Chapter 59: Growth (4)

That fall, there were many reports of people claiming to have seen fireworks, with some people even uploading blurry pictures online as proof, but the whole ordeal was passed off as a sort of urban legend that not many people paid much mind to. Even without phantom fireworks, the world as it is had enough chaos, with countless incidents and accidents and rumors. In a society where posts easily got over 100k “likes” online, a small rumor pertaining only to the small city of Inpyeong wasn’t enough to grab anyone’s attention.

Even following the first reports, people continued to mention fireworks late at night, and such rumors spread everywhere, from the school to the markets, but it was still considered as little more than hearsay. As time passed, less and less people began to care about it.

“We didn’t even hear anything. How can you have silent fireworks?”

“I’ve heard of smoke without fire, but fireworks without a sound? No way.”

In the end, no one found out that those silent fireworks had been the gift of a lifetime for a particular child. That was a secret between two friends.

<hr />

Lucid was now a third grader. Myeong-su had been assigned to a different class again, but their classes were right next door this time, as well.

“Hey, plaster face! Let’s go!!”

Lucid turned around to find Myeong-su, already packed to leave, at the back door of the classroom, waving frantically at him.

“Myeong-su, homeroom isn’t over yet.” the homeroom teacher said, sighing. The students all brust out laughing as Myeong-su looked around.

“What? Ours is!”

Whack!

The sound of a rolled up attendance sheet hitting Myeong-su’s head rang out across the classroom, and Myeong-su yelled out in pain, covering his head dramatically. Behind him stood Myeong-su’s homeroom teacher, who looked at him in exasperation. He hadn’t even hit him that hard!

“Ours is definitely not over, you dummy. You can leave at the bell!”

With that, the teacher dragged Myeong-su out. Lucid chuckled under his breath and went back to listening to his teacher.

“My god, he never changes…” she muttered, and this only made Lucid laugh more under his breath. He couldn’t wait for classes to end. Indeed, Myeong-su hadn’t changed one bit, and he was still Lucid’s best friend.

Something that had changed, however, was Lucid’s prowess in magic. Up until that fateful night with the fireworks, he had only understood that there were many uses to recreating things or phenomena with magic, but he had come to learn that there were many different methods he could apply to the recreation process itself. For example, he could add colors to light and determine both the location and the path that it should take. In a way, this was a novel discovery for him, one that helped him progress further in his research of magic.

Another change was that his new understanding over the properties of light had affected his other magics as well. In the case of fire, he had, in the past, had trouble with removing its property of being red or yellow, but now, he could conjure purple fires, and even fires that emitted no light. Though to be more accurate, he had succeeded in conjuring a fire that was invisible to the naked eye, rather than a lightless one.

“Can there be fire with no light?”

At first, it had been a simple curiosity, but he had surprised even himself when he had managed to make a fire that emitted light outside of the visible spectrum, while also giving off heat. This, in short, meant that his actual accomplishment had been to recreate a combustion phenomenon that emitted a large amount of infrared light. However, this also meant that he couldn’t raise the temperature of such a “fire.” Infrared light itself, by virtue of its wavelength, was a poor energy conductor, so there was a limit to how hot he could get it to be.

A rather interesting fact he had learned during his studies was that infrared light was used in the medical field. Heat therapy, for example, used infrared light to alleviate pain. Since Lucid couldn’t blindly experiment infrared therapy on other people without making sure of its safety first, all he could do was to try it out on himself, no matter how reckless a task it was.

He opened his hand and focused on recreating the image of a fire, but with the properties of infrared light. A glowing fire appeared on his palm only to quickly disappear from sight, leaving behind only its heat. When he had tried this at night, however, he could still make out a faint red light enveloping the mass of heat. It appeared that as long as its base was fire, he couldn’t fully remove this property from his magic.

But appearances were not what he was interested to test, so after preparing himself to cancel the magic if it turned out to be too hot, he slowly but surely brought his hand towards his foot, which gradually warmed the closer the fire got. However, before he could even fully reach his foot with his hand, the heat became rather unbearable, so he had no choice but to cancel the magic.

