Chapter 76: Sharp as a Feather
"As it turns out, my vision is still quite good. Regardless of your magical qualifications, your high mental power is enough to make you competent in many basic tasks." Nick didn't let any complacency leak out as he complimented himself.
"Yeah, Elder Nick's vision is really good." Saul thought to himself, "He was also the one who saw at first glance that my normal best skill was Light Elemental Perception, and didn't just fill it in."
"So now that we have reached a consensus, we can work together properly, right?" Nick spread his hands and faced Saul.
Sol hurriedly responded, "I will do my best to cooperate with Senior."
Nick nodded slightly, still with little expression, as if he was just born with a lack of facial expression.
"There's been a bit of a delay, let's start the experiment straight away, explaining as we go, number one come in!" Nick put his ear wraps back on and raised his voice slightly, shouting in the direction of the door.
Saul turned around just in time to see the door to the lab being pushed open, and a blonde but expressionless female second level apprentice walked in.
It was one of the ones that Saul had seen in Rum's room earlier, and he wondered when she had waited outside the door.
The female apprentice walked in and stood across the operating table, face to face with Senior Nick.
Both were expressionless, or emotionless.
Saul's eyes darted over the two, pondering if the two were related in any way.
"Don't look at me." Senior Nick gestured to the woman, but his mouth was still talking to Sol, "I'm not in the same situation as her or them."
Nick motioned for the wooden, pretty female apprentice to sit in the metal, high-backed chair across from him.
As the slender female apprentice sat in the metal chair, it immediately began to morph.
The tall back of the chair sank down and two iron rings protruded from the back of the chair, locking around the female apprentice's neck and waist.
The two armrests tucked inward, just enough to hold the apprentice girl's hanging small arms and lock her elbows and wrists together.
Metal rings also extend from the legs of the chair, clasping the ankles and knees.
How it looked like punishment was about to be inflicted.
Nick motioned for Saul to follow and went up to show him how to use the metal chair.
Behind and underneath the chair was a rope that hung down like a wire, the tip of which was as thin as an embroidery needle.
When the female apprentice was seated, Nick walked over and stuck one tip on the female apprentice's cheek, wrist, ankle and other places.
Those ropes look very heavy, the depth of the tip into the skin is only a few millimeters, but when Nick let go of his hand, the rope did not fall due to gravity, but as if conscious as to maintain in the original position.
Saul memorized the maneuvers while thinking about when to mention to Nick about solving the grudge.
The job had started so unexpectedly that he hadn't had a chance to talk about it.
The female apprentice was expressionless and unresponsive the entire time.
Saul felt that even if Nick did something more horrible at this point, the apprentice girl wouldn't put up any resistance.
When they finished working up and down, the two of them retreated behind the console.
Nick took out a disk made of the same material as the metal chair.
Saul stretched his neck and moved over to look at it.
The disk was divided into four areas by crosses, while each area was divided into small compartments of different shapes and numbers.
"This is called the inductive chair, and this is the corresponding manipulation disk." Nick began to introduce, "The principle of the manipulation disk is a bit more complicated, it's not part of the public knowledge, you don't need to care about it. You just need to memorize where each sensing rope is tied."
Ensuring that Saul had memorized the previous steps, Nick took out a pen and paper and had Saul sit beside him.
"Normally, I mainly record the emotional changes of the experimental subjects to sense their feedback to the stimulation of the inductive chair. In a moment, you use your method to record the performance of the experimental subjects."
Nick gently tossed up the disk in his hand and put it down again, and the entire manipulation disk suddenly lit up with a blue electric light from within, flashing across the entire disk before finally falling silent again.
The fingertips of Saul's left hand unconsciously retracted into his sleeve.
Electricity, the nemesis of plastic bones.
"I'm actually quite curious as to why your mentor sent you over to record the reactions of the experimental subjects. Have you awakened some strange talent?" Nick spoke of curiosity, but didn't roll his eyes for a second, as if it were a polite comment.
Without waiting for Sol's feedback, Nick pressed the joystick, "Here we go."
As Nick pressed, bright lights began to flash in different locations of the manipulation dial.
In contrast, a current was conducted along the rope of the inductive chair to the female apprentice's body, and a faint burnt odor immediately drilled out from the female apprentice's body.
The female apprentice immediately furrowed her brows, revealing a pained expression. She wanted to arch her back, but she was unable to move due to the several iron rings binding her.
Saul first used his naked eyes to observe the circle and did not find anything special.
It was as if the female apprentice had just received an electric shock.
Afterwards, he entered a semi-immersed meditative state.
When Saul's line of sight fell on the female apprentice again, he was shocked to find that a translucent, grayish-white man's face had appeared on the female apprentice's face!
The man's eyes were slightly narrowed, and the corners of his mouth were raised in a look of pleasure.
This face was very similar to the human face formed by the rune array on the female apprentice's back.
"I sense on my side that Number One's current mood is pleasure. Have you found anything?" Nick didn't look at the female apprentice's agonized expression, but instead stared at the manipulation disk and said.
Saul gazed at the transparent man's face on the female Padawan's face.
"Cool."
Nick froze and turned his head to Saul, "Your wording is a bit strange, can you describe it in more detail?"
"Just exceptionally comfortable and relaxing."
Nick sniffed, looking down at the manipulation dial in his hand in contemplation.
After a few moments passed, he suddenly threw the manipulation disk onto the table, and lay down on the table with his cat on his back and began to write and draw.
The female apprentice on the inductive chair was already in so much pain that her facial expression began to distort, and a trace of saliva fell from the corner of her mouth.
And the man on her face began to roll his eyes.
"Senior Nick, why don't you turn off the inductor chair for a moment?"
Nick then snapped back to his senses, noticing the female Padawan's distress, but instead of turning off the manipulator dial, he switched to a different type of excitation.
Another silver arc of electricity then pleases the ropes.
The pain on the female apprentice's face disappeared in an instant, and her whole body went limp as she leaned backward against the back of the chair and let out a soft breath.
But in Saul's eyes, the translucent man's face became agonized a little.
His pain was not like being electrocuted, but more like suffocation.
He kept opening his mouth wide, trying hard to breathe, but forgetting that he clearly no longer needed to breathe.
Saul stared at two different faces at the same time, thinking that the man in the female apprentice was probably a spirit as well.
A type of spirit possessing the female apprentice.
"What I feel this time is pain, exhaustion. Do you?" Observing for a moment, Padawan Nick beside her asked again.
"Suffocation," Saul said truthfully, "like a fish being thrown on shore."
Nick was thoughtful, and this time he was in no hurry to record it, but turned off the maneuvering disk and the inductor's chair.
"It does seem a little clearer from your perspective than if I were to recognize it singularly from emotion." Nick continued his notes.
Saul looked sideways and found a large unreadable list of identifiers.
Watching Nick write and draw with a face of concentration, Saul said as he read, "Senior Nick is actually more accurate than me through emotional sensing. The performance of the experimental body coupled with my subjective interpretation can easily bring about errors in the transmission of information."
Nick finished the last stroke and looked sideways at Sol, "You don't quite look like a twelve year old."
(End of chapter)