Stone Mage: Revenge of the Villain System

There's always a time and place for everything, and so, Ronin set aside his schemes towards Cermin and his friends for now as lunchtime was over, and classes resumed.

His final class for the day was taught by Professor Vyrill Krustal himself. He was their Life Science teacher, which basically teaches both biology and biochemistry.

The students went awfully quiet once he arrived. The professor had barely a single part of him to be seen under his thick cloak and bandages, and no one can tell what expression he was wearing.

"Open your books on page 154." He merely said as he entered, not greeting them at all.

All the students dutifully did as told. It was evident from their reaction and the thoughts buzzing around their head....

That they were scared of this professor very, very much.

But, there were also other interesting thoughts thrown in the mix that Ronin did not expect.

(He had become colder ever since that assistant of his died.)

(I miss when Maellan used to substitute teaching for him. He's much nicer.)

(It's been two months of impossibly difficult tests after tests, and long and hard-to-follow advanced discussions. If only the Big Blue was here, we won't suffer as much, ah!)

Ronin was curious about these particular reactions.

'So everyone in this classroom knew Maellan and like him more than Professor Vyrill. I'm not really surprised, Maellan has that hero protagonist quality to him that makes everyone like him.'

It seemed that the Professor was also one of those affected by this protagonist syndrome, as it was evident from his sudden coldness that Maellan's death affected him very much.

Ronin could feel his moss green eyes look at him from time to time, and he had also called him to answer questions several times.

Ronin just walked over to the chalkboard and answered them as easily as he breathed, gaining much points due to this.

The students frowned at this obvious favoritism, as many of them had raised their hands but were not called at all. But they were quiet and only complained in their heads.

(He's already a genius and proved he can answer all these questions, shouldn't the Professor be focusing on students that need improvement?)

(This is so unfair. It's like he's the Teacher's pet now.)

(Look at him smugly walking back to his chair for the 20th time. I don't know what magic he did to make the madman Vyrill take a liking towards him, but stealing all the points to himself!)

Ronin did not care about this at all, but only raised an eyebrow at the term 'madman'.

Professor Vyrill was very quiet and astute, so it's strange for him to be called a madman. In fact, someone who has a job as a professor in the Spire of Scholars like him could not be any more rational and respectable than the rest.

He would soon find out the reason why as he was called that once Life Science class was over, and he was called out by Vyrill in front of everyone without hesitation.

"Ronin Willowe, follow me to my office."

The students mumbled about when they heard this, but Ronin ignored their mumbling and just followed the teacher.

When he arrived at the dainty and plain-looking office, Vyrill gestured for him to take a seat with his expressionless face wrapped in linen bandages.

"Have you brought the copied of the research with you?" He asked straightforwardly.

"Yes, sir." Ronin opened the satchel he carried around that also contained his books. "The research is still in its trial and observation phase, isn't it?"

"Yes. For years, results had been slow and repetitive." Professor Vyrill said. "I tried to convince Maellan to... to take faster measures, but he declined saying that they were unethical."

He faltered at the mention of Maellan, visibly frowning.

"What faster measures?" Ronin didn't see any of that in the copies.

It seemed that these were written himself, as the words used were also carefully crafted to be more..... 'palatable' to a wider audience that may read these copies.

He avoided using too much scientific jargon, and went to lengths to continue assuring that this research was not inherently unethical or malicious, and that it would help secure a brighter future for Magecia.

"Follow me." Professor Vyrill just said once more, as he went to the side of his office where there were several bookshelves, and took out three certain books.

As he did, one of the bookshelves made a CLICK! sound and swung open like a door.

Ronin found it pretty cool, but he only sees this whole research thing as a side quest. After all, the most important thing for him was to get into the Academy and look for the Spinel man.

He was just finding the right moment to bring it up to Professor Vyrill.

When they went inside this hidden room, Ronin found several cages with specimens, no doubt animals that were 'revived' through lightning.

There were small machines that generate very small sparks and voltage to these cages. But what caught Ronin's attention.

Was a chair.

It resembled an electric chair in real life. There were certain nodes and attachments to be put on the person's head and chest area to release electricity from the machine that it was attached to.

All the electric machines were powered by runes that must have taken in Maellan's own electric energy and stored it to be used for indefinite periods of time.

Which Ronin was thankful for since he had no lightning or electric powers, just good old trickery.

Professor Vyrill took a scalpel, and approached a dog that was not in the cage and was instead tied up to lay on a long metal slate, struggling with a muzzle on its face.

"This is the progress that we have achieved." Professor Vyrill raised his hand---

And stabbed the dog right to the heart with the scalpel.

The dog whined, convulsed, and eventually, died painfully slow while bleeding.

Professor Vyrill held no remorse for what he did, and simply went to place the dog in another area where nodes similar to that in the chair could be attached to it.

Ronin watched as the professor pulled the lever, and a surge of blue electricity enveloped the dead dog, causing it to shake vehemently and even causing the floor below them to shake. The dog barked and howled once more, no longer dead.

Ronin can hear the thoughts of people down below, as they too can hear the rattling and the barking from upstairs.

(Ah, the madman is back at it again, torturing poor animals!)

So that was why they believe he was a crazy scientist. They didn't know that what may seem and look like torture...

Was actually just pure science, and actually something wonderful.

What they couldn't understand or don't want to understand, they call madness.

"It's astonishing, professor." Ronin said as Vyrill let the dog go and took off the muzzle as well to feed it some food that he had kept in stock for all the animals here.

"Not as astonishing if we manage to do our real goal now. Maellan would not allow me to do it. Human experimentation."

Professor Vyrill told him somberly as he patted the now lively and 100% not-dead dog. Ronin can see the scar made by the scalpel to slowly close, leaving only the bloody stain.

"Well, it really would be difficult to find a human specimen that would agree to be stabbed like this dog and then electrocuted back to life." Ronin said, also observing the strange resurrected dog for any noticeable differences.

Professor Vyrill shook his head. "It's not. I have already presented a candidate to him that's willing to accept the risk."

"Who?" Ronin asked.

The Professor looked at him with much determination yet also sorrow in his moss green eyes, and for a moment, Ronin thought he saw a scene of a burning house inside them. Captured by the eys and frozen in time.

"Me."