Chapter 691: A Formal Laboratory for Students and Teaching Assistants
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 691: A Formal Laboratory for Students and Teaching Assistants
After leaving Dean Mei’s office, I immediately got in touch with Yi Rui and the others.
However, trying to explain everything over a call was proving difficult, so I decided it would be better to speak with them in person.
As for the research itself, it wasn't particularly urgent anymore. I could afford to wait until the laboratory Dean Mei had applied for was ready. Having a formal laboratory meant having a proper venue; I imagined Yi Rui and the others would be thrilled.
When I returned to the villa, Sister Bai didn't scold me. Instead, she expressed herself through the most direct action possible, rushing to my side the moment I arrived. Words are always pale and powerless compared to actions.
Dean Mei was incredibly efficient. Just as I was preparing to head out to find Yi Rui and the girls, Sister Mei sent word that the laboratory permissions had been finalized. She was even sending someone over specifically to deliver the access credentials.
"Sister Bai, I’m heading out now! Oh, come on—we’re at the Witch Academy. You don't need to worry about my safety every second I'm here, do you?"
"It’s because I care," Sister Bai said with a hint of helplessness. "With your knack for getting into trouble, I honestly don't feel at ease leaving you anywhere..."
After all, look at how long it had been since we last saw each other before I was forced to return.
"Alright, alright, I’m a trouble magnet. But I really have to go; it’s almost time for our meeting."
I pointed at the clock, bid Sister Bai farewell, and left.
Once I reached our meeting spot, the group gathered there immediately swarmed me.
"Sister Xiao Han, are you okay?"
"Yeah, that situation back then... it was terrifying."
"Hmm? You’re all here. I’m fine, really—how could anything happen to me?" I quickly reassured them, hoping to put the incident behind us.
After all, I took full responsibility for what happened; they had simply been caught in the crossfire.
At the time, the sudden appearance of the Totem had left me flustered, and I hadn't had the chance to explain things clearly to them. So, I gave them a brief rundown of the cause and effect. Whether they fully understood the technicalities or not, I described the sequence of events. Since they had experienced it firsthand, they had a right to know the truth, and I was happy to oblige.
Still, they looked a bit dazed, struggling to wrap their heads around it.
Most of all, they found it hard to believe that so many transcendent academies would target the Witch Academy so aggressively.
In the past, the Witch Academy had been isolated by other schools, and we had returned the favor, living in mutual indifference. Witch students would occasionally cause minor headaches for other academies, but for a long time, the Witch Academy had essentially been in "single-player mode," doing its own thing. Most students didn't know much about the nature of those other schools, only that they were hostile. They hadn't realized it had escalated to a matter of principle at the transcendent level.
But now, as the Witch Academy engaged more closely with the outside world, friction was becoming more frequent. Even so, they hadn't expected the other transcendent academies to be this hostile.
"Just because you mastered a power called a Totem, they weren't going to let you go? Even though... most of them didn't even recognize what a Totem was?"
"Pretty much," I said with a shrug. "The other transcendent academies are full of bad intentions. They just can't stand to see us doing well."
"I’m still thinking about that Void Rift... Come to think of it, those major disturbances in the academy lately... were those all your doing, Xiao Han?"
"Uh... probably not all of them?" I corrected her quickly, feeling like I was being painted as some sort of unstable element within the academy.
If we were talking about making a scene... didn't the Transcendent Witches do far more than me? It was just that most people never found out. Take the Alchemy District, for example—isn't there a witch blowing up her own laboratory every other minute?
"Fine, let's drop that for now. Since I’ve been forced back to the academy, what happens to our experiments? Do we continue? We only have this one fixed location..."
At this, many of them looked troubled. The academy wasn't like the Independent Domain; you couldn't just mess around freely. There were prices to pay for causing chaos here.
"Oh, you’re still worried about that? It’s fine. Right after I got back, Dean Mei called me in to ask about the situation. I took the opportunity to explain the research we’re doing. Even though Dean Mei is swamped right now, she still applied for an independent laboratory for us."
"What?"
The group was stunned. They hadn't expected Xiao Han to be so efficient.
And what did they just hear?
The Dean herself had questioned her, and then applied for a laboratory for them—mere students!
