Chapter 22: An Opportunity

Under the shocked gazes of his grandfather and Teacher Anderson, Kraft took out the badge, the black robe of the Medical School, and the books gifted by the professor, pushing them all onto the table.

He felt this matter was hard to explain anyway, so he let the physical objects prove it.

Ryan said nothing beside him; he did not believe Kraft's story about "reading a certain book from his grandfather's collection," but he did not want Kraft to be unable to explain himself. After starting the topic, he simply fell silent, letting Kraft speak for himself.

"Anyway, after I treated a student from the neighboring Law School, their Professor Kalman may have overestimated my ability and invited me to be a lecturer at the Medical School."

As everyone knows, when something is absurd enough, already settled, and full of flaws, people end up not knowing where to start questioning it. Old Wood was stunned by the possibility that his own grandson might be a genius; he only knew that a lecturer at Wendeng Port Academy belonged to the high cultural class, but he could not distinguish exactly how high that level was.

Just as he knew Anderson was a lecturer in the School of Literature, but that knowledge was limited to knowing Anderson read and wrote fluently and had a very flashy, good handwriting. As for the details of disciplines like poetry, history, and literature, Old Wood understood nothing.

Fortunately, Anderson still grasped the main point: "You can also cure illnesses?"

He understood his student's level very well; of the credit for fluent reading and writing, he took three parts, while the remaining seven parts relied entirely on Old Wood's stick education. To say he would self-study was truly something that would make the fish in the river below the mountain laugh until they turned white.

"Ah yes, it was from that batch of scraps bought back at a low price by my grandfather last year; I picked up a stack that barely formed a booklet to look through." Kraft's gaze wandered as he scratched his head to hide his embarrassment.

"How would I know? Bring it out for your teacher to see?" Old Wood indeed liked buying such things, or rather, young nobles of this era all had some of this habit.

Whether to decorate bookshelves for face or as a lover of the occult like Old Wood, they were all loyal customers of this market.

Complete, revised books were simply too expensive, but scattered sheets of paper collected through various channels were different. These sheets might originally have been books lacking maintenance for various reasons, or they might have been casual practice pieces; their content was even more varied.

Some were stories, novels, scholar's notes, poetry albums, and medieval versions of "I Love Invention"; after being scattered, the preface did not match the conclusion, and "headless and tailless" was insufficient to describe them; they could only be called the remains of books, having lost their original value.

Those seeking face would buy them, casually rebind them, and place them on bookshelves so they would not be exposed when taken down; while occult enthusiasts with insufficient funds would pan for gold within them, searching for legacies of the past that might be mixed in.

Except for an occasional proper old book, the bulk of what Old Wood bought and studied with Anderson were these scattered "books." Since he truly did not hold high hopes, it was purely a hobby, and he did not scrutinize these things strictly.

"I don't know; I originally thought it was useless, and later I couldn't find it." Kraft resolved to make it a case of no witness to contradict, but seeing the somewhat angry looks in his grandfather's and Teacher Anderson's eyes, he still cowered, "However, I did write it all down."

"You wrote it all down?" Anderson, like Ryan, felt his intelligence had been insulted.

"Yes, I wrote it all down." Given Kraft's current situation, randomly picking a passage from a previous textbook and combining it with the content of a current monograph was a matter of a single thought; he immediately used his lecture content to give Anderson an infusion from anatomy to pathology.

Happy, so happy! As the saying goes, "If one does not return to one's hometown in prosperity, it is like wearing brocade at night." The Kraft of this world had never once recited fluently in front of Anderson; today, he could finally enjoy using his "superpower" in front of his teacher and parents.

The ten-minute-long exposition, from the production of yellow fluid in the liver to its concentration and storage in the gallbladder, and then to the relationship between jaundice and liver disease, did not stop once in between, leaving Anderson, who was from the School of Literature, with a dizzying, swollen head, beginning to suspect there was a problem with his own level of education, having wasted such a talent during years of schooling.

When Kraft finally stopped, still feeling unsatisfied, everyone present was completely convinced by him, believing that the Wood family had produced a medical genius.

"Excellent, I have no objection; Kraft, you should return to the Medical School and take up your post immediately." The happiest was Old Wood, not only because the tone of the entire family had suddenly been raised, but because he saw that his years of correcting Kraft's future path had yielded effective results.

In the future, when Kraft takes over the family, he should not, in a fit of passion, lead a group of people to the battlefield to establish merit. He could rely on the academy to build a network of connections to the great nobles and merchants of the city, allowing the family to develop within the city; this was the best path Old Wood's vision could conceive.

He was a noble forged on the battlefield, yet he did not bind his vision solely to the battlefield; his son's death only confirmed this point for him. Such instability was not what Old Wood wanted.

"Really? There is no need to be so urgent; I still want to rest in the castle for a while." Kraft was not as anxious as his grandfather; he felt he might need some time to be alone and properly sort through everything that had happened during this period.

"True, I know the academy; there is no rush for the moment." Anderson picked up the badge, looked at it, and placed it back on the folded black robe. "Just as well, I will write a few letters to some lecturers I was close with before; when you arrive at the academy, remember to get familiar with them."

In the following days, after traveling for a long time, Kraft finally got a chance to rest.

Every morning, he and Ryan would rise early to resume their double-handed sword windmill technique in the castle courtyard, enjoy vegetable soup with milk and ham, and carefully read the professor's given "Humoral Theory" and "Human Structure."

Besides this beautiful life of making his physique barbaric and his mind civilized, Kraft set aside large blocks of time to lie on the grassy slope and think.

After settling down, he finally had the opportunity to begin pondering everything that had happened recently.

The inexplicable transmigration, the fusion of souls, the indescribable thing in the night, the "gift" it left him—consciousness that broke through limits—and the "cost" remaining in the deepest part that could not be understood.

No, it could not be called a "cost"; he vaguely felt that was the true "gift."

His situation was like the prisoners in the cave described by Plato in "The Republic." He was trapped for a lifetime in a cave where he could not see the outside world, with only occasional sunlight shining in, casting shadows of objects on the cave walls.

Having seen only the shadows of objects, the prisoner believed that was the essence of things, the reality of the world.

However, one day, this prisoner, for unknown reasons, was briefly pulled out into the outside world. He saw sights never before seen in his life—blinding light, rich colors flowing on the ground and in the sky, plants, animals, and rocks, presented before his eyes in three-dimensional forms unheard of and unseen, while his brain, which had only seen flat shadows on the rock walls, was completely unable to explain all this to him.

Unfortunate, yet fortunate, this poor man fell back into the cave he knew after that brief instant, carrying a rose attached to him.

He thought the shadow cast by this rose on the cave wall was his precious souvenir, yet he feared the rose itself, simply because he did not understand three-dimensional things at all, let alone pick it up; merely attempting to touch it would leave him cut and bleeding from the thorns.

He would probably never understand what that was in his lifetime, nor know whether he should touch that "reality."

However, he knew that with a mortal's mind, that freebie, namely his liberated consciousness, was already precious enough. It allowed him to search out every corner of his memory and endowed him with powerful thinking abilities.

He could use this to become a good lecturer, an excellent family heir, a very good doctor, a future professor, a disseminator of knowledge...

At least for now, he had a good opportunity to become the person both souls were willing to be.