High School of Demon Hunting
Chapter 520 - 189: This - Can Have Spin-offs_1

Chapter 520: Chapter 189: This Chapter Can Have Spin-offs_1

The owner of the lab, carrying a fox, leisurely led the guest behind him deeper into the lab.

Researchers in black robes passed by them, hurriedly carrying heavy documents and baskets full of crystals the size of fingertips.

The young scholarship student looking at the suspicious looking black mist swirling in the crystal orbs felt like he had missed something.

It wasn’t until he saw a researcher beside a large crystal orb open the Law book, summon fresh strands of black mist out of thin air, and stuff them back into the orb, that he couldn’t suppress his doubts anymore.

"What are your test subjects?"

Though the question may have been impulsive, Zheng Qing insisted on asking it. If he did not fully understand, this issue would persist like a thorn in his heart, bothering him ceaselessly after seeing the eerie scenes around him and hearing Su Daxu’s explanation.

Su Shijun was holding Poseidon with one hand and let her other hand hang down.

Her long, fair fingers tapped lightly on the floor.

Zheng Qing lowered his head.

The blue-grey floor was spotless. Besides the dark shadow cast by the orb beside him, not even an ant could be seen.

A shadow?

Zheng Qing suddenly remembered the warning from the parrot at the front desk of the research institute.

"A shadow?" he looked up, his tone a bit dry, "You use shadows for the experiment?"

"As a projection of three-dimensional creatures possessing both the wave-particle duality, nothing can serve as a better subject for infiltrating and disrupting these two-dimensional worlds than shadows." Su Shijun casually replied while organizing new work for the researchers.

"No, no, no," Zheng Qing immediately shook his head, denying, "What I meant was... I’ve always felt that shadows seem to lack a certain vitality... I find it hard to believe that they can take on such crucial experimental tasks."

"That’s natural. From a wizard’s perspective, other than wizards, aren’t all creatures dull and obtuse, lacking any spirituality? ... However, ’lifeforms’ with two-dimensional attributes are extremely rare, let alone those closely related to the concept of ’humans’. They are exceedingly rare."

"We really shouldn’t hold too high expectations for this world."

Having said that, Su Shijun suddenly turned her head to look at Zheng Qing and asked, "... Besides, what do you think a two-dimensional world is like?"

Zheng Qing hesitated for a moment.

"Is it a two-dimensional world?" He attempted a reply, "Back at my hometown, there are some youngsters who are very fond of anime and are commonly known as ’Otakus’... Could the anime world they love belong to the two-dimensional world?"

"Ah, I almost forgot, you’re not a pure-born wizard." Su Shijun waved her hand dismissively and added, "True wizard children would start with the individual dimensions, discussing which two dimensions could construct a world, rather than drawing a blunt conclusion like you... but you are not entirely wrong either."

"From the world conception of anime, novels, movies, to fairy tales, folktales, and nighttime scary tales, etc., these ’worlds’ with a certain concept of the world but without a world form, all belong to the world of two dimensions... that is also our goal of exploration and experiment."

"What kind of life form do you think can enter the two-dimensional world?"

"Novel characters, supporting characters, TV show protagonists." Zheng Qing touched the tip of his nose and laughed, "Can shadows become protagonists?"

"Creation originates from reality and transcends reality, every character in every piece of work has a shadow in the real world. Haven’t you heard readers comment that they see the writer’s shadow in the protagonist of a certain work?"

"Shadows are indeed the true natives of these works... their vitality comes from their works, and the height their works reach are also attributed to them."

"Wouldn’t it be too weak for a work to be composed of just shadows." asked Zheng Qing, sounding skeptical, "Shouldn’t a true masterpiece have its own soul?"

"Do you want us to experiment with souls?" Su Shijun scratched Poseidon’s chin and watched it wag its tail with a smiling face, while looking surprised at the scholarship student, "... This is the first university, you know. If someone reported that a wizard violated half of the provisions in the Wizard’s Code, it might become the biggest scandal in the wizard world of this century."

"I didn’t! I didn’t! You’re making things up!!" Zheng Qing blushed instantly.

Poseidon, reclining in Su Shijun’s arms, was laughing heartily.

"But where do the shadows come from?" Zheng Qing resisted the urge to tug the fox’s ears and skillfully changed the topic.

At the same time, he couldn’t help but recall various fairy tales he had read. There were wicked witches who cut off the innocent little girl’s shadow with scissors. From then on, those children who had lost their shadows had to live their days away from the sunlight.

He found that he always tended to think of problems from the worst perspective.

Su Shijun’s following response proved his point.

"Oh, the shadows are collected from the mortal world," The witch’s response seemed casual as if these contents were not confidential at all, "To be precise, they were traded for."

"Traded?" the scholarship student’s imagination immediately filled with various images of devils, their guffawing laughter, and contracts drawn on burning parchment.

"Uh...do you know about computers?"

"Yes." Zheng Qing twitched the corner of his mouth, showing signs of exasperation on his face.

"Oh, I almost forgot, you have one back at home," Su Shijun stuck her tongue out, showing a cute expression.

Zheng Qing’s IQ felt like it was wiped clean by her cute look.

"The ’meme’ curse research institute of the applied magic research institute helped us formulate a small-scale ’meme’," With that, Su Shijun took out a laptop from somewhere and placed it in front of Zheng Qing, "It’s this software..."

Zheng Qing looked at the familiar interface on the computer screen, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with emotion.

It seemed like he hadn’t touched a computer in a very long time.

QQ, games, Tieba, all sorts of group chats in Zhihu, countless memories instantly filled his brain.

"I’ve missed this..." Unable to resist, he touched the touch screen enthusiastically, excitedly clicked open a webpage, "The first university even has WiFi? Which company’s network are you connected to? Mobile or UniCom? I remember UniCom’s signal is always bad, but Mobile has too many restrictions, many of the fun websites can’t be opened..."

Su Shijun watched him with a smiling face, seeming to have no intention to explain.

Zheng Qing didn’t mind and was focusing on typing on the keyboard, moving the cursor, and casually clicking open a reading website, thus casting a few recommendation votes for his favorite novel.

Oh, and the monthly votes.

As Zheng Qing didn’t know when he would use the computer next, he decided to spend all of his saved votes in one go.

Familiar webpage, familiar interface... and familiar pop-up ads!

A small grey-white box popped up in the bottom right corner of the webpage.

In the box were two lines of bold text:

"Want to understand the meaning of life?"

"Want to truly... live?"