"Okay okay okay, don't tell me about him. I don't feel comfortable with this. My uncle's on the board, my father's almost made tenure - I can't get involved with this!" Dolores stood up and paced behind her desk: "Just tell me, are you sure he's the right person? "
"Yes. He's very knowledgeable on some of the areas on which we're doing research. " Professor Atkinson sighed and said: "And please keep this between us, and don't let it affect our collaboration with Mr. Yu. The board keeps cutting our funding, he's all we have."
"Okay… okay... What qualifications does he have? " Dolores finally stopped pacing and asked: "I mean, you mentioned payment, what kind of payment does he want? "
"He wanted some access to some books in our libraries." Professor Atkinson sighed.
"That's way worse! Do we know what kind of books he's after?" Dolores scratched her head and almost yelled.
"Don't worry. I'm not interested in your secret theories and spell development." a familiar voice came through the office door, which startled both Dolores and Professor Atkinson.
"How… Did anyone break the soundproof spell in the office?" Dolores looked around, while Professor Atkinson opened the door and let Jianmen's shorter, younger and chubbier avatar in.
"I am sorry to barge in." Jianmen smiled: "I was about to introduce myself tomorrow, but I realized that I was being referred to in an angry manner, so I had to come here and see if I can help."
"What?" Dolores stammered: "That… That's not possible unless you're a grand..."
"Dolores! Let me introduce you to Mr. Jianmen Yu." Professor Atkinson immediately closed the door and tried to save everyone the embarrassment: "He's worked with us in the past, and he's been kind to work with us on our upcoming excavations and research."
"Nice to meet you." Jianmen extended his hand at Dolores: "And sorry I had to come in like this … because I was technically on the academy black list, and the reason to which is kinda hilarious."
"Mr. Yu had some very strong disagreements with the vice principal during his time here as an audit student." Professor Atkinson explained: "He reached out to Josephine earlier, and Josephine reached out to me. We came up with this collaboration, and since didn't really have a lot of funding, we just made the collaboration project really inexpensive."
"Okay..." Dolores was hesitant, but still shook Jianmen's hand: "Why does that sound very familiar?"
"Yeah, that vice principal was your uncle, Tamil Brooke." Jianmen shrugged: "And Professor Atkinson was putting it generously, I got into a physical altercation with your uncle. So I got expelled immediately and was put on the black list. But something from our earlier interaction tells me that you won't mind."
"That's not true!" Dolores protested, but then couldn't help but chuckle and smiled: "Okay I lied, I totally won't mind."
"Phew, so we're good? " Professor Atkinson exhaled in relief, then asked.
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In the academy hunting ground. Caroline and Jason just finished their first hunt. It was not Caroline's first hunt per se, but it was definitely Jason's.
"Never have I ever thought that my first hunt would be in a magical boarding school hunting ground." Jason told Caroline when dragging an ugly dead boar with red and black furr, two asymmetric horns that looked like two bulging tree roots emerging from the center of its forehead and the side of its face and two lion-like front paws. The boar's two fangs in its lower jaw were exposed and were leaving a trail of scratch marks on the ground.
"Yeah, well, I've always hoped Boss would take us to hunt sometimes." Caroline smiled and dragged another boar of the same species and similar size with her: "Consider this being the first time for me as well - I'd never hunted with an axe and a shield before. Hell, I've never even used bows or crossbows before, I've always used rifles."
"Yeah. I think that wouldn't be too useful in this case." Jason chuckled: "I've always heard some boars are able to withstand bullet impacts. And these ugly pigs could definitely take normal hunting bullets in the face."
"I wonder how the bacon tastes." Caroline laughed: "I wouldn't expect much though, judging from their ugly faces and tough skin. Come to think of it. If possible, I would ask Boss to make a gun for me. Looks like I am somewhat lacking in attacking remote enemies."
It did not take long for them to reach the hunting ground checkpoint, where one young man was there waiting for them already.
"Good hunting day!" the young man had a bright smile when he greeted Caroline and Jason: "Just two boars? You can hunt more if you'd like. You still have some time."
"It's alright, it's our first time here and I can't wait to check out our first lunch." Caroline threw her boar onto a magic scale on the side of the checkpoint.
"Yeah. How good does this taste?" Jason also threw his prey on the scale.
"Terrible but still edible for the most part." the young man wrote down some notes on a clipboard: "The best tasting part is its liver and heart, and aside from them everything else chews like wood and sponge and tastes like old cloth."
"Ew." Caroline shook her head.
"Liver and heart sounds good enough for me." Jason looked at Caroline and chuckled.
"Yeah, too bad the academy always claims them." the young man sighed, gently pressing a diamond shaped pendant on his bracelet: "Okay, for your hunt today, according to academy policy, the academy owns most of their fur, their hearts and livers, their all but one nail from each of their front claws, all of their hooves …"
"Just tell us what we can take with us." Caroline shook her head and said, she knew that all the wild game from the hunting ground belonged to the academy, so this was not a surprise to her.
"You are entitled to their lower fangs, their horns, one tenth of their blood and their tongues." the young man gave them a "yikes" facial expression: "You could buy some other stuff for cheap if you want, since you are the hunter. And if you want you can sell your shares to the academy."
"Okay." Jason and Caroline exchanged looks: "I would just keep the fangs. Sell the rest. "
"Same for me. Just the fangs." Caroline sighed.
Half an hour later, Caroline and Jason walked into the school canteen, each half a gold coin richer.
"The school's kinda cheap. Only half a gold coin for everything? I didn't even know they can be divided!" Jason chuckled wryly when he was standing in the line with Caroline.
Just this moment, a man and a woman standing in front of them turned back and looked at Jason and then Caroline with shock on their faces: "Jason? Caroline?"