After the dinner ended in endless arguing between Lucas and Tryo because both kept blaming each other for having to go into that terrifying nurse's room, the group finally dispersed.
Alvin went back to the dormitory first because he felt quite tired, Lucas dragged himself back to the dorm still looking haunted, and Tryo, while walking, saw a UFO appear out of nowhere and take him away.
...huh? UFO? I must have seen wrong.
Unlike other people my age who treat the evening as time to play around or sleep early, I still had a list of things to do that I had not had the chance to carry out.
Holding the bottle containing the bacteria from the Pityful Roses in my hand, I started thinking about a few things before making the bacteria card.
I already had some knowledge about a few future cards from the "game," but bacteria-type cards were extremely rare and most of them were given rather than made by hand.
So I decided to stop by the teachers' office to look for teacher Rook before going back to my room.
The hallway in the teachers' area was completely empty at this hour, with only a few rooms still showing dim light. I knocked on the door of Rook's office and heard the familiar curt "Come in."
"Hello, teacher," I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Rook was sitting behind a desk piled high with papers, holding a red pen and circling something on a stack of tests.
"It's already 6 in the evening, what are you still wandering around here for?" Rook did not look up, his voice as even as always.
"I have something I want to ask you."
"Speak." He kept grading.
"I want to make a card related to bacteria."
This time Rook actually stopped his pen, looked up at me with a slightly surprised expression, then quickly returned to his usual calm face.
"Bacteria? It's rare to see a student your age interested in that. Most of them only want to make dragons or warriors to look cool."
"Well, now you've seen one~" I shrugged.
Rook put the pen down and turned his chair to face me completely. "Alright, bacteria is a rather interesting direction but also difficult to play. Do you know what materials are needed yet?"
"That's why I'm here." I grinned.
Rook sighed but still stood up, went to the bookshelf behind him, took out an old notebook, flipped a few pages, and handed it to me.
"Basically, to create a bacteria-type card, you need three main things: a living bacteria sample, a type of magical binding agent to stabilize the cell structure when converting it into card energy, and finally card paper that has been treated with antibacterial properties. If not treated properly, the bacteria can corrode the card itself before you finish it." Rook handed me the notebook and returned to his desk.
"It can even eat the card?" I raised an eyebrow as I took it.
"Do you know why bacteria-type cards are rare? Most people fail at the final step. The bacteria eats the entire magical paper before it can be sealed." Rook said.
"So when it's finished, should I make it into what kind of card? Monster, spell, or something else?"
Rook thought for a moment, then answered in a tone as if he were actually teaching a class.
"If it were me, I would advise you to make a trap, or if you want more flexibility then make a Special. But personally I lean toward trap."
"Why is that?"
"Because the nature of bacteria is that it does not distinguish between friend or foe." Rook tapped his finger on the desk, emphasizing each word. "Once released, it spreads exactly like a disease spreads - no targeting, no loyalty to the one who summoned it. If you make it a normal monster card, you will have to constantly calculate so that it does not turn around and bite you in the middle of a match. But if you make it a trap, you only need to activate it at the necessary moment, everything happens in one controllable instant, then you can retract it before it spreads beyond your intention."
"What about Special?"
"Special has more varied uses, true, but it is also literally a double-edged sword. Bacteria is too dangerous to casually customize. You will have to limit many activation conditions so that it does not backfire, and doing that narrows its actual range of use almost to the same level as a normal trap. In other words, you spend the effort making a Special card but in the end still have to restrict it like a trap, so you might as well make a trap from the start to save the trouble."
'Whoa, that's the first time I've heard about the uses of Special cards. Looks like I need to learn more knowledge.'
I nodded, quietly memorizing that advice. It made sense. Bacteria is already a double-edged sword in nature, so there's no reason magic would be any different.
"Thank you very much, teacher. Then I'll make a trap."
"Mm." Rook nodded, then prepared to turn back to his desk.
I glanced at the notebook with the materials list in my hand, then glanced at the credit points on my student card, and a sly idea popped into my head.
"Teacher," I put on the sweetest smile I could.
"What." Rook glanced at me with suspicious eyes, as if he had already guessed what I was about to say.
"Do you happen to... have some of these materials ready in the room? Like, a shortcut? I heard teachers often have their own private stock."
"Are you trying to take advantage of me, Snowy?"
