26 .Esmia abei or heart of orb

Sweat was dripping down Seui's forehead and so was Yew's, just that they weren't the crystals of hard work but rather fear. After a few minutes of silence, Yew hesitantly stuttered "that...do you think this qualifies as a 'grave problem'?"

Seui resolutely shook his head "..to us maybe, but definitely not to our dear mentor "

Although Yew felt that Seui was a total mood killer, but he had no choice but to agree. Seui was indeed correct. After being baptized by Yew, Seui could now almost recite all the 'evil deeds' of their mentor by heart. Adding his skill of arriving at conclusions based on facts, there was over ninety percent of probability that his assumption was flawless!

"but what's that thing there? it looks like a dead branch?" Seui carefully examined the floor where there was a lot of debris and fragments of glass shards. Among them was a small light green sprout that has almost turned brown. After examining Seui's empty desk, it could be easily deducted where all that debris came from.

"dead branch? how could there be branches inside the exploded orb?" Yew dismissively shrugged before pausing all of a sudden "wait.. did you mean the heart of orb?" he quickly crouched down near the debris, not even caring that he might be scraped.

He carefully scanned the little sprout and slowly took it onto his palm, as if afraid to hurt it. " indeed...it's really the heart of orb!" he muttered in surprise. "It's so wonderful that it hadn't dried out yet.." he lightly placed his forefinger on the sprout and started concentrating, intending to use his abilities to keep it from drying out.

Seui wwas watching the whole situation from the side . Seeing that Yew was concentrating to use his power, he kept the silence lest it disturbs him. However, he was still confused inside 'is this guy trying to use his powers? but I thought he couldn't activate it all this while? besides, why this thing keeps getting browner and browner when he tries to use the power?'

Yew was very desperate at the moment, how come d*rn ability never comes out when needed? if this continues, it will be too late to save this precious plant! Just as he was about to become depressed, the drying rate slowed down and finally stopped. By this time Yew's power has almost exhausted. He carefully went around to look for a glass box and stuffed the sprout inside the box securely.

After all his 'hard work' finished, he finally noticed Seui who was watching on the side with narrowed eyes. Yew gave an awkward smile and took the initiative to explain tactically understanding Seui's unspoken question "this is a very precious plant called heart of orb or Esmia abei. It can be grown inside crystal orbs . This plant can accurately determine one's abilities and its strength , so they're used to test the aptitude in the state exams" Seui felt this is a bit interesting, so he gestured Yew to continue , who was more than willing to compile.

"However this is very rare and the only complete plant of the whole empire is in the Solstice Academy. So when others need it , they basically have to borrow it from the academy. Later, they developed another type of high-level orbs with small parts of the original Esmia abei , normally with leaves or branches. Although their performance is low compared to the original one, they're still very expensive and can only be custom ordered. Even the Yinchen family would have to burn half of their assets to afford one! The orbs on the general market doesn't have Esmia abei in them and they're just low-level imitations. Having found Esmia abei in a low-level orb, this is totally unbelievable!!"

Seui's was stunned, "that little bean sprout has so much significance? Amazing!! But why do they have to use plant parts for the orbs? Couldn't they just synthesize new Esmia abei from the existing one?"

Yew sighed shaking his head " synthesizing Esmia abei is extremely difficult. However some time ago, some scientists took a painstaking effort to synthesize them under artificially created ideal conditions, even using top plant abilities. In the end they successfully created a new batch of Esmia abei, but it turned out that they didn't have the ability to test the aptitude like the original one. So now , all the researches regarding Esmia abei have been basically abandoned " he explained.

"Oh~it seems future technology is not fancy as it seems" Seui said in disappointment before adding "you seem to know a lot about plants?"

"Well..." Yew scratched his nose in embarrassment, "since my ability is plant based, I figured out that I better know more about plants.."

Seui raised an eyebrow in amusement "so according to your theory, plant abilities should memorize plant encyclopedia , metal abilities should memorize periodic table and water abilities should memorize water cycle and all Fahrenheit conversions or something? Good luck in that!"

Yew instantly turned bitter "Not so exaggerated! Why do you put it like that? It sounds weird that way!"

Seui blinked innocently "that's exactly what I mean, it sounds weird to me!" Seui was just about to continue with the verbal attack when a sudden occurred to him. His eyes brightened instantly "this.. I've got an idea to deal with all of our problems and take the maximum use of everything"

"Really?" Yew leaned over with a curious look.

...

Ginn was gazing out from the balcony . It was already noon. However there has been no communication between him and Sol after that text message last night. He had stayed awake for the half of the night waiting for Sol's reply, but the result turned out to be like a stone sinking into the sea. He had been hoping that he would at least get a 'good morning' which turned to be futile at last. Even the 'good morning' he sent wasn't seen either. It made him wonder what Sol might be so busy with. Since text messages weren't working, at last he decided to take a call. This is their newly-wed period, they are supposed to be sticking together at this time! In any case the contrast between the expectation and reality seems to be pathetic!

...

