Chapter 3088 - 101: Speculation

Chapter 3088: Chapter 101: Speculation

Cat personalities are inherently suspicious.

From another perspective, you could say they are ’cautious’.

In any case, whether suspicious or cautious, considering things from a perspective of looking for trouble, after finishing today’s ’shift’, Shadow Cat hesitated for a long time and ultimately decided to visit the Institute of Applied Magic to find Su Shijun.

Although the Two-dimensional Evolution Laboratory is under the management of Edge Academy, the location of the lab hasn’t changed.

The parrot at the front desk is dozing on a branch.

Shadow Cat passed by silently, not disturbing their sleep.

Having not come for a long time, the laboratory seems to have expanded a lot, with rows of large light balls it once knew well lined up neatly, creating a sense of an endless horizon.

Su Shijun’s office has also been moved into a Wizard Tower, located at the center of the entire laboratory.

Standing at the top of the tower in the large glass-surrounded office, overlooking the ’Light Ball Field’ below that resembles farmland, Shadow Cat had a strong impulse to jump down and play with them.

"—Oh, a rare guest!"

A red robe suddenly appeared beside the Black Cat, Su Shijun pushed the red-framed glasses on his face and looked with interest at the big cat in front of him: "Just now Little Yan told me a big cat came to the lab, I thought it was that heartless guy remembering his hardworking wife, coming to deliver a loving dinner... didn’t expect it to be you!"

"I heard you’re getting married, when’s the wedding?" Shadow Cat rudely teased.

Su Shijun snorted, kicked off the high heels on his feet with two snaps.

The big cat instinctively lunged forward a little.

Then forcibly restrained itself in mid-air, glaring angrily, looking at the witch.

The witch stifled her laughter, pretended not to see, but hugged her arms, and looked down in the direction the Black Cat had just been inspecting: "—It’s your first time back since you left, right? How do you feel?"

"I don’t feel anything." Shadow Cat stubbornly retorted, forcibly complaining: "There are no pretty female cats, no delicious spirit fruits or spirit meat... who would miss this broken place!"

"Just like your real self, not a good cat."

The lab owner kicked Shadow Cat again and said grumpily: "Tell me, why are you here? Don’t tell me you miss the living in the large light balls."

Shadow Cat rolled on the ground, crawled up covered in dust.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t angry.

Rather, it hesitated a bit over how to explain its slightly absurd idea.

It glanced at the endless Light Ball Field below.

"—The lab is bigger now, huh?"

Shadow Cat pondered, looking around: "Did you expand the original lab into a small world... or directly move the lab into a small world?"

Su Shijun looked at it strangely, still not understanding what it wanted to ask.

"Half and half, I guess."

She finally decided to follow along with Shadow Cat’s words: "This place isn’t an independent small world. It’s considered a half-plane attached to Buji Island... after all, this lab’s security classification is very high, putting it in an independent small world would make it hard to ensure safety. So during the expansion, it was based on the original lab, a little bit at a time."

"Hmm."

Shadow Cat, with its tail down, hummed absent-mindedly, pacing back and forth in front of that glass wall: "—I remember when Zheng Zha graduated, you were his thesis advisor, and his thesis was on the Christian-Moonlight conjecture, using the case of me transcending from the Two-dimensional World?"

It raised its paw, pointing at the large light balls below.

Su Shijun became even more curious: "—What, after so long, you’re here to ask for copyright fees? Or do you want your name added to the thesis too?"

"I’m not navigating an academic career, why would I need that thing?"

Shadow Cat twitched its ears, smacked its lips: "What I mean is, after your thesis was published, could other labs in the Alliance also replicate the experiments based on your thesis?"

"It’s Zheng Qing’s thesis."

Su Shijun first corrected a small slip of the cat’s tongue, then after a few seconds of silence, she slowly confirmed: "First, that thesis only involves parts of the process and conclusion, and doesn’t include the specific plan for building the Two-dimensional Evolution Laboratory; secondly, the lab where you transcended was already destroyed by you. This lab is the third reconstruction... before you, Dr. Chen had already destroyed the lab once. Lastly, can I interpret that you found other Two-dimensional Evolution Laboratories in the Alliance?"

"No, no, really, no."

Shadow Cat shook its head like a rattle drum: "This lab involves dimensional fluctuations. If I really found one, I’d have already brought people from the relevant department to storm in..."

"I guessed not." Su Shijun quietly sighed with a little relief.

Yet Shadow Cat’s next sentence stuck her breath again.

"—But," the big cat tilted its head, its tone a bit hesitant, words very vague: "Is it possible that the school, based on your thesis, in collaboration with other ’big figures’... is conducting experiments in three-dimensional evolution?"

It bit down heavily on the words ’big figures’.

Su Shijun knew, ever since Zheng Qing achieved legendary status, Shadow Cat no longer held much respect for those at the legendary level. So when it mentioned ’big figures,’ it could only mean existences above legendary ranks.

There are only seven of such existences in total.

Any one of them could easily suppress it back to being a mere shadow.

No wonder it spoke so roundabout today, behaving with such caution.

However.

Ancient Ones have started meddling in dimensional evolution experiments? And on top of that, taken a step forward from two-dimensional evolution to conduct three-dimensional evolution experiments? Achieving some success?

Su Shijun wore a serious expression, neither attempting to calculate nor to block the conversations in this lab—if it indeed involved the Ancient Ones, attempting calculations was akin to courting death by arsenic, and if the Ancient Ones were really watching this tiny lab, the strength of the magic circle here was nowhere near enough to block their prying eyes.

After a long pause, she shook her head.

"I don’t know."

Dealing with the Ancient Ones, even this usually proud witch involuntarily lowered her voice: "But since this lab was established, there haven’t been any cases of the responsible people or senior researchers being transferred or resigning... I don’t think just a thesis, without experienced researchers familiar with the process, could possibly establish a lab of similar specifications out of thin air... Many experimental contents even if you follow the timeline step by step, you can’t fully grasp the magical details within, otherwise, the world would have achieved ’magical unity’ long ago... let alone going further on this basis. But you, why do you have such a guess? Weren’t you working as a doorman at the First Gate in the past few days?"