Chapter 254: Chapter 253: For Science Chapter 254: Chapter 253: For Science Gutas opened his eyes only to see Richard standing to one side, his finger ablaze with dancing flames; his elbow was blistered from a burn, clearly Richard’s doing.
“What do you want to do?!” Gutas wanted to ask this, but because his mouth was stuffed with rags, all that came out was “Mmmph mmmph mmmph!”
Fortunately, Richard understood him and explained, “You can’t sleep.”
“Sleeping lowers metabolic rate and slows blood circulation, which affects many body measurements. To minimize errors, I must inconvenience you. Until the first phase of the research is complete, you can’t sleep. Hang in there!”
Gutas: “Hmmph?!” This isn’t how you treat people! Drawing his blood, stuffing his mouth, and now not even letting him sleep, is there no justice?!
For Richard, of course, there was no justice, only science.
What’s wrong with sacrificing for science, this is all science! Well, his science.
Richard turned around, picked up a syringe, and began drawing blood from Gutas again.
Gutas was speechless, wanting to say, “Just end it quickly!”
However, all that came out was, “Mmmph mmmph mmmph!”
In the following days, Gutas finally understood what hell was: constant blood draws, continuous experiments. He felt he wasn’t a person, but a toy.
And days seemed to have no end.
Days quickly passed by.
White Stone Tower Academy, library.
Richard appeared here.
He came here primarily for two reasons. One was to see if he could replicate the warm sensation of the rustic Iron Ring from days before, proving instead it was seemingly a one-time accident. The other reason was to find some books about the Bloodline Seed to study its secrets.
Picking a large pile of books from the shelf, Richard carried them to a long table and sat down to start sorting and reading.
Beside the long table was another person also reading books, Gro.
It must be said that recently, Gro has been quite diligent. Despite lacking talent, he kept trying hard, signing up for many basic courses and devouring a vast number of books available in the library.
At that moment, Gro was reading “On the Differences Between a Wizard Apprentice and a Wizard,” furrowing his brow intensely, and taking a long time to turn a page, as if pondering every sentence.
In comparison, Richard was far more dramatic, scanning the pages in a glance-over-ten-lines fashion, “swish, swish, swish” continuously turning pages, and roughly browsing through a book in no time. After thinking for a moment, he categorized the books to one side: those of reference value and needing detailed reading on the left, and those without reference value on the right.
Richard and Gro kept reading, each undisturbed by the other.
After a while, Gro had only managed to finish half a book, while Richard had already categorized more than a dozen, with the majority being useless and only three being of use.
It was then that the ringing of a large Copper Bell outside the library resonated, signaling the end of a class period and heralding the start of the next.
Gro, somewhat reluctant to leave, closed his book and stood up, looking towards Richard with flickering eyes and asked in a low voice, “Lord Richard, swordsmanship class is starting soon, aren’t you going?”
“Ah,” Richard said, “I’ve still got some things to do, so I won’t go. You go ahead.”
“Ah, okay.” Gro didn’t think much of it, put the borrowed books back on the original shelf, and headed toward the library entrance.
At that moment, a voice called out beside him, “Gro!”
“Hmm? It’s you.” Gro turned to look at the speaker and saw a muscle-bound giant nearly two meters tall—Baki, immediately asking enthusiastically, “Are you also going to swordsmanship class?”
Then Richard saw Gro and Baki walk past him side by side, looking very familiar with each other. His eyes twinkled and his expression turned slightly odd as he spoke up, “You two…”
“Ah, it’s , Lord Richard,” Gro quickly explained, “You missed the last swordsmanship class, too, and it was Baki and I who practiced together. He said that the incident from the first class was a misunderstanding and to clear things up, he specifically helped me practice swordsmanship. He’s much stronger than me and I’ve learned a lot from him, so now he’s also considered a friend of mine. Isn’t that right, Baki?”
“Ah…” Baki nodded, “Yes.”
Richard’s expression grew even more peculiar.
Baki quickly explained: “Richard, don’t misunderstand, Gro and I are really friends, um, just normal and regular friends.” But to Richard, this explanation seemed to have a hint of being contrived.
Richard shrugged, “Alright, I haven’t misunderstood. You two… get along well.”
“Let’s hurry, Baki, or we’ll be late,” said Gro.
“Goodbye, Lord Richard.”
Gro and Baki said their farewells to Richard and quickly walked out of the library.
Richard looked at their retreating figures with a meaningful gaze, shook his head lightly, picked up the useless books he’d selected from the table and returned them to the shelves, and then carried the useful three books to the service desk at the entrance of the library.
Standing behind the service desk was a gray-haired youth, who was also a Third-level Wizard Apprentice at the academy. The youth worked there to earn Crystal Coins, registering books for borrowing and collecting the corresponding borrowing fees. His monthly salary was one and a half Lower-grade Crystal Coins.
Richard was well aware of all this, so he spoke briefly and to the point, placing the three books on the counter: “Borrowing for one month.”
The gray-haired youth glanced at the titles of the three books, quickly checked the list, and took out two books: “The borrowing price for these two books is half a Lower-grade Crystal Coin each, a total of one Lower-grade Crystal Coin for both.”
“And the other book?” Richard inquired.
The gray-haired youth hesitated before replying, “This book, no… it’s not available for borrowing.”
“Hmm?” Richard’s eyebrows raised, “Are you sure? It doesn’t have a ‘not for borrowing’ sign on it, does it?”
“Ah…” the gray-haired youth stammered, “It’s… not currently available for borrowing, there are reasons for this, regarding the sign, later… it will be added later…”
The way the gray-haired youth spoke was disorganized and seemed nervous, causing Richard to frown. In fact, he had begun to guess the reasons behind it: the highest likelihood was that this book had been reserved by others through some connections, or perhaps the gray-haired youth wanted to obtain some benefits, or there might be some other reason.
Having figured this out, Richard took a simple approach, speaking out: “Well then, I won’t borrow it. I will return it now.”
Richard turned around, took the book that was not allowed to be borrowed, and walked toward the shelves. Then he came back empty-handed.
At the service desk, he paid one Lower-grade Crystal Coin and walked out of the library with the two books that were approved for borrowing, following a secluded path beside the library toward the academy’s exit.
As he walked, the two books Richard held in his hands vanished into thin air, then reappeared, and soon after, there was an additional book—the one not permitted for borrowing that was supposedly returned to the shelf. Naturally, Richard had no intention of really returning it; he simply slipped it into the Space Iron Ring as he pretended to return it to the shelf, easily taking it with him without anyone noticing.
In fact, he was confident he could do this with all the books. Given enough time, Richard felt he could empty the entire library of the academy.
The question, however, was why do such a thing when there was no necessity—he didn’t lack Crystal Coins and could borrow books by legitimate means. Why resort to illicit methods? Illegally acquiring too many books might just raise suspicions within the academy, which was certainly not worth it.
But in special circumstances, he wasn’t going to be pedantic. He would use whatever methods necessary.
All of this was in the name of science.