Julia walked to the second cage, making the screeching of the mouse even more frightening.

“So,” she said, “the time it takes for the poison to take effect like that is too long. There will be variations with stronger types of poison, but that also comes with costs. Nonetheless, almost all the poison you will have the chance to interact with in your life can’t take effect immediately.”

A student raised her hand to ask a question. Julia signaled for a girl with shoulder-short brown hair to stand up, pushing her glasses.

“How about increasing the dosage, miss?”

“That will be our second experiment. So, how much do you want to shorten the time?”

“Eight minutes, please!” The girl answered.

“And how much poison do you think should be increased?”

“A third, miss.”

Julia stopped the conversation and stood behind the curtain, scanning her students.

“This time, watch the condition of the mouse closely. I will use double the amount instead of a third.”

She then reopened her poison pouch and spread the dust on the second cage, much like the first experiment, but twice the amount.

This time, the students were far more focused. It took some seven minutes for the mouse to give up and drop down. However, none of the students was willing to give an answer yet. They thought the creature hadn’t completely fainted like in the first experiment. Some kept their eyes on Jack, waiting for his reaction.

Disappointingly, Jack hadn’t yet said anything as he was too busy contemplating the result. It was certain that Julia had chosen double the amount not because that would have been easier for her to measure but rather because she knew to increase the effectiveness by three minutes, it would take exactly double the amount. This small experiment opened up so many questions and possibilities relating to the Maester and why it was so hard to fill up its progression bar.

Jack couldn’t hold back his smile of excitement.

“Well?” Julia cleared her throat.

“Eight minutes, miss,” the brown-haired girl answered.

“Correct, it is eight minutes this time. Doubling the dose, as you can see, only improves the effecting time by less than one-third. This margin will become smaller and therefore, increasing the amount will be more wasteful.”

Julia moved forward, closer to the students.

“So, why is this? And why was Jack’s assessment on Maester’s damage output, much to my dismay, correct?”

The poor kid sitting beside Patrick raised his hand.

“Pascal?”

“Because of the saturation of the poison in the air, miss. Even though you were right next to the mouse, when the poison dropped down from your hand, most of it was dispersed.”

“That’s right; and that’s also why we have this curtain, for the poison has dispersed into the air. Don’t worry! Breathing them in won’t make you go unconscious, only a little bit tired at most. That being said, I prefer not to hear complaints from your parents.”

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Pascal sat down, smiling about his answer.

“So, we have figured out how the elements of time, concentration, and distance affect the effectiveness of powdered poison. The question now is how to increase its overall effectiveness without wasting it.”

Small whispers of discussion filled the room as the students tried to find the answer. Jack’s mind also worked double time. Besides the addition of weapons like throwing knives and crossbows mentioned before, there was another solution, a skill that, when thought about, made the wound on his left shoulder hurt again.

“We shoot it,” Patrick’s voice sounded in such a rush manner as if he was afraid somebody would steal his answer. “We can compress it like a small bullet and shoot them right in the face of the Grim Mouse, making concentration and distance no longer the problem. That will help with increasing its effectiveness.”

Everybody turned their heads toward Patrick, who was smiling full of himself. Pascal sat next to Patrick with his head down, his cheeks popping up with veins. Jack could feel the pressure between Pascal’s gritting teeth from his seat. Jack was impressed by his quick-wittedness and understandably shook his head. It reminded him of Manuel, a miserably poor bard who had to quickly adapt to his circumstances to survive. The difference, however, was Pascal had a master. He wouldn’t go far under Patrick.

Julia clapped her hand in approval, her eyes shifting from Pascal to Patrick.

“That is exactly what we’re going to do to the third Grim Mouse.”

Julia took out some powder. This time, she compressed the particles into a small ball the size of a fingertip with mana. She then pointed her fingers toward the mouse and shot.

The last Grim Mouse was shot right between its eyes as the bullet exploded into a small dust cloud. It screeched in surprise, making its next breath even deeper, absorbing a larger amount of poison dust. The mouse frenziedly bit and scratched the iron bar as if it just realized how foolish it was to breathe in the poison and tried to find an escape.

Julia didn’t have to tell her student to pay attention this time. She just waited in silence with her arms crossed.

It didn’t take any longer than two minutes for the mouse to drop like its friends before and around half a minute more for it to be completely unconscious.

Jack’s eyes brightened before the technique and the result Julia had just performed. The difficulty of manipulating a cobblestone was child play compared to compressing the tiny poison particles in the air. He immediately devised a way to practice this.

Julia signaled the assistant to close the mouse boxes. He cleaned things up, pressing on a button on the edge of the curtain rod. Tiny holes appeared on the cylinder and the curtain was sucked back in with a whoosh. The boy collected everything, bowed his head to Julia, and left the classroom.

“This will be the end of today’s lesson. The poison has been cleared. You have grasped the basic combat principle of a Maester. I will teach you the compressing technique, but not today. Now, any question?”

Jack raised his hand immediately.

“Jack?” Julia hesitated slightly.

“What I mean by saying manageable was about the opponent of the Maester, not the Maester themself.”

“And I don’t ask you to tell me that. I ask you to ask me a question.”

“Then, when facing an opponent with speed, like a Warrior with a knife, doesn’t it make this technique irrelevant? For that person can jump around and toy with the Maester and all it takes was a knife shot to take down the Maester.”

Julia frowned.

“That is the weakness of Maester. Therefore, a Maester should prepare poison bombs, traps, and necessary equipment.”

“As the opponent can, right, miss Julia?”

Julia frowned harder.

“If you have put forward such a question, there must be some crazy thought going through your head, right?”

Jack smiled, nodding his head.

“Risk it all! Close the distance and shoot it like you just did, or perhaps surprise them with a knife.”

Not only Julia but the whole class burst out laughing, as Patrick even pointed at Jack and shouted.

“Dumb ass!”

Jack shrugged, saying nothing more. All Thomas and Agos could do were cower in embarrassment.

Julia then quietly put her hand up, signaling the class to be silent for other questions. She couldn’t admit that her laughter was in agreement with Jack. She had had enough experience to tell when a Maester had to risk it all. It wasn’t a strange thing for someone to exchange their legs and arms for a slim chance of poisoning the enemy. Such a thing was too extreme to speak about in front of the class.

From now on, Julia considered not letting Jack say too much, as she couldn’t catch up with the crazy things going inside his head.