Glan Natural Science Academy

“Huh?”

Mid-air.

Dylan, flying at high speed, noticed the part of the beach stained red with blood and swooped down. With a bang, Dylan landed not far away from where Lulu and Violet was, scattering gravel in all directions. In the sand pit he made, he slowly raised his head and an astonishing oppressive force radiated.

Lulu and Violet unconsciously stopped and looked with shock at the unfamiliar student who descended from the sky all of a sudden.

“A fighter?”

Dylan had originally thought this to be a fight to the death between scholars but now he found himself wrong. After discovering Lulu was a fighter, he made a disdainful look and instantly lost all intention of interfering. His gaze landed on Kyubey.

Did the roar hear just now come from it?

He was disappointed. It turned out it was a tamed beast.

Dylan then looked at Violet. The girl’s strength wasn’t bad at all. Before finding his own medium partner, the supportive elementary skills he had learned were not suitable for a head-on fight.

“Dylan Nio? I’m Stella from Class 11.  I met you with Morgana at a party, when school started!”

Stella, afar, actually recognised Dylan. But if you think about it, although Morgana’s family wasn’t a noble of the Principality, they were still able to, if barely, interact with the upper crusts of the Principality. And because Stella was assigned to Class 11 together with Morgana, Stella naturally tried to form ties with her because of the latter’s illustrious background. And so, holding a conversation once with Dylan Nio who similarly was an important person in the Principality was something unusual.

By now, Violet had calmed down and regained some sensibility. A trace of determination flashed deep in her pupils and realising it was impossible to avenge Konan today, she used all her strength to unleash a purple fireball. Backing off with break-neck speed, she said, “Baker, withdraw!”

As mercenaries, Lulu and Logic’s goal was only to earn some money. Now that Kyubey was fine and Ryger had no intentions of pursuing, the two of them naturally wouldn’t go looking for trouble. As for Stella, there was no need to say anything more.

Dylan evidently hadn’t completely grasped the situation at hand and ignored the escaping Violet. He looked at Stella with a curious expression.

“Oh?”

However he truly had no impression of Stella and so nodded symbolically for etiquette purpose. He then looked at Ryger who was wearing a set of scholar robes. No impression of this one either.

No wonder. Although Stella occupied the third place in Class 11, the difference between her and the first and second place was too wide. In normal circumstances, she would probably rank outside the top thirty among the all first-year students in the Academy’s honour roll. Add to that the fact her family wasn’t really an illustrious one, it wasn’t unusual for Dylan to have no impression of her.

But Stella didn’t mind. After seeing Violet and her friend leave, she let out a breath of relief silently. At last, she managed to keep the oblation turtle. Now that she had a precious specimen to offer to the Academy, her honour roll results this season would surely have some breakthroughs.

“I will remember this!”

Faraway, Violet’s gaze stopped on Ryger, as though intent on engraving this enemy’s figure into the deep recesses of her mind and devouring it.

Eh?

Being the target of this girl student of Sealand, Ryger felt slightly slighted but didn’t really mind. After all, the two states were already in a state of strife – the two of them were enemies even before this.

Dylan frowned and his eagle-ish pupils glanced at Violet and Baker far in the distance. Seeing this, Stella hurriedly explained to him. “Those two are the Sealand Principality’s first-year students. They wanted to steal my specimen but thanks to Ryger and his mercenaries, that did not happen. But, Ryger accidentally killed one of theirs when fighting and so they are holding a grudge towards him.”

Stella looked at Ryger, her face wholly apologetic.

 

A few moments later.

“So that’s how it is.”

Dylan nodded, sort of understanding the whole affair. The affair was unrelated to him and he was evidently in no mood to care much – the scope of those fighting between Sealand and Glan wasn’t just confined to scholars, many conflicts that had occurred in professional occasions didn’t need much reason for it to occur. Towards Ryger who was able to kill a Sealand student alone, Dylan’s gaze stayed on him longer, treating Ryger as a student with potential. Dwelling no longer, Dylan expanded his wings of wind and flew off into the distance.

