Chapter 22: The Carp

Note: the lunch table seating arrangement:

_______Xiao__Yin Hong______

Jin Qiu -----table----- Jacob

_______Alexan__Raxith______

Five seconds.

Xiao Lan Devinsky defeated Joseph Hans in five seconds.

Those words flew across the cafeteria at the speed of light, and Xiao kept her head down as she walked in between Alexander and Raxithak. The two boys didn't do a good job of shielding her from the public view, but at least she feels safer with them by her side. Eyes burned holes into her back as they made their way to their usual table where Yin and her twin brothers were already seated.

"Welcome back!" Jacob's voice hollered, and Xiao finally looked up from her feet to meet her cousins.

Yin is grinning from ear to ear, and she got up from her seat.

"I'll get your food for you." The older witch patted her cousin's shoulder.

Raxithak looked at the prince wordlessly before he left with Yin. That leaves the twins, who already got their trays of food, at the table.

Alexander chuckled and gently nudged Xiao into her seat.

"Weeeell?" Jacob's grin didn't falter, and the young witch gave him a little nervous smile. "Look who has the attention all to herself."

"Stop bullying her, man." Jin Qiu pointing his fork at his twin, a carefree smile on his face nonetheless. "Xiao, I'm so proud of you! Number one streak! Keep it up until the end of the game!"

"I hope." She mumbled back.

Even in the safety of her seat, she could still feel eyes on her. She took in a deep breath. It's ok, it's alright. Other people's opinions don't matter as long as she completes her goal.

To distract herself, Xiao pulled out an apple from her messenger. It's a left over from last night, and she also hasn't returned Jin Qiu's knife. The younger twin doesn't seem to mind, so she began peeling the apple.

"Say... Xan, how did you go from number one streak to fifteenth in overall stage 2?" Jin Qiu ask casually as his fork was picking his potato salad.

"Wesser boy casted gravity two seconds into the match." The prince sighed and rested his head on his hand. "Caught me off guard, but I didn't yield. So he kept increasing and increasing until it's like quadruple."

"But you survived, man, good job." Jacob laughed. "I heard that's also what Xiao did?"

At the mention of her name, Xiao's hand stopped moving, and she looked at her cousin. Jacob smiled back at her, and he knows she's asking for explanations.

"Some of the professors who were there talked." The older twin clicked his tongue. "I over heard."

"Fancy way to say you forced me into ear-dropping with you." The younger twin's sass didn't go unheard. "Honestly, I was impressed though. Gravity was taught in year two, right? But if you're creative enough to aim it in such a way that you can push your opponent to your feet, it's amazing. That's what you did, right, Xiao?"

The young witch only nodded as she continued peeling her apple. That's not what she did. She didn't even think of using gravitational spell because that thing cost as much as a teleportation spell and require as much commitment and maintenance. The 'Wesser boy' who went against Alexander was an example of just that.

"Oh, the element of surprise." The prince dramatically melt on the table. "It should be up there with air, fire, water and earth."

That joke earned a laugh from everyone, and Xiao giggled. Once her apple was peeled, her beady black eyes met bright green eyes right across the table.

The prince smiled slightly as he's looking at the peeled apple, and then at Xiao. The young witch sighed. What is this? Is she paying fifty percent taxes in the form of peeled apples to the monarchy?

With another sigh, the young witch copped the apple in half, and she deposited it into Alexander's hand. The prince mumbled a small barely audible "thank you" before he began biting into the white flesh of the fruit. Xiao rolled her eyes and continued splitting the half-apple in half.

A moment later, Yin and Raxith returned to their table with two trays each. The older witch put down Xiao's tray in front of her, and the first thing that she noticed was there's an extra fish in her dish.

"Thank you?" Xiao mumbled, and Yin's smile widened.

"You know, the cafeteria lady? The one with the bun? Black hair? She said you like silver carps, so she gave you extra." Her female cousin continued giggling. "I don't know if she wanted to get on your good side or she doesn't want to waste fish since there's quite a lot of it left. Probably both."

"I asked her for extra one time." The young witch didn't disclose when, and she began picking up her fork and spoon.

"Oh..." Yin nodded wisely, her smile widened again, and the young witch didn't know that her cousin's mischievous smile can get any bigger. "That reminds me... One of Alexander's great uncle, was it? He tortured the silver carps and said they suck in his book?"

"How the hell did you know about that?" The prince laughed, his rice almost spilling out of his mouth. That's not a royalty behavior, but it's Alexander, he looks majestic but after a year of being around him, he got too comfortable around the cousins.

"Xiao found a book about it." Yin shrugged. "It's really funny."

In fact, Xiao has the book with her right now.

Xiao took a bite of her fish, and she considered whether she should tell them about the book. The prince's bright green eyes are on her again, waiting for her to say something.

"His eight times great uncle." The young witch put down her utensils, which caught the attention of everyone at the table.

Then, Xiao reached into her messenger bag. An old leather book was taken out, and the young witch carefully placed the book on the table next to her tray.

"Holy shit..." Jacob wheezed, his laugh echoed through the cafeteria. A few people stopped in their tracks just to watch what's so funny.

"This is some next level nerd stuff right here." Jin Qiu whistled, impressed.

"This book taught me very useful stuff." She opened the book to a random page, and the young witch kept her eye contact with her female cousin sitting next to her. "Hundreds of silver carps didn't suffer in vain."

The younger twin took a peek at the book's content, and he let out a chuckle. "What the hell is this?" His black eyes squinted, and he began reading a line out. "From 125 silver carps, we can conclude that magic can be channeled into living beings and stored for later use, but it has a 8 to 1 ratio of degeneration compared to when one stores magic in a wand or any other objects. Bracket, Subject 126 jumped out of the tank and killed himself, so he didn't count, close bracket."

Everyone laughed, and Raxithak had a cringe on his face, the most emotion he's ever shown in his life. "Forgive me, lord... Isn't it common knowledge that magic can be stored in anything? What did a hundred fish prove?"

The hundreds of carps proved that any mana can be stored, and any stored mana can be stolen. It may not be written in the conclusion, but the nature of the experiment was all about moving magic around in a bundle. If mana can make a carp explode, then the same process can be done on any other living creatures.

It's very hard not to laugh at the image of the demon trying to steal mana from five fishes in a tank; it's almost too ridiculous to happen, but the process was written in so much detail that it's hard to think that it's not real.

"What happened to the fishes after the experiment ended though?" Alexander asked with curiosity in his eyes, so Xiao flipped over to the back to the book.

"All silver carps were released back into the wild." The young witch pointed at the last passage in the book. She shrugged and added her own commentary. "The ones that survived, at least."

"Xiao, what exactly did you learn from this book?" Raxith was getting on to her case, so Xiao slammed the book close.

"I learned what to not do in an experiment." The words came out naturally, and it's not a lie. She smiled as she put the book back into her messenger bag.