"Not at all. I'm just... optimizing the learning process." I pretended to be innocent.
It was true that teacher Rook sometimes sold a few items secretly to students. Most of them were quite cheap depending on the student's year, but there was a time limit on sales and the selling times were random.
Rook stared at me for a few seconds with a look cold enough to make any other student back off. But I was already used to being stared at like that from my days as an office worker when the boss glared because a report was late, so I just stood there and smiled awkwardly.
Finally he sighed, stood up, went to a locked cabinet in the corner of the room, and pulled out a few small bottles containing different liquids and powders.
"Here, use only what's enough. Don't ask for more."
"Cool! Thank you, teacher!" I cheered, ran over to take the items and paid the credits.
"Don't go around bragging about this, or I'll have to do the same for the whole school."
"I'll keep the secret, don't worry." I smiled, hugging the materials to my chest. "Thank you so much."
"Mm, go back to your room. Don't stay up too late." Rook waved me out and was already focusing on the pile of papers again.
I left the office and returned to the dormitory, walking through the dark hallway with a much more excited mood. Felia, who had been lying quietly inside my clothes since dinner, finally poked her head out, floated around, then lay down on the bed. Elara, when summoned, glanced at me.
"Don't worry, there's work to do tonight." I told her, even though I knew she didn't understand much beyond general emotions.
I put all the materials on the desk and checked them one more time.
I rolled up my sleeves, feeling as if I was about to step into a surgery instead of doing a handicraft assignment for a ten-year-old child.
Alright, let's begin.
The first step was to separate a small bacteria sample from the bottle and put it into a small glass dish that Rook had given along with everything. My hands trembled slightly when I held the dropper, not from fear, but because I knew that if I was even a little off, the entire batch of bacteria could die or, worse, mutate into something uncontrollable.
On the first try, I dropped too much binding solution at once. The glass dish made a soft sizzling sound, a faint purple smoke rose up, accompanied by a terrible stench that spread throughout the room.
"Ugh - what the hell is this!!" I hurriedly opened the window and waved the smoke outside, my face wrinkled from the smell.
WUUU!!
Elara crawled out the window to breathe, while Felia still stood motionless without caring.
"As expected, it's really tiring." I muttered, dumped the failed batch, washed the glass dish clean, and started over.
The second time I was more careful, dropping each drop slowly. But this time I miscalculated the ratio between the bacteria and the binding agent. The mixture in the dish started to boil lightly, then hardened into a weird greenish lump that was completely useless for converting into a card.
"...Ok, straight into the trash immediately." I threw it away, afraid it might have some unforeseen side effect.
By the third time I started to feel a bit discouraged. The clock on the desk already showed past 10 at night, and I still had not gotten any closer to finishing the card.
In my previous life, turning in a late report was easier than this, I complained silently while rubbing my temples.
But right then I remembered a basic principle I had learned when I was still in school at age 15. Bacteria is not something that can be forced. They need a stable environment to develop naturally, not to be stuffed in hastily.
I took a deep breath, pushed away the impatience, and started the fourth time with a completely different mindset - slowly, patiently, letting every reaction happen according to its own rhythm instead of forcing it to go fast.
This time everything went much more smoothly. The bacteria blended with the binding agent into a pale gray viscous solution that emitted a faint light - a sign that it was starting to interact with the biological material.
"Alright, we're here." I whispered, carefully pouring the mixture onto the antibacterial-treated card paper that Rook had given me.
The paper absorbed the solution gradually. The magical patterns on the surface began to light up, forming complex designs like a network of dividing cells. I concentrated fully, sending a small stream of mana into the paper to stabilize the conversion process, exactly as Rook had instructed in the notebook.
The process lasted nearly half an hour. I barely dared to breathe hard, afraid that even a small mistake would ruin all the effort.
Finally the light on the paper gradually settled, leaving a completed card lying neatly on the desk. The image showed swirling gray-blue bacteria dots that looked both strange and somewhat beautiful in a pathological way.
"Toxic Bacteria" - I read the name of the card that had just appeared, unable to hold back a relieved smile.
The clock now showed 11 at night. I leaned back in the chair and exhaled, feeling as if I had just finished a major project after many hours of overtime.
"Finally done." I muttered, picking up the card to carefully read the detailed effect written below.
But before I could finish the first line, a familiar sensation suddenly spread throughout my body.
Cold.