Looking at Dylan’s distant figure soaring in the sky, Ryger, Stella, Logic and Lulu all had an expression of envy.

Stella shook her head, looked at Ryger and said solemnly, “Thank you very much this time.”

“It’s fine.” Ryger replied to her and picked up a spacebox from the blood-stained beach. It was none other than the spacebox of Konan who had died of energy backlash. Dylan’s sudden arrival just now made Violet and Baker scurry away out of fear of Dylan teaming with Ryger and the others. And so, they did not have the time to retrieve Konan’s belongings.

Stella saw this and said nothing – the female student was killed by Ryger alone after all.

“Let’s leave. This place is still near the border with Sealand. If they get some back-ups then come back, we’ll be in trouble!”

“Mmhm.”

They carried the turtle-shelled specimen anesthetized by Ryger and hurriedly left.

……

Night.

The Furnace Mountains had many caves.

The pot they had used still had some oil stains in it. Uncle Logic and Lulu had already gone to sleep, and Kyubey was keeping watch near the fire at the cave’s entrance. The cave gradually quieted.

Ryger and Stella made a slab of rock in the innermost part of the cave into their temporary lab bench. On the wall hung two crystal lamps and atop their broad scholar robes was draped a coat made of beast-skin to help fend off the cold. The two of them were doing some simple handling on the specimens they obtained on this sojourn.

Currently, the large turtle-shelled creature was missing a leg which was made into meat for tonight’s soup.

“The taste is not bad. And in a manner of speaking, I implemented the ancient scholar’s method of research that Satro spoke of. Heh heh.”

Since the specimen was too large, what Ryger intended to do now was ‘de-construct’ this specimen, sufficiently parse out the secrets of the anatomical and physiological structures that enabled the specimen to unleash water jets, record the relevant structures on his notebook, then make the key parts into specimens for eternal preservation.

As he dissected the specimen, he secretly vowed to himself to buy a spacebox with an ultra large capacity later on.

As for the spacebox left behind by the deceased Sealand student, he naturally was not going to open it and see what’s in it under everybody’s eyes.

Slowly.

As the sharp scalpel in Ryger’s hand moved calmly and steadily, the large creature’s strong and bounding heart, still beating – ba-dumps, ba-dump, ba-dump – was revealed.

Ryger did not have any hesitations. Using his wealth of experience in dissection that he had accumulated before this, he went straight for the target, looking for the profundities of this specimen’s pressurized water jet. No, considering the degree of power the specimen’s water jet exhibited earlier, it would be more appropriate to call it a compressed water jet.

Completely engulfed by the desire to know.

In Ryger’s hand, the scalpel was as though it had a life of its own, and possessed parts of the verve that Satro had exhibited back then. During the period, he kept adding all sorts of observation equipment to his usage. Time passed bit by bit and even Stella, already done dealing with her specimens on the other side of the lab bench, was unknowingly drawn in by Ryger’s art of dissection.

“So that’s… how it is!”

Having obtained a preliminary understanding of this specimen’s physiological structures, Ryger was murmuring excitedly.

After cutting a portion of the large specimen’s turtle shell, Ryger delicately cut the mutated lung lobules which he treated as precious treasure, and drenched it in a container with preservatives that he had specially prepared beforehand. He hurriedly washed his hands, picked up a quill and swiftly recorded his findings in his notebook.

All he needed now was to return to the laboratory and use comprehensive viewing instruments for more detailed observations of the preserved specimen. After ensuring that there was nothing he missed in his preliminary assessment, he could then use Air Bubble whenever his energy field was sufficient to emulate and solidify this specimen’s ability of compressed water jets.

Ryger was feeling good. Following Spiritualism, he had now gained knowledge regarding ‘Forced Compression’.