Hidden Schemes

Chapter 31

Du Hua Tu, the teacher, returned to the classroom shortly after Gou, Xiir, and Tai Shun had returned. It turns out that what Du Hua Tu had wanted Tai Shun to fell Gou in about was the test he'd mentioned just before leaving. The test was a placement test.

Tai Shun explained that the paper that had been given to Gou just before he entered the lunch room did decide his class and partner, but it didn't tell the teachers what level the individual student was on. Meaning the teachers had no idea how the machine had decided to sort them out. It could have made a class focused on potion making or a class covering a large variety of subjects.

Tai Shun explained that the class they were in currently was actually quite small and so Du Hua Tu had either been left with a group of losers or a specialty class. This test was designed to determine just what the machine had been after when it put them in this class.

The test wasn't a fully written test as Xiir had expected. Each couple was given a box, including the two upperclassmen who hadn't yet returned, and inside the box were many different objects. One was a glass ball, one was a beaker, there was a small sword and some fruits, even a mysterious little cube. After watching Gou play around with some of the objects he figured out their use.

The ball sucked up some of Gou's mana when he touched it, the sword was to see if one had an affinity for weapons. The gem on the end would glow if one did. The cube was actually a puzzle that had to be undone using mana to get the thing hidden in the center. Gou then took the small bead that he'd found in the center of the puzzle cube and did something strange.

Gou turned to Tai Shun, holding up the bead inside the beaker, "Do you know how to change your elan into fire yet?"

Tai Shun turned purple.

"Oh, right. Sorry." He apologized and turned behind him to Xiir. "Do you?"

Xiir took the ball off the table that had absorbed some of Gou's mana previously, "Use yours, I don't have any."

"There's inner power in this?"

Xiir nodded, "It took some from you when you pulled it out of the box."

Gou accepted it and looked at it with more interest now. "Strange, I can't sense it at all. It must be made of that stuff that master put in her space bags..." He mumbled to himself. He turned back to Tai Shun, "Hold this." He gave him the ball and the beaker, putting one over the other. Then he flicked the ball a few times until a small flame appeared from the top of the ball and began warming the beaker.

"Wha-! Wait! No,! I shouldn't be touching elan-"

"Don't move. I fixed the beaker so you won't burn and the sphere will burn at a set rate. You won't be able to go out of control with just this. Just don't move." He didn't turn away from what he was doing at the table. Xiir moved closer to Gou. As the chairs had been put to the side none of them were sitting down. Xiir watched as Gou took the fruits and began cutting them with the sword. On the first one, he removed the skin then cut in half and set to the side. With the second one, he opened it up, not caring out the skin, and removed a large seed from inside. The meaty part he cut into three parts. He took one and put it to Xiir's lips.

Xiir opened his mouth.

"I promised you food, remember?" He then popped the second one in his own mouth and gave the third to Tai Shun, who tried to refuse it. But when he opened his mouth, Gou stuffed it in and they ignored him as Gou turned back the first fruit. Eventually, Tai Shun gave up and focused on his job instead.

"It's bouncing and popping, is that okay?"

"It's fine," Gou replied off-handedly. He then took the seed and used his inner power to smash it into powder and used the juice from the first fruit to mix it and create a paste. Of course, he didn't this with only his hands, the sword, and the table, so he was making quite the mess but it would have been impossible for anyone else because his intricate use of inner power that hadn't before been seen in this world.

After finishing the paste the took the beaker from Tai Shun and poured out the bead, being careful not to touch it. Then he flicked the sphere again and the fire stopped. Tai Shun put it on the table with a greatly relieved expression.

Gou looked at the bee. With the paste in his one hand, he simply stared at the bead that was sitting on the table. Seeing as he seemed to b watching it so carefully Xiir and Tai Shun also became interested and started staring at it. The bead, freed from both fire and beaker, began to cool. As it cooled, the inside, that had nearly become a liquid, was quickly expanding. Once it had expanded to a certain point the skin broke, with a pop.

Xiir jumped at the unexpected movement.

Gou took t bead and scooped out the gelatin inside with a finger then added it to paste in his other hand. As he worked them together the paste became thick like dough and changed color from brown to a dirty green. Then he put it into the beaker and gave it back to Tai Shun, "Here, put the skin in."

Tai Shun took it and then awkwardly stuffed the skin of the fruit Gou had earlier put aside inside. When he looked back at Gou for his next instruction Gou had already moved onto the glass sphere again. He was holding it and talking to Xiir.

"Does it change color?"

"Yes, but it doesn't change the mana. Different colors do different things but this one changes color but doesn't change what it can do, just how it is used, I guess."

"Um... Gou? What now?"

"Are you finished?" The teacher entered the conversation. With Gou's nod, he quickly pulled the beaker and cube puzzle back into the box and ran out of the room. Leaving behind him only, "Class dismissed!"

Zhang He looked down at her test, which she had no idea about except the puzzle and crinkled her nose. What was so special about this test?