first lecture of the course Introduction to Magic. I hope you found the lecture interesting and exciting."
He received warm and positive feedback from the students who hadn't found themselves bored for even the slightest moment. Cæ, too, found the lesson to be remarkably informative and enriching in his understanding of magic.
As expected of a professor of the most prestigious magicademy in the world. It was precisely this quality of education that he had come to the Elendir Institute of Magic for instead of other institutes where he would have to deal with dull teachers who simply read out of a book.
And thus, he had taken the first step in his journey unto the abyss of magic.