On the other side, Mr. Declan was examining the Esmia abei that was inside the glass box with two heads beside him. Yeah! Seui has acted in an extremely witty manner. After considering the worth of the plant , given that the heart of orb was so difficult to nurture, he had thrown it at their dear mentor! This way they could gain forgiveness for blowing up the orb and get into their mentor's good graces at the same time! In any case , it's not like this plant is going to be any use to them, so he decided to reuse the 'discarded materials' as he was thought in his previous school!

They were in the middle of the 'observation period' , each with their own perspective, when Seui's cellphone rang loudly.

Startled due to the sudden disturbance, Mr. Declan almost dropped the glass box in a hurry. He frowned displeasedly at Seui "who disturbs at this moment? You should keep a distance from those types of people who always disturb at important times, such people can't be good thing!" even the tone of his voice was extremely unfriendly.

Seui glanced at the caller and slowly replied "It's my husband" and he added with a bit of amusement in his voice "I highly doubt it'll be possible to keep a distance from him"

"You're really married ?!" Mr. Declan exclaimed in surprise. Although Sol had said so before, he hadn't minded it much, but now it seems that it was really the truth? " what's up with you young people these days? Why are you in such a hurry? Life is long you know, good things always come at the end of the show.." he touched his beard in a profound manner.

"mm..maybe because good stuff will be out of stock if you're too late? isn't that how it works?" Seui looked confused.

"AHMPH..." Mr. Declan awkwardly cleared his throat and waved his hand "you.. go answer it quickly , don't keep your husband waiting "

"Well" Seui nodded politely and went outside to answer the phone .

"Sol, are you at Zishan mansion?" Ginn asked as soon as Seui answered.

"Yeah, what's up?" Seui asked in doubt, didn't Ginn already knew that he's at Yew's place?

"Then come to pick me up? I'm at the entrance of Zishan mansion"

Seui's hands shook violently all of a sudden. What's going on? Why did he run here all of a sudden?!! It couldn't be that he didn't see him for a few hours and missed him right? They met each other at the Rose hotel yesterday too, so how could it be possible to miss him. Seui discarded that thought quickly. So what could be his real purpose for coming here?

"Oh , Wait a few moments, I'll be there soon" Seui stuttered and hurriedly hung up the call and ran back inside with a black face.

Mr. Declan and Yew didn't even have the time to resume their study when the door opened again suddenly and Seui rushed in panting.

"What's the matter? Did you see a ghost or something?" Yew wondered looking at Seui's twisted face.

"Worse, Ginn's here at the entrance, hurry and clean up the suspicious things. We can't let him see anything " Seui threw a bomb followed by a series of instructions without even waiting for them to digest the news.

After hearing it Yew's face turned even worser than that of Seui. "Ginn? What is he doing here? running all over the place without any prior notice, does he thinks he's starring an idol drama?" He started grumbling. He especially didn't like this Ginn guy from a long time ago. He was the one who knew best about that guy whose belly is full of black water! His dislike was even further accumulated when he got to know how he married Seui for unclear reasons!

Although Seui very much wanted to agree with that , he had no choice but to urge him "stop grumbling, let's clean this quickly. He wanted me to pick him up, so let's go together" He starting tucking away all the practicing materials into the nearby cupboards in a disordering manner while Yew , still sulking joined him.

Mr. Declan was the only one who was clueless here. He tried to endure but still felt curious in the end . Who was this capable to cause such a ruckus with a mere appearance? So he tentatively questioned "who is this Ginn you're talking about?"

The two hard workers finally looked at him as if realizing there's still such a big person here.

"Oh no , how are we going to hide Mr. Declan? Ginn would probably recognize him since he's a very famous master known throughout the empire. Shall we try to stuff him into the cupboard too?"

"No this won't do. Let's just take him to the living room, otherwise we'll be busted anyway. That guy's way too cunning for a young person. As for Mr. Declan you can just tell he's your tutor. There's nothing wrong with that, right?" Seui finally decided.

Mr. Declan frowned slowly ' hang on, did he misheard it or something? these two treacherous students weren't discussing how they would stuff their mentor into the cupboard , were they?'

Seeing Mr. Declan's expression going wrong, Seui hurriedly appeased him " Ginn is my husband and he's here now"

Mr. Declan's frown deepened further "then why do you need to hide things from him?"

This time Yew volunteered to share the bad deeds of Ginn with a flourishing gossipy heart "that's because this guy doesn't know that Sol has abilities. It would be absolutely bad if he was to know about it! You don't know how much of a bad guy he is! He even previously broke off the engagement because Sol lost the support of his family, who knows why he decided to suddenly marry Sol again, there must be something fishy there..." Yew babbled on before finally realizing that he was gossiping with Mr. Declan. He suddenly covered his mouth and concluded "anyway, he's a bad guy, we should be careful "

Just then the door of the practice room opened and Ginn's figure appeared in front of them. Behind him was Mrs. Zishan who seemed to have lead him here.

"I met Mrs. Zishan at the entrance and she was kind enough to lead me here, so that you don't have to go back and forth." Ginn smiled gracefully at Sol.