Chương 123: CHAPTER 121: THE DUAL LABORATORY

The morning bell of the Royal Academy chimed three slow, echoing notes across the upper courtyards. The heavy metallic sound rolled past the tall stone spires, drifted over the tiled roofs of the lecture halls, and sank deep into the damp earth, muffled by thick stone foundations and layers of subterranean soil. Upstairs, the academy grounds were in total disorder.

Messengers in bright imperial cloaks had arrived before daybreak, their steel-tipped boots clicking urgently across the polished marble floors of the administrative towers. Royal couriers carried sealed copper cylinders bearing the dark wax insignia of the grand palace. Rumors had spread from the faculty lounges down to the apprentice dormitories within minutes: the second prince had collapsed into a deep, unexplained coma during the midnight hours.

His body was burning with a chaotic magical fever, his mana pathways had locked up completely, and the royal court physicians were utterly powerless to wake him. The crown had issued an emergency mandate demanding that every senior healer, alchemist, and magic researcher report to the palace for consultation. Shin had received his own red-waxed summons just before dawn.

The heavy parchment, stamped with the seal of the imperial medical bureau, was currently resting at the bottom of a cast-iron disposal bucket beside his desk, buried under a cold layer of grey charcoal ash. Down in the lower research wing, twenty paces beneath the bustling classrooms, none of that panic mattered. The air in the sub-basement was cool and still, smelling faintly of dried silver-leaf, aged oak timber, and bitter sulfur.

The outside world and its royal crises had no place where alchemical salts were being measured and student dissection notes were waiting to be corrected. Shin sat comfortably on a three-legged wooden stool, leaning over the wide timber workbench that occupied the center of the room. The underground chamber was vast, built out of dark granite masonry reinforced with ancient dampening runes etched into the corners to keep accidental elemental flares from leaking to the floors above.

Along the back wall stood tall oak cabinets packed with sorted glassware, brass balance scales, heavy mortar sets, and clay jars sealed with wax. At the far end of the hall, a large circular furnace rested against the stone wall, its iron hatch cold and unlit. A brown paper parcel sat near Shin's left elbow, sending up fragrant, hot steam into the chilly underground air.

Inside were three fresh, steamed matcha pork buns he had bought from an old street vendor near the western academy gates just before descending below ground. Shin picked up the first bun. The outer dough was soft, pale green, and carried the rich, earthy fragrance of powdered tea leaves. When he bit into it, the seasoned pork filling was piping hot and juicy, flavored with chopped scallions, crushed ginger, and savory soy broth.

The mild bitterness of the green tea dough balanced the rich meat, warming his throat and cutting right through the damp morning chill. CRUNCH. Holding the warm bun in one hand, Shin dipped a feathered quill into a bottle of dark black ink with the other. Spread across the desk was a thick stack of dissection logs and organ-preservation journals turned in the previous evening by his second-year disciples. He flipped the top parchment over with a dry flick of his wrist.

Dissection Log: Spined Marsh Toad Student: Lin Shin scanned the diagrams and ink notes with an experienced eye, catching every small error in the student's sketches.

"Cut too close to the primary bile duct during the organ extraction," Shin murmured under his breath. He dipped the quill again and wrote a clear note across the top margin: Careless blade angle. You punctured the secondary fluid sac and spilled digestive acid over the lower muscle tissue. The sample is ruined. Grade: C-. He placed Lin's paper into the graded pile and pulled the next sheet forward.

Dissection Log: Iron-Scaled Viper Student: Vane Shin took another bite of his breakfast, chewing slowly while reading through the apprentice's method section.

"The venom glands were removed using silver forceps and placed directly into an unwashed glass jar without rinsing." Shin shook his head slightly. He tapped the tip of his quill on the desk and wrote: You forgot to wash the copper powder off the outer casing. In four hours, the venom will react with the metal, turn black, and spoil. Grade: D+. He worked his way through several more papers without rushing.

In the official records of the academy, he was registered simply as Instructor Shin—a quiet, unremarkable commoner teacher who handled basic anatomy, low-level beast dissections, and foundational herb processing for beginner classes. He never attended noble social banquets and never took part in political arguments. He showed up on time, marked his students' work strictly, and spent the rest of his day running small experiments in the lower laboratory. Footsteps sounded from the upper spiral staircase. CREAK.

The heavy oak door at the top of the stairwell opened with a low groan. Two sets of footsteps began making their way down the curving stone steps. The first set was firm, loud, and hurried, accompanied by the distinct rustle of expensive wool robes. The second set was completely different—light, steady, and remarkably well-balanced, touching each step without making a single unnecessary scrape against the stone. Shin did not look up from the student logs.

He finished the first pork bun, brushed a few crumbs of green dough from his fingers with a linen cloth, and picked up the second one from the paper parcel. The steps reached the bottom landing, and the heavy door swung inward. Director Vivienne stepped into the room, her long grey robes sweeping across the floor. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight aristocratic knot, and she held a thick leather folder under her arm. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent.

