Chapter 207 - Professor Carter
Knock Knock
"Etsy, I told you, didn't I? No one's allowed to disturb me while I'm doing this! Ughhh! Now I have to recheck all the angles from the start! The offset temperature's changed, too, since you forced me to breathe harder."
Vern's wrapping knuckle stopped its repetition as he locked down the assistant lady who'd escorted them here with an awkward gaze.
The seven and a half feet tall lady—Etsy, coughed loudly. "Boss, it's the people from King's parity court."
"You're here again!?" came an annoyed yell from the other side of the door, "Didn't I tell you not to interrupt my work until you prepared Magnus's pup for the mission? Do you even understand how important focus is for my work?"
Vern perked up. It'd been a while since he heard that name. Master, he murmured as all the worrying thoughts about the man he'd suppressed came flooding in. After all, a great chunk of his adulthood was spent under that very man.
Not many people called Master by his name—Magnus, so it was quite an unfamiliar feeling to be described as his pup. Not that he minded being known through his master.
The tall lady turned her eyes to Vern, trying to supress a giggle as she shook her head and pulled out a keychain from her long skirt with an abundance of pockets.
"Hey! What are you doing, Etsy? No. Don't bring them in. They'll change the temperature too much!"
Vern and Lucian stood there, unsure why the assistant lady was going about it like this. She knew precisely why they were here and could resolve the misunderstanding before forcing her way in, but she chose not to.
And for some reason, both of them decided not to explain either. Surely, it was just out of politeness. It had nothing to do with her towering stature and scary glance oozing with mischief. Surely.
"Agh!! Etsy, no! Not right now. I can't have guests. Really!" tried to protest the muffled voice from inside, every syllable filled with terror.
The reluctance in the voice was entirely unexpected. So when the door finally opened, the scene in front of them came as nothing short of a surprise.
A man wearing an apron with a complex microscope strapped to his eyes sat in front of a shimmering stack of paper, holding a pair of forceps in his hands.
The moment the door clicked, he spun around, horrified. "ETSY! What have you done!" he cried. Pointing at the stack, he yelped, "I've failed again! The temperature has changed completely. I'll never finish my Thermal sorting if this keeps up! Ahhh!"
The tall lady dug a finger in her ear and twisted it lazily as she pointed the other thumb back at Vern, "Magnus's pup is here. Your seventeenth attempt at stupidity can wait."
Vern wanted to protest at that name, but the situation was weird enough as it was, so he somehow kept his mouth in check.
"Ohh," gasped the apron-wearing man, all the anger and energy fizzling away as if it never existed.
Vern took the cue and stepped forward before executing a deep bow with one hand on his chest as he announced, "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Professor Carter. Master's only ever heaped praises upon your name, and your recent works like the one on Blood Infusion proved that he'd still sold you short."
One shan't confuse the title of a professor with some normal lecturer at a university. In fundamentalism, a professor was an individual who'd delved to the deepest ends of a single octant. It was the title two stages higher than a Savant in terms of fundamental exploration.
This person in front of him was one such being, and while the first impression was telling Vern otherwise, he knew not to shortchange this man.
"Ah, haha, you flatter me, young Savant," chortled Mr. Carter as he waved his hand alongside the forceps in it. "Come, come. Have a seat," he said, pointing at the tiny stools.
Vern hesitated momentarily, "My apologies, but it looks like we're intruding on your work. If you'd like, we can wait outside until you're finished with your tasks. We wouldn't have dared if we knew."
Suddenly, Mr. Carter did a double take as a happy smile emerged on his face. He nodded with vigor and opened his mouth, "Ye—"
"Haha," scoffed the tall lady, forcing Vern towards the stools. "You're not going anywhere. If you plan on waiting, you'll be sitting outside forever. Just get it over with."
Vern shifted his gaze between the professor and the tall lady before meeting Lucian's gaze, who'd also just recovered from bowing meekly.
Is she his wife? he thought, and Lucian's weird squint was clearly asking the same question. At least he didn't know of any assistants who ordered their boss around like this.
But Lord Osric said we'll have to go through his assistant to meet Mr. Carter.
.
.
.
"Hahh," sighed the man in apron as he shook his head. "Just give me a minute, then. I need to place them back by their third degree—"
"Twenty seconds." shouted the lady.
"Y—yes."