Of course, it might have been because the commotion Xiao Han caused was so big that the Dean had no choice but to pay attention, but without some serious connections, who would open such a door of convenience?
That was an independent laboratory of the Witch Academy!
In the past, they had to build their seniority under mentors, slowly gathering knowledge and teaching themselves skills bit by bit. They remembered how, back when they wanted a complete laboratory for a research project, even their mentors—who were Transcendent Witches—would sometimes have their applications rejected. They’d have to slink back to their personal labs, which were often just converted rooms in their villas.
Many of them still remembered those days of running around just to find a place to work.
"Come on, let's go. You might not realize what our current experiment represents yet, but all you need to know is that the Dean herself has validated it."
Following my words, the group grew incredibly excited. They were participating in an experiment recognized by the Dean! They felt like they could hold their heads high even in front of their own mentors now...
Immersed in this atmosphere, they followed me away from their humble club gathering spot and toward their brand-new laboratory!
I led the way. Since it was my first time there as well, I wasn't entirely sure of the route and we took a few wrong turns, but being surrounded by a group of chirping, excited girls kept me from getting bored.
"Wow... that looks like the Witch Academy's research base..."
"We usually don't have permission to even enter this area, do we?"
As they spoke, I indeed encountered a barrier high in the air.
"Just as I thought. We need permission to enter this zone."
"I heard this research base is located in a partitioned space. Even though it looks like it's right in front of us, you can't get in by force."
"I heard that too. There was a senior sister who tried to force her way in once. Apparently, if you try to break in, you get trapped in a Space Maze. She was stuck for five days before she got out."
"Is it really that crazy?" I listened to their gossip with interest, but then a spell projection appeared before me—a permission verification prompt.
After the verification, I immediately received the authority of the Laboratory Supervisor, along with the ability to add others as members.
Essentially, whoever the laboratory was granted to became the supervisor, responsible for managing the members. After a bit of tinkering, I added everyone as members.
"Oh? There’s a Deputy Supervisor role? Yi Rui, I’ll give this to you. Not everyone who came with me this time is here, right? Help me review the permission applications and hand them out when the others arrive."
Since everyone had just returned to the Witch Academy, many had their own business to attend to and couldn't wait around for me. I decided to give the review authority to Yi Rui; I trusted her completely.
"Okay," Yi Rui agreed. While everyone in the club knew Xiao Han, she was definitely the one closest to her.
With the administrative trifles out of the way, I brought the group into the laboratory.
"Whoa... it's huge in here!"
"Look at the materials used for the flooring... there's such a massive area of it..."
"Hey, hey—show some dignity! Don't look like you've never seen the world before!"
After a period of noisy excitement, everyone finally accepted the reality of their new surroundings, though the thrill didn't fade.
"Everyone, get familiar with how the equipment works first. Then, pack away the gear we don't need for now—this stuff is very expensive," I told them.
As they busied themselves following my suggestion, I began planning the laboratory's next steps.
Back during the experiments at Sixth Shelter, I had encountered a problem that I hadn't had time to address before being forced back to the academy.
The problem was that for an experiment involving so many people, the personnel utilization rate was far too low!
But there was no helping it. I was not only the one who proposed the experiment but also the only person currently capable of practical operation. The others didn't even have the qualifications to participate yet; they could only serve as "guinea pigs."
I couldn't just let them sit idle. But simply having them read Dean Mei’s papers wouldn't do much good either.
So, I planned to have them learn some spells—specifically, the Resurrection Spell.
Learning the spell framework of the Resurrection Spell would help them gain a basic understanding of resurrection in the coming days, and it would also give them a fundamental grasp of "death" during the experimental phase.
Furthermore, learning the Resurrection Spell provided the foundation for learning its various derived spells. If any of them could learn the "Incubation Rebirth" spell I was planning to derive next, I certainly wouldn't mind teaching it to them.
After all, they were my future experimental "subjects." If the subjects knew how to use Incubation Rebirth, they would have more autonomy when facing experimental accidents. More importantly, it would help push the experimental progress forward.
Once everyone was more or less familiar with the equipment, I gathered them to outline the short-term plan.
In a few days, I would have to participate in the lower-year final exams, and before that, I had to attend a teaching assistant meeting. My schedule was tight.
