Ascension: Online

[Trial of the Chemist: Begin.]

Immediately, the chemistry equipment on the table before us vanished, replaced by boxes containing various colors of spheres, each with a different label, including 'Oxygen', 'Carbon', and 'Nitrogen'. Then, a hologram appeared before us. It depicted a kind of red powder - a similar color to the solution that had been on the table moments earlier.

"So... all that chemical equipment was just fer show?" Jim grunted unhappily.

"Uh, the clock is ticking!" Furuwa yelled, as the floor around us slowly began to dissipate, starting from the outer edges.

"I know, cobber! This one is... potassium dichromate..." Jim muttered to himself and went to work. "If I remember correctly, this should be K2 Cr2 O7..."

Saying this, Jim took out 2 balls from the 'Potassium' box, 2 from the 'Chromium' box, and 7 from the 'Oxygen' box. Then, he began constructing the skeleton of the chemical compound. Lines automatically formed when he held up two balls right next to each other. His movements were practiced and precise. Clearly, he was skilled at this. The fact that he could memorize the chemical formula of the compound was impressive as well - as expected of a chemistry professor.

That said, just this was not enough. We only had two minutes - once those two minutes were up, we would all fall into whatever lay below. From the sizzling and bubbling sound I was hearing, it was probably more of the green acid from the previous trial.

Suddenly, the five white lights on the walls and ceiling of the room flashed green, and we all looked around in surprise.

"What was that?" Ichigo asked, sweat on his forehead even though he wasn't doing anything.

"I finished the first problem, mate," Jim replied without even sparing him a glance. No sweat seemed to be on his forehead, quite ironically.

All of us were left shocked upon hearing this. "That... was quick," Furuwa muttered.

"At this rate, we'll be able to do it!" Ichigo shouted. "Yeah! Keep going, professor!"

"I think he'll be able to concentrate better without your yelling..." I murmured, but it was unknown whether or not Ichigo heard me.

The hologram blinked and switched to the next chemical compound - this time, it was some kind of translucent blue crystal.

"This... copper sulfate pentahydrate, ay?" Jim chuckled. "I just taught about this, mate. Gimme more of a challenge."

He reached for the boxes and took out one ball from the 'Copper' category, one from the 'Sulfate' category, ten from the 'Hydrogen' category, and five from the 'Oxygen' category. He pieced them together in no time.

The lights flashed green once more, signaling that our local chemistry professor had answered correctly once again.

"Woo! Nice one, prof!" Ichigo pumped his fist into the air with a triumphant grin on his face.

Jim didn't get cocky, however, and continued to treat each question with the utmost caution. "Next... yellow powder... hm, this looks like an iron chloride hexahydrate..."

Soon enough, Jim was zooming through the questions, and before we knew it, we only had one more question left to go.

[Warning: 1 minute remaining.]

"Only half the time has passed, and we already only have one question left," Ichigo laughed. "This was almost too easy!"

"Nah... don't get too happy just yet, cobber," Jim said quietly, frowning in thought.

"Huh? What...?"

"This last one... I can't tell what it is," Jim explained, scratching his head. "There's just too bloody many white powders out there to correctly identify."

The three of us converged beside Jim and observed the final problem. On the hologram, a white powder was shown. More accurately, it was in a crystalline form, but the quality of the image was so low that it seemed to just be powder.

"... He's right. Salt, baking soda, sugar, borax, chalk... they're all white powder," Furuwa muttered thoughtfully.

"N' that's only the more commonly seen ones used in bloody daily life," Jim sighed. "It's just... this image is too bloody broad..."

"Are there any other hints anywhere, maybe?" Ichigo suggested, looking around the room. The space we had to stand on was slowly shrinking as the dematerialization continued.

"No... this room is completely empty apart from this table," Furuwa said, shooting Ichigo's suggestion down.

As we stood there, racking our brains for any ideas, the clock continued to tick and the time remaining continued to decrease. Thirty seconds passed, just like that.

[Warning: 30 seconds remaining.]

But then, a thought struck me.

"Wait... the AI called this place the 'Vault of Corruption' earlier. Could this final chemical compound have anything to do with 'corruption', perhaps?"

Furuwa looked at me in skepticism. "That's... pretty far-stretched."

"Yeah... I don't think that's the case..." Ichigo sighed in resignation, moving closer to us a bit as the part of the floor he had just been standing on melted away to nothingness.

"No..." Jim suddenly said.

