I Reincarnated Into A Single-Celled Organism! - I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 173

“Who is that guy?

“How does he know her?”

I could naturally hear the discussion of those around me as Erika approached me with bright, excited eyes. Destiny and Penelope were frowning at Erika, no longer as excited to speak to their surprise guest instructor.

“I was hoping that I’d see you,” she declared, but then her face turned red and she waved her hands dismissively. “I meant, I was expecting you would be able to enter the academy.”

“I thought you returned to Arcford,” I smiled welcomingly.

“I did!” She nodded. “However, no sooner did I return than Grand Teacher asked me to go back out. She said I needed more experience. I chose to come to Stormberg to lecture!”

She looked rather proud when she said it, but I wondered if that was what her teacher meant when she sent her out. Teaching in a comfy satellite campus didn’t exactly warrant very many experiences.

“What about your brother? How is he doing?”

“He did not return with me.” Her expression dropped slightly. “He’s gone into secluded training with his master. He says he won’t come out until he’s at the level of a grand knight.”

“I see…”

She didn’t say anymore, but I could already guess. It seemed that nearly losing his sister had affected him. I had seen it in his eyes before he left. He wanted to get stronger. I couldn’t blame him. Had I been stronger, would I have been able to save my own sister?

She seemed to see something in my expression and shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about the assassination attempt. It’s already been investigated, and the guilty parties have been properly dealt with.”

“Is that so?”

“Mm!” She nodded. “It was a rogue unit. They confessed and were executed.”

Erika was still rather naïve. It was more likely a fall guy was selected and took the blame for the crime. I found that extremely hard to believe that it was so simple as some random rogue unit. Someone had bribed this knight with enough that he was willing to betray his family line. At the time, it didn’t have much meaning to me, but now that I had spent time with these paragon families, I understood just how important bloodline was to them. He had even suggested he might work for the Blanche family, although there was no proof of it.

Either way, I believed the assassin was still out there. I even suspected her so-called teacher. She had sent her out during her first assassination attempt, and now she sent her out again for little to no reason. This time, her brother wasn’t with her. Thankfully, she at least made it this far with her life. Maybe, I would put a sentinel on her just in case.

“Ahem.” Fate cleared her throat, and Erika seemed to realize that everyone in the class was listening to the pair of us.

At first, the others could be forgiven for thinking our relationship was extremely casual and we only knew each other in passing, but after listening for a bit, they could no longer deny that Erika and I had a bit of history. Erika’s face turned pink again.

“Ah! That’s right, I’m here to instruct everyone. Are you attending?” Erika’s eyes darted to Destiny and Penelope. “Who are they?”

“I’m Destiny Lou from the Lou family!” Destiny declared. “This is my sister, Fate.”

Fate nodded.

“Although I spent a few years in Stormberg, for various reasons I remained indoors most of the time and never met anyone local.” Erika smiled and curtsied. “I am Erika Blanche.”

“I’ve heard of you.” Destiny stiffened slightly. “They say the first day you went to the academy, you caught the interest of Eternity, the great barrier mage.”

“That’s true. I caused quite a splash in the Academy on the first day. I don’t think anyone has created quite the same commotion since.”

Destiny’s eyes couldn’t help but flicker toward me, but she didn’t say anything more. Erika looked toward Penelope, who grinned.

“I’m Penelope Capala. I’m cousin to Spirit’s fiancée!”

Erika blinked. “Huh? Fiancee?”

She glanced over at me.

“Many things happened.” I grimaced slightly. “I’m engaged to Abigail Capala.”

“I-I see…” Erika lowered her eyes. “I didn’t expect… no, perhaps I should say it’s as expected. Abigail is well regarded in the capital.  I’ve even met her once, although I’m sure she would remember.”

“Are we going to have a lecture, or are you just going to chat with friends the whole time?” A boy demanded, looking extremely annoyed.

He was a few years younger, but he looked a lot like Jordan Stride. I would bet he was in the Stride family. He was rather handsome, and several girls were sitting around him. They all nodded as if his words were completely appropriate, although, in my eyes, he was just a kid. He didn’t look much older than the girl I encountered taking the alchemy exam.

