Magnet

"Holy shit, that scared the life out of me!"

"What the hell happened to those three bastards in Room 309? Why were they screaming like that?"

"***, I thought I'd accidentally stepped on three toads and burst them when I came through the door!"

At the entrance to Room 305, Lu Zhan's right foot trembled as he stepped inside.

Those three screams had made his heart skip three beats.

The suffocating terror had instantly sent his scalp tingling.

It really wasn't because Lu Zhan was a coward.

Those three screams had come far too suddenly, and more importantly, they had been packed with far too much emotion and information.

At least, that was how it seemed to Lu Zhan, who possessed the Blood-Red Antenna.

From those three screams alone, Lu Zhan could actually tell that Ajak and the other two had probably wet themselves in terror.

After the three screams, a series of tumbling noises came from Room 309.

Clearly, Ajak and the other two had overreacted and "accidentally" fallen to the floor.

But very soon, Room 309 fell deathly silent again.

If Lu Zhan hadn't been able to faintly hear their heartbeats with his exceptional hearing, he would have thought the three of them had dropped dead!

"***, who the hell is wailing like a ghost in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"

"Have you got no consideration for anyone else? We have class tomorrow!"

"You scared the shit out of me! If I have nightmares tonight, I'm kicking your door down tomorrow."

Lu Zhan had never imagined the dormitory building could be so lively in the small hours.

The screams from Ajak and the other two had been so "devastating" that half the dormitory building erupted in curses.

As for the other half, no one lived there.

Ever since the Training Center had been established, the Basic Class dormitory building had never been full.

"Those three really did sound like they were calling up spirits."

"But saying they woke everyone up would be an exaggeration."

"Looks like the Basic Class has plenty of night owls. I wonder what everyone's busy doing in their rooms?"

Although curses filled the dormitory building, no one actually came out to investigate.

Clearly, no one wanted to get involved.

Even if those three screams had been rather horrific, and had cut off abruptly, making it sound very much like a murder scene.

What did that have to do with them?

Once the sun rose tomorrow, it would be a brand-new day.

Even the people jolted awake from their dreams could be forgiving.

Lu Zhan had only had his legs shake a couple of times from the fright, so naturally, he wouldn't go kick down Room 309's door either.

What Lu Zhan needed now was rest. Presumably, the guilty trio wouldn't scream again.

As Lu Zhan closed the door to Room 305, peace returned to the dormitory building.

How many people would actually manage to fall asleep, however, remained unknown.

"Ajak, what exactly happened? Did you scream?"

"Vikem, I was about to ask you the same thing. What were you screaming for?"

"Something's wrong. Something's very wrong. How did we fall asleep?"

Inside Room 309, Ajak and the other two had kept quiet for a long time. Once they were sure no one would come storming in, they began talking in hushed voices.

Having detected an unknown "risk," the three had decided to stop secretly listening to the radio for now.

But that didn't mean they weren't curious about what had happened that night.

So the three had gathered again to examine the "corpse" of the Ore Radio, hoping against hope to find a clue.

Unfortunately, all three were poor students, and they had never studied material alchemy at all.

Beyond establishing that the Magnet was the only damaged part of the Ore Radio, they had discovered nothing.

As for why the Magnet had broken, or why its magnetism had mysteriously vanished, they couldn't figure it out at all.

The Magnet had shattered into three pieces, and each of them took one to examine.

Without realizing it, they had become absorbed in studying the fragments and fallen asleep.

By the time they woke again, screams were already pouring from their throats.

"Could this Magnet hypnotize people?"

"Surely not? Apart from a faint bloody smell, it's just a piece of scrap iron now. Even its magnetism is gone."

The three were certain they would never fall asleep for no reason.

They were seasoned night owls, and it wasn't their bedtime yet.

Instinctively, they focused their suspicions on the Magnet fragments in their hands.

But how was that possible?

Not only did the Magnet have no hypnotic powers, but even if it did, their willpower, which far surpassed that of ordinary people, should have kept them from succumbing.

Going "hungry" in food appreciation class hadn't benefited only their bodies.

"Wait, the bloody smell on the Magnet is gone?"

"***, why is my Magnet fragment all wet? Did I drool on it?"

"Magnetism! The Magnet fragments have actually regained their magnetism."

Though they found it utterly unbelievable, Ajak and the other two still examined the fragments in their hands again.

This time, they made plenty of discoveries.

The disappearance of the bloody smell might have had something to do with the "wetness."

But the sudden return of their magnetism was extremely abnormal.

"This is weird. Far too weird!"

"I'm certain I didn't dream. Or rather, I don't remember dreaming at all!"

"Me neither. I don't remember a thing."

"Then why did all three of us scream at the same time? Those screams just now definitely came from sheer terror."

The three exchanged glances, their expressions instantly turning ugly.

The only thing they had encountered recently that had anything to do with [fear] was that recording from last night.

But all they had learned was an unconventional version of the [second law]. Even if it worried them a little, it shouldn't have scared them into wetting themselves!

It was humiliating and embarrassing.

Yet at the instant they screamed, Ajak and the other two really had lost control of their bodies.

For Basic Class students, that should have been completely impossible.

"Ajak, Vikem, what should we do?"

"Should we throw these three Magnet fragments away?"

"I can't shake the feeling that these fragments regained their magnetism because they absorbed something from our bodies."

Zhou Qi held

the Magnet fragment in hands that wouldn't stop trembling, as though he were holding a time bomb.

He truly regretted it now. If he had known things would turn out like this, he would never have become friends with these two.

"No. We absolutely can't throw them away!"

"I feel as though I've been sucked dry too. But that's exactly why we can't throw the Magnet away."

"No matter how strange this is, we nurtured the Magnet with our own blood, after all."

"Maybe this isn't a bad thing. Maybe it's an opportunity for us!"

"Let's bear with it a little longer and observe it for a few more days!"

With absolute conviction, Ajak rejected Zhou Qi's suggestion.

Not only would he refuse to throw away his own Magnet fragment, but he wouldn't let Zhou Qi throw his away either.

After all, the three fragments had originally been one piece. Perhaps they could even be put back together into a complete Magnet.

Normally, the three Magnet fragments would repel one another.

But wasn't their current situation abnormal?