By the time they settled on the stools, the scenery in front of them had completely changed. The stack of paper was gone, a long white coat replaced the apron, and in place of a stupid-looking headgear, Mr. Carter wore transparent, round glasses that made his gaunt face look fuller.
Pitch-black dark circles under the eyes contrasted with his otherwise healthy skin filled with vitality as he ran his hand through his gorgeously styled brown hair.
The man was as eccentric as they came. Almost as weird as my own master.
"So where were we?" asked Mr. Carter as he wiped clean the specs with his sleeves while secretly eyeing the tall lady towering behind his chair.
This time, Lucian chose to speak up, "We're sent here by Lord Osric—my master. Both of us are Observers who have gone through the infusion of old blood as well. Master said you have instructions for us."
"Ah, right. That!" He nodded matter-of-factly before suddenly freezing up. He squinted and opened his mouth to say something but stopped midway. He raised his finger and pointed at Lucian only to try and hold it back in.
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This repeated a couple of times before he blurted out, "Wh—why do you have the cuff's buttons fastened on the right sleeve but not the left?"
Vern who'd been curious just what stumped this great scholar, lost his train of thought entirely.
On the other hand, Lucian just let out a nonchalant "oh" before casually unbuttoning his right sleeve, too.
Mr. Carter raised his finger again, a disturbed look in his eyes, "Shouldn't you fasten both—"
"Ahem, Ahem," came a loud cough from Lady Etsy as she raised her eyebrows, annoyance written clear on her face.
"Ah, sorry. Yes, the plague!" exclaimed the professor, wiping his forehead and murmuring something to himself for a dozen seconds.
After a deep breath, Mr. Carter's voice suddenly turned stoic, and he ordered, "Etsy, get the artifact."
Vern also straightened up as the tall lady left for cabinets at the back of the room. "What was your name again, Young Savant?"
"Vern. Vern Lockwood."
"Alright, Mr. Vern. Let's see if Magnus taught you well." Resting one leg on the other, he asked, "What's the furthest distance you've explored a fundamental to?"
"My highest was 2.48 units before the dusk fell for upper-north-western octant."
This number was the quantification of illusory distance from the void of initiation. One became a savant when they achieved a distance higher than two units. Unfortunately, no one ever came to a consensus on what the 'unit' should be named, so its been stuck as just ‘unit’ forever.
"2.48? That's almost a Luminary," Mr. Carter’s brows arched as he gave a slow, approving nod.
Anyone who explored between 2.50 to 3.13 units was a Luminary, whereas anyone above this threshold was considered a Professor in the fundamentalist circle.
"And when exactly did you enlighten yourself?"
Vern almost hesitated at that question but still answered truthfully, "When Dusk fell." The only other person he'd told this was Ms. Cera, and he'd lied to her back then.
Surely, they have better things to talk about than my date of enlightenment if these two somehow ever end up meeting in a twist of fate.
He wasn't too concerned, regardless. He wagered Captain Akira had an idea about this, too. So there was no point hiding it for the sake of it.
To his surprise, however, Mr. Carter did a double take on that, "On the eve of Duskfall, you say?"
Vern nodded.
"…Interesting. Aren't you too singular for someone in first shade who's barely been an Observer for a month?"
This time, it was Vern's turn to be dumbfounded. How…do you know? he wanted to yelp, but that would give away too much and would be too immodest, so he instead asked, "Huh? Is it possible to quantify and observe the singularity of a stranger?"
Professor Carter clicked his tongue, "Good question. Not typically."
Vern patiently waited as the man continued, his deep black eyes shimmering purple for the faintest of moments, "As you may know, one's Singularity is a function of their insights represented in the n-dimensional space that is Everflux. Generally, one can't traverse a layer of it other than one's own, but I have a…gift," he pointed at his eyes.
"So, no. You don't have to worry about randomly being found out to be an Observer when masquerading as a commoner. Unless you run into someone with the same methods as I, that is."
Vern visibly sighed in relief. However, another even deeper problem lingered still. What professor mentioned was indeed one of the worries brewing in his mind, but the real question was if Mr. Carter could observe Axiom's singularity, too.
He did call me a first shade Observer, though. Surely, that meant he didn't notice my alternate singularity, right?
This was unexpected. I need to not let it show in my body language. Gotta act normal.
