Glan Natural Science Academy

The meeting ended.

While on his way, Kubo was laden with many matters.

Inside the white building, light shined brightly. He opened the door, and the wafting aroma from the kitchen soothed his heart.

Adva walked out of the kitchen and upon seeing Kubo’s gloomy face, said gently, “Work not going well?”

She then said, “Honey, Ryger, come down for dinner!”

Kubo stayed silent and seated himself. Laughing sounds came from upstairs and Enid came down while carrying Cayleigh, then sat at the table. Ryger followed behind her and greeted Kubo.

“Mn,” grunted Kubo. Without looking at Ryger, he asked, “are you able to fit in with class 11’s course?”

Not expecting his mentor to proactively care for him, Ryger hurriedly said, “Mentor Jenny’s stories of adventures were very vivid and interesting and many students were encouraged by her. Regrettably, I was not able to see the outstanding students in the first two spots of the honour roll.”

“Mnn. That lass was quite the restless one when she was young. She went to many places. Though, for scholars studying evolutionary secrets, experience equates knowledge. So you could say that she has some accomplishments.”

After affirming Mentor Jenny, Kubo continued, “For teaching, she encourages students to explore the world and proactively develop their potential. This method is indeed more able to stimulate good students to achieve more, but for students with lower aptitudes, this method can also easily result in them being confused.”

Quite obviously, Kubo knew by heart of the history and ways of teaching of the mentors below him.

“Since you chose class 11, you can learn more about Psyker Hel and his dissimilative psychism when it’s necessary.”

Dissimilative psychism?

Enid chipped in smilingly, “Junior brother, you don’t know, right? The mentor who developed dissimilative psychism is one of the greatest competitors of father for the position for vice-chancellor. Her disciple is the first student among you first-years to be granted an epithet, the Psyker, Hel.”

Because her father was the head-of-year for the first year students, Enid paid some attention to matters regarding the first-years.

Ryger was paused slightly and thought of the great burden of his shoulder.

To his mentor, he himself was an accidental burden. If he then compromised his mentor’s chances for promotion to a vice-chancellor, his heart would never be able to be at peace and he would be engulfed in never-ending guilt!

Ryger’s face became serious. He peeked at his mentor and seeing his mentor’s face of being preoccupied with troubles, Ryger, as if feeling the same thing himself, began to worry uncontrollably.

Originally, he only wished to obtain good results as a means of getting his mentor’s approval. But he never thought that he would directly affect his mentor’s position in the Academy.

If his previous ambition filled him with determination, then the responsibility in front of him now filled him with pressure. He had lost all avenues of retreat.

Adva placed plates for 5 people, took off her apron and sat down. Only after she did so did they pick up the utensils and began having dinner.

Kubo looked at the worriless Enid, and while cutting his bread, spoke calmly as if he was casual about it, “Didn’t you keep making noises about wanting to teach your junior brother your own self a while back?”

“Ah?”

Enid’s eyes widened and she looked at Kubo incredulously. She said excitedly, “You agree to me teaching little junior brother?”

Ryger and Adva also looked at Kubo. Only Cayleigh, who was focused on eating dried fish, didn’t.

Kubo spoke calmly. “Since you’re interested, hurry up and teach him to master his first basic academic skill. Leave the thesis aside for now and first ensure that his name is on this season’s honour roll. Some of the Academy’s mentors have begun to pay attention to him. In the future, he can only rely on himself.”

“Ahhaha! Leave it to me! I’ll make sure that junior brother master a basic academic skill as soon as possible and leave his name on this season’s honour roll!”

Replied Enid eagerly.

Ryger, upon hearing this, was also eager. He was finally going to master the legendary ‘magic’!

 

……

After dinner.

Sitting in front of his desk in his room, Ryger revised his notes regarding energy fields and was at the same, ‘meditating’, absorbing and strengthening his energy field.

“Junior brother!”

Enid suddenly barged into Ryger’s room. Seeing Ryger shocked by her entrance, she laughed. She placed the glassware she was carrying on Ryger’s crude testbed, then sized up Ryger’s testbed and frowned.

“Junior brother, your testbed is really too crude!”

What Enid was talking about was precisely Ryger’s experiment platform that he built from a crude wooden table.

“Hehe, it’s good enough.”

Ryger recovered from the shock of his senior brother barging into his room and looked at the glassware that Enid placed on his testbed. Inside it was a bubble-like thing that was floating in the middle of the ware. He couldn’t help but get curious and asked, “senior sister, what is that?”

 Enid toured the room and admired the view while answering smugly, “Have you forgotten? I promised you before I left the Academy for the Accipit Jungle that I’d give you a specimen as a present when I return. That’s it! An elemental bubble!”

