Glan Natural Science Academy

Second day, dawn. 

After so many years, there weren’t many interests and hobbies that Satro had. So cooking the noodles every morning could be said to be one of the few things that make him feel bliss. 

The morning air carried a hint of coolness. 

The never-changing steps of cooking noodles… Put 2 chillies into the piping hot noodles. Among the clash of heat and cold, among the boiling between water and ice… looking at noodle changing from raw to cooked… taking the noodles out at that very moment when it is the best – the moment where the noodles would be mushy if it stayed for seconds longer; the moment where the noodles would be hard and dry if it was taken seconds earlier- and put it into the bowl. 

Smelling the aromatic fragrance, Satro couldn’t help but salivate. He was satisfied. 

“Mmmn ……” 

He thought of the taste and irresistibly moaned.

Knock knock knock! 

The familiar knock on the door. Little junior brother arrived at the time they had agreed, which was precisely the perfect moment when the noodles were just done cooking. All was so well. With a wonderful mood, he opened the door.

  “Good morning, senior brother.”

 

Little junior brother entered the room. Satro looked at the thick dark circles under Ryger’s eyes and frowned slightly. 

It seems that this junior brother had stayed up late studying. Again. 

" "

……

  Ryger entered the room and smelled the fragrance. His fatigue all vanished because of it and he made a blissful expression.   

Suddenly, he noticed his senior brother’s abnormalities. Confused, he asked, “what’s wrong?” 

Satro frowned and said, “Junior brother, you are not in good shape. Did you stay up late again? I think you better take a day off. Don’t stay up and damage your body.” 

Ryger was stunned. In terms of his physical state, he was indeed too tired for the past few days. But the desire for knowledge in his heart, the desire to gain mentor’s recognition had made Ryger completely ignore the fatigue of his body. 

Ryger shook his head. “It’s fine, I’m not tired!”

He walked to the dining table and tasted senior brother’s creations, praising it unceasingly. 

Seeing how he insisted on it, Satro merely shook his head. The past few days’ of interaction told him that this junior brother was the same as him. Both had an indomitable spirit and were eager to get mentor’s recognition and praise. For this, they would work doggedly and were willing to do anything.

  Breakfast finished, the two began another day of initiate studies. 

“Junior brother, today our research object is this little white mouse, one of the most common experimental specimens. As a mammal, it has many things in common with us humans.” 

White fluffy fur and red eyes. 

The little white mouse was sniffing in Ryger’s hand. Its white fluffy hair was very cute. 

Unfortunately, living in a scholar’s laboratory was the greatest tragedy for this mouse. After all, in the eyes of scholars who study evolutionary secrets, true beauty was a specimen that could survive for an eternity.  

  Squeak. 

There was almost no pain. Ryger followed in Satro’s footsteps and skilfully severed the mouse’s pain nerves. He laid the mouse flat on the experiment table, leaving it as an object of observation under a scholar’s scalpel.  

“Generally, a mammal can be divided into head, neck, torso, limbs and tail. A few will have wings while in another few, the tail is degenerated. They breathe with lungs, have a developed brain, are warm-blooded, and reproduce viviparously. Among the current species, mammals belong in the position of conquerors. The common intelligent organisms in this land of Star-Veil are all mammals. Humans, elves, dwarves, vampires, werewolves, halflings…” 

The scalpel stopped for a moment. Satro added, “According to mentor’s research on atavistic cloning and biological fossils, the ancient organisms were gargantuanly large in prehistoric times. Of them, the more well-known such as the hydras, ancient dragons, mountain titans and phoenixes are all oviparous.”

Uh?

  Ryger was only an initiate scholar. The things that he study was limited to only common specimens such as birds, flowers, insects and birds. Him studying the legends of those ancient organisms was like a seminary studying the myths of various gods.    

“Ah, yes! I heard that for the bloodkins in the Land of Night, their core embryos are formed in the blood of other creatures and they feed on the emotions of intelligent creatures. They’re considered to be mutant elementals left over from ancient times…” 

Under Satro’s and Ryger’s sharp scalpel, the skeletal structure and internal organs of the mice appeared in front of the two.

“Today, we’ll focus primarily on a mammal’s diaphragm, developed excretory system and the highly developed nervous system needed to react quickly to changes in the external environment for homeostasis of the body’s temperature.”

Yet another day was spent among Satro’s explanation. 