So he tried to keep his cool and instead raised a valid concern that was sure to distract the man from looking too deep into this topic, "Professor Carter, then do you know about the proxy connection through a temporary singularity—"
"Ahem! Let's focus on the task at hand. I can answer your unrelated queries on a better day," interjected Professor Carter, forcefully changing the topic while giving Vern a warning stare.
He knows! That was obvious. Unmistakably, the man knew about the proxy connection formed by the Blood infusion, but his sudden interruption made it more than clear that this wasn't a good time to talk about it.
Observing no changes on Lucian or Lady Etsy's faces from his last sentence, Vern nodded to himself and shut up.
"You're good. Magnus really struck gold with you. If not for Duskfall, I'm sure you would be well on your way to become a Professor yourself by the end of this year."
Lady Etsy returned with a case in her hand. Accepting it, Mr. Carter stated, "No matter. You're doing even better as an Observer from what I can see. I'm sure you will figure this out quickly."
Opening the lid of the small case, he presented the item to him and Lucian. Inside it was a silver-translucent…bug? A bug with hundreds of small antennae-like hair extending out of its thin tubular body. "This is a Seeker's Vermin."
"Seeker…Vermin…?" Repeated Lucian dumbfoundedly. Vern wasn't any better, either. The name gave him some ideas, but he'd never seen such a thing.
"In short, this little one seeks whatever you feed it in better quality. So, if you give it some lower infusion of Old Blood, it will seek a higher infusion—essentially a more pure form of it.
Then, as Observers, one simply has to make contact with the Vermin, and it will suggest a general direction of where to go."
Ohh? Vern leaned forward, curiosity written all over his face.
"Amazing, right? How else do you think the court found an entrance to the further depths of Cthonic ruins?"
Snap, he closed the lid shut before continuing, "Now, the empire doesn't have enough vermins to employ them on everyday cases, but the plague's become such a big problem that they're happy to expend even their limited stores of these little ones."
Vern raised his hand, a voluntary reaction to having a question when someone senior was talking.
Carter paused and nodded, and Vern took the cue to ask, "Do these vermins die after usage? You're talking about them as if they're consumables."
Mr. Carter shrugged, "Essentially, yes. Pumping Old Blood in these tiny things is no worse than a death sentence, and I'm sure whatever's causing the plague is no less potent."
Vern gasped, "Are you saying the origin of this plague could be on the same level as the progenitor of Old Blood!?"
Mr. Carter smiled, "Am I? All I said is that both these substances cross the threshold of tolerance for these seeker vermins. Who knows if they're on the same standard or not? It could be higher, could be lower. Only time will tell."
Cane on his lap, Vern nodded thoughtfully. That was right. Just because ingesting both these substances could kill these little vermins, he couldn't conclude that both were the same levels of threat.
It was like saying that because two different knives could slice through wood, that they were both of the same sharpness. One could still be sharper than the other; it's just that the wood itself was weak.
"Anyways, these seeker vermins have been a project of interest of mine for a while, and I have come up with a couple of ways to increase the accuracy of their suggestions." Turning towards the guests with a subtle smile, Professor asked, "Any ideas what they might be?"
Lucian looked side to side with a forced smile before simply staring at his colleague.
Vern didn't think for long before answering, "Triangulation, error correction based on trends, pattern recognition. There's probably a few more ways, but I'll need to examine the nature of inconsistencies and inaccuracies of these suggestions before I can comment further."
Mr. Carter’s lips pursed, his brows arching with a faint look of surprise and approval. "Measured and thoughtful. Only if Etsy was—"
"Ahem, Ahem," she coughed, instantly silencing the not-so-old professor.
Could she be his student? He wondered. That would at least make more sense, given the nature of their interactions.
"Anyways, you're right. I essentially mean these techniques, but they have to be applied using what you sense through your perception instead of normal measurements. It's about noticing the nuance and being able to tell the signs. It takes a bit of practice, actually."
This time, Lucian raised his hand, looking awkward as all hell while doing so. Mr. Carter maintained the same grace and allowed him to speak.
"Uhm, am I supposed to learn all this, too?"
Professor nodded.
"How many days do we have for this?"
Lady Etsy giggled, "Today. No, actually, not even the whole day. Just until Professor's evening tea."
"Th—that's it? I don't think I can learn all this so quickly…"
"Doesn't hurt to try…" chortled the professor.
Lucian gulped, eking out, "I…see."
"Let's get to it, then."