8 Researcher-in-Training [4]

https://discord.gg/ZrWk2jqjbV

After my heated encounter with Valia I made my way to Azazel's office and prepared to convince him to let me take some of the Magma Ants for myself—how exactly did I plain to accomplish this? Truthfully I had no idea, but I had to try, having an instant-growth method on me whenever I wanted was too good an opportunity to pass up.

I walked into the office and noticed something that filled me with anxiety—Azazel had a clear scowl on his face, and Nakajima was next to him with a 'I had no choice' expression. How could you betray me like this! Traitor!

"So...it seems someone had the bright idea of submerging themselves into a pool of Magma Ants—I wonder, how are you going to explain yourself?" His glare only grew colder as he stared directly at me, Nakajima began to make his way to the door—this bastard was trying to ditch me and leave me alone with Azazel!

I heard a clicking noise from the door—and watched on as Nakajima struggled to twist the doorknob, but it was to no avail.

"Where do you think you're going? You're the one who authorized it aren't you?" Haha, so much for trying to push me under the bus—you suffer alongside me!

Now then—how am I going to escape this situation with my life intact.

"In my defense my theory was correct and it ended up giving me a major boost in power, not to mention the fact that I am unharmed—and part of our deal was that I was to provide you with information about my Sacred Gear was it not?" In the end I went for the strongarm approach, the flattery response wouldn't work it here as it would just make me sound pathetic.

"Uh-huh, although I'm aware that Nakajima already told you that we aren't an organization that puts lives at risk in exchange for progress, or perhaps you struggle to comprehend that basic fact?" Sheesh, Azazel is seriously pissed, it's the first time I'm seeing him like this, no matter, I have to push on.

"Oh I understand that perfectly—the organization didn't put me at any risk, I did it myself, and I'll emphasize once again, I am unharmed—not to mention I had valid evidence that encouraged me to undergo this experiment" Azazel still seemed to disapprove.

"Oh pray tell—what was this 'evidence' of yours that made you think doing something like that was ok, the way I see it you truly didn't understand what I meant by a simple observational trip" he crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair—I was slightly pissed, he's treating me like a naïve brat that doesn't know what's good for him. And also it seems Nakajima didn't tell him about a specific detail, he really was trying to throw me under.

I get that my body isn't really helping my case—but mentally I still have the right to be offended.

"I tested out picking a piece of Fire Kelp whilst infusing it with the flames from [Flame Shake] and as you probably already know the test ended up being a success—the kelp did not wither, unfortunately a Magma Ant ended up on my hand"

Azazel was about to admonish me once again but I boldly cut him off.

"Let me finish—the Magma Ant did absolutely nothing, it just walked over my hand as if I wasn't there, and on top of that, it began to attempt to pollinate my hand, and the particles ended up being assimilating into my skin consequently improving my power, from my point of view I had every reason to believe my test would work—which it did"

"So what if it worked? Do you think you can just constantly take risks like this and be guaranteed safety? You were irresponsible and rash—and there's nothing you can do to refute that"

In my heart I knew Azazel was just worried about me—he saw me as his son after all, but I can't help but feel that he's being to authoritative with how he's handling this.

"Azazel, experimentation is a risk in of itself, the whole point of experimentation is to turn the unknown into the known—you can't possibly tell me that there aren't always risks involved in doing that. Furthermore, there's no way you can expect me to believe that all of Grigoris achievements were done without risks"

'Koen—that's the right mindset to have for a researcher, as much as I'd love for you to be one, this sort of mindset is dangerous if you develop it such a young age...' he thought. And he had a fair point—if one takes a passion that involves such danger like research and take it to an extreme at an early age, it's very likely it could transform into an obsession—and an unhealthy one.

As an adult such impulses are much easier to control as with maturity comes wisdom—but of course, Azazel had no idea that Koen had the mind of a thirty year old, and could only view him as a very smart child—but a child nonetheless.

He gripped his nose bridge and looked at me with a judgmental expression. 'Just what caused you to develop such a mentality at such an age...' he pondered.

"Fine, fine you win—but you wont be going on any more expeditions any time soon, though I'm a firm believer that results should never go unrewarded—so I'll offer you a condition, I'm going to assign you a task, and if you can complete it, I will allow you to go on expeditions once again and I will even personally take you on an expedition that I'm sure you'll be interested in, furthermore I'll fulfill any wish of your choosing granted it does not include the True Library"

His face tells me he isn't lying—though I can guess that he's probably going to try get me to do an impossible task in order to prevent me from going on any expeditions...I'm grateful that he cares about me so much—but his overprotectiveness is a tad bit annoying.

On the other hand—if I refuse I'll simply have no chance at getting back expedition privileges, I can't stand the thought of being locked in here all day long.

