Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 40: Interesting Tests

"Rouge, do you want to go next?" Rouge actively asked to be next, her tail wagging with excitement while her ears stand straight up. I grab a lollipop as I wonder what she’ll do.

"Yes, professor, I think I know how to deform the cube!" She speaks with a confidence that catches me off guard. I suck on the lollipop for a few seconds and decide to let her do as she wishes.

"Is that so? I’m curious to see it. Go ahead and try." She approaches the cube while I watch closely, curious about what she’ll attempt considering her power is fairly "simple" in execution.

"..." Rouge raises her hand toward the cube and for a moment, breathing becomes uncomfortable. I place a hand on my chest, feeling that sensation. Some of the students cover their mouths as if they feel the same difficulty, and then I hear a loud crack.

The cube is violently deformed on the sides, as if giant claws had deeply scratched the cube from every direction. It’s not massive damage, but it affected the cube almost instantly.

’Seriously?’ In the past, when I tested this cube, I only scratched it. She damaged it nearly three times more than I did and on a much deeper scale. Of course, it’s been a while since I tested my power on this cube — I could probably destroy more now — but still, this is incredible.

"..." I look at Tanya, who bites her lips and stares upward as if she’s about to cry but is trying to hold it back. It seems seeing how easily Rouge damaged the cube was a blow to her self-esteem.

"Very good. How did you do it?" I ask Rouge, who has a smile on her face. And I don’t think that’s bad — she did something impressive, it’s fine to feel proud of it considering my whole explanation about how hard it is to damage the cube.

"I molded the atmosphere around us, pulling it in and covering the cube with it. Then, using the air and oxygen around us, I made a ’wedge’ and forced it forward to damage the cube."

"Since the wedge creates a thin contact point that concentrates and multiplies force at a single spot, it works well for breaking rather than cutting."

"I repeated this at several points on the cube at the same time, and that was the result." She explains something that’s simple but very clever to do.

’I see...’ It’s the same thing done to split very hard rocks — you place the thin side of the wedge against the rock and strike the wedge so it splits the rock. Rouge was really creative in replicating that using the atmosphere and the air around us.

Air or atmosphere alone wouldn’t have the strength to damage the cube, but using this "wedge system," the force increased enough to generate the necessary power to deform the cube.

"Really impressive. It’s going to be hard to surpass you here." I look at the next ones, who seem to be thinking about what to do. While they figure it out, we spend a few minutes until the cube returns to its original state.

"Charlotte, how about you go now?" I call Charlotte, who stares at the cube and approaches with a sigh. I step back a little so I’m not within her range while she analyzes the cube up close for a while.

"..." A kind of bluish, dark, and purple rift appears at the cube’s position. The rift opens and grows, trying to force the cube apart, but even this is resisted by the cube, which doesn’t yield.

Charlotte increases the intensity as space is torn apart at the rift’s point. Even so, when she dispels the rift, the cube only receives a small deformation.

’Almost the same as me...’ The deformation has the appearance of a fissure, about one meter long and forty centimeters from the center, while reaching about fourteen centimeters deep inside.

’Even though the damage is less than what Rouge caused, it’s still very powerful.’ There aren’t many enemies who can withstand space deforming on top of them, plus spatial deformation prevents most forms of regeneration.

"Good. Though a bit slow, if you improve the speed, it’ll be excellent." That’s all I say, while Charlotte seems disappointed about something. We wait for the cube to recover, and soon I call Edith.

"..." Edith stops in front of the cube for a few seconds, then looks at me.

"I give up. Professor, I’m only capable of producing poisons. I have no idea how I could damage this — it’s not alive for me to poison, it has no veins through which blood could be contaminated, and it doesn’t breathe. There’s not a single way a solid block of something can be poisoned." Edith speaks with regret.

’...’

"Don’t be so narrow-minded, Edith. Your power isn’t just poison. You can also produce toxins, and if you didn’t know, there are corrosive toxins — though I think you do know that. Most of those come from industrial chemical products."

"Your power allows you to do that. Besides, with your power, you could create a new toxin even more corrosive than what we currently have in industrial fields." When I say this, Edith seems thoughtful.

