Within just a matter of seconds after the arrival of Josephine Wong and Glenda Grimes, the sky above the academy turned dark red, and a low buzzing sound was released from above and propagated throughout all parts of the academy.

“Holy - what’s that?” Sensing there was some kind of ominous indication in that sound, and that the sky had become dark, Jason immediately stood up and asked.

“That’s the fate detection array of the academy.” Laura Jensen also stood up with a heavy frown on her face: “It’s one of the most meticulous inventions of the founders of the academy. It taps into the flow of time to detect the general direction of ‘fate’ concerning the academy. And if there should be any signs of great peril or disaster, it would show warnings like this.”

“Yeah, I think it’s Boss.” Caroline also stood up: “He did say he had a bad feeling about what he and Ms. Wong were about to do. I wonder if we should go back right now.”

“No, I don’t think that’s possible. If I remember correctly, when this kind of alert is triggered, the academy administration will declare a state of emergency and will probably issue a temporary lockdown of entrance and exit.” Laura Jensen sighed: “Then they will decide on other measures. We should wait here for a while, until the administration has made a decision.”

“Okay. Is it gonna be long?” Jason took out his phone: “Should we call Boss?”

“Let’s wait for him to contact us - if he’s doing something important, our calling him would only bring him trouble.” Caroline thought for a short moment, then sat back down: “I have a feeling that he will contact us when he’s done. There’s no use acting blindly.”

“Hmm, makes sense. Let’s wait.” Jason sighed and sat down along with Caroline and Laura Jensen: “If we can’t go back right now, there’s no need to rush to anything. Let’s finish the food, and we can meet up with the detectives when they’re done with their tests.”

“Speaking of tests, how are you feeling with your finals?” Caroline asked Laura Jensen: “You are a full time student here right? I wonder what your test subjects are?”

“Yeah, well, it’s not that difficult or different from yours - when I was here for the first year.” Laura Jensen chuckled: “It’s already my fourth year here - so my finals are just some papers and project reports, for which I have prepared the whole year, and all I need to do today is defend it and answer questions about it in front of a few professors.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“So, it’s like a dissertation defense, we have that in the civilian world as well.” Jason smiled and asked: “What are your topics?”

“Yeah, nothing special, just some replication research in energy field theory, combined with some experiment reports on construct crafting. And the bigger and longer report I have was about the use of illusion arrays and combining it with the replay of memories - it’s kind of a new field of research, relatively speaking.” Laura Jensen shook off the worries in her head, then tried to explain to Jason and Caroline: “Jason, I remember you are quite good at illusion spells and arrays, but I don’t know if you’ve come into contact with memory imprints in areas spaces and things…”

“I think I’ve encountered those before.” Jason nodded: “But it’s not in an area per se, more like - it’s pieces of memories that make up a whole timeline in a small space, and when you trigger them you can sort of let them play in unison and they become some kind of holographic footage.”

“Exactly, that’s one very typical kind of memory in things and spaces.” Laura Jensen snapped her fingers and said: “And, sometimes if a piece of memory is ‘strong’ and ‘powerful’ enough, it will be recorded in the very space where it happened. For example, ghost ships, or the sightings of the shadows of ancient battles in some remote and deserted areas. And this new area of research is somewhat based on the observation of the properties of this kind of memories, and how it can display different things based on different triggers, and if given a well crafted, complicated trigger, the memory can even display information in a much more detailed way.”

“Wait, tell me more.” Jason immediately recalled the memory replay he saw when investigating the crime scene with Aimee and Detective Lee: “What kind of well crafted trigger? Using what method?”

“Well, with illusions.” Laura Jensen appeared surprised, but then proceeded with a bright smile: “It’s like hypnosis, but instead of hypnotizing a living individual, you find out something about the very memory you’re trying to look into and dig into it following the trail of emotions or thoughts. And unlike the mind of humans or other sentient beings with brains that could do tricks to make up memories, the memories themselves tend not to fill in voids with unrelated or false information, so you’ll have less worries about things being inaccurate. It can still be misleading though, because most of these memories are still based on the presence of sentient minds, and thus they carry the emotions and biases of those minds with them.”

“And what are some applications of these researches? ” Jason nodded and took a sip of his drink.

“Well, forensics and excavations.” Laura Jensen shrugged: “And of course, it presents a way to deal with malice as well, especially the kind of strong malice that could render a place ‘haunted’. There are some studies indicating that by applying some kind of influence of positive emotion, malice can dissolve in a much safer way than our normal practices could make it.”

“Oh, god.” Caroline and Jason said at the same time.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Well, nothing - it’s just - ” Caroline stammered and was struggling a bit to find the right words: “ - that kind of sounds like loving the evil guy to be good.”

“And it’s not to discredit these researches.” Jason immediately barged in: “It’s just this sounds very new and - and different!”

“That may be, but - ” Laura Jensen was just about to say something, before a loud announcement from a strange female voice broadcasted into the diner cut her off.

“All students and faculty members of the Grant Academy, all students and faculty members of the Grant Academy, this is this Vice Principal. We just received a report of some clear and impending danger to the academy. This is why I, as acting principal of the academy, will be declaring a state of emergency, and issuing an order of evacuation, effective immediately…”