"Would you like to embark with me—on a journey to save the world?" The beautiful and confident girl extended her hand to Mei.
Whenever she recalled the first time she met Dr. Newton and received that invitation, Mei could only plant her hands on her hips, press a hand to her forehead, and let out a deep sigh. Back then, Dr. Newton had not been like this at all. She had been so serious and solemn, radiant and composed.
The laboratory had also looked impeccable, brimming with the high-tech atmosphere of a top-tier research facility. Everything had been organized in perfect order.
Ever since Mei had been chosen by Dr. Newton and become her laboratory assistant, everything had changed. Her arrival had been like opening Pandora's box. If outsiders ever found out that the much-admired Newton Laboratory looked like this chaotic mess, they would be utterly dumbfounded.
The so-called scientific knight of MOTH, the academic trendsetter, the guiding star of humanity's spacefaring era—was, in private, such an unrestrained woman.
"Woohoo, I'm flying! This is so fun!"
No one knew what Dr. Newton was scribbling inside a book. It appeared to be a Homu comic with a playable chapter.
Homu comics often featured various maze-like stages, somewhat similar to The Tiger Team adventure series. Sometimes they even came with holographic collectible cards. These cards were not just for collection—they could also assist in solving puzzles.
With such creative design, the Homu comic series stood out even in an era dominated by digital comics.
Some Homu comics and their accompanying cards had become highly collectible, even being bid up to astronomical prices online.
But Mei did not care about Homu comics at all.
She lowered her head slightly to look at Dr. Newton and gently gestured toward the desk. "Ahem, Mentor Newton, could you please tidy up the laboratory? I'm about to start working."
"Ah, oh, alright, alright." Newton got up reluctantly.
"Mmm~ Time to begin a new adventure~" Stretching languidly, Newton picked up the cleaning tools and began to tidy up.
After all, the state of the laboratory absolutely could not be discovered by outsiders. It was better for her to organize it herself before the cleaning robots came on their scheduled rounds.
Meanwhile, Mei sat down in the minister's chair of the Newton Laboratory and began approving various experimental proposals and preparing the procedures for the Engineering Department meetings.
Their positions seemed completely reversed. It almost looked as though Mei were the head of the Engineering Department, while Dr. Newton was merely the assistant.
Mei felt helpless about this as well. She had originally come to study under Dr. Newton. Who would have thought that on the very day she joined the laboratory, Dr. Newton would directly "come clean" with her?
Newton tapped her head and stuck out her tongue, looking adorable. "Dr. Mei, I'll just say it straight—I don't know anything. Ehehe."
"I'm not a doctor! And what do you mean by 'Ehehe' anyway?!"
Dr. Newton's cuteness had nearly made Mei faint on the spot. So the Newton Laboratory, which everyone in MOTH fought desperately to get into, was just a high-end self-study room.
Because of this, Mei had seen up close the true face hidden beneath the goddess of science. In the realm of research, Newton was more like a halfway-trained amateur. Her theoretical foundation in science... was actually inferior to Mei's, a high school student who had not yet graduated.
Just as Mei had been wondering where all of Newton's past brilliant research achievements had come from—
"Certainly not from falling off an apple tree..."
Dr. Newton had very casually pushed the crystallization of human wisdom in front of Mei.
Technologies and theories that scientists had once never imagined were thoroughly analyzed in those materials. Even their application scenarios, unsuitable conditions, and potential side effects were clearly listed.
It was as if scientists had just discovered a new mountain and, like climbers, were preparing to ascend from the foot. Meanwhile, Newton's documents already contained cross-sectional diagrams of the mountain from every angle, fully labeled with its composition. Elevators and cableways had even been installed from top to bottom—waiting for others to step in.
And that was not all. Many of the arguments even overturned previous understandings. It was like transforming the notion of "objects fall downward" into the concept of "universal gravitation"—turning an abstract observation into a systematically described scientific framework. That was a true leap for humanity.
And the knowledge capable of instantly propelling human civilization into the interstellar age lay dormant in the pile of storage drives before her, casually stacked into a small mound like scrap in a recycling yard.
With current storage technology, a single nano storage disk would have been more than enough to hold all this information. However, for classification purposes, Vill-V had separated them into individual drives, thoughtfully adding labels and detailed manuals for Newton's convenience.
After all, no one could expect Newton to classify them herself. She could not even understand a table of contents.
Mei picked up one of the storage cards and flicked it lightly as she questioned Dr. Newton, "So, aren't you going to tell me where all these materials came from, Mentor Newton?"
"Ehehe!" Dr. Newton continued to play dumb. As long as she kept pretending, no one could do anything about her.
Although Dr. Newton could keep acting clueless, now that she had become the head of the Engineering Department, the work she had to handle could no longer be resolved simply by publishing a few papers...
Thus, Mei became the new master of the Newton Laboratory.
And as the head of the Engineering Department—and Mei's nominal mentor—Dr. Newton began her journey of learning from her own student.
When it came to the pursuit of knowledge, Dr. Newton truly possessed the spirit of a "scientific knight," constantly pestering Mei with questions.
From childhood, Newton had been like a sheltered young lady unfamiliar with the ways of the world, a curious child brimming with questions. She would often ask things that others regarded as mere common sense.
That was precisely why she had driven Expert Vill-V to the point of wanting to tie her up.
During her time undercover within MOTH, Dr. Newton had remained in a state of wanting to ask questions but not daring to. It had nearly suffocated her.
Fortunately, Mei did not disappoint her. As one of the top minds of this era, Mei quickly grasped Vill-V's annotations in those materials. [Lecturer Vill-V's notes were, after all, quite easy for professionals to understand.]
The reports Mei wrote far exceeded Newton's expectations. At the very least, they were enough to convincingly "educate" the professionals in the Engineering Department.
Only someone like Newton—a doctoral student in the humanities—could take those annotations and translate them into something resembling Martian, leaving other professionals bewildered and utterly lost. It was only through sheer overwhelming presence that she managed to make others believe her.
And because of this, Mei not only had to complete her own work, but also Dr. Newton's work—and still carve out time for self-study.
In the end, with the endless overtime she forced upon herself, Mei was driven alive into becoming Klein.