Through hours and hours of trial and error, he had finally managed to recreate infrared light that warmed up gradually. This was a sort of compound magic, a masterpiece he had created by combining the image of fire with the properties of light. He was so ecstatic over his success that he wanted nothing more than to get up and scream, but, in an incredible show of self-restraint, he held his euphoria in check. He didn’t want to wake the sleeping Myeong-su, after all.

After some more self-experimenting, Lucid finally perfected his own type of infrared light that could be used for (unofficial, unlicenced, unapproved) heat therapy. He needed nothing more than his hands and his “fire,” which now conducted the energy of the infrared light itself to produce the adequate amount of heat while also being dim enough to only be seen in the darkest of nights. This was the grand debut of Lucid’s “healing hands.”

“Oh, wow,” Ki-woong exclaimed, patting his shoulders just as Lucid got done massaging them, “yeah, they feel much better! Thanks.”

“Have you decided on a career path? You could make a living out of this,” said the overworked director of administration, so awe-struck by Lucid’s skills that the words came out of his mouth before he could think them over.

“My neck’s been stiff all day cuz I slept on it funny, but it feels great now! Thank you so much,” his teacher said, her voice brimming with gratitude.

And so, Lucid’s massage became a crucial part of their lives, whether it was a senior in high school plagued by entrance exams, or a constantly overworked employee, or a parent who couldn’t afford to get some shuteye. They all came back for more, and Lucid’s massage was as effective as ever.

“Ew, it’s too hot. I don’t like it.”

Though Myeong-su couldn’t seem to handle it for over two minutes. Shrugging off the heat, he ran out towards the courtyard.

<hr />

With the beginning of the third year, some changes were made to the curriculum. While first and second graders took general education courses along with Korean and math, from third grade onwards, they were split into separate courses, so students now took different classes for ethics, social studies, science, gym, music, and fine arts.

Science in particular sparked a newfound interest in Lucid, perhaps unsurprisingly. Though he wasn’t an expert by any means, he still surpassed elementary level knowledge in some fields of science, but that didn’t mean he had nothing more to learn. On the contrary, he was completely in the dark about many other fields that he hadn’t immersed himself in, so he had fun learning about all those new concepts.

Elementary level science can usually be split into two larger fields: “matter and energy” and “Earth and life.” Of course, Lucid’s interest heavily skewed towards the former, especially towards energy. He had spent much time studying and researching energy, after all, and his experiments had yielded tangible results. However, he wasn’t as knowledgeable in the field of matter, yet, not having spent much time learning about it, so he still lacked understanding on the subject.

“Everyone, remember that I gave you some homework last time? I asked you to observe an object in your everyday lives and figure out what those objects were made up of.”

“Yes.”

Having reached third grade, the students were no longer as enthusiastic in class. Back in first or second grade, students simply shouted out answers even if they had no idea what the class was about. Such a change was, to put it nicely, a good thing, since it meant that the students had finally adjusted to school. To put it bluntly, it was bad, since they now saw themselves as above such trivial things as participating in class.

Thankfully, the teacher in charge of the third grade was an experienced teacher of seven years, and she didn’t care about such things. On the contrary, she rather enjoyed the relatively quiet responses, since she didn’t have to withstand the shrill shouts of children.

“Now, who can tell me what an eraser is made out of?”

Some of the children shot their hands up in the air, while others looked at them lazily, as if chiding them for being so childish as to raise their hands to answer questions.

“Rubber.”

“Correct! What about a door handle? What is that made out of?”

“Steel.”

With the continued back and forth of questions and answers, the children continued to gain knowledge whether they actively participated or not.

“What about this marble that I’m holding?”

“It’s glass.”

“It’s sand.”

The teacher blinked rapidly a few times, so certain that she had misheard. She had to have misheard. What kind of answer was that?

“Sodium carbonate and limestone.”

