章 6: Researcher-in-Training [2]
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I was currently walking side by side with Nakajima—originally we had planned to go the site through teleportation but I had insisted on going by foot. I had numerous reasons, firstly I wanted to have an opportunity to get a good view of the scenery—furthermore, the site was only an hour away by foot from Grigori's headquarters. Now that I am receiving proper nutrition, and healing from Azazel the condition of my body has improved exceedingly.
Unfortunately—I had yet to undertake any form of physical training as I have been too absorbed in reading in on Sacred Gears, maybe I'll ask if I can join Valia in her training sessions, I see her going towards the gym almost every day, I normally catch her on the way to the library—it seems were both early risers.
Normally I just get one word responses—or get flat out ignored by her, but at least my presence itself no longer seems to irritate her, progress is progress I guess.
On the way I just made some idle chat with Nakajima to kill time, asking about hobbies and what not—which was quite pointless, since every answer I got was related to research and work, does this guy have no social life? Will I end up like that if I become a researcher?
For the first few minutes I stepped out of the Grigori Institute I had trouble adjusting to the atmosphere—it seems this place isn't all that well suited to humans, luckily Nakajima seemed to have some form a pill on him that made it easier to breathe, I have no idea how it works—but I'm definitely questioning him about these later on.
The purple-sky made my surroundings seem almost dream like, the igneous rock as far as the eye could see, the endless stretches of magma and hallucinogenic clouds were truly a sight to behold—the Underworld is oddly beautiful considering it's name.
---
We finally arrived at the sight, and the view was awe inspiring. A seemingly endless field of red grass-like vegetation swaying amongst the surface—and strangely the smell was extremely pleasing, almost as if it was lavender.
Nakajima smiled at me—he seemed to like my reaction. "Well there's no use just standing there—come on, let's go have a closer look" his words snapped me out of my trance-like state and we progressed closer.
Once we got nearer the sight only stunned me even more—the body of the Fire Kelp was red but it had streaks of orange with varying patterns all over it, the design truly gave it personality—but that's not the only thing that interested me, I could have sworn I saw little dots moving across it's surface.
"You can take a closer look—but do not touch them, at all costs" he warned. I nodded and brought my face closer to the kelp. There seemed to be odd critters skittering all over the vegetation.
There were ants!
Or at least that's what they looked like—upon closer inspection their bodies were purple in color, and as they moved across the kelp they left bright crimson dots, that seemed to be dust-like particles behind them—after a few seconds the particles seemed to assimilate into the kelp.
"Believe it or not—that's actually a form of pollination" his words left me flabbergasted, pollination? As in like the interaction between bees and flowers?
"What do you mean pollination? I thought these were kelp not flowers" he wagged his fingers at me with a smug expression—it kinda pissed me off to be honest.
"Remember what I said, we only labelled them as kelp because they looked like them, but in reality they are both similar and not similar to flowers—you see, they can be pollinated, but it is not necessary for their survival" I just started at him blanky, I had no idea what he was going on about.
He pointed to a cluster of Fire Kelp near him. "Take this group of kelp for example, as you can see some of them have more orange patches than the other, this is because they have received a different amount of pollination from the 'Magmatis Formicidae' or Magma Ants for short"
"That's interesting and all—but I still don't get what you mean by them being both similar and not similar to flowers at the same time?"
"You may or may not know this but flowers require pollination in order to ensure successful fertilization, and thus an increase in the species population—furthermore it ensures the 'fruit' is healthy, obviously not all flowers contain fruit, however for Fire Kelp, only one part of that process applies—they can reproduce completely independently, they are 100% asexual—pollination isn't necessary, although they require pollination to ensure the 'fruit' is nice and ripe"
"I see—but I still have more questions, what exactly do you mean by 'fruit' do they produce some sort of product or what?"
"They don't produce the product, they are the product—each of these Kelp have a distinct energy inside them, almost like natural gas, other than trying to make it into an enhancement drug, we also believe it can be used as a biofuel"
"Biofuel? What exactly is it powering?" I had no clue what he was trying to get at, I didn't know how machinery and electrical engineering, if you can even call it that, works in the supernatural world.
For some reason he was looking at me as if I was an idiot—this man has a talent for ticking people off without saying anything. "Do you think the facilities at Grigori just power themselves?"
Fuck—the way he said it was extremally annoying and condescending, but he was right—how did I not think of such an obvious answer? He continued his explanation.