Report any appearances on Amazon. Right behind her walked a woman wearing the dark blue robes of a senior academy instructor, carrying a wide wooden box filled with glass test tubes, rolled notes, and several bundles of dried plant roots tied neatly with hemp string.

"I knew you would be down here, Sensei Shin," Vivienne said, her dry voice echoing through the vaulted room.

"The main hall is full of imperial guards and royal physicians begging for every high-ranking researcher on the payroll, yet you are down in the dark, eating street food and marking novice homework." Shin set his quill on the brass holder and looked up.

"Their basic cutting skills are terrible," Shin answered in a flat tone.

"If they cannot remove an acid gland from a common toad without popping it, they will poison themselves the first time they work on a live beast in the field. A healer who makes sloppy cuts is dangerous to everyone around them." Vivienne let out an exasperated sigh.

"The palace sent three more riders just ten minutes ago. The second prince is getting worse. His breathing is shallow, and his internal mana is completely blocked. They want anyone who understands deep bodily stagnation."

"Then they should talk to the senior court healers," Shin replied evenly.

"I teach basic anatomy to teenagers. Going to the palace will not fix whatever poison or curse the prince swallowed." Vivienne shook her head.

"You never change. But that is not the only reason I came down here today. Your quiet solitude in this wing is over, Shin." Shin shifted his gaze toward the woman standing beside the director. She was slender, of average height, with dark brown hair tied back with a simple silver pin. Her deep blue instructor robes were clean, neat, and completely free of flashy gold embroidery. Her posture was straight yet relaxed, and her dark amber eyes were calm, intelligent, and observant.

"This is Senior Instructor Evelyn," Vivienne said, making the formal introduction.

"As of this morning, the academic council has approved a joint research project between the Department of Magic Theory and your laboratory. You will be sharing this lower wing to work together on heavy-metal neutralization." Shin looked closely at Evelyn. Her magical presence was unusually muted. In an institution where high-tier instructors constantly showed off their mana auras to demand respect, Evelyn kept her energy tucked entirely inside herself.

To anyone passing by, she looked like an ordinary, hardworking scholar who spent all her hours reading old books in the library. Evelyn bowed politely, her movement smooth and natural.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Sensei Shin," she said. Her voice was soft, clear, and polite.

"Director Vivienne told me about your work on organ extraction and toxic fluid separation. I hope my theoretical models will be useful for our upcoming tests."

"There is plenty of room," Shin said, pointing toward the long wooden table on the other side of the central aisle.

"The shelves on the right hold dry minerals, bone meal, and sulfur. The shelves on the left hold dried frost-mushrooms that cannot handle high temperatures. If you light any burners, keep them on the right side so the rising heat does not ruin the mushroom spores."

"I understand," Evelyn said with a small smile.

"I will keep all fires on the right side."

"Good," Vivienne said, turning back toward the stairs.

"I want a joint summary on the mercury neutralization liquid by the end of next week. Do not fall behind schedule." With a quick sweep of her heavy robes, the director climbed the spiral stairs. CLACK. The heavy door closed with a firm thud, leaving the two instructors alone in the vaulted lower hall. Evelyn walked over to the table on the right, placed her wooden box down on the thick timber, and began unpacking her equipment. Shin watched her quietly while taking a bite of his second bun.

Her way of unpacking was orderly and practiced. She set down a row of thin glass droppers into a wooden stand, placed three white porcelain bowls in a neat line by size, and laid out several bundles of dried roots: silver-thread grass, dry iron-bark chips, and wild night-shade roots. However, Shin paid close attention to how her hands moved. When Evelyn lifted a thin glass tube, her fingers did not waver. When she set down a heavy brass balance weight, it met the wood without making any sound at all.

Most classroom theorists had small nervous habits or used tiny bits of mana to steady their grip. Evelyn used no mana. Her movements came entirely from physical training and muscle memory. The control in her wrists and fingers was the kind developed only by people who had spent years performing high-stakes physical tasks where a single slip meant instant death. Inside his mind, Rudra observed her movements with sharp focus. Ye koi aam teacher nahi hai. Iske haath kisi trained killer jaise chalte hain.

(She is no ordinary teacher. Her hands move like a trained killer.) Shin finished his food, wiped his fingers clean with a linen cloth, and pointed toward the brown paper parcel on the corner of his desk.

"There is another warm bun in the bag if you have not eaten," Shin said casually.

"Pork and green scallion. The vendor by the gate steams them fresh before the morning bell." Evelyn stopped unpacking and looked across the aisle at him with a slight look of surprise. A gentle, polite smile appeared on her face.

"Thank you, Sensei Shin, but I had tea and warm porridge in the staff quarters before coming down," she said softly.

"Maybe another time."

"Suit yourself," Shin said.

