The Research Department was one of Uclaria Academy's greatest prides.
Even if it was an educational institution, thanks to this department, the academy managed to shoot itself to the top 1 rankings of research and development.
This has been the truth ever since the addition of said department a hundred and fifteen years ago.
Supposedly, a great genius had enrolled in the academy during that time and managed to use his inventions and cleverness to climb to become the number one graduate of his year.
With that reputation, he managed to land a spot on the academy's staff and, after a couple of years, earned the trust, backing, and love of the headmaster of that time.
Naturally, with the headmaster backing all of his very unusual ideas, he couldn't be stopped.
From the modernization of the academy's logistics to the founding of the Research Department, none of his ideas were interrupted. Perhaps on the hands of another man might have resolted in several incidents taking place, however, with the ideas coming from him, the only result was having his enginious ideas becoming reality.
That was the gist of the Research Department's story that Ray was able to learn.
Source: Mara
Anyway, that information also allowed him to know that this was the first incident that had happened in the department in the last sixty eight years.
This made it the exact third incident in the research department's history that had forced it to shut down and pause operations.
That in itself made this scene as improbable as one might think.
As he now stood looking at the large department building, which was sealed off by several magical and holy barriers, he could tell that this punishment mission was definitely not simple.
'This will either fun as hell or a massive headache, nothing in between.'
As he was pondering his new situation, he felt someone approaching.
It was Stelle.
Unlike him, who was still wearing his academy uniform, she was quite well equiped.
She was wearing a tight bodysuit that seemed to be enchanted. She was also equipped with light armor that protected only the most important body parts of her upper body, torso, shoulders, and arms.
Her hair was tied in a ponytail, making it seem as if she had a golden trail behind her head.
"Came well-dressed, huh?"
"And you came barely equipped. The professor said that it might be dangerous, remember? Are you planning to tackle enemies with an academy uniform?"
"I am. Besides, it's not like I have my own personal armor and weapon. Don't fret though, I will serve as the mage of the party."
Parties were something that Ray was deeply familiar with. One just had to think about the many parties that had invaded his lair in search of a fight.
But if he had to pick the best example, it would be Gideon's, the Last Hero's Party.
Gideon was the swordsman and the one that dealt with front-line combat, including close quarters.
Astra, the Witch, as he called her, and the Sage, as the people of this age called her. She was the mage of the party and a ridiculous force that could even dwarf Gideon's power at times.
Anna, the Saintess of that time. A little bit sadistic and the owner of ridiculous divine power that could only be surpassed by his demonic power, and now Arianne's own divine power. She was capable of divine miracles that no other Saintesses had been capable of performing.
And finally the Elf Princess, whose name he couldn't remember, well, calling her a princess was quite wrong, considering that she was the only elf alive at that time. She was the scout of their party, Ray barely remembered her because they had never truly fought, at best, he had seen her sneak out once they started fighting.
Regardless, this team of members was capable of slaying monsters of amazing power with almost the same efficiency as Ray himself could.
Anyway, at the moment there were only two of them, so he would act as the mage and Stelle as the swordsman.
"I see, I understand, and I will be counting on you."
"Sure thing, leave it to me."
After that, they approached Professor Hector, who was talking with a short man who had the largest glasses Ray ever saw on someone.
Noticing them arriving, Professor Hector gestured to the short man to look at the both of them and began to introduce them.
"Professor Stein, these are Ray and Stelle Meyer, they are the ones that are going to be sent inside. Students, this here is the head of the Research Department, Professor Stein Ein."
"It's a pleasure to meet you two fine young students. Professor Hector told me that you are both the ones that hold the most promise in these years freshman Special Class. I will be counting on you."
Ray looked at the short man from above. This was the same man that had welcomed them during the entrance exams to the simulation room where they would take the Practical Test.
"You were the one that explained the Practical Test."
"Ah, yes. You must be Ray, we analysed the data from the simulation of your battles, you are one of the few that pushed the simulation's calculating power to it's maximum, you are truly a talented child."
'Was there such a thing?'
"And you are Stelle Meyer. The way you used natural energy was quite interesting, it allowed us to progress our Nature Simulation Module by a couple of months, almost a year if I do say so myself!"
Stelle stiffened slightly, her cheeks growing slightly pinker.
'Is she that weak to compliments? Or was she simply caught off guard?'
Professor Hector coughed into his fist.
"Professor Stein, the mission."
"Oh! That's right, I almost forgot."
He handed them a tablet, its screen was filled with a single list that went on and on.
"The first list has the objects that need to be salvaged, as they need proper management, either because they are too dangerous or because they need certain conditions to be maintained. Some of this research costs millions of gold coins, I would feel awful if that amount of money was wasted like that."
He then tried to tiptoe to point at a certain element in the table that was already in Ray's hands.
"This substance in especific is highly sensitive to shifts in space and vibrations, so no high speed movements or space manipulative actions, otherwise it might kill you, since it has a ridiculous corrosive nature."
He then pointed to the second list.
"This list, on the other hand, points to the areas that are the priority when it comes to monster subjugation. They are either places where experimental beasts were being held or where there are fragile elements that can be endangered by the presence of said beasts. The department's sonar technology will tell you where all the beasts are, but please give priority to the places in this list, there is a button to show them on the map, right there, in the corner of the interface."
He turned, a smile in his face.
"Any questions?"
Stelle raised a hand.
"We are not in class, student Stelle, there is no need to raise your hand."
"Then I will ask. Based on the information that you have from the tests, is there any beast that can pose a great danger to us?"
"..."
Professor Stein stayed silent for a moment. And then sighed.
"There is an experimental creature that we were working on. It was a giant lizard that was going through draconification, a process that normally could lead a dragon-related species to evolve into one of the dragon races. What was unique about this creature was that it seemed that it would survive this deadly process while being corrupted by a shard of glass from the Glass Plains."
"Corrupted?"
Ray raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, the deepest shards of glass from that place still hold remains of the demonic power of Rex Draco, it seemed that this creature ended up ingesting it at some point by mistake, and the demonic power within began to corrupt it."
Stein ran a hand down its face.
"We believe that it was what was allowing it to survive the process of draconification, and of course there was reason to believe that it could evolve into a demonic dragon just as Rex Draco was. We were putting the corruption at bay using divine prayers and holy magic circles. But now that it is free, it might evolve into a monster before becoming a dragon."
He frowned.
"And while that would ruin our research, the worst part of all this is that it will act upon the corruption, that is, it will attack everything and everyone. We are already plenty surprised that it hasn't destroyed anything dangerous."
"You think it will cause us trouble."
"Originally, no. But we don't know how it has evolved, it could've become stronger, but not enough to harm you, but it could also become strong enough to completely trample you. Therefore, you can exclude him from the list of subjugations, it could be good if you could give us info on how strong he is now, but if it isn't possible, secure your life first."
*******
Author's Note: Wow... Chapter 50. You know, I wasn't expecting reaching this much. I thought that maybe I would give up at some point, and I almost did. Perhaps this novel isn't receiving the feedback I would like to, it's not like I wanted it to become a top tier novel in the first place.
Still, for everyone who is reading this. Thank you for enduring the results of my hobby until now. Please keep doing so in the future,
Thank you <3
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