Bella planned to finish The Hunger Games Books Two and Three during her junior and senior years respectively—averaging one book per year.
During this time, she also planned to publish a short story collection containing "The Day After Tomorrow," "The Book of Eli," "I Am Legend," and "The Matrix."
After that? After that, it'd probably be the internet age. Who'd still read physical books?
"Damn it, failed again!" Bella tossed the dead mouse aside, rubbing her forehead in frustration.
From the first day her psionic powers awakened, she'd been trying to figure out healing magic. But after more than a year, she still couldn't perform spell analysis. She hadn't even taken the first step.
In her view, magic was magic. This wasn't a game with arbitrary restrictions like mages doing magic attacks while only priests could heal.
Deities knew healing spells. Did that make them all priests?
"Your Highness, your understanding of life is far too shallow. You need more knowledge," the Golden Apple said after scanning the mouse on the table, reaching a discouraging conclusion.
Bella felt deeply vexed. "What more do I need to understand? Find a specimen and perform a live dissection?"
"That would work."
"Stop joking with me like that!" she said sharply.
Once she crossed that moral line, she couldn't imagine what she'd become. She might not even recognize herself.
The Golden Apple fell silent briefly, apparently calculating something. "Then you could try biodroid technology. Or cloning."
Bella asked curiously, "You have that technology? I remember you saying only Golden Apples Four and Five contained scientific knowledge."
Golden Apple Three's tone held no emotion whatsoever. "To the Isu, creating... your current form of humanity doesn't qualify as technology. Would you care about how a tool is manufactured? The original humans were all clones created by the Isu. My database contains that information. It's not science—at least not by Isu standards."
Bella froze for two seconds, contemplating the implications. Would creating biodroids or clones cross her moral boundaries?
"I need to think this through..."
She spent three full days thinking but still couldn't decide.
Like she'd once told Tony Stark, her outlook on the future was deeply pessimistic. Every novel she'd written involving the future painted increasingly bleak scenarios. She didn't want another dangerous breakthrough emerging from her hands.
When stuck, don't force it. Maybe in a few days she'd have an epiphany and just learn healing magic directly. Or maybe some cutting-edge corporation would develop biodroids or clones, and she could just grab a few samples to study!
She vaguely remembered that the Earth corporation from Alien had biodroid technology. What was that company called again?
The book tour ended, and Bella returned to normal campus life. Except her fame had skyrocketed again.
Who knew what people read into The Hunger Games, but now not just guys—even girls were sending her love letters.
Several freshman girls were especially bold, publicly declaring on campus they wanted to be her "sister"—the kind of sister who'd do anything. When Natasha learned the truth, she was furious enough to claw at walls, vowing to teach those "little bitches" a lesson.
Bella was getting annoyed by the harassment. Plus, her theory courses were mostly complete, so she turned her attention to research institutions.
Stanford was wealthy and prestigious, with massive assets. The patent fees they collected annually from around the world reached staggering figures.
With money came investment. Stanford had co-founded 122 research institutions with the government, military, major corporations, and renowned laboratories.
These included research centers, laboratories, institutes, and various forums, projects, and research groups.
Twelve of these research institutions belonged entirely to Stanford.
In their second year, outstanding students entered various labs to participate in actual research projects.
The institutes studying quantum electronics, semiconductor lasers, astrophysics, biological sciences, and chemistry were all irrelevant to Bella. Of the twelve institutions, only the Stanford Humanities Center had suitable projects.
Stanford had plenty of STEM students, but humanities students existed too. Science majors competed for spots in those eleven institutions, while remaining humanities students fought tooth and nail for the single Humanities Center.
Despite Bella's fame, looks, and money, it still took considerable effort to squeeze into the Humanities Center.
The center officially employed only thirty-five researchers. Every single one was a professor, a leading figure in their respective field. You couldn't even meet them normally.
Project research followed the same pattern worldwide. Big shots proposed projects, convinced schools and wealthy donors to fund them, then split them into smaller projects for subordinates. Those subordinates further divided and delegated tasks downward.
Bottom-tier researchers might work for years without knowing which big shot's project their topic belonged to. As long as the paycheck came, that was enough.
The big shots took the lion's share. Bottom-tier workers sometimes didn't even get table scraps.
Bella definitely wouldn't do grunt work. Princess of the Isu? You kidding me? Someone who could blow up the White House on a whim! Doing menial labor for you?
She displayed photos of herself with the President and Tony Stark on her desk. Prominently displayed, meant for everyone to see. See that? I hobnob with these people!
After she easily resolved a minor issue at the California state government level, she finally earned the project team's attention.
The big shot still didn't make an appearance. She only knew it was a professor from Kyoto University named Serize, currently collaborating with Stanford.
Japan's scientific community was quite mystical. You had people like Shinichi Mochizuki, who produced incomprehensibly arcane cosmic theories claiming to solve the ABC conjecture. You also had many down-to-earth research workers.
Apparently, this Professor Serize was very down-to-earth. He'd frequently go to rural fields for surveys. Who knew what he was looking for...
What the professor searched for had nothing to do with Bella. Her impressive performance had already attracted some attention.
One of Professor Serize's doctoral students chatted with her briefly, then separated her out to independently handle part of the research.
Bella was fairly satisfied. Though the funding she received wasn't much, having autonomy meant not being so passive.
Her assigned topic was West Coast small-town culture. The research scope was pretty vague. That Professor Serize wanted to know specifically how these small towns along America's western coast had changed in recent years.