“O-of course!” Erika blushed again before gesturing. “Everyone sit down! We’re all friends here. Although I am here to do guest lectures, it’s customary for me to have a private discussion with those few elites.”

“You say that, but what is he doing here.” The Stride guy shot an icy look as Ronald tried to take a seat.

Ronald stiffened, his face turning white, but I reached up and pulled him down.

“He’s with me,” I said. “But if you want to question my right to be here, first ask your cousin Jordan.”

He blinked, a scowl forming on his lips. He looked uncertain, but it was enough that he didn’t continue to argue with us.

“Okay, now that everyone’s seated… My name is Erika Blanche. I am a member of the Audra Grand University, and the first disciple under one of the Academy’s ten great instructors, Eternity, otherwise known as the Grand Mage of Barriers. I must admit, I’m not too experienced with lecturing,” Erika said, her voice crisp and loud, but shaking a bit from nervousness. “So, how about we do things this way? You each can ask me a question and I’ll do my best to answer.”

As all the students listening settled down, one student immediately raised their hand and she nodded. “How do you evolve?”

His words caused several students to groan. It was an extremely basic question.

“Now, now, there are no bad questions. This question is perhaps the most important question anyone can ever ask. Everyone always has a different answer, so it’s important for any student who wants to evolve to always be asking. Even once you evolve, further evolutions aren’t necessarily the same.” Erika’s voice gained some confidence as she began to speak.

“Enlighten us, then,” the Stride boy who spoke before declared, waving his hand, and causing some of the girls swooning over him to giggle.

“Yes, well, evolution appears to have two components,” Erika continued. “The first is the accumulation of energy. To elicit a change, one must absorb energy from the environment. Only when one acquires enough energy, a critical mass known as the activation energy, will one begin to change. Their transformation will put them on a new base energy level that is higher than their previous level, but lower than the activation energy they needed. In other words, you must acquire and store an excess degree of energy to have enough to evolve into your next form. Should someone attempt to evolve without that excess energy, they will fail their evolution and potentially face a backlash.”

“You say absorbing energy from the environment, do you mean by eating energy pills?” one woman asked.

“Everything stores energy. Plants, animals, and people all have living energy within them. Living energy is stored within our cells, and all living things contain living energy. However, all energy starts with the sun, a nonliving energy. Mortals and animals cannot normally convert nonliving energy into energy. So, they must consume other living beings. This is called a heterotroph. The ‘hetero’ stands for different and the ‘troph’ stands for energy, so it means they get energy from a different source.”

“I can absorb energy from the environment?” The girl frowned.

“Once you’ve evolved into a paragon, you unlock the ability to manipulate energy. This unlocks your ability to absorb energy. The measure to manipulate energy is a unit called Man-E, although the word eventually changed to become mana. Before you unlock mana though, you are unable to absorb energy from non-living things. This is why it is so difficult for a mortal to become a paragon.”

“If mortals can’t manipulate mana, how do they become paragons?” That was me asking, causing a few people to raise their eyebrows.

Most of them had known this since birth, but as Penelope loved to point out, I had no common sense when it came to these things. I was very interested in this conversation, as I felt like it would clear up some things about my upbringing. When Erika saw me invested, she gave a smile.

“The only way for a mortal to accumulate energy is to consume it directly,” she explained. “Plants can absorb energy too. They take sunlight and they convert it to energy through a process called photosynthesis. This means they are called autotrophs. ‘Auto’ stands for self, so they self-produce energy. If they accumulate enough to evolve, they become a mythic plant. As for heterotrophs, they must consume plants with energy to get that energy. Mythic plants hold the most energy, as does sage beast meat. However, most mythic plants would be protected by sage beasts, and it is difficult for a mortal to kill sage beasts. Depending on the quality of food, some may reach paragon status eventually, but most mortals will never consume enough energy to evolve in their entire lives. After all, there is a limit to the energy in this world.”