"And I can? Other professors always told me I shouldn’t create anything too dangerous." She says something logical. It’s a dangerous power for those nearby — of course regular professors forbade her from doing dangerous things.

"I’m not other professors. I’m here precisely to teach you how to become stronger and more dangerous than you are now."

"Aren’t you afraid I’ll poison you?" She asks, curious and with a little smile.

"No, I have no fear of being poisoned whatsoever."

"Really? Wow! I like audacious women, but you should be more protective of your life."

"I already am enough. Go on, do something with this cube, but avoid anything that generates toxic gases. I don’t want your classmates getting sick."

"You talk as if you won’t get sick?"

"And I won’t." I’m quite resistant to poison and toxins. In fact, most veteran Kairas are. This happens because the chips and cores that fused with our bodies even give us a minimal degree of regeneration.

They integrate new things into the body, so if a Kaira is poisoned once and survives, that poison has less effect. It doesn’t mean immunity, but it helps a lot. And since I’ve faced plenty of monsters with poisonous powers, I have excellent natural resistance.

I can still die from high doses of poison, but traces of any common poison don’t scare or bother me.

"Okay, hot stuff! So I can use chemical materials to produce toxins, right?" When she asks this, I tell Nexus to bring the case I prepared. A drone enters this place and delivers the briefcase to Edith.

"There’s everything you need in there."

"...W-Wow... that’s sinister... I can really use this? Isn’t this illegal? And this other one here... m-my god! This is a fortune." She looks fascinated, observing the various chemical products, poison ingredients, and other things.

"Some of those things are indeed illegal, but no one’s going to say anything. Most wouldn’t even know how to recognize them. I see you have a good eye..."

’And a terrible mind...’ She immediately identified the illegal things just by looking, showing she’s already sought out knowledge about them.

"Okay, hot stuff, I’m going to show you my incredible skills." She takes some of the vials and opens the caps. An unpleasant chemical smell rises in the air, but I know none of these are problematic to inhale for a short time.

"Nexus, prepare a drone to clean up the chemical mess as soon as she’s done." Edith mixes everything using her powers to form a kind of dark green goo. Soon, the goo turns into vapor, rising in a cloud that rains a black liquid down onto the cube.

"..." My entire body goes on alert as I hear a hissing sound. Nothing happens to the cube, but I look at the ground and see the sand bubbling where the drops fall. The bubbles are black, and the glass shifts into a disgusting, pasty state.

We watch for a while until the cloud disappears. Unfortunately, the damage to the cube was zero.

Nexus quickly comes to clean with several drones using specialized equipment to collect all the fluid, clean the cube, and replace the sand, while the entire training area activates machines to purify the air in the environment and cleanse us of any chemical residue.

"Edith, unfortunately you caused zero damage to the cube, but the chemical you produced was impressive." The corrosive power of that thing was terrifying, and it was still poisonous, so even if the corrosion didn’t kill an enemy, the poison would.

"Thank you, hot stuff. I did my best. That’s a highly corrosive form — it breaks down the bonds of materials it comes into contact with intensely. I know the cube has no parts to be broken because you explained it."

"But I already knew I wouldn’t cause damage to the cube, so I tried to show you something that would damage monsters and enemies." She speaks in a very clever way.

"...Smart. And yes, it’s a good approach. We’re here to test all of you. If you can’t damage the cube, you have to find another way to show me what you can do. Excellent." I praise her, and it makes her let out a flirty little laugh.

"...Now only you remain, Ashlyn." Eirwen isn’t here to test, unfortunately, but I know her results would be similar to Tanya’s — the cube isn’t affected by cold, just as it isn’t affected by heat.

I look at Ashlyn. Tanya beside her seems to be putting in a lot of effort not to cry. She was the only one here with mediocre results. Even Edith, who was unable to damage the cube, still showed good results.

While all Tanya did was try to completely detonate the cube with pure brute force, showing her lack of understanding of her own power.

"I-I’m going." Ashlyn approaches, being much more active, following what was agreed.