"That brings us back to the topic of pollination—these kelp can sustain themselves and reproduce without the help of Magma Ants, but in such a state they are simply a container, it's the pollination from the ants that actually gives them energy, and before you ask—we've already tried, the only suitable container for the particles produced by Magma Ants are Fire Kelp"
"To think it had such a use...but why not just bring the Kelp with you alongside the Magma Ants and set up a farm—surely that's more efficient that coming here to collect it individually"
"Remember when we said we were having trouble collecting samples? That's where you come in, or at least where me and Azazel believe you do"
He grabbed a piece of Fire Kelp by the root which shocked me to the bone—didn't he warn me to not touch it by all means? And the reaction only astonished me even more—the minute the Kelp lost contact with the soil it began to wither eventually crumbling into fine grains of dust, and slipping through the creases in his fingers.
I was about to ask for an explanation—when he suddenly jolted back, his face scrunched up in pain, his palm was beginning to redden, I was instantly felt with dread, what was happening to him!? Right before I was about to rush to him he signaled for me to stop, I was hesitant considering he was clearly in pain.
He pulled out a vial from his lab-coat breast pocket that contained a green substance within it, he popped open the lid and poured the fluid all over his palm—I noticed the redness die down significantly, and his expression eased up quite a bit.
"Ahahahah...it seems there was still a Magma Ant on the kelp, not to worry, quite a few of our researchers had gotten stung on accident, these Ants do carry venom but it's really quite harmless to humans...or humanoid beings—we believe they mainly have it to fend off pests that may want to eat the kelp"
I had a gut feeling that his remark about other researchers committing the same error was a blatant lie—and he was just trying to cover up his mistake. This guy clearly has profound theoretical knowledge, but is severely lacking in the practical department.
"Now then—back to why we need you, I know that it may seem like a stretch but we think the [Flame Shake] inside you may have the ability to serve as a substitute for the soil, thus preventing the kelp from withering"
"In that case—why didn't you try harvesting some of the soil itself and taking the seeds they produce to create your own farm?"
"There's two problems with that—first of all, harvesting the soil may end up disturbing the Magma Ant colonies underneath the ground which we definitely want to avoid, secondly the seeds have the same reaction as mature kelp to being pulled from the soil"
Damn—I was hoping to try catch him off guard and prove my intellect, I suppose that was a stupid idea considering this guy is an experienced researcher and all I've done is read three books on logs written by other researchers, I decided to humor his theory and kneeled down getting close to the kelp.
Before I continued my curiosity surfaced once more. "Wait—have you tried this with other people who have innate forms of fire?"
He didn't seem to mind my question and happily responded. "Yes, we tried it with Riser Phenex, one of the Phenex clan members—unfortunately the result was fruitless, the kelp ended up withering anyways"
How odd—Riser co-operating with members of Grigori? I expected him to be the type of person to look down on them, although I suppose Azazel must have given him a good incentive to do such a thing. From a more positive perspective however, a world where Vali can be a girl may also be a world with a decent Riser, who knows.
I channeled my hand with my flames—and pulled a piece of kelp out from the soil, I did a quick check before-hand to make sure there weren't any Magma Ants on it.
Nakajima's expression was that of delight.
The kelp had not withered!
"Haha! Marvelous! We can finally analyze it properly" Truthfully I was ecstatic as well, granted I hadn't really done much but it still felt like I had made a major breakthrough—I wonder how I would feel if I actually did such a thing?
Though the joy didn't last for long—both mine and Nakajima's expression became worried—I wasn't careful enough! There was a Magma Ant on my hand, Nakajima quickly pulled out another vial with the remedy and rushed over to me.
However, once he approached me he stopped in his tracks and took no action—the Magma Ant...wasn't doing anything? It was just walking over my hand as if nothing happened, I was perplexed, didn't it sting Nakajima the minute it made contact with his hand?
"I think it sees you as part of the soil—it's actually not that unusual considering how your flame seems to have suitable properties to maintain the condition of Fire Kelp". The thought was interesting at first, but also scary at the same time, I hope it wouldn't try burrow into my skin and try to build a colony or something...
But it didn't end there, the Magma Ant laid deep-crimson dots all over my hand, originally I also thought it believed I was part of the soil—but now it seemed to view me as a piece of Fire Kelp, or is it possible it views me as both?
The surprises just seemed to keep on coming—the dust particles assimilated into my skin! I saw Nakajima quickly place his hand on his first-aid kit, even I was worried that something dangerous might happen, like an allergic reaction or something.
Though my worries turned out to be for naught—on the contrary, I felt a very familiar feeling, and a smile crept up my face, Nakajima seemed to be wondering what had happened, but he removed his hand from his first-aid kit, my expression clearly told him it was a good thing.
I rose my index finger up and lit a candle-like flame upon it—it was now fifteen centimeters in length.
"It grew stronger" I stated.
Nakajima's eyes widened immediately. "Are you serious!? Hold on, I need to record this down, this is crucial information for the log" he frantically whipped out his notepad and began writing down notes like a mad-man.
I pointed to the soil and looked at Nakajima with a peculiar expression as if I wanted him to confirm something—he stopped writing and looked me with dead-serious eyes.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
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