Chapter 859: The Student with Issues
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 859: The Student with Issues
"Student name... Shi Ruizhi, ninth grade..."
I pulled up the student’s basic information and skimmed through it. This batch of students had mostly been hand-picked by Millian, and Senior Sister Shi Ruizhi was no exception.
She wasn't a member of any prominent family, and from the records alone, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
I shifted my focus to the moment the incident occurred—not long ago, while Shi Ruizhi was performing her Architecture Ritual.
To still be at the Architecture Ritual stage at this level meant she was definitely part of the later groups. It was during this ritual that the accident happened.
I leaned closer to the Ley Line projection. I saw no suspicious movements; the girl named Shi Ruizhi didn't seem to be doing anything wrong.
Assisting her was Pei Huan. I could see the sheer panic on Pei Huan's face when the incident began; after all, this was her first time encountering such a situation.
"Right... this is it... she... she’s about to..."
Standing beside me, Pei Huan looked quite unwell. Having a student she personally mentored suddenly suffer such a crisis was undoubtedly a massive blow to her.
As the footage continued, I finally saw exactly what happened to the girl.
Her expression shifted slightly, into a look that was hard to describe. She forcibly halted the ritual's progress and looked toward Pei Huan with a pleading gaze.
Pei Huan stepped forward to support her.
Thinking it was merely a failed Architecture Ritual, Pei Huan had been about to offer words of comfort. But in the next heartbeat, Shi Ruizhi’s body began to tremble uncontrollably before she collapsed to the floor.
It was a clear sign of a total loss of motor control.
No matter how hard Pei Huan tried to pull her up, she couldn't get the girl to stand.
And then... things turned gruesome.
Her body seemed to lose all structural integrity. Flesh and skin split apart; blood vessels hidden deep beneath the surface coiled and squeezed out from under the skin, only to burst violently under terrifying blood pressure.
Then, her Immortality spiraled completely out of control. The ruptured flesh and skin began to "heal," but in reality, it was a chaotic "proliferation." Within moments, she had utterly lost her human form.
The scene terrified everyone nearby, including Pei Huan.
Even though this was merely a reconstruction via Ley Line projection, the images were so graphic that the other students, including Yi Rui, couldn't bear to keep watching.
I, however, forced myself to watch until the end, noting the reactions of everyone in the footage and the emergency measures taken.
I even scrutinized the process Danielle had mentioned—the attempt to kill and then resurrect her.
The Resurrection Spell was flawless. Just as Danielle had said, the spell had eliminated any purely physical issues. Ultimately... the problem lay within her Life Essence.
The conclusion seemed obvious: her Life Essence had been compromised, meaning the fundamental information that defined her physical form as "herself" had completely collapsed.
The flesh of the physical body is the external manifestation of the Life Essence. This is why a person’s appearance generally doesn't change much; even Transcendent methods like Disguise Spells are merely temporary magical effects.
The reason this girl’s state was so "catastrophic" was primarily due to her high Life Level.
It was like a skyscraper—the taller it is, the more violent its collapse.
She was already in her ninth grade; in another year, she would have graduated. At this moment, her Immortality had become her death warrant.
As a sudden mutation erupted within her Life Essence, everything else came crashing down with it.
Looking at it from another perspective, physical changes occur for two reasons.
One is a change to the body itself, such as genetic mutation, radiation variance, or even plastic surgery.
The other is a change in the Life Essence, which triggers a secondary change in the physical body.
For example... when a boy enters the Witch Academy and accepts his first Mana Source, he undergoes a racial metamorphosis of his Life Essence. Afterward, he is a completely different person.
The first step of my Self-Generated Mana project had borrowed from this very process.
Therefore, if this accident had occurred during the "Mana-Induced Remodeling Metamorphic Rebirth" stage, I might have actually suspected our experiment. But for this to happen during the "Architecture Ritual" stage was something I truly couldn't understand.
Architecture refers to the process of shaping Self-Generated Mana and "placing" it into the Witch racial concept within the Life Essence. With such a clearly defined objective, which step could have possibly triggered a collapse of the Life Essence?
It should have been impossible!
After confirming once more that the fault didn't lie with me, my gaze turned cold.
"Take me to see this student, Shi Ruizhi. Where was she taken?"
"The nearest infirmary. I'll lead the way," Yi Rui offered.
"Yes, please."
I nodded, signaling Yi Rui to move. Seeing her pull out a flying broom, I reached for my own, which I hadn't used in quite a while.
It had been a bit since I’d used this kind of "vehicle." Usually, I just teleported everywhere. But for most people, flying on a broom was still the most common way to get around.
"Strange... is the infirmary that far from the training grounds? There must be a lot of injuries during regular training; why go so far?" I asked, puzzled.
"Well... the training grounds have their own infirmary section, but after this area was allocated to us for the experiment, only a skeleton crew was left behind. The specialists here aren't equipped to handle a case like this, so she had to be transferred. It’s not actually that far; we can already see the building from here," Yi Rui said, pointing ahead.
"There, then..."
I looked at the infirmary building ahead with a look of understanding.
Following Yi Rui and the others inside, we quickly arrived at the special care unit.
Normally, students weren't allowed to visit this unit. The people sent here were almost always "special" cases.
They might be infected with a rare and highly contagious biological virus, or a virulent curse, or perhaps they had fallen into a state of uncontrollable frenzy and needed to be forcibly restrained...
While these "illnesses" sounded absurd, they weren't surprising when one considered the "treasures" found in the private laboratories of so many witches. Witches with a hoarding habit were far from rare.
However, since Sister Bai—a Transcendent Mentor—was with us, no one stopped us. They couldn't.
