BXBX NOVEL Volume 5 7.3
「Anyhow, You can make whatever ya want from here on, Haruna-san. Making Mastery is a skill that grows quick, so once ya got it, everything’s a walk in the park.」
「Mhm.」
At any rate, Hiroshi’s seal of approval was now out. Now Haruna could get into the manufacturing of underwear, her original objective. It was pretty unlikely that she would finish her spirit thread underwear before getting back, but at least she could make spider silk clothing, which was comfy to the touch.
「So getting back on topic, or rather changing the topic, what do you mean by people messing with Lime in an aggressive sense?」
「They seem to mainly consist of people from upper social classes, and not even servants, but actual well-to-do families. The instructor, from biology that is, seems to be giving Lime, or rather Azuma Workshop itself the evil eye.」
「Ah. I did hear something about Lime overturning accepted opinion with enchantment magic, so I thought that professor was the more likely candidate……」
「Believe it or not, that professor was actually overjoyed. There were many other professors who were unsure about the established theory, but didn’t know what precisely to doubt, and thus had not previously been able to come up with a proof for rejecting the established theory. In fact, that professor frequently presses Fum and Lime every time, asking if there was anything out of the ordinary.」
Hiroshi made a puzzled face when he heard that. With Rufeus Academy’s sheer manpower, a rudimentary mismatch like that should be easy to discover…
「If the professor felt so strongly about this, why didn’t they just investigate that, mate?」
「Well, it sounds like they did. They thought of all the possible combinations of catalysts and targets.」
「And they still didn’t get it? Weird.」
「Apparently the pestle used in that failed enchantment was made of material not used much in Lorren, not to mention that it was only ever used for expendables and nobody ever went to the trouble of enchanting it with durability. That was an oversight on their part.」
「Mm, I see…If they didn’t try that then it basically means failure nearly 100% of the time. Looks like we finally know exactly what was up with that.」
「It appears so, yes.」
Hiroshi finally grasped Makoto’s explanation. True, you didn’t normally cast strength enchantments on a product that was rarely used, if only for an expendable material. Of course the professors would overlook this.
This blind spot was difficult to notice, even amongst scholars, not to mention that the combination with enchantment magic was expansive, consisting of the target, the catalyst, and the enchantment. Depending on your aptitude, sometimes combinations just wouldn’t go too well. It was already a hefty amount of work trying to determine which combination was properly verified.
Even the other genres probably had plenty of problems like this one lying around.
「Yeah, beginner level math is like a year of middle school, and beginner magic arts is truly the most basic of the basics, so they sad that Lime’s question was actually really easy to connect with supplementary lecture explanations. Now with history, Lime isn’t so knowledgeable, so other than when she asked innocent questions and got a bit under the other teacher’s skin, she hasn’t really asked any question that caused that much discord.」
「Oh really. And yet look how much opposition she has. It’s strange, huh?」
「Totally.」
「Also, just thinking of the genre that Lime is specializing in, it doesn’t exactly feel like she’s doing much damage.」
Analyzing the situation, a strange idea surfaced.
Currently Lime had only dealt fatal blows in enchantment, biology, and history class with her questions. History was already a subject widely argued about, so there wasn’t necessarily a problem with Lime asking about the forbidden section of the library. There were plenty of other detailed questions flying at the instructor, so even if they wanted to ask another teacher for help, thre was no reason for them to lash out at Lime.
The enchantment professor was, as previously mentioned, interested in getting difficult questions, so they had no reason to crack down on Azuma Workshop, and the biology professor probably couldn’t create such a commotion on their own.
「Also, something else to note. According to Professor Floot, there’s a good chance that the majority of the professors in the opposition do not have any direct connection to Lime.」
「Seriously weird, right?」
The reigning champion of the opposition was one of the instructors in charge of rudimentary alchemy, Professor Alsta, and one of the instructors in charge of rudimentary potionmaking, Professor Lester. Neither of them had anyone from Azuma Workshop coming in to see them due to scheduling, so Haruna and Makoto couldn’t understand their reasoning for controlling the opposition.
Then again, it was just Haruna and Makoto that didn’t quite get it, while Tatsuya got the gist of the situation. The majority of the students took 3 or 4 classes on the same day, so among the students who took the same classes as Lime and Makoto, there were many regular people mixed in with the alchemy and potionmaking classes. But it felt like too feeble a reason to come after Lime, plus nothing would really change by telling Haruna and the others, so he didn’t mention it.
Essentially, the students taking rudimentary enchantment classes would hurl questions at the professor much like how Fum and Lime would. There were also plenty of students taking the same classes but with different teachers for comparison, and from their curious perspective, the members of Azuma Workshop asked the perfect questions to test the professors, who took in pupils.
As a result, those who felt that their research was tarnished were actively seeking to take down Azuma Workshop. Half of them just had some worthless pride, but the other half didn’t even care about that so much as the fact that they had to just suddenly accepted this inpour of information as fact from these strangers and felt a sense of danger as scholars. The troublesome part about all this is that you could somewhat sympathize with their natural human reactions to this.
「Well, I dunno what tricks they’ll try and pull, but it isn’t like Hiroshi will suffer huge blows from their rebuttals, right?」
「Well yeah. In the first place, most theories stem from rule of thumb and experimental results and slappin on something logical. Some exceptions are when you can’t guarantee replication, but generally speaking, phenomena that actually exist supersede theory, so there won’t be much point refuting what Hiroshi-kun says.」
「Wait a sec, why are ya assuming I’m gonna be refuted?」
Tatsuya and Haruna reassured each other that nothing out of the ordinary would happen, while Hiroshi just sat there with a bewildered expression.
「Think about it a moment Hiroshi. Those kinds of schools are full of pros ready to argue up a storm, right? You’re a craftsman and they’re scholars, so I recommend you assume you won’t win by normal means.」
「Exactly. Besides, rebuttals hit you without you even realize. From the sidelines it might not seem like a big deal, but the next moment people are saying your argument got refuted or something.」
Hiroshi somewhat understood where Haruna and Tatsuya were coming from. Teachers are supposed to teach the correct methodology and hammer it into their students. There was no way Hiroshi could win against people who were accustomed to prying into the slightest contradictions and uncertainties.
「But y’know, there’s something crossing my mind every time I go to classes.」
Things were heating up after Hiroshi got countered, and Makoto said something on her mind to change the topic.
「I’m just going to school because I was the only remaining option, but considering our ages, isn’t Mio the one who should be attending?」
「Well yeah.」
Immediately, everyone turned to look at Mio. Binging on the atmosphere, Makoto continued.
「Mio, how’s school sound to you?」
「If I could I would, but I don’t like Rufeus Academy.」
「Why not?」
「I still don’t really want to deal with those academic schools.」
Everyone burst out laughing. Mio didn’t want to go to top institutions like that one where you’re constantly on edge, but rather one where you could enjoy youth and goof off with friends during break. Sure, there were some classes that had such a vibe, but searching would also be a drag.
And the day ended with the group discussing what makes a school a good school.