But it didn't matter. The experiment regarding Self-Generated Mana was still in the early stages of member coordination and theoretical exploration.
If I hadn't finished deriving the Incubation Rebirth spell before I left, they would continue their in-depth study of the Resurrection Spell and begin the theoretical phase of the Mana Source condensation technique. Since that technique was built upon Self-Generated Mana, studying it—even if they couldn't condense mana yet—would help them understand the characteristics of Self-Generated Mana from a different angle.
If I did complete the derivation of the Incubation Rebirth spell in the coming days, they would focus all their efforts on studying it. I wanted everyone to understand its principles; I didn't require everyone to master the spell, but they had to understand how it worked.
Yi Rui also mentioned that if the derivation of Incubation Rebirth was successful, she would ask her mentor, Mentor Belica, to help turn it into a spellbook.
Since we were in the Core World of the Main World, we were under the influence of the Great Weakening Spell. The power of manually cast spells was significantly reduced. Only structured spellbooks could resist this weakening to some extent, primarily to ensure more stable casting.
Of course, it would be best to conduct these experiments in an Independent Domain, but the Independent Domain wasn't as convenient as the Witch Academy. There were pros and cons to both.
So, for the next period of time, we threw ourselves heart and soul into the derivation of Incubation Rebirth.
As the research progressed, we discovered that our initial concept of "Incubation Rebirth" was drifting. Our current progress was less of a derivation and more of a spell extension built upon the Reincarnation spell.
A "spell extension" meant it could not exist independently of its prototype spell, unlike a "derived spell."
If we insisted on making it an independent derived spell using the Resurrection Spell as the prototype framework, the resulting effect was inferior to the extension spell built on the Reincarnation prototype.
This problem troubled us for a long time. The first few days of research had been very smooth, but we were finally stuck here.
Some problems can't be solved by just grinding away time; the issue lies in the core concept. If we had a breakthrough in our thinking, we could potentially perfect this derived spell in a single afternoon.
Ultimately, by the time I received a message from Teacher Lina, our progress had only yielded two "half-finished" products.
One was a flawed derived spell, Incubation Rebirth, built on the Resurrection prototype. It wasn't that the spell itself was broken, but its effects were underwhelming—it couldn't compare to the next half-finished product, hence the nickname.
The other was the "Incubation Rebirth" extension that could only be built on my Reincarnation spell. It hadn't transformed into an independent derived spell, but its effect was superior to the first one.
"Maybe... I should invite our mentors over? I think if we can't solve this, it's not because we're stupid, but because we don't have enough accumulation and experience yet."
"Yeah, we only just started working with the Resurrection Spell a few days ago. We haven't been much help; it's all been you leading the way, Sister Xiao Han..."
"That is indeed a solution." I looked at them. This was the first time in days they had suggested seeking help from their mentors, which showed they were truly at their wits' end.
I, however, was thinking about something else. Just now, I realized I had almost let myself get trapped by the current predicament.
Incubation Rebirth was never a mandatory goal; it was a handy tool to improve our research efficiency. The spell was just a milestone, a target that could be replaced at any time.
We shouldn't be chasing perfection; we should be chasing functionality, and then refining it toward perfection.
Therefore, I was more inclined toward the Incubation Rebirth built on the Resurrection prototype. Even if its effects seemed "juvenile"—at least compared to the Reincarnation spell—it represented the possibility of future refinement.
I agreed to let them call their mentors only so the derived spell could be made into a spellbook. I had understood from the start that a spellbook is a platform for derived spells. It’s a tool that makes it easier for people to access and understand spells while continuously researching them!
And now I also understood: only after a spellbook is perfected to the point of being "flawless" do witches transform that spellbook into an untradable ability within themselves.
A spellbook doesn't trade a spell; it trades a systematic research platform for a corresponding spell prototype.
"Well then... for the next little while, I’ll have to leave this laboratory to you. I’ll leave all the research data for the extension spell based on the Reincarnation spell in the form of Ley Line Data, so it’s easy for you to study and for your mentors to review."
"So soon? Are final exams starting?"
"Can't be helped. Teacher Lina wants me to go to a meeting. See you later~"
"Yeah, see you later."