The one from Professor Claire was puzzled, and the one from Sharon was surprised.
"Principal Ian Gray, are you serious?"
Professor Claire asked the first. In her cognition, this useless principal did not know anything about magic, and he had never cared about academic matters. Moreover, he didn't care about students' learning problems. Now he suddenly said this. Was he making fun of her?
To be honest, Professor Claire didn't think that Reiner could read any word on the test paper, so she was very impatient. She hadn't had much contact with Reiner, and she couldn't see that the spirit of the principal in front of her had already become another person.
"Professor Claire, I think we should be more tolerant of students, and we shouldn't deny her ideas in such a strong manner. At least, she has thought about it, hasn't she?"
Reiner's eyes swept across the other test papers on the table, he could see that the answers to that question were exactly the same on those papers. Obviously, those students had memorized the description in the book.
To be honest, he was still in a trance state caused by the transmigration, but his sense of responsibility as a teacher made him unable to just watch a special student lose her curious heart. Reiner himself had a lot of curiosity about the magic of this world, so under the influence of various reasons, he decided to find out if Sharon's statement was correct, and how much his knowledge on earth could be applied to this world.
"But her thinking is completely wrong. The fire element theory is a great theory discovered by Master Hohenheim three hundred years ago. It is the cornerstone of modern alchemy. I don't think a mage apprentice can overthrow this theory so easily."
Professor Claire was stunned by Reiner's words, and then she refuted; but her attitude softened. Perhaps she felt that Reiner's words made some sense.
"If religion is derived from belief, then magic begins with doubt."
Reiner changed what he had heard in his previous life slightly and continued.
"Why don't we hear how miss Sharon came to this conclusion before dismissing her answer?"
Hearing Reiner's words, Sharon's eyes lit up. Her impression of this unreliable principal immediately improved a lot.
Although Principal Ian Gray had a very poor reputation, at least he was willing to listen to her own explanation instead of blindly dismissing it as Professor Claire did. From this point of view, Reiner's reputation has increased by at least ten points here.
Of course, the full score was one hundred points.
"Well, then miss Sharon, please tell us."
Professor Claire shrugged helplessly and signaled Sharon to explain.
"Mhm, I first discovered this possibility during an experiment."
Sharon thought for a moment, then said after organizing the language.
"Originally, I wanted to heat the Grey Stone at high temperature to get the White Stone. Generally speaking, this experiment should use an unclosed container, but I made a mistake at that time and used a closed flask."Reiner didn't understand what Grey Stone was and what White Stone was. Seeing his puzzled expression, Professor Claire sighed and explained.
"Grey Stone is a type of rock that can be seen everywhere, while White Stone is a special kind of rock that can be dissolved into water."
While she was talking, she bemoaned why she had to listen to Sharon here seriously with the principal. She felt that she had been fooled.
Reiner heard this explanation and quickly understood that the so-called Grey Stone and White Stone were probably limestone and quicklime. This reaction was the basic experiment of junior high school chemistry. The gas generated in the experiment, the reaction of carbon dioxide, and clarified lime water was also one of the most classic experiments.
"After heating, I found that some kind of gas appeared in the flask, and when it was led out with a tube, the flame of the alcohol lamp was directly extinguished."
Sharon explained concisely, looking at Reiner and Claire from time to time, paying attention to their expressions.
"According to the fire element theory, This shouldn't happen."Reiner then opened an alchemy book on the table, and found a chapter on the element of fire from the table of contents."The element of fire exists in everything. When matter burns, the element of fire is released to produce flames. When the matter loses the element of fire, it becomes dead ashes. When the ashes gain the element of fire, the matter will resurrect. The specific process of burning can be simply expressed as: Matter (burning) = fire element + ashes. ——"Introduction to Alchemy", Chapter 3, Section 1, by R.V. Hohenheim, Blue Moon Calendar 2036, Third Edition."
In this description, there was not a single sentence that mentioned the production of gas during the combustion process. So what was the gas that could extinguish the flame and where did it come from?
Of course, Reiner could tell Sharon that the gas was carbon dioxide. It was a compound produced by the reaction between the carbon element in calcium carbonate and oxygen in the air. But if he said so directly, they would definitely not believe it. Moreover, Reiner also needed more evidence to prove that the carbon dioxide in this world was the same substance as the earth.
"Why don't we go to the laboratory to reproduce this experiment?"
Reiner's opinion made Sharon's eyes widened slightly. She originally thought Reiner was simply trying to confront Professor Claire, but she didn't expect that the principal would really believe in her. This made the girl feel a little bit surprised.
"Experiment?"
Professor Claire was obviously more surprised. She looked Reiner up and down with a look of seeing a madman and asked again.
"The experiment you are talking about is an alchemy experiment?"
She didn't even know whether Reiner knew the meaning of the word experiment. In the impression of Professor Claire since she was a child, the nobles were ignorant and incompetent. Especially when she was five years old, after she was bullied several times by an unknown little nobleman, this impression was deeply ingrained and could no longer be changed.
"Of course, Professor Claire, what else do you think I'm talking about?"
Reiner responded certainly as if it was a matter of course, which made Professor Claire feel a little unhappy. It sounded like he was the uneducated one here.
"We will completely reproduce the experiment described by miss Sharon. If the same result can be obtained, can it prove that her conclusion is correct?"
"Impossible. If the fire element burning theory is wrong, then all alchemy papers in the past three hundred years will have to be rewritten. But we have accomplished so many great deeds on this basis. Are you going to deny the contributions of many great mages?"
Professor Claire's tough attitude made Reiner feel a headache.
This person was too stubborn.
Reiner thought for a while. When dealing with this kind of stubborn people, confronting direction would not work. He needed to take an indirect approach.
"Professor Claire, are you afraid that miss Sharon will prove that her conclusion is correct?"
He used the provocation method, and it made Professor Claire jump up in anger immediately.
"Who said that, I am not afraid! There are 300 years of alchemists standing behind me!"
Outstanding effect.
As soon as she said the words, Professor Claire knew that she had been tricked by Reiner, but after another thought, she felt that this was a chance to punish the unreliable principal, so she said.
"But if it proves later that the fire element theory is correct, you have to pay a price.""Uh, of course, what do you want me to do?"
Reiner didn't expect this woman to be so simple, so he asked again after a daze.
"Well, how about... in the morning meeting next week, you need to put on a skirt and run around the square ten times!"
Professor Claire thought for a moment and then said.