Chapter 267
“Good morning, how are you feeling?” Jianmen came into the office of Professor Atkinson with two metal jars in his hand and a wooden takeout box.
“Woah, woah. Too bright. And ouch ouch ouch, my head....” Dolores just woke up and found herself sleeping on the ground, while Professor Atkinson was flipping through books and records on his desk with bloodshot eyes and jittering hands.
“Take a break, Professor, this rush of knowledge and inspiration doesn’t help you understand anything. You need to have the knowledge fully broken down and digested before you can come up with anything new.” Jianmen put down the jars and takeout box: “And Dolores you looked like you passed out for the entire 3 days. You must be hungry, here, have some cake and steak.”
“I was out for three days?” Dolores struggled to sit up and was having a hard time moving her numb tingling limbs: “How did that happen?”
“Because you accepted the contract from Xyn, he shared some of his knowledge with you.” Jianmen poured a cup of hot liquid with amber color and handed the cup to Dolores: “Here, drink some of this. It’s my signature brewed black tea. I would’ve made you coffee, but I am still having trouble cultivating the coffee beans.”
“Oh, Dolores, you’re awake.” Professor Atkinson raised his head above the mountain of books and records on his desk and said to Dolores with a weak and soft voice: “Come here, help me find some records - I just had an epiphany, we need to find the records of blaaaaa - blooooooo ----- cork hay - hay - haven.” He even started slurring his words.
“Take a break, Professor - or you’ll burn your brains.” Jianmen frowned and poured another cup of brewed black tea intended for Professor Atkinson.
“Nononono, you don’t understand! This new knowledge - it’s - it’s groundbreaking! It will change everything we know about - about everything!” Professor Atkinson coughed and said to Jianmen while staring at him: “This cannot wait! I can’t wait! This is too great to sleep on! I … I need to find the records and recompile everything!”
“Okay, you’re out now.” Jianmen unleashed a soft and slow-looking palm strike, the energy released from his palm crashed against Professor Atkinson’s face like a splash of warm water. Professor Atkinson was instantly pushed to the back of his chair, his eyes closed, his limbs rested on the edge of his chair, and within just a few seconds, he started snoring.
Jianmen did not stop with this simple palm strike, he continued his “attack” with a flurry of finger strikes from a distance, Dolores could see that some kind of light-bending transparent streams of energy shot from Jianmen’s fingertips and went into Professor Atkinson’s torso, limbes and eventually temples and forehead.
When he was done with the finger strikes, Jianmen snapped his fingers, and Professor Atkinson’s body slid onto the ground and laid down in a comfortable pose.
“What did you do to him?” Dolores asked.
“It’s an old trick of mine. I call it the nap nap combo.” Jianmen shook his head and chuckled: “I used to use it to help my nervous and neurotic friends sleep better and relax, while also making sure they get enough rest. It could also work on situations like Professor Atkinson here - he was under the effect of ‘Knowledge Rush’, it’s like the information version of sugar rush. So he must be stopped and put into a sleeping state, for now, so that he won’t be bleeding through his nose and eyes and have trouble remembering things later.”
“What about me?” Dolores took a drink of Jianmen’s black tea, and felt that her headache was showing signs of going away: “Why did I pass out for three days?”
“Same root cause, different symptoms.” Jianmen answered: “I think Professor Atkinson woke up sometime last night, maybe I should’ve kept a monitoring spell here next time you take on the contract from a god.”
“Yikes, hopefully there’s no next time.” Dolores rubbed her temples and drank up her whole cup of tea: “Thanks for the tea.”
“Have some more. These are all for you - I’ll come back and bring some more for the professor tomorrow or the day after, depending on when he wakes up.” Jianmen smiled and asked: “So, how are you feeling? Got anything interesting from Xyn?”
“I ... uh… a lot, actually.” Dolores continued rubbing her temples for a short while and answered: “I got some knowledge about the edgelands, and how to get there. Looks like if we want to find his descendant, we’ll need to start from that place. But it seems like we need to head to a place called the Unnamed Mountain first.”
“That’s quite an interesting name for a mountain.” Jianmen chuckled: “But bear in mind, that his information could be very outdated, and it’s also based on his translation so the mountain could very well be called something else. I know a way to the edgelands, and it’s not a mountain, but a giant lake that is on a distant planet. Did he mention any specific reason you need to go through this Unnamed Mountain?”
“No. But from what I got from him - the edgelands is a very very vast place. Maybe if we go through the Unnamed Mountain we will be closer to the place we’ll be looking for?”
“Hmm… not good, not good.” Jianmen frowned and shook his head.
“What? Why?”
“Edgelands is not that big a place - it’s merely a jump point from our world into the void.” Jianmen scratched his jaw: “Looks like the place Xyn remembered to be the edgelands had changed. We need to find this out first.”
Dolores sighed and lowered her body, then slowly banged her head against her desk.
“Tell me more then, maybe he shared more information with you that could be a clue.” Jianmen sighed and poured himself a cup of tea: “Think about it, how did he describe the edgelands and the Unnamed Mountain...”
Before Jianmen could finish his question, he started coughing out of nowhere, then his hold body fell onto the ground, and with his wheezing and heavy breathing, blood was coming out of his eyes, ears, nose and mouth.