"Huh?"

"... Ya may be on to somethin', kiddo."

"How so?" Furuwa frowned in confusion, as did Ichigo.

"The problem here is, what kind of corruption are we talkin' about?" Jim continued, ignoring Furuwa and Ichigo's puzzlement.

I sank into thought. "The quest we saw earlier... it told us to 'investigate the source of the corruption', didn't it? That must be referring to the 'plague' affecting the Magic Beasts. In other words..."

"Mental corruption, ay?" Jim slowly began to laugh. "I got it... hallucinogens, huh?"

"W-What?" Furuwa couldn't keep up, but neither Jim nor I had time to answer her questions right now.

"Hallucinogens... drugs that cause hallucination," I muttered quietly. "And the most commonly used one is..."

"... LSD," Jim finished. "Lysergic acid diethylamide. It's colorless or white... but it's also crystalline in its purest form, which was why I never thought of it too hard."

[Warning: 15 seconds remaining.]

"Huh? Crystalline? But... the picture clearly shows powder!" Ichigo cried out in confusion.

I shook my head. "No... whoever is controlling this purposely altered the image quality to make it seem like powder. If you look closely... you'll see it is in fact crystalline."

Jim smiled. "Keen eye, kiddo."

"Uh... I still don't get it at all, but we're running out of time!" Furuwa exclaimed, looking around at the slowly dissipating ground.

[10 seconds.]

"Now then... the bloody formula... C20H25N3O."

[9.]

Jim immediately plucked out twenty balls from the 'Carbon' box, twenty-five from the 'Hydrogen' box, three from the 'Nitrogen' box, and one from the 'Oxygen' box. Doing so took quite some time since it was a complicated formula, and by the time he was done...

[5.]

"Hurry!" Ichigo shouted as the amount of safe space left to stand on was reduced to a single square meter.

Jim concentrated even harder than before, and for the first time, I saw sweat forming on his brows. He pieced together the balls one by one, hands moving at lightning speed as the floor continued to dematerialize.

[4.]

"Almost..."

[3.]

The floor had been reduced to a mere 50 square centimeters. The four of us were practically squished together at this point, much to Furuwa's dismay. Luckily, she didn't attempt to outright push me off or anything. That would've been troublesome.

[2.]

"And..."

[1.]

"Bloody finished!"

[0.]

The room faded to black, but I could still feel the ground beneath me. Did we make it? I held my breath.

And then, the room's five lights flashed green, before returning to their normal white.

I let out a sigh of relief. We had passed the trial.

[Congratulations. You have completed the Trial of the Chemist.]

With those calming words from the AI, the entrance leading to the next section opened up slowly. The floor around us had returned to normal, and the table with all the boxes along with the hologram had disappeared.

I, who had the unluckiness of being close to Furuwa when the floor had nearly completed melted away, instantly received a kick in the stomach. I didn't even need to look to know who the perpetrator was. I was far too close to her to dodge this attack, and I was sent flying backward. Fortunately, I managed to use 'Vanishing Clouds' before I crashed into the wall behind me, propelling me forward. That... could've been worse had it not been for my reaction speeds.

"Geez... Furuwa, that hurt..." I coughed, clutching my stomach in pain.

"Who said you could use my first name-!" she immediately rushed over and attempted to kick me again, but I was able to anticipate her attack this time and quickly dodged out of the way, before frantically moving to the other side of the room.

"H-Hey, chill!" I begged, attempting to escape her wrath.

"You're dying here today, damn it!" she yelled, running towards me.

"Ichigo, help me out!" I suddenly grabbed him, using him as a shield between Furuwa and me against his will.

"Huh? O-Oi! Let me go! I ain't about to tank her hits for yo- ah!"

Heh, this will serve you right.

He then received a punch straight into the guts right in the middle of his sentence, from none other than Chiaki Furuwa herself. I let him go right as she striked him, so Ichigo was sent crashing into the wall behind him the same way I would have had it not been for 'Vanishing Shadows'.

"Whew," Furuwa let out a deep breath, placing her hands on her hips and calming herself down. "I feel so much better after hitting someone."

"T-The hell, Igarashi?! Ugh, this hurts..." Ichigo groaned, slowly getting back up.

"If that's bad, think about what I had to endure from you and Horiya," I snorted, unamused.

"I... okay, fine, that's a fair point."

As for Jim, he watched all of this unfold with a crooked grin.

"Ah... youngsters."