Chapter 552: Environmental Issues

Luo Qi set foot in the tropical forest and was immediately enveloped by the humid, sweltering vapor permeating the air. Zhou Quan had arrived here following his teleportation elevator and was taken aback when the heat hit his face.

Indeed, Mages' bodies were more comfortable in colder forests. However, precisely for this reason, if one wanted to find a place with few people to chat, this was a better place. The hearing of some Mages could make whispers within ten meters as clear as if they were being murmured directly into one's ear. By that ratio, the forest over there was practically crawling with Mages.

Zhou Quan grasped this point immediately. "I'll go for a walk, you go ahead and get busy. If you need help, remember to call me."

Luo Qi nodded; he might indeed still need to go to Zhou Quan for help. Zhou Quan's position was not high, but he was a coordinator for the work of the big shots. Opening and closing Monitoring Crystals or opening a door for him to leave was very convenient, and Zhou Quan could always find legal authorization for himself. Although Luo Qi had realized by now that the favor debt he owed Zhou Quan would be demanded back with interest in a heartbeat, what could you say? At least Zhou Quan was a proper businessman; he had a price.

Luo Qi stood in place for a while, watching Zhou Quan walk far away, then turned and followed a specific Yajian signature, walking slowly toward it. Vines coiled around the tree trunk, and a flower bud grew out of a depression in the bark. Luo Qi held his breath, and a flower the size of a palm bloomed right before his eyes. Luo Qi frowned slightly; a trace of an unusual signal brushed past his heart, so light that the past him would have missed it.

He jerked his head to the side, and the lily-like silver flower sprayed a burst of silver-blue pollen. He held his breath and stepped back, watching intently as the flower withered right before his eyes, as if it had exhausted all its strength, fulfilled its duty, and its life's time had flowed away. In the blink of an eye, the withered flower stalk could no longer support the drooping petals; the flower head detached and fell onto the grass on the ground, making a soft sound.

Luo Qi stayed there for a moment, then suddenly raised his head to look at the treetop. The thick canopy was like a green bird's nest. He listened quietly for a while, then suddenly climbed onto a branch, kicked the trunk, and used the force to swing himself onto a higher branch. As soon as his feet landed, he twisted his waist and nimbly propelled himself higher.

Forty-seven seconds later, Luo Qi passed through the bottom layer of the canopy and stopped on a thick horizontal branch. Liu Ziyi was sitting there cross-legged, her back against the thick trunk, her long hair messy. She was buried in the laptop on her knees, her right hand still holding a pencil. Several crystals floated around her, making her look almost like a dreamlike elf. Almost, because floating beside her were not just a few translucent crystals, but also an open notebook with curled edges.

"rn-571." Liu Ziyi pulled the notebook over, wrote a few words on it, and said to Luo Qi without raising her head. "Quite clever, unlike you. If you had been sprayed with that pollen, you would have fallen into hallucinations."

"What kind of hallucinations?" Luo Qi asked casually.

"I don't know, but people would run around the forest for about two hours. I saw it in the Highland Mage archives. I guess this plant pollinates this way, just like a caltrop."

"Then why did you pick this tree to sit in?" Luo Qi asked, puzzled. "Besides, you must have heard me walking over, why didn't you tell me?"

"In case you got sprayed, wouldn't I have been able to tell what kind of hallucination it was?" Liu Ziyi said as a matter of course.

Luo Qi was speechless; Liu Ziyi definitely wanted to conduct this experiment. He didn't want to condemn her, as she would do it again the next time she found an opportunity. He made a mental note of it; he would have to be even more careful in the future. "Why are you using a human computer?"

"It contains research data from human Scholars. And when I want to think a bit slower, computers and paper notebooks are very suitable; our Storage Crystals store data too fast." Liu Ziyi explained. She put the pencil back into her mouth, her two hands typing rapidly on the laptop. She said vaguely, "Wait for me a moment."

Luo Qi waited patiently, staring blankly at the top of Liu Ziyi's head, silently thinking that although her hair was as thick as a Monchhichi, since she was so smart, would she go bald before she was a hundred?

"Alright." Liu Ziyi let go of the notebook and pushed them all away, letting them float in mid-air. She raised her head, her bright eyes looking at him. "Is there something you needed to find me for out here?"

Luo Qi took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Wanted to show you this."

Liu Ziyi took it and glanced at it. "Senior Brother's handwriting. Oh, it's this. Senior Brother gave me a copy yesterday; there's nothing unusual about it."

"I know he would show you, but I think he probably didn't tell you the details," Luo Qi said tentatively.

Liu Ziyi looked up at him, then nodded as if she had a sudden realization. "Oh, right, right. If you can tell me which direction to consider and give me a scope, maybe I can see something."

"Do you know Qiongqi? The Scavenger on the outskirts of Qionglin," Luo Qi asked.

"I know," Liu Ziyi said calmly. But the 'know' that came out of her mouth always contained a lot of 'knowing'.

"If I wanted to make Qiongqi sleep quietly, or... if I hope that Qiongqi's... I don't know if it's viviparous or oviparous, but if it has eggs, what conditions would be needed to preserve the eggs? This letter uses Ancient Mage Spells to write many environmental parameters. Can this environment preserve... say, a fresh Qiongqi egg?" Luo Qi asked.

Liu Ziyi's brow furrowed. What gave Luo Qi a glimmer of hope was that Liu Ziyi didn't immediately say yes or no; at least she was willing to think about it, so perhaps the direction was correct. After a long while, Liu Ziyi said, "I need to think about it. I need to design a possible environment, and I need to look up some data. Wait for me a moment; I can check it right here, a few minutes will be enough."

As she spoke, she had already begun to open one of her Storage Crystals to retrieve the data inside.

Luo Qi relaxed, though the branch was too narrow for him to do anything else. He waited for a while and then started chatting with Liu Ziyi again. "You graduated earlier than my brother, but you call him Senior Brother?"

"Senior fellow apprentice," Liu Ziyi said, focusing on a piece of flickering light and shadow before coming back to herself to continue. "It's based on the order of entry, not the order of graduation."

Luo Qi was a bit curious. "You must have skipped grades to graduate. Then what about my brother? Why didn't he finish school earlier?"

"Because Senior Brother is very busy. From ten... maybe around when he was fourteen, he was already a Battle Mage," Liu Ziyi said, furrowing her brows again at a pile of data. "And he has too many things to learn. Being a Battle Mage, he has more subjects to study than I do, and he has even more subjects he's interested in himself."

"Oh," Luo Qi said, sticking both hands into his pants pockets. "Nerd."

(End of chapter)