High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 2665 - 886: Why Giants Became an Endangered Species

"But the Professor turned down my request."Xiao Xiao lifted his head and looked into the distance. It was evening; the Sun had already sunk behind the office building, and the whole sky exuded a dusky yellow air. "He not only rejected my application, he even suggested I give up this unrealistic idea. Professor Yi said, if I don’t want to spend the rest of this semester lying in the school infirmary, I shouldn’t go doing Divination on something this dangerous; this isn’t something little wizards like us who haven’t even graduated yet are allowed to pry into... Besides, he told me to observe the school carefully."

"Observe the school?"

Zheng Qing instinctively looked left and right—this was dinner time: students who hadn’t eaten yet were hurrying along, those who’d eaten their fill were strolling leisurely, chipmunk-cheeked squirrels crouched on branches, skin-and-bones Grass Spirits hid behind bushes. As the setting Sun declined, the sky looked like a cake smeared with orange jam, giving off a lazy, peaceful flavor—in the midst of this harmony, he didn’t notice anything unusual. "...Observe what? Observe where? What in the school is worth observing?"

"Nothing is worth observing."

Xiao Xiao raised a finger and waved it in front of Zheng Qing’s eyes. "That’s also something I only suddenly realized just now while eating, when I saw those three Witches come up to hit on you... There really is nothing worth observing, so even three Witches flirting with a Warlock becomes interesting..."

"No anomaly is the biggest anomaly?" Zheng Qing stroked the black Gem Cat, muttering, starting to grasp the unspoken implication behind the Doctor’s words.

Xiao Xiao let out a soft sigh. "It’s already been more than a month into this semester. Don’t you feel that the campus is unusually peaceful this year? Em, to stress this, I’m talking about the ’First University,’ not about ’you’... The First University has four colleges—well, now it’s five—and among them two colleges are practically mortal enemies. In past years, students from Jiuyou and Alpha would get into conflicts several times every month, but this stretch of time, everyone’s been very quiet... And the Silent Forest, if you remember the scale of last year’s silent resurgence, you should realize how feeble this year’s silent resurgence is."

"Doesn’t that Hunting team of the Northern District Wizard that had an incident count as an anomaly?"

Zheng Qing frowned, rapidly searching through the big and small accidents of recent weeks in his mind. "And last week on the Forbidden Magic Festival, the sandbox trap in the North District, and that giant Green Snake..."

Xiao Xiao shot him a strange look out of the corner of his eye.

Zheng Qing gave a dry cough.

"All the anomalies are converging on the crows."

Xiao Xiao summed up his view in a single sentence, his voice lowering even further. "And anomalies that have nothing to do with the crows have almost completely disappeared."

Diviners are best at drawing out the hidden threads—pulling the most valuable clues from tiny, seemingly insignificant details in daily life, then weaving them into a result.

Zheng Qing understood this principle and trusted the Doctor’s judgment.

The two of them fell silent and walked slowly toward the dormitory.

"Let me give an inappropriate example."

Xiao Xiao weighed his words and slowed his speech, as if to match his pace. "When a dangerous Fire Dragon is moving through the Silent Forest, every patch of forest it passes through will become unusually quiet, because any disturbance might draw a baptism of dragonflame. This kind of silence is like two wrestlers locked in a clinch; they don’t necessarily want to slam the other to the ground, but they definitely don’t want to be the one pinned underneath... You can imagine a huge vortex at the center of a storm, constantly devouring disturbances from all directions. Everyone wants to find some force outside the vortex to pluck themselves out; no one wants to get sucked into it at a time like this. Except you. Whether you like it or not, you’ve already been dragged into the vortex."

Zheng Qing forced a very reluctant smile.

"That’s not an example."

He half-jokingly quipped. Seeing that Xiao Xiao’s face remained expressionless, he reined in his smile, let out a heavy breath, and muttered, "I really didn’t make any noise, but I’ve been sparkling the whole time... that kind of glow you can’t hide at all... Can you imagine a clump of iridescent light in a pitch-black forest? It’s very hard for the Fire Dragon not to notice it."

He was using Xiao Xiao’s first example to describe his own situation.

The Diviner of the Yuzui Hunting Team frowned.

"Color of Star." He answered succinctly.

"What?" Zheng Qing didn’t understand what the Doctor meant.

"Color of Star, a Magical Creature from the depths of the universe. When it moves, it looks like a shimmering, formless patch of color flowing around."

Xiao Xiao patiently explained. "Under normal circumstances, it looks harmless to people and animals, but when it’s feeding, it can easily drain all the life force within a radius of twenty miles... I remember you saw it in the Black Prison, didn’t you? No impression at all?"

"What does that have to do with what we’re talking about?"

"Weren’t you asking me to imagine a clump of iridescent light? Color of Star couldn’t be more suitable. You have to become a Color of Star." Seemingly sensing Zheng Qing’s confusion, Xiao Xiao pushed up his glasses and threw him another question. "Do you know why the mighty Giants became an endangered race?"

"Why?"

Zheng Qing unconsciously weakened a little—ever since just now, every sentence from the Doctor seemed to be leaping around, making it hard to keep up with his rhythm, and that inexplicably made Zheng Qing feel stupid.

"Because their performance didn’t match their worth, that’s why they became endangered."

Xiao Xiao’s tone was very serious. "As Humans born strong, they were content with savagery and ignorance, content with wrestling Fire Dragons, content with fighting in Beast Skins and swinging wooden clubs... That’s the greatest blasphemy against Human wisdom. You’re the same. If you don’t display abilities that match your status, in the end you’ll be swallowed by the big vortex."

"It’s not like I want that either..." Zheng Qing had no idea why the topic had suddenly turned so serious; clearly he’d just wanted to talk about things related to the crows.

Xiao Xiao stopped again and looked at Zheng Qing seriously.

"A few days ago I read a sentence in a book," he patted the black notebook hanging at his waist without opening it, obviously having memorized that line very well. "When life gives you a lemon, don’t eat it with a frown; squeeze it into lemonade. Take the sourness and bitterness that life gives you, like lemons, and brew them into something as sweet as lemon soda."

Zheng Qing narrowed his eyes at his own Diviner.

He felt that Xiao Xiao was sounding more and more like a proper, orthodox Diviner.

"That chicken soup line is authentic enough, but it’s useless. My purine level is high; I’m past the age of loving meat broth."

Zheng Qing kept the Diviner’s warning in mind, but on the surface he put on a breezy, cloudless look. "But that attitude of yours also reminds me of a line... Humans are like this: rather than being comforted by others, they prefer to comfort others, as if that lets them gain some sort of psychological upper hand—me, someone who’s graduating in a few months, needs you, a current student, to tell me how to eat lemons?"