“Alright!” the whole lecture was just about a few minutes shy from a whole hour, when it finally finished, Carl walked back to the podium with two other students by his side and asked the audience: “Any questions you wanna ask? We will try our best to provide you with satisfying answers.”

Someone from the audience behind Jason raised his hand. When Jason looked back at this audience member, he found that this was the chubby and food-loving Chinese man he and Caroline saw once in the canteen, who seemed really familiar to Jason and Caroline at the time and still did now to Jason.

“What’s Mr. Patterson’s advice on preventing over-filtering when it comes to close-binding target material and impurities?” this chubby Chinese man asked: “He mentioned it briefly during the lecture, but did not elaborate very much.”

“Yes, good question. Actually I believe Mr. Patterson touched more on this in the following lecture - he explained that if you know and understand the binding force enough, and you have the ability to create an array that resonates with neither the target material nor the impurities but only the binding force itself, you can neutralize the binding force thus forcefully separate them. This is in theory achievable, but we have the ability to create arrays that resonate with less than five kinds of binding forces.” the student on Carl’s left side explained: “I believe Mr. Patterson himself is still trying to develop a more general solution but I think he is still in the initial phase of that research.”

“Thank you! That’s… very inspired.” the chubby Chinese man thought for a short while then said.

“How to best stabilize the array when the purification is in its most volatile phase?” another student asked: “When I try to purify Oceanian Crystals from the rough stones, I always seem to encounter a phase where the half-purified material breaks apart into very small grains and even droplets, which causes the whole process to become extra unpredictable and prone to failure. I have tried many techniques but all ended up me using more energy stones to forcefully contain the volatility. Mr. Patterson also briefly mentioned the general principles of dealing with this phase during the lecture, but I was wondering how to operate based on them.”

“Yes, that is definitely quite common, especially when we’re dealing with highly volatile material like Oceanian Crystals and Brimstone Amber.” Carl answered with a smile: “From my experience working with Mr. Patterson and reading his research notes, the easiest method would be to first understand the source of volatility and locate them, meaning different kinds of impurities and how they may interact with the array; then, we could pre-prep the composite with some de-volatilizing agents; and finally when crafting the purification array, we can try to make sure the array interacts with the de-volatilizing agents to maximize the effect. As for what kind of de-volatilizing agents to use, it would be on a case by case basis. All in all, you need to take time to understand the material you’re dealing with, and find the most effective ways to deal with all the components. And everyone, please bear in mind - we may call them impurities and target material, but when it comes to the process of purification, they are just components that need to be separated. ”

------------------------------------

In his office, Professor Atkinson was pacing near his own table, and Dolores was sitting in front of hers.

“It’s been days, Mr. Yu still hadn’t come up with his device. I think we may need to halt our research. Our remaining energy stones will last at most one day if we use them very carefully. It’s kinda surprising that we lasted this long with our rough purification methods.”

“Even if he was able to bring us the purification device - we won’t be able to fully complete our research - we could first try to decipher the message inside the energy signature. And maybe wait until the academy is open again.” Professor Atkinson sighed and said.

“It would take quite a while. We just had another three faculty members and about five other students showing symptoms of exposure.” Dolores sighed: “And I heard from sources close to uncle Tamil, some investigative agents from the government had come into the academy to investigate the matter, while the administration is still trying to cover everything up. I don’t think those energy stones will be here soon.”

“So… I think either we halt our research and try to scrap for resources while we can, or we find another way.” Professor Atkinson stopped at his desk, reached into one of the drawers and took out a dark and translucent scythe.

“You’re thinking about accepting it.” Dolores stood up from her chair.

“Yes. Even if we’re not in the current position, I would still be very tempted to accept it.” Professor Atkinson said: “This is not just any contract anyone powerful was able to offer. And you know, as a scholar, I spent all my life trying to understand Godfalls and gain as much knowledge as I can about the old gods. This contract, with its terms so favorable to us, presents a chance to us almost too good to be true.”

“And hence it worries me.” Dolores sighed and said: “Professor, I know you trust Mr. Yu, I trust him as well. But this contract is only offered to us, he merely negotiated the terms for us. They are both on a level that we could barely understand, I’m afraid...”

“You’re afraid that the terms might have some hidden meanings that we are not yet familiar with or we do not understand, and they could affect us in a negative way?” Professor Atkinson asked, then after thinking about it for a short while, he raised the scythe and let it float around in midair: “Let’s check the terms out again.”

When Professor Atkinson infused his magical power into the scythe, the hologram a huge blob of grey cloud appeared in the room. And from inside of the grey cloud, a vague humanoid shape started to speak, slowly and clearly: “I, the first ascender from the void, the origin fire of the void-born and decreer of all realms of living aspects, hereby offer this binding contract to mortals James B. Atkinson and Dolores J. Brooke. It will be by my will and decree, that the common knowledge, access to temples and rituals afforded to my followers and children of the old days be fully imparted upon the contracted mortals without holdback, in exchange for their aid in locating the inheritor of my knowledge, power and throne. This agreement shall be bound by the purest and straightest of my will, and shall be violated or disrespected by none.”