Chapter 1047: Chapter 16: Beneath the Surface
“Isn’t that a fact?”
Professor Chris observed the vessels on the table.
Compared to the lengthy research required by science, enhancing one’s own mysticology and alchemy has greater advantages.
Though the drawbacks are greater as well.
“A narrow view. Science isn’t a discipline, it’s systematized knowledge. Mysticology can be science, and alchemy is science too.” The old man retorted crazily.
“So that’s why you’re here, and that’s why we’re all here.” Professor Chris wasn’t interested in debating what science is with him, so she tilted her head and said to Lu Li, “Darling, tell him about your findings.”
Lu Li briefly described knowledge about human nature.
“A new discovery… I love new discoveries.” The elderly scientist fell into monologue-like contemplation. “Let me think of how to verify its existence…”
“In fact, we’ve already proven its existence.”
Sterling froze at Professor Chris’s addition: “So why are you looking for me?”
“For more detailed experiments,” Professor Chris said.
“Can’t your academy do these?” Knowing the tastiest part of the cake had already been enjoyed, Sterling didn’t want to eat the leftovers.
“We can,” Professor Chris replied.
The cave lit by fluorescent lights fell silent for a moment, and the tough-minded crazy old scientist quietly accepted Professor Chris’s help, picking up a notebook and quill, turning to a blank page: “Exorcist, tell me more about human nature.”
Theory needs practical assistance. After the scientist Sterling learned that Lu Li could obtain human nature from killed odd creatures, he brought two cages containing weak oddities from the depths of the cave.
“Rollerballs, the best experimental creatures.”
Sterling gestured for Lu Li to kill one of them.
The process of the oddity’s death showed no abnormalities. After weak human nature flowed into his body, Sterling told them to wait here for him as he returned to the depths of the cave.
Sterling seemed somewhat crazed as he entered the experiment.
“Scientists aren’t excluded because of their theories…”
Watching Sterling’s figure disappearing into the cave depths, Professor Chris gently said to Lu Li, “When knowledge becomes a curse, formulaic knowledge is extremely dangerous… Compared to 0.01 milliliters, 0.02 pounds, and 0.03 centimeters of data, approximately one-third of a scale, half-filled wooden bowls, and grass juice left for days are less efficient but won’t have excess danger.”
“So the more specific the knowledge, the more dangerous?”
“Yes… so don’t crave too much knowledge.”
Lu Li thought. Perhaps this curse acting on knowledge is also a disaster.
Messy footsteps and friction came from the depths, and Sterling returned carrying a heavy iron cage.
The coffin-sized cage contained more Rollerballs, their semi-soft black carapace encasing their bodies, locked in the iron cage.
Sterling picked up the two dead Rollerballs and tossed them into the cage. The surviving Rollerballs sensed food, spread their bodies, and the cilia beneath their carapaces wriggled slowly like starfish, crawling onto the dead Rollerball’s body.
Among the two Rollerball corpses, one was covered by Rollerballs, while later arrivals tried to climb on. The other was ignored.
“It’s not fresh anymore.”
Sterling’s eyes under drooping eyelids seemed to glow: “Human nature, right? Because Mr. Luli absorbed this one’s ‘human nature,’ they’re no longer interested!”
“Are you sure?” Professor Chris watched this scene with interest.
To prove his analysis, Sterling grabbed another fallen Rollerball, swiftly killing it like an executioner, tossing it to the corner of the cage.
The remaining two Rollerballs that hadn’t climbed the food slowly wriggled, crawling onto the new food.
Only the Rollerball corpse killed by Lu Li was neglected.
“See, they prefer food untouched by human nature deprivation.” Sterling, lying in front of the cage, seemed exhilarated: “Odd creatures don’t need flesh; they need human nature!”
“We’ve always suspected this,” Professor Chris sighed softly. “Many behaviors of odd creatures are without reason. For instance, non-corporeal oddities hunt odd creatures, and powerful oddities still need to eat… We’ve always wondered what draws them… Now it seems we’ve found the source.”
“Congratulations, Sterling. Your name will appear in the latest issue of the Giant Tree Academy journal.”
Sterling was indifferent to Professor Chris’s words, immersed in the joy brought by science, heatedly staring at Lu Li: “This is an unfamiliar field… and you! Exorcist! You’ll be key to this field!”
The experiment continued, Sterling took out two Rollerball bodies. The other Rollerballs, temporarily stagnant, then crawled to the Rollerball killed by Lu Li for food.
“What does this indicate?” Professor Chris asked.
“Bodies are still attracting them,” Sterling’s madness was suppressed by contemplation. “It might be food, it could be residual human nature…”
Even a new hypothesis could arise: humans need food to sustain life. But what if what we need isn’t the food itself, but the human nature within it…
“Maybe it’s not conflicting.”
Before Sterling drove himself mad by complicating the problem, Professor Chris awakened him: “We can understand human nature as energy. Humans eat to replenish energy, oddities prey to replenish energy.”
“Dear, how much human nature did that wraith bring you?” Professor Chris asked.
“Less than half a portion.”
“Rollerball?”
“Negligible.”
The experiment would continue, but given House of Sterling’s scale, it was evidently unable to push subsequent research forward.
More detailed data, the changes concerning low and high human nature, and completing the puzzle.
“I can get you into Giant Tree Academy… but as an alchemical material.”
“I don’t care!” Sterling, full of fervor, gazed at Lu Li as one of those odd creatures coveting him.
The “research on human nature” was set aside temporarily as Professor Chris spoke of the next matter: the craft of making the Spirit-Calling Gun.
“Spirit-Calling Gun? You need that outdated homogeneous item?” Sterling felt puzzled.
“Lu Li’s power to seize human nature comes from the Spirit-Calling Gun,” Professor Chris said.
“That’s impossible!” Sterling denied loudly, but seeing the calm Lu Li, he was stunned: “Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“The third flower bloomed, isn’t that impossible too?” Professor Chris countered.
“Perhaps… the cost is too high. I recall no more than a dozen Spirit-Calling Guns with recorded blooming of three flowers.” Sterling hesitated. As a scholar, he’d believe if evidence was sufficient: “How did you do it? What’s the cost of three flowers? Where’s the gun now?”
“Some odd creatures, one Evil God. It was destroyed for some reasons, the power remains in me.”
“So we need your help.” After a slight pause, Professor Chris covered her mouth, laughing softly: “You don’t need to enter the academy as alchemical materials anymore.”