“Sorry you have to witness that.” when Dolores and Jianmen got away from the scene on the marble tablets, Dolores apologized to Jianmen: “I promise you that the absolute majority of the students and staff here are not that unpleasant.”
“Is he someone in your family? ” Jianmen asked: “Because I noticed you share a last name.”
“Unfortunately yeah. He’s my cousin.” Dolores sighed: “His father, Tamil Brooke, is a board member of the school, and used to be a vice principal of the academy. My father and his father do not get along too well, and then we kinda inherited the bad relationship. Of course, the attitudes didn’t help. Again, my apologies.”
“Yeah it’s fine. I have my own unpleasant experience of family drama.” Jianmen shook his head: “You are related and will probably run into each other more often than you’d like, what can you do?”
“Yeah. What can anyone do?” Dolores shook her head and sighed, then she gathered herself and extended her arm in the other direction after a right turn: “If you don’t turn here and head straight down, you will find our public training ground. And if you turn a bit to the left, you will find the common experimentation field. You can try some basic spells and arrays there. But you just need to bring your own material.”
“What about the library? ” Jianmen knew the answer, but he had to act as if he did not know.
“It’s in the main building when you get a chance to take a look you will easily find it. Literally almost half the building is a library. And as a visiting scholar, you would have direct access to almost all books in there, except for some classified ones. And you would need to file applications with different houses separately if you want to access books belonging to the houses. I have filed an application for you in the Martin House already. It should be approved anytime. But you’ll probably need to do it yourself for the other two.”
“That’s great, thank you! For my time here the books in the Martin House would be more than enough.” Jianmen looked at the large piece of cloud in front of him and said, from his point of view, he could see through the cloud completely and check out the floating bubbles in the cloud.
“Hmm, interesting building you got there. Who designed it?” Jianmen asked.
“It was designed by a couple of the best architects that graduated from the academy, a few of them were actually the first proponents of the audit and visiting scholars program.” Dolores smiled: “And Professor Vaughn, one of the original architects is actually still teaching here in the academy! I really recommend you listen to his lectures if you got a chance - it really helped me look at the mechanisms of arrays from a different light.”
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“Sounds interesting. I will definitely check it out once I get the chance.” Jianmen nodded.
The marble tablet arrived at the small platform in front of the huge piece of cloud floating about two storeys high above ground.
“Here’s your key.” Dolores handed Jianmen a small teardrop sized blue crystal: “It’s very easy to use - just infuse it with a bit of magic, and your place will come to you. In actuality it constructs a small jump point for you and transported you to your place.”
“Inspired design! And from what I can tell, very energy efficient as well!” Jianmen looked up and down at the piece of cloud with floating bubbles inside.
“Glad you like it.” Dolores smiled and bowed lightly: “Again, I am very glad you can join us for our research here. Would you like me to show you our other facilities? Our labs and experiment grounds?”
“That would be all, thank you! I would bug you later if I have something I’m not able to figure out.” Jianmen nodded at Dolores.
“Okay. Then, you know how to contact me. Hope you have a great visit here, looking forward to collaborating with you.” Dolores smiled and watched Jianmen infuse a small trace of his power into the teardrop shaped crystal, and a bubble with a small tree, a small lake and a tower made of bamboo and wood.
“Ah, nice. You got the house I asked for? That’s so considerate of you!” Jianmen chuckled.
“Yeah! We hope you like it. ” Dolores laughed and clapped her hands: “We don’t have much experience with these kinds of houses - so all the interior and exterior design components are all very modular. Very easy to rearrange if we didn’t do a good job.”
“I trust that you did. But I’ll let you know.” Jianmen gave Dolores a double thumbs up: “Thanks again!”
-----------------------------------------------
“Dolores, how’s our guest?” when Dolores went back into her and Professor Atkinson’s office, she found that an old man with a long white beard and a black suit was there waiting for her.
“Professor Atkinson! He just settled down.” Dolores put down her handbag and brooch: “How’s our next excavation site?”
“Pretty dangerous, and too close to the civilian world. We could really use some help.” Professor Atkinson sighed and sat down by a chair by Dolores’ table: “I hope Mr. Yu won’t mind us taking him directly into action when he just got here.”
“Wait, Mr. Yu?” Dolores narrowed her eyes and was a bit flustered: “Holy shit! Did I get the wrong guy?”
“What? Did I say Mr. Yu?” Professor Atkinson appeared surprised himself: “I … I mean Mr. Sun?”
“Mr. Wang. Mr. Lun Wang.” Dolores spoke one word at a time and with suspicion in her eyes: “What … Why can’t you remember the name? I thought you yourself approved the application?”
“Because...” Professor Atkinson was stumped for an answer for a while, then he just gave up: “Okay, keep this between us, okay? This can’t leave this room.”
“Okay, so … this Mr. Lun Wang, or Mr. Yu, is not a visiting scholar?”
“Well, he IS a visiting scholar. It’s just that Lun Wang isn’t his name.” the old man sighed.
“What!? That’s really bad! That’s one of the highest forms of ethics violation! You could get fired for this! WE could get fired for this!”
“It’s okay! It’s okay! Alright!? It’s just a few months, he’ll help us, collect his payment and get out. No one should even be the wiser!”
“But you just misspoke his name! How are we supposed to keep this secret?”
“Okay, I can definitely do better than that. I’ll read his profile again.” Professor Atkinson sighed and started pacing in the room.
“Okay, but who is this Mr. Yu? Do you know him? Who the hell is he?” Dolores was starting to freak out.
“Yes! I know him, not super well, but enough to vouch for his integrity … okay? And it was technically Josephine’s recommendation.”