High School of Demon Hunting

The Black Gemstone Cat sat obediently on the desk, a thick thesis spread open to the 183rd page in front of it, with over a hundred pages more to be read.

Su Shijun sat diagonally across from it, wearing rimless diamond-cut glasses, her attention fixed on a stack of experimental reports, several feather pens dancing rhythmically, sketching and highlighting across the pages.

In the study, only the soft scratch of pen on paper and the intermittent rustle of turning pages disturbed the silence.

This quiet scene made the Black Gemstone Cat, who was holding back a sigh, feel particularly uncomfortable.

It couldn’t help but glance outside the window.

It was Thursday, May 20th in the solar calendar, April 7th in the lunar calendar, coinciding with the first quarter moon, its cold light streaming through the tall glass windows, enveloping Su Shijun and making her even more dazzling.

Meanwhile, the Black Gemstone Cat, curled up in a corner of the desk, felt even smaller and weaker.

It longed for the moonlight.

And even more for freedom!

But bound by its own nature, it had to obediently sit in Greenhill Mansion, ’reviewing’ its graduation thesis—today was the third consecutive day it had been reading this thesis.

It never imagined its graduation thesis would be this thick!

What troubled the cat more was that most of the content in the thesis was beyond its comprehension, and it only had superficial knowledge of many terms. The more it read, the weaker its confidence in graduating smoothly became, to the point that Zheng Qing, upon receiving messages in the past two days, had begun to consider whether he should start a new proposal and write another thesis altogether—Xiao Xiao’s thesis seemed quite suitable for that.

The only problem was that with only a month left before the thesis defense at the end of June, he had little confidence in finding the time to complete another lengthy thesis amidst his busy daily routine. Especially with the Horseman Tribe’s message weighing on him like a stone, leaving him unsettled at times.

"—Based on the mapping results of the ground-state wave function, we tested two scenarios: first, the same dimension with different repulsion coefficients; second, the same repulsion coefficient with different two-dimensional worlds... Using the potential difference between high and low dimensions, special individuals were deeply embedded in the low-dimensional world for supervised observation... Trained special individuals could generate the ground-state wave function of Bose-Albert condensate with high precision. When the coherence length of the Gaussian random field input is less than 2.71 Ypsilon, the low-dimensional state of the special individuals can be completely mapped into the isomorphic dimensional space-time..."

The Black Gemstone Cat read this paragraph drowsily—this was the third time it had read it, yet it still couldn’t grasp the intended meaning of these words—it reflexively returned to the thesis’s overview, attempting to reorganize its thoughts.

"—If the experimental subject can break free from the 1+1-dimensional space-time, then its experiences, insights, and even various occurrences during its breakthrough moment will reoccur in a higher dimension..."

Indeed.

Its thesis aimed to demonstrate the ’Christian-Moonlight Conjecture,’ using the shadow Su Shijun removed from him during freshman year as a case study. That shadow had successfully detached from the two-dimensional world in a very short period, achieving ’superdimensional evolution.’

’Superdimensional evolution’ was a term the Black Gemstone Cat came up with on its own.

Such vague ’low-level vocabulary’ would never appear in this thesis.

"—To verify and apply the non-locality characteristics of the Christian-Moonlight Conjecture, a convergence calculation paradox of a specified high-dimensional law at transparent medium interfaces was proposed, and a straightforward low-dimensional mapping law was designed along with experimental methods for recording and analyzing multi-phase medium interactions... Under conditions of simultaneous control over high-dimensional laws and ’Watch Four Directions,’ this method enables rule-level visual capture of dimension-ascension states. After image reconstruction, the original data will form a transient image sequence, offering a standardized interpretation of the ’Moonlight Conjecture’..."

Hmm.

Alright, seems I understand... What was I supposed to be doing just now?

The Black Gemstone Cat lifted its paw, rubbing its somewhat stiff ear, feeling as if it had turned into a goldfish, with a memory span of only seven seconds. Or perhaps less.

"Can you finish reading it by Friday?"

A pleasant voice suddenly broke the silence in the study.

Startled, the Black Gemstone Cat realized that Su Shijun was speaking to it, its whiskers drooped slightly as it responded earnestly, "—It’s a bit difficult, tomorrow is Friday, and I still have about half of the content to read. Sunday, Sunday I can definitely finish."

"Can you understand it?" The witch asked with a hint of teasing in her tone.

The Black Gemstone Cat chuckled awkwardly, avoiding a direct answer: "—Sort of, probably can understand the general content, seems like it can be said to understand."

Sort of, probably, seems like.

Just from these words, the study’s owner got a general understanding of the Black Gemstone Cat’s level.

"—If you can’t understand it, why torture yourself for another two days?" She adjusted her glasses, a mildly alluring perplexity crossing her face, causing even the Black Gemstone Cat, as still as a stone, to feel its heart unexpectedly thump twice.

"Because, because, you told me to read it... Besides, the feeling of knowledge flooding into the brain is quite nice." It defended in a quiet voice while lowering its head, trying to flip back to the page it had been reading.

Was it page 181? Or maybe 187?

It couldn’t quite remember.

In any case, more or less pages made little difference to it since it barely understood them, and even if it did understand some parts, they slipped out of its mind as soon as they went in.

"Alright, stop torturing yourself, go back." The owner of Greenhill Mansion snorted lightly, giving a surprising answer to the Black Gemstone Cat.

Without any hesitation, it slapped the thesis shut with a resounding slap.

"Really?"

After closing the thesis, it realized its reaction was a little too intense and quickly tried to make up for it, "I mean, if I can’t understand it now, what about during the graduation thesis defense?"

"This thesis is classified, it won’t be publicly defended... Besides, I will highlight key points for you before the defense, just memorize them. Moreover, everyone knows your major contribution in this thesis is as a ’real case,’ those four words alone are enough for you to graduate. The thesis defense and so on, are mostly a matter of procedural justice."

"Understood!" The Black Gemstone Cat cheerfully raised its paw in a salute.

"Additionally, go and tell Zheng Qing that next time there’s a discussion about the thesis, I hope it’s he himself who comes, not a stone." The witch’s voice floated behind it: "—And ask him, why is it that a stone came here to me!"

Just as the Black Gemstone Cat climbed onto the windowsill, it stumbled, falling heavily out of the window.