Ryger listened happily and the content on his notebook was more and more rich. At the same time, he also admired more and more Satro’s wealth of knowledge, wondering how many specimens he had already studied. From head to toe, not a single drop of blood on the dissection table flowed out of the tray, as if he wasn’t just teaching but also demonstrating his art of dissection

  Evening. 

Under the evening glow, under tender branches of a lake, a pair of young scholars was walking in pairs, enjoying the beauty of all things recovering from the winter, fantasizing about their lives. 

An inconspicuous figure was squatting on the stone steps of the lake, holding a fishing net and clumsily catching some fish. It was none other than Ryger, who was trying to get a black carp specimen. 

“Hahahaha, what a big one!” 

Ryger excitedly retrieved the fishing net. A large fish was struggling in the net.

Carefully, he put the black carp into a prepared tank. Before dissecting a specimen, even the loss of a scale was damage to the specimen. A minor, seemingly inconsequential might be a source of frustration and regret 10, 100 hundreds down the line.

He didn’t know whether Ryger’s rampant collection of specimens around the Academy gave him an aura of ruthlessness. Some stray animals immediately ran away after seeing Ryger, as if saying “My god, it’s that evil biped. Run!” 

“La la la la la la ……”

  Ryger was in a good mood. 

The Academy does not explicitly prohibit the collection of natural specimens in the Academy. But because most of the scholars were nobles who had good moral upbringings, they would rather spend some silver coins in Scholar Street to buy some common natural specimens than partake in such uncivilized behaviour.  

  “Freeze!” 

Suddenly, a girl with short blonde hair reprimanded Ryger, interrupting his good mood. 

Confused, Ryger looked at the girl and then at the boy beside her. “Yes?” 

The girl with short blonde hair was only 150 centimetres tall with a pair of beautiful big eyes like a Persian cat. The pair of pearl earrings that she wore contrasted sharply with her flame-like, cherry-coloured lips. Her white, tender skin felt like they would discharge milk when squeezed. She walked in a condescending manner to Ryger’s side and looked at the black carp in Ryger’s tank. 

“What are you doing?”

Ryger understood. His eyes moved about and his mind got to work. “Beautiful lady, your skin is truly enviable.”   

“Huh?” 

The girl, who was furious the moment before, heard this Ryger’s compliment and froze for a moment. Her smug expression was apparent for a split second. She said shyly, “Hee hee, really?” 

The boy next to her responded because Ryger could. “Of course it’s true! My beloved Nira, I can’t even find the words to describe your beauty.” 

While pressing the girl, the boy also warned Ryger with his eyes. He thought that Ryger was a smooth-talking person.

While the girl was still living in her own world, Ryger quickly left. 

“I should probably avoid collecting common specimens in the Academy in the future.”

  Ryger carried the tank and walked to his apartment. 

…… 

The next morning. 

Something unexpected happened when dissecting the black carp yesterday!

  Ryger was shocked to find in the fish’s mouth that the tongue was replaced by a bizarre insect. 

“Hmm, a tongue eating louse?” 

Satro was astonished. “I didn’t think that the Academy was also invaded by this kind of parasite. Although I don’t study much about parasites, but for a tongue-eating louse I happen to know something.” 

He paused and made an expression of deep thinking. 

“For a fish, a tongue-eating louse is a rather frightening parasitic organism. It enters the fish’s mouth as a larva and uses its 7 pairs of legs to fix itself onto the tongue and feed on blood till the tongue completely shrivels up. Then, it’ll proactively take on the role of the tongue and fix itself in the mouth, helping the host to ingest food. It changes from parasitism to symbiosis.”

  Shaking his head, Satro used a tweezer to carefully peel the tongue-eating louse off of Ryger’s black carp specimen. 

“Speaking of which, it isn’t only this parasite way of living that is strange. Its method of reproduction is also something. It constantly change sex between male and female but isn’t hermaphroditic and still needs copulation between the two sexes to reproduce. I heard that there was this scholar in the past who studied it and created an academic skill that allows him to parasitise some strong ancient creatures, combining two into one.”  

For parasitic worms, although Ryger had some understanding, he never thought that there would be such a terrifying parasite as the tongue-eating louse. 

“Hiss…” 

With an unexpected gain, Ryger quickly made the tongue-eating louse into a specimen and recorded it on the Frostfire bird notebook.