"Hey, I've already passed the written exam to become an associate researcher… it's just that I'm still short on becoming a one-star Alchemist… before I can apply," Alex replied in a hushed voice.
It wasn't that he didn't want to apply before… Also, who wants to miss a chance at becoming an associate of Senior Researchers.
Each and every one of those Senior Researchers had a minimum strength level of C Rank. Not to mention those that could work directly for the Gene Association.
It was simply a matter of requirements; the Gene Association rarely accepted those who were unable to become Alchemists for research positions.
While he gained some basic theoretical knowledge thanks to Mira's guidance over the last two years, he was too poor to afford the special skill stones or the meditation techniques required to actually practice the alchemy.
In this world, Alchemists weren't just people mixing chemicals and herbs to create potions.
They were more like the wizards or sorcerers Alex used to see in movies back on Earth, possessing weird and powerful abilities that allowed them to manipulate Mana as they wished.
"Sigh..." Mira sighed, shaking her head. "You have good talent, Alex. Don't waste it".
"Come on, tell me, why did you come here today?" Mira asked, her voice softening as she watched him. She couldn't help but notice the way his new clothes clung to his body.
Alex reached into his robe and pulled out a small pouch he purchased specifically to keep the items.
He placed it on Mira's desk, right on top of a stack of unfinished reports.
"I need you to help me refine some materials, can you do that?" Alex whispered, leaning in closer.
Mira's eyebrows shot up behind her thick glasses.
She reached out and opened the pouch. Inside was a F-rank Gene Core and the Star Leaf he found.
"Alex... where did you get a mature Star Leaf?" Mira hissed, her voice slightly annoyed. "And these cores... they're fresh… I told you not to act reckless."
"Hehee… I won't repeat it again, as for the Star Leaf and the Gene Core, I got lucky in the Mist Hollow," Alex replied, his voice dropping an octave to sound more convincing. "I was planning on hunting this Jewel-Winged Dragonfly for a long while for its Gene ability."
"Can you do it?"
"Specifically, I need you to refine the gene core into something like the Basic Mana Circuit that all monsters possess or Compound Analysis that can help with becoming a One-star Alchemist."
"As for the Star Leaf, just make it into a potion that can improve my mana capacity."
Mira looked from the Star Leaf and the gene core to Alex's hooded face and sighed again with helplessness.
She didn't reject him, seeing how much effort he put into it. Also, for her, refining a Gene core doesn't even take much time.
"Refining these officially would cost you tens of thousands of credits and a long waiting time," Mira murmured, her thumb idly stroking the edge of a Gene Core. "But for you... I can use the lab's backup extractor. It'll be done in an hour."
She stood up, the heat from her body making the air in the small lab feel even more stifling to Alex's cold-blooded metabolism.
She walked toward a heavy, metallic machine in the corner, her lab coat fluttering.
"Wait here," she commanded, though she paused and looked back at him. "And Alex? Take off that hood and it's too hot in here anyway."
Alex hesitated, then slowly lowered the hood. As his glowing, porcelain skin and softened features were fully revealed under the lab's bright LED lights, Mira let out a small, soft breath.
"You really look... different," she whispered, her gaze lingering on his red lips and the slender line of his neck. "Stay put. I'll be right back."
The heavy door clicked shut, leaving Alex in a silence as he moved away from Mira's desk, his boots making soft tapping sounds on the floor and began to pace.
This wasn't like the chemistry labs he remembered from Earth.
There was no glass beakers filled with bubbling blue liquids or racks of test tubes.
Instead, the room felt like a high-tech workshop where science had been combined with the supernatural.
Although he had visited the lab on several occasions, watching them always makes him wonder how wonderful this world was compared to Earth.
As he walked, he stopped in front of a console that looked like a 3D printer, but instead of plastic filament, it had a vacuum-sealed chamber filled with swirling, iridescent mist.
"Is that liquid Mana?" he muttered to himself, leaning closer.
The display next to it flickered with complex blueprints of a circular amulet.
This was a Mana Circuit Etcher, a device capable of carving invisible pathways into solid metal so it could conduct the gene awakener's mana.
Walking further down into the shadows of the back hall, he found the "special block" that was built underground.
Usually, he never got a chance or dared to look inside before with Mira or other researchers watching him.
But not now. Since there was no one to stop him, he walked past inside boldly.
It was a massive, reinforced glass container, easily the size of a walk-in closet.
Inside, suspended in a thick, translucent gel, was the carcass of a D Rank Shadow Crawler, easily three meters tall and looked like a humanoid mantis.
Even in death, the creature's jagged exoskeleton seemed to absorb the light around it, with sharp edges.
Not to mention a few other similar powerful creatures next to it. For Alex, entering this room is nothing short of watching a horror movie.
"So, this is what she studies," Alex's eyes widened. He stared at the holographic display on the glass container, which showed a structural breakdown of the Shadow Crawler.
"It's not the only one," he whispered, looking past it. Hundreds of glass containers, some large, some small all held similar, or even different, kinds of monsters.
The sheer scale of the storage facility was staggering.
Row after row of monsters, some skeletal, some preserved in bio-gels, stretched into the dim recesses of the sub-level.
It was a library of nightmares.
"I guess being a Senior Researcher isn't just about paperwork," he muttered, his gaze shifting to a container holding a Frost-Spine Wolf.
Even through the reinforced glass, he could feel a faint chill radiating from its body, making his cold-blooded skin prickle uncomfortably.
"You shouldn't be in here, little vessel," the Empress's voice slithered into his thoughts, sounding more curious than annoyed for once. "This place smells like a graveyard. It's dull."