"How could this be? I thought under the academy guidelines the energy stone reserves should ALWAYS be filled unless there are extraordinary circumstances that called for its allocation." Professor Atkinson was confused and even a little angered by the news Dolores brought.
"Professor Harmon was very not receptive of any probes or questions into that." Dolores sighed: "I guess we can file an open accounting request to see and track the allocation of those energy stones. But that'll just piss him and all the department administration off."
"Has there been any… extraordinary circumstances that could have caused this?" Jianmen asked.
"No. " Professor Atkinson and Dolores answered at the same time.
"Before the start of the semester, we've all read through the previous year's annual reports from both the academy and the department." Professor Atkinson explained: "If anything, last year was a pretty good year for us - we've got cheaper supplies of high quality energy stones, more donors and more research contract revenue. It just makes no sense."
"I think your academy may have an embezzlement problem. But that's something for another day." Jianmen scoffed: "How about this - I sneak out and bring those energy stones back for you? I can vet the stones myself before bringing it in - and you can vet it with me. You know how good I am with portals."
"No, no no no." Dolores immediately refused this proposal: "That is extremely dangerous, we could face severe consequences and punitive measures from the academy, not to mention borderline illegal."
"Okay. So you'll have to cut your usage of the energy stones then." Jianmen scratched his head and said: "I don't suppose you have some of those energy stone purifying devices with you? It would really help. I mean, even a low grade ten percent increase in energy efficiency would make your reserves last much longer."
"I wish - but there are only two of those devices in the academy. And one was reserved for the core research labs. I asked Professor Harmon about booking some time to use the other. He said it already has a one month backlog. So we would not be able to do that any time soon." Dolores rubbed her temples then looked at Jianmen: "I think we need to plan our rationing."
"Do you have any simple devices that could do some rough purifying?" Jianmen thought for a while and asked: "It doesn't have to be as efficient as an actual full blown device, maybe three to five percent increase in energy efficiency?"
"Uh - I think I have some dusty old models of small purifiers." Dolores snapped her fingers and said: "But it was quite old - it was one of my older birthday gifts. I've never used it in some years..."
"Then get it! That could be something we could try!" Professor Atkinson urged Dolores: "Now come to think of it, I should go and see if I have anything in my warehouse."
"Okay. Let me know if I can help with anything." Jianmen shook his head with a wry smile, as Professor Atkinson and Dolores rushed outside of their office. Then he headed to his temporary personal lab and continued with yet another of his artifacts - somewhat coincidentally, it was also one that can purify energy sources, too bad it was nowhere close to his standard of completeness.
Should the artifact be completed, it would not only be one that could dissect most, if not all kinds of energy signature and even the traces of residual energy from Godfall. If it was before, this kind of artifact would be useless because none of the Godfalls he tracked down left any traces of energy. But this time, there was a fallen god who had some vague recollection of what happened, and even some remnants of a wound from the fall, this could very well be the only chance for him to figure out the reasons behind Godfalls.
The artifact looked like a long glass tube with metal laces wrapped around the exterior, and there were also arcane patterns engraved on the tube and the metal laces, which were emitting faint pulses of energy waves.
Jianmen activated the artifact then picked up a piece of rock laid on the side of the artifact and dropped it into the top of the artifact. As it fell through the tube, its surface began to ash and melt and its size began to shrink as a result. Some sort of force field was also slowing its fall, as the closer the rock got to the bottom of the tube, the slower its fall became. Eventually it stopped - the rock was reduced to a barely visible shiny grain of sand and floated somewhere near the bottom.
Though not expecting much, Jianmen was still disappointed by the final size of the sand - the purification process burnt away too much of the desired ingredient from the piece of rock, which meant the artifact was not energy efficient as Jianmen hoped it would be.
After some fine-tuning and re-engraving of some of the patterns, Jianmen decided to try again.
This time, the piece of rock exploded before it could reach the bottom of the tube.
Jianmen frustratedly scratched his head and let out a super long exhale.
Just this moment, his phone buzzed, from the buzzing sound Jianmen knew it was some kind of general academy public notice notification he set up for himself. When he checked his phone, he found out that the student duel, which was interrupted last time due to the emergency announcement, would continue next Monday. And as a show of confidence from the academy administration to the whole academy in their ability to maintain peace and normality, the principal and the vice principal would be there to watch the duel.