And if I do actually manage to complete his task—I'll be able to use the wish to get my Magma Ants, screw it, I'll take you on—old man.

"Very well, I accept" I have no idea what I'm getting myself into, but it's this or nothing—and I might be able to get him to trust me to be more independent.

"Good—I'll tell you about your task tomorrow, for now I recommend you to continue with your studies in the common library—oh, and take this" he tossed me a golden pin with the letter G embraided in it.

"What's this?" I questioned.

"Once you're in the library, just tap the letter and state the name or genre of book you are looking for, a path will light up and direct you towards it's location—honestly I should have given you one earlier"

Thank god—each time I enter that place it's like I'm going on a scavenger hunt.

"Now if you'll excuse us—myself and Nakajima need to have a...talk of sorts" Haha, karmas a bitch—that's what you get for betraying me. I opened the door and proceeded to leave not before flashing a smug grin towards Nakajima.

---

I entered the library and tapped the pin I had fastened to my collar. "Human Anatomy" and just as Azazel had mentioned a blue dotted path lit up below me—I followed it and it lead me to exactly what I wanted.

Ever since Nakajima had told me that Fire Kelp had it's own energy within it—I managed to cook up a crazy idea in my head.

I wanted to look for a way to harness it for myself, considering it had the power to fuel facilities that worked of denominations of [Mana] such as [Light Magic] or [Demonic Power] I had a gut feeling that it was also it's own form of energy.

[Flame Shake] was good and all—but it just wasn't enough for me to rely on, I need more diversity in my battle strength. Valia has her immense [Demonic Power] stemming from the fact she was a Lucifer—even Sairaorg who was born with menial [Demonic Power] acquired [Touki], not to mention Azazel who uses an artificial Sacred Gear has access to [Light Magic].

My point being—although not all, the majority of Sacred Gear users always have access to some form of secondary power to rely on, and I wanted my own. My plan was both simple and unbelievably complex at the same time.

The pollination from Magma Ants helped me increase the power of [Flame Shake]—that was good and all, but what I wanted to do was use that pollination to grant me access to the same energy Fire Kelp contain.

How was I supposed to accomplish that? My theory is that I need to have another container inside my body that can fuel the pollen directly into power just like Fire Kelp does and grant me access to it's energy. Obviously as a human such a thing didn't exist in my body—which left only one solution.

I had to artificially create a container and place it inside my body in order to harness it—and my reference for it would obviously be the structure of Fire Kelp. Hence, I was studying Human Anatomy to figure out a number of things.

First of all, how the "organ" would connect with the rest of my body.

Second, where I would place it.

Third, what kind of tissue I would be able to put inside my body without poisoning myself—although that was one was a lot trickier as I highly doubt human anatomy books would account for such a thing. That's why I was also looking into engineering manuals.

Was this a long term project? Most definitely, heavy emphasis on the word "long" after all, I was basically learning two entirely new subjects. Even if I end up succeeding, I have no idea whether the energy I end up having will be effective or not, though the chemistry I seem to have with Fire Kelp points to the former. I could just ask Azazel or Nakajima to help me—but first of all, I doubt they would approve, and secondly I'm trying to convince Azazel I can be independent, not the opposite.

Also—such a prospect was simply way too exciting for me to give up, and it would give me something to do in between expeditions and hopefully future training sessions with Valia.

(AN: Muahaha, give in to your research addiction!)

I grabbed a sheet of paper and pencil—and began making horribly drawn sketches of the human body, what? I wasn't an artist or anything in my past life—what did you expect? I also had to determine the size of the container, if I made it too big, it might end up causing complications in my body, but if I make it to small, the amount of energy it could hold would be too small making it useless in battle.

Though I suppose if I could find a way to force it to constantly absorb energy without me doing it manually—the size of it wouldn't be important, but how was I meant to do that? Maybe I'd have to create some sort of vortex within the organ.

I think I now have an idea of what material I should use though—I believe there's a way for me to turn the Fire Kelp itself into my material of choice. If I can grind the kelp into a fine powder, and use my flames to superheat it alongside some water, I should be able to turn it into a liquid.

From there if I go ahead and use a mold to shape my artificial organ I should be good to go—then again, would Fire Kelp and my body be able to co-exist? My [Flame Shake] seems to be able to support it, it's possible that if I can connect my artificial organ to my [Flame Shake] the latter should support the former for me.

Then I need to create some form of artificial artery as well to actually have a linkage in which [Flame Shake] could transfer it's energy to the organ without me doing it manually—otherwise I would have to constantly force the energy into it myself if I wanted to prevent the organ from failing.

Difficult indeed.

But so very intriguing.