"Dear Father and Mother, by the time you read this message, I might have already been dragged onto the operating table as an experiment. Of course, you shouldn't be too sad, because as a family, you will most likely be brought in as experiments too. I believe we will reunite soon..."
Honestly, upon hearing the devastating "news" brought by Amy and confirming that the person was himself, Jeming's instinctive reaction was this.
After that, his life seemed to be seated on a guillotine, constantly waiting for that blade to fall.
After all, he had become that "mysterious apprentice who startled the academy"!
Jeming initially thought that the wizards of the academy would immediately seek him out, question him about the source of his materials, and interrogate him about his alchemical lineage.
Even more severely: they might directly discover the issue with his power system and capture him on the spot for research.
As for escaping, he could forget about it. Based on the past two months of study, Jeming had a good grasp of just how astonishing the battle power of this Norton Academy was.
As the supreme leader presiding over the Nolun13th Plane and surrounding dozens of small planes, the headmaster of Nolun Academy was a Seventh Level Wizard.
The mentors of various schools under his command were basically all starting at Fourth Level Wizards, and as for those Second Level Wizards taking short breaks within the school, their numbers were countless.
And he, Jeming, holder of the Great Dao Book Pavilion, had reached the Qi Refining Second Layer.
So after this incident, Jeming had completely given up on resisting and running away. He instead started organizing his thoughts and planned to confess everything the moment he was found out, seeking "protection."
"I just hope those who come to capture me will give me a chance to explain."
Various possibilities flashed through Jeming's mind, leaving him nervous and anxious, awaiting the impending trial.
However, half a month passed, and everything remained calm.
The workshop was still that dull and busy workshop, Professor Clark remained that expressionless mentor, Amy continued to chatter away with the latest gossip, and Victor kept meticulously calculating his tasks.
No wizard, not even a senior apprentice, showed any special attention towards him.
This left Jeming somewhat puzzled.
"Could it be... that inventing a special material occasionally isn't enough to get the academy's attention on me?" Jeming couldn't help but start convincing himself.
It's not entirely impossible.
After all, not only in his past life but even in the Wizard World, research in Material Science is like an unfathomable "abyss."
Apart from discovering those naturally formed peculiar materials on other planes, trying to purely rely on existing materials for recombination, purification, and synthesis to discover a new material with extremely special properties is unimaginably difficult.
In this endeavor, seventy percent relies on profound knowledge and theoretical foundation, thirty percent on persistent effort and repeated experiments... and the most crucial ninety percent, on destiny.
So, a Wizard Apprentice, relying on talent or pure luck, accidentally tinkering with an exceptionally impressive material... theoretically speaking, doesn't seem entirely impossible, right?
Jeming hypnotized himself with this thought, but he didn't relax his actions in the slightest.
The Inner Circulation System within him kept operating without pause, completely sealing his own aura, not letting a trace of Cultivator's fluctuation leak out.
To guard against the wizards possibly using Mental Control or Soul Penetration techniques, he even carefully used the remaining bit of Refined Gold to coat a barely visible protective film on the surface of his body with Alchemy.
Jeming knew these measures were merely a psychological comfort.
If the senior wizards of the academy truly suspected him and wanted to dig deeper, they had the means and power to penetrate all his disguises.
He was like a small boat before a storm, calm on the surface but with turbulent waves within, constantly ready to face the tempest that might descend at any moment.
Amidst his routine of anxiety and fear, the "storm" did not arrive, but an accident suddenly broke out.
...
...
On this afternoon's public class, Jeming was performing a basic exercise of grinding composite materials into standard shapes at the Alchemy Workshop.
To increase the difficulty, several apprentices used an old "Element Dust Separator" nearby — a device used to separate specific elemental particles from air or materials — to enchant the composite materials used for practice.
Suddenly, a piercing alarm sounded!
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Jeming's heart leaped. It was an equipment overload or malfunction warning!
Instinctively extending his Spiritual Power to the machine, he detected an instantaneous loss of control in a flow of Energy within the core Rune of the old separator, leading to an energy blockage and turbulence.
At the same time, a highly corrosive gray dust, accompanying the energy turbulence, was spreading like a tide all around!
"Be careful!" Jeming shouted almost instinctively, as his body reacted faster than his brain.
He quickly retreated, leaping agilely towards the nearest heavy support pillar like a leopard.
As he withdrew, he caught a glimpse of Amy standing not far from the separator, looking at the device in confusion, seemingly still not grasping the situation.
His right hand instinctively shot out like lightning, grabbing Amy's arm and pulling her backward with an irresistible force.
Amy let out a startled cry, her center of gravity destabilized as she was almost dragged behind the support pillar.
Immediately after, a visible gray mist spread with the separator as its center!
"Ah!!"
"My hand! It hurts!"
"What is this thing!"
The apprentices who didn't manage to fully retreat screamed in agony.
Although the range of the corrosive dust wasn't large, its impact was terrifying; the moment it touched the skin, it began eroding flesh, emitting green smoke with a sizzling sound!
Some apprentices were even hit by the chaotic energy turbulence while evading, their bodies convulsing as they fell to the ground.
For a moment, the scene was one of chaos and panic.
Jeming, hiding behind the pillar to avoid a wave of energy erosion, couldn't help but frown seeing the gray mist spreading towards the entire room.
The separator continued to sound alarms, and the energy fluctuations became increasingly violent.
The knowledge accumulated during this period quickly enlightened him on the core Rune structure of the device and the trajectory of the runaway energy flow.
He saw several critical energy congestion nodes and knew that without prompt action, they would soon face a complete explosion or a larger-scale leak from the equipment!
"Trouble!"