“It’s cute, isn’t it?”

“Ah!”

Ryger looked at the elemental bubble curiously. The bubble inside the glassware was about the side of a person’s head and was transparent. It seemed to have been anaesthetised by Enid. The bubble’s respiration was very even and it continuously expanded then contracted.

After looking around Ryger’s room, Enid didn’t pay any more attention to it because there weren’t anything worth seeing,

“Elementals in the human kingdoms are few and far between to begin with. Even more so for these lower elementals. They’re already almost extinct thousand years ago. For me to be able to catch one this time is truly too lucky. Hehe!”

The thing inside the glassware was like a soap bubble, as if it would pop by just a poke.

“This is my first time seeing an elemental. It’s so fantastic!”

After gushing out, Ryger suddenly said, “Oh yeah, what does it eat?”

“It’s an elemental so of course it directly absorbs natural energy, just like how we absorb natural energy every day to strengthen our energy field. You can think of it as a special form of photosynthesis.”

Explained Enid. She was originally going to study and observe the elemental bubble here but because of Ryger’s crude facilities, she gave up on that idea. “Your testbed is too crude. Follow me!”

She gave no chance to Ryger to say anything and led him to Kubo’s laboratory.

Mentor Kubo’s little white house had 3 levels. The first level contained the kitchen, store, dining room, living room and so on. The second level contained Ryger and Enid’s bedroom, library, laboratory and the likes. The third level contained Kubo and Adva’s bedroom, specimen collection room, breeding room and so on. Above the third level, on the roof, there was a tiny observatory and a garden.

Ryger stood in front of the laboratory and was dilly-dallying. He said, “This is mentor’s laboratory. Isn’t it bad to use it without his permission?”

Enid rolled her eyes and flicked his head.

“Ow!” cried Ryger who looked innocently at Enid.

“Why are you so afraid of him? I’ve been doing it for many years. It’s just using his laboratory. It’s not like anything is going to happen to it. Come in!”

Enid dragged Ryger into the laboratory.

The omnidirectional lighting inside the laboratory caused shadow dilution. In the middle of the room was a large, stone testbed where all sorts of high-class observation equipment were placed densely. Several hundreds of test tubes glittered under the light’s shine. Some of them were filled with colourful mysterious fluids. In the corner of the testbed were some experiment devices that were as tall as a person and had some tubes attached to it. Horrifying cellular structures could vaguely be seen wriggling in some glass boxes.

Enid placed the glass box which contained the elemental bubble on the testbed.

“Since the old man wants me to teach you a basic academic skill as soon as possible, I’ve already thought it out. Your first academic skill will begin from the elemental bubble!”

“Bubble?”

Ryger scratched his head. “But it looks like it can only make bubbles. What is there to learn? Are there any other powers?”

“You’re dumb!”

Enid pouted. “What we want is precisely this ability to make bubbles!”

“I’ve already thought of it for you. The attack of this elemental bubble’s ability to make bubbles, or Air Bubble1, is pretty much negligible, but if we combine Air Bubble with some poison, wouldn’t it become a poison gas bomb? It’d amount to us easily completing an evolution of academic skill, allowing a level 0 academic skill to have a more advanced way of using it!”

Enid’s hint caused Ryger’s eyes to brighten. “Senior sister, you’re so smart!”

Poison again?

At the same time, Ryger couldn’t help but think of the requirements for the first stage of 《Self Control of the Human Body》, which was to refine poisons and antidotes. He himself was still at the beginning of learning it.

With a smug face, Enid said, “Of course I am!” She then opened the glassware.

The elemental bubble was already anaesthetized by her. After the container was opened, the elemental bubble floated up slowly and was grabbed by Enid like a balloon, then pressed and molded into various shapes. She was having a lot of fun with it.

Ryger looked at her actions with a pounding heart. He was afraid that Enid would be too forceful and cause the bubble to explode!

“Calm down. Don’t think of elementals as fragile beings. Their resilience is far more than you can imagine.”

Ryger was surprised and kept poking the bubble. But no matter how hard he poked, the seemingly fragile bubble had no signs of damage.

" "

“Senior sister, what happens if it’s popped by a sharp needle?”

Enid wasn’t someone as cautious as Ryger. As soon she heard Ryger’s question, she giggled, took a needle out and, among Ryger’s cries of alarm, poked the bubble.

“Ah!”

The scene that he imagined did not occur.

The bubble only sprayed some gas that had a fishy smell. The hole caused by the needle then regenerated.

“Hehe, one of the special characteristics of elementals is a regenerative capability far exceeding fleshy beings. Even for low class elementals like this one.”

Enid waved the needle while smiling in a satisfied manner.

Footnotes

In the raw, the term used is “air bubble skill”