It was a tiny voice, so quiet that the teacher had to really concentrate to even make out the proper words. Normally, she would have moved right past such interruptions, but already students were turned to face her, their expressions questioning her on the meaning of such a strange answer.

“Rapidly cool them after exposing to high heat, and the resulting solid is glass. That’s what I heard,” Lucid added, feeling the need to elaborate. The teacher blinked a few more times. What she had heard was that he had become a well-behaved, quiet student in second grade. Was that just a rumor?

“Y-Yes… That’s true. You see, glass is made of sand and… Limestone…?”

“And sodium carbonate.”

“Yes, and sodium carbonate. Next time, I’ll show you a video on how glass is made and we can all learn more about this material. How’s that?”

Please, she begged with every fiber of her being, just end it here. Thankfully, Lucid’s glimmering eyes toned down and turned back to stare at the textbook. The teacher let out a small sigh of relief and patted her forehead dry.

On the other hand, “Earth and life” was a wholly new, but equally as exciting, field of study. This was no surprise considering the fact that he had experienced life in two completely different worlds. Through his experience, he had come to infer that the two worlds did have many lifeforms in common, but he didn’t really know the specific differences. All he knew was that monsters such as “scrofa” or “kassar” didn’t exist in this world. Though this goes without saying, Lucid had never had the chance to study the lifeforms in the other world, nor would he ever get such a chance. However, in this world, he could learn all about the different lifeforms and ecosystems and nature.

Science class was very structured, academically categorizing all the different ecosystems and allowing the students to properly absorb the new information, and Lucid fully enjoyed every moment of it.

“It’ll be summer soon, right? What’s an insect we can commonly see in summer?”

The class was soon filled with different answers, from cicadas to mosquitoes to spiders, moths, butterflies, and dragonflies.

“Yes, today we will learn about the lifecycle of a cicada.”

Most insects, including cicadas, began their life as eggs, from which they hatched into larvae. Then, they grew into adult insects by shedding their exoskeleton. The teacher explained all this by showing pictures, and the students screamed at the squirmy larvae and showed keen interest in the hard exoskeleton of an adult cicada. Lucid also paid close attention to the pictures and the teacher’s explanations. This was a study he was severely ignorant of, and though he had spent a long time in the forest, he had never seen the metamorphosis process of an insect before. The teacher, seeing Lucid react in much the same way as her other students, smiled to herself in relief.

Another difference in the curriculum was that third graders now took English classes as well. With the beginning of a second language class, the students, who still didn’t have a good grasp of Korean, had to learn a whole new language. Though English class was only twice per week, it was the parents’ decision that even a full week of classes wouldn’t be enough. This was why the majority of students also took afterschool classes to learn English further. To be more precise, they had been tutored in English even before the beginning of third grade, but they now took specialized courses targeted at improving their English scores in school.

“Hello!” the English teacher would begin.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” the students would answer.

Students who had been privately tutored answered confidently, their voices echoing throughout the class, while those who hadn’t had such luxury preferred to remain quiet, so as to not feel like they were losing. As a result, the teacher had to frequently bring her finger to her lips, quieting the students down and asking them to lower their voices. With the students’ explosive enthusiasm, she couldn’t afford to not keep them in check, lest they become too rowdy for her to continue on with the class.

However, not everyone was so willing to participate in class. While some students shouted out answers excitedly, other students simply stared at them with weird expressions, as if asking what was wrong with them. Others still looked wholly lost, glancing around and fidgeting nervously. Those students hardly opened their mouths, instead looking on passively as the lesson carried on, as if they were watching a boring television show.

Lucid also didn’t open his mouth for most of the class. Even during other classes, he held himself back (just like he had in second grade, to avoid disrupting class), but in English class, he tried even harder to remain quiet. With the other children being such active participants, even the teacher didn’t seem to notice, as she had never called on him.

Truthfully speaking, Lucid had been shocked during his first English class. Out of all the shocking, confusing, and overwhelming things he had seen and experienced in this world, perhaps this had been the greatest one yet.

<Growth (4)> End.