"The cold down here gets into your bones if you work on an empty stomach." He pulled another student log from the stack, dipped his quill, and went back to grading. For the next two hours, the lower hall remained quiet and focused. The only sounds were the scratching of Shin's quill, the occasional soft clink of glass from Evelyn's table, and the gentle hiss of a small oil burner as she boiled a batch of shredded silver-thread grass in pure water. Around noon, Evelyn lowered the flame beneath her pot.

She picked up a wooden mortar and pestle, then walked across the central aisle toward the shared supply shelves that stood between their tables. Evelyn stopped in front of the middle shelf, her gaze resting on a bin filled with rough, dark brown wood chips.

"Sensei Shin," she called out softly.

"About these iron-bark pieces—are they meant to be boiled directly in water, or does your testing method require them to be burned down into white ash first?" Shin placed his quill on the brass stand, stood up from his stool, and walked over to the supply rack.

"If you boil them directly, the thick resin in the wood dissolves into the water and ruins the charcoal filters," Shin explained, stopping next to her.

"They have to be slowly burned in a closed pot until only the mineral ash remains. The ash contains the alkaline salts that bind with liquid mercury." He reached out his right hand, extending two fingers toward the edge of the iron bin to show her the processing code marked on the rim. At that exact second, Evelyn adjusted her grip to pull the bin from the shelf. Her right hand moved sideways. TAP. Her fingers brushed against the back of Shin's hand. It was a normal, accidental touch.

Yet, the moment their skin touched, an extreme reaction occurred inside Evelyn's body. Her entire body froze solid. Her breath caught in her throat. Underneath the skin of her wrist, her blood vessels tightened instantly, and her internal heartbeat spiked violently, hammering like an alarm under sheer panic. Shin did not flinch. He did not pull his hand away, nor did his expression change in the slightest. Instead, that sudden shockwave of physical stress directly activated his passive ability— Anatomical Scan.

Without any sound, glow, or visible magic, Shin's view of the world instantly shifted. The physical surfaces of the room faded in his mind, replaced by a clear, layered map of the woman standing before him. In less than a heartbeat, her internal structure was laid bare to his sight. Her mana pathways glowed in his mind like bright, clean lines running through her arms, legs, and torso.

They were wide, exceptionally tough, and perfectly controlled—the internal pathways of an experienced combatant who had undergone years of harsh physical conditioning. Shin followed the scan upward along her spine. Then, his scan reached the base of her skull. There, nestled deep in the flesh between the top bone of her neck and the lower brain, sat a pitch-black, needle-thin foreign object. It was a dormant, dark-elemental tracking seal.

The seal was made of tiny threads of compressed shadow energy, thinner than a strand of hair, wrapped tightly around her main nerve cluster like a sleeping insect. It rested directly against her brainstem, completely invisible to ordinary magical senses, giving off a faint, hidden vibration linked to a distant spatial point. Shin recognized the design at once. It was a master-slave tracking brand used by underground assassination groups.

It allowed an outside handler to know where the agent was at all times, and, if the handler chose, the shadow energy could be triggered from afar to destroy the brainstem instantly. Inside his mind, Rudra felt a cold chill run through his thoughts. Iske dimaag me ek jeeta-jaagta bomb laga rakha hai. Ye yahan padhane nahi aayi. (A living bomb is planted inside her brain. She did not come here to teach.) Evelyn was an undercover operative on a hidden leash, walking through the academy with an invisible execution blade already resting against the back of her head. The entire diagnostic scan took less than a fraction of a second. Evelyn quickly pulled her hand away, stepping back half a step. The sudden tension in her eyes disappeared behind her gentle, polite smile so fast that an ordinary person would never have noticed anything was wrong.

She gave a small, nervous laugh, lightly rubbing her fingers against the cloth of her blue sleeve.

"Excuse me, Sensei Shin," Evelyn said, her voice completely calm, smooth, and friendly.

"My fingers are quite cold today. I should have warmed them over the burner before reaching for the shelf." Shin looked directly into her dark amber eyes. His face remained calm and relaxed, showing nothing at all.

"It is fine," Shin answered in his usual flat tone. He reached forward, lifted the heavy iron bin of wood chips from the rack, and held it out to her.

"The lower wing stays cold all year long. If your hands are stiff, make sure to use tongs when moving hot pots. Dropping a full batch wastes half a day of work." Evelyn took the bin with both hands, her grip now completely steady and controlled.

"I will be careful. Thank you, Sensei Shin." She turned around and carried the container back to her table, setting it down gently before using a flint to light her small heating burner. Shin stood by the supply rack for a few seconds. He looked down at the back of his hand where her fingers had touched his skin, then walked back to his desk. He sat down on his stool, picked up the quill, and dipped the tip into the black ink. CLANG.

From far above, the midday academy bell began to ring, its distant chime passing through the heavy stone ceiling. The royal palace was in turmoil, the second prince was lying comatose from a deadly condition, and the quiet instructor sharing his workbench was carrying a lethal shadow seal inside her head. Shin pulled the next student paper from the pile, his expression unchanged as the ink touched the page. His quiet days in the laboratory were coming to an end.