It was not the normal cold I always radiated every day. This was a piercing cold coming from deep inside, as if something was being drawn out of my own body.
The chain around my neck, which always kept my cold ability under control, suddenly glowed lightly. The blue water gem trembled as if trying to react to something abnormal.
"Oh-" I had not finished the sentence when the "Toxic Bacteria" card in my hand suddenly shone fiercely.
I clearly felt the mana being sucked straight from my body, flowing into the card like water being pulled into a small black hole.
Damn?! Again??
I gripped the card tightly, trying to stay calm even though my heart was beating faster than usual.
But the feeling of mana being drained was clearly less than the previous time, as if it was only scratching an itch.
"?" I blinked, looking at myself then at the still-glowing card.
In about ten seconds the light gradually settled. My body returned to normal, without any feeling of exhaustion like when I created Ice Evolution I the other day.
In my hand, the "Toxic Bacteria" card had disappeared. In its place was a completely new card. The image showed sharp ice crystals interwoven with swirling bacteria dots - a strange combination that was somehow harmonious to a frightening degree.
Frostbite Bacteria
Card type: Trap
Effect: When the trap is activated, it immediately spreads bacteria everywhere. Monsters infected with the bacteria receive the Frostbite status, causing their speed and HP to continuously decrease. No effect on Ice type monsters.
"...Did I just upgrade it further?" I, Felia, and Elara looked at each other then back at the card.
***
"Uoh~ kimochi~" said a person in a pink cloak.
"Die, you ant, die, the ones around me, die, myself, die, the bastards who torment me," the one in the purple cloak kept cursing.
"Oh my, as expected of the reputation, the academy is really big and beautiful! Eheheh... Big... Ehehe... Beautiful... Get it?" the one in the blue cloak looked around and spoke like a lunatic.
"Hmm, can I eat this?" the one in the yellow cloak rubbed his stomach and pointed at the bone the dog was chewing.
"Blegh, bluagh bleuch blach blegh," the one in the white cloak spoke in the language of the gods.
Bull covered his face, unable to look at the members of his own cult.
The whole group had successfully infiltrated without anyone getting hurt. He did not know if it was luck or because that magic circle was disgusted by these people.
This was the reason he only associated with Kitty, one pervert, because compared to the rest they were worlds apart.
These bastards were like they had just walked out of a mental hospital!!
In order: Kitty, Wolf, Monkey, Pig, Dog.
Ah, and one more person, the leader of the group. That one was coming along too.
"I WILL MAKE MY CULT GREAT AGAIN!!!" The leader stood on the table, raising a hand sign very similar to a certain painter in a concerning way, wearing a pure black cloak.
Hopeless. Looking at this whole bunch, they were surely dead.
The group had snuck into the old dormitory, so Principal Mirlen would not know.
"Dog, smell again, is it the smell of children?" Monkey asked.
"BLAGH, ACK TOOH, BLITCH!"
"Ah, I see."
"What the hell did it say?" Bull asked with a face that could not believe it.
"It said PLEASE RATE THIS NOVEL 5 STARS!!! Yeahh, did I just break the fourth wall? Surprise right? What? You said the 4th wall break is the most common now?! You must be kidding!!" Monkey pointed somewhere and waved while talking to himself.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Bull felt a headache.
Why was he the only normal person here?
"NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN!" The leader slammed the table, making everyone look at him.
"We found the Alchemist summon, but damn it some kid burned the whole thing! Now the only effective way is to get information from that kid's memory. This is the last hope. Can you do it, Monkey?!"
"This is for my lover, especially Red Valtrax and some dude name JustRey. Am I right author?" Monkey said something again.
"Alright, Kitty, your mission is to lure that kid here. Scent or sexy body, whatever works!"
"Okay babe~"
"Wolf and Dog, you two stand guard."
"Die, you bastard leader..."
"Blugh."
"Pig!"
"Understood!"
"Get lost, just looking at you makes me hate you." The leader pointed straight at Pig, making Pig hurt and cry while still eating.
"Bull!"
"What?"
"Said the thing!"
"...ughhhh, all hail Flamel."
"YES YES! FOR THE GREAT LEADER OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE CULT! ALL HAIL FLAMEL! SAY IT WITH ME!"
"ALL HAIL FLAMEL!!"
Bull, with a blank face, began thinking about retiring and no longer wanting to stay in this fanatical cult.