To a Transcendent Mentor, these "special symptoms" were trivial. A Transcendent Witch was far more qualified to take over the treatment of such accidents than any of the medical volunteers, part-time physicians, or healers on staff.
As soon as we entered, we were hit by a complex odor. The smell of disinfectant wasn't particularly strong, as sterilization in such medical rooms was handled by permanent spells.
But within that complex scent, the smell of blood was overpowering.
The girl we were looking for, Shi Ruizhi, was currently lying on a very specialized medical table.
Her entire body was crudely bolted down to prevent the "patient" from causing further self-harm.
Her body remained horribly distorted, still undergoing constant mutations. She was hooked up to numerous tubes delivering nutrient solution; it was this high-concentration solution that was keeping her last breath of life from flickering out.
No matter how high her Life Level or how potent her Immortality’s self-healing, she didn't have infinite regeneration. A continuous injection of nutrients was vital.
Yet, while this method kept her alive, it was also the source of her agony.
The Transcendent Mentor in charge of the ward was clearly a professional; I could feel that she had already severed the neural pathways, preventing the physical pain from reaching the girl’s Life Essence.
It was a way to reduce her suffering at the root.
So, while Shi Ruizhi was still pinned to the table, her movements weren't as violent as they had been in the Ley Line projection. Her struggling was now mostly physical instinct.
"Who are you? Can't you see I'm busy!" One of the Transcendent Witches in charge looked over and questioned us as we burst in.
"Apologies for the intrusion. I brought them here to check on the student involved in the accident," Sister Bai said, stepping forward and using her status as a fellow Mentor.
"I’m telling you, sister, you picked a terrible time," one of the two witches sighed helplessly, looking at Bai Yu. "These girls look familiar... you must be the ones leading the experiment that caused this mess, right?"
"We are terribly sorry for the trouble we've caused the mentors," Yi Rui and the other students said, bowing in apology.
"Fine, fine. At least your attitude is okay. But the trouble you've caused is massive."
"Can you tell us the situation? Is there any hope for a recovery?" Sister Bai asked, cutting straight to the point.
"Most likely not. It involves her Soul Essence. Her physical information has been lost and collapsed; we can only use spells to temporarily keep her body from rotting away completely."
"It’s gone that deep? Is there any analysis on what caused this?" Sister Bai pressed.
"The cause? Isn't the cause the experiment these kids were doing?" the witch replied without hesitation.
"I mean, if we exclude the experiment, what else could cause this?" Sister Bai continued.
"Exclude it...? Oh, I see what you're getting at. You think it wasn't them?"
"I'm not entirely sure myself. Soul Essence is a fragile thing. From a Transcendent perspective, it’s actually quite easy to turn a person into this. Special potions, Life Curses, spells involving Soul Essence like Displacement or Destruction... there are so many possibilities."
"As for the specifics, even I can't say for sure. I'm not a Transcendent forensic doctor; I'm not an expert at identifying injuries," the witch said, shrugging her shoulders to show her helplessness before returning to her "repairs" on the student’s body.
But these repairs seemed endless. Without solving the root cause, this would never end.
"Is there really no solution?" I asked, stepping forward.
"Of course there is. Just kill her. It saves us the trouble and saves her from a life worse than death," the other witch said, almost mockingly.
"You're Xiao Han, right? I heard the project that went wrong was the Self-Generated Mana project you pioneered. You should know a thing or two about this, shouldn't you?" The witch who had been answering me looked surprised to see me, but recognized me instantly.
After all, in the Witch Academy, I was the only recognized "Little Witch."
"I am very familiar with the entire experimental process. It is absolutely impossible for such a severe situation to occur. That’s why I suspect some other external factor," I explained as diplomatically as I could.
"Even Xiao Han doesn't know? When we went to check the situation, we heard your experiment touches upon the Life Essence, right?"
"Of course it does... fine, I knew I wouldn't be able to explain this away," I said with a sigh.
The correlation between the two was simply too strong. The less someone understood the underlying principles, the more they would link them together.
It was the same logic as calling experiments involving Life Essence "Forbidden Experiments"—colloquially, there was nothing wrong with the term.
In my Tree of Great Knowledge, I had detailed records of Life Interpretation, including the fact that the first generation of Life Interpretation experiments were labeled "Forbidden Experiments."
After all... throughout history, the reverence for the essence of life was something felt deep within the heart.
"It seems you have a very deep understanding of Life Essence, Xiao Han. Since you can lead an experiment on Self-Generated Mana physical talents, your level shouldn't be low. Why don't you give it a try?" Seeing that I had stopped trying to argue, one of the witches suddenly suggested.
"Me?" I pointed at myself instinctively. "I'm not exactly a professional in this field, am I?"
"Just as a trial. If you leave it to us, this student will just stay like this, living a life worse than death."
"I'll... give it a try..."
"Wait, are you really going to let Xiao Han do it? Professional matters should be handled by professionals. Xiao Han, don't listen to her, she's joking," the other witch interjected quickly.
Otherwise, this would turn into a real farce.
"It’s fine. Coincidentally, I do have some expertise regarding Life Essence. I’m curious—since you both know the problem lies with her Life Essence, why haven't you stripped it from her body?" To me, it was very strange that they knew the root cause yet were busy with irrelevant tasks.
"Strip it?" Hearing my words, the two witch sisters looked visibly speechless. "Are you sure? And then what? Wait for her to enter the Ley Line Cycle or fall into a dream like the Expansion Realms? Her Life Essence isn't a soul, Xiao Han. Don't you know that basic common sense?"
"Huh?" Being told that, I was momentarily stunned.
In that instant, I realized... we weren't even on the same wavelength.