Chapter 168 Stealing The Books (1)
After casting the laxative spell on the unfortunate researcher's food, Alicia walked in a natural manner and proceeded to go to the third floor.
This was not because she wanted to eat, but to go to a spot where she could observe the researcher to ensure that he would really ingest the coffee laced with a laxative spell.
Sure enough, the unsuspecting researcher calmly finished his entire meal. He immediately tidied up his food tray with a satisfied smile, clearly he had been energized by his 'hearty' breakfast and coffee.
Alicia couldn't help but display a victorious smirk on her face. Carefully tailing the researcher who was already heading excitedly towards the grand amphitheater, Alicia diminished her presence to the minimum that even a passerby would only notice a researcher heading towards the area, their brains would automatically discard Alicia, who was discreetly following from behind.
Another reason why he tailed this researcher particularly was because of his habit to be one of the earliest people to wait diligently for the lecture to start.
This fact, combined with the fact that she was already on stealth, made it easy for her to sneak inside the amphitheater without anyone noticing.
After that, she proceeded to wait in an unattended room nearest to the entrance of the main lecture area, until the class was about to start. She closed her eyes and concentrated on listening to the bustle of the excited research branch.
At the same time, she opened her left palm while mouthing a certain spell. Instantly a magic circle of brown color floated in her hands.
After about ten minutes, Alicia determined that there were already enough people around the area and they had already started to put out their books in preparation for Eli's lecture.
By her observation, Eli would always start and end her lectures on time. As such, even the listeners gained a habit of preparing their things beforehand to eliminate the commotion created by frantically taking out their books just as she started the lecture.
As soon as Eli stepped on the podium, the entire audience would be silent and focused on her who would be teaching them for an hour.
To Alicia, the five minute window before the lecture was the perfect time for her to activate the spell. It was the time where the listeners were most busy in preparing and discussing their opinions and thoughts regarding the past and the upcoming lecture sessions.
True enough, as soon as she went out of the room, she discreetly sneaked a look towards the researcher she had targeted. He had already taken out his learning materials and had excitedly discussed his thoughts to the person next to him.
'It's time.' Alicia muttered, seeing that this was the perfect moment to 'eliminate' the researcher and take his place. Of course, because it is very easy for the researcher to report the matter of his book being stolen, Alicia had carefully planned out the situation.
The researcher would hurriedly excuse himself to head towards the toilet and would be immediately replaced by Alicia, disguising as him. Then, Alicia would take the class for the whole day while the researcher would be agonizing until Alicia deactivates the spell.
There was also another thing she had to do. After the researcher runs to the toilet, she had to go there and cast another spell on the researcher.
The effect of this spell would make the researcher muddleheaded. He would only care how uncomfortable he was and would head back immediately to his dorm. He would forget to pack his things properly and would not be able to remember the existence of the book until the morning comes.
By the time he realized that his books were gone, he would totally have no idea how it happened. Even if it was investigated, he will not even remember if he took his breakfast or not.
As soon as she activated the spell on her left palm, she could clearly see the instant change in the expression of her target researcher. She knew how horrible he was feeling at the moment, as she patiently waited for him to frantically excuse himself and run to the toilet.
She waited for a few minutes after ensuring that the effects of the laxative spell would already break the researcher's mental state before casting the spell to make him more muddleheaded.
After that she proceeded to change her appearance from her robe to her face, then to the timbre of the researcher's voice. After checking her new appearance on the men's toilet room mirror, she didn't delay and walked out the toilet room with her entire body shivering in disgust.
She would never forget this day. For the sake of getting a better career for herself, she, a noble lady of the Cross Family stepped inside a men's toilet and schemed against a poor young researcher!
As her heart was still raging with emotions from realizing the extent of her actions, she didn't immediately go back until she was sure that she completely calmed herself down.
Only when it was around two minutes before the start of the lecture did she come back. Now, she was wearing the same expression as the young researcher would typically have, perfectly posing with the victim's identity.
She obediently sat on his seat and quietly waited for Eli appear to start the lecture. Although she had no idea what she would witness from here on, she had to grit her teeth and persist until the entire day was over.
Luckily, she didn't have any scheduled lectures for today, or else, it would give her a hard time in changing this plan of hers.
Even though she was not really interested to see how Eli worked, much less how Zeke worked as a facilitator, she had to stay here lest it would be too obvious if the 'researcher' would suddenly disappear.
At exactly two minutes, Eli appeared on the podium and straightforwardly started her lessons after exchanging greetings to everyone.
"Now let's continue where we left off, turn your materials on the 50th page of your learning materials." Eli instructed calmly.
"This will be the last three days of the bootcamp. As promised, every concept that has been taught the entire time would be highly essential to your current research." Eli's clear and crisp voice echoed on the entire amphitheater.
"These last three days will be special as I will be demonstrating to you the entire application of concepts we will be and have been discussing so far!" Eli then declared with confidence in her voice, then the curtained stage behind her opened, revealing Zeke and Simone, each carefully pushing a large set of equipment, that in the eyes of the listeners were somewhat mystifying and interesting.
Eli scanned the entire crowd, clearly seeing their curious and excited faces, she gave a knowing smile and continued, "Some of you may have already guessed, the thing in front of you right now are the simplified prototypes of the invention I created with a team of experts, the water pressure and heating system!"
"Heavens!"
"Goodness! I'm so lucky!"
Waves of exclamations and cheering spread in the entire amphitheater. Even Alicia, who was actually just waiting to watch the show, stood up with great interest and craned her neck to try to figure out the things displayed in front of them.
The entire research branch was only less than fifty people, as such, it was easier for them to have a good look at the prototype in front of them.
"Alright, settle down. Everyone will get a chance to examine these prototypes in the next sessions later on. We have two prototypes anyways, so the researchers and the faculty members would have their own prototype to observe."
Eli had already seen through this scenario while she was planning the lesson, where the research branch would wonder how the concepts were applied in real life. She found it best that at the end part of the bootcamp, a demonstration should be conducted.
So during the time of the temple exile, she, along with her original project team gathered for the second time to create two prototypes of the water pressure and heating system. This was already an easy task for them, as the water system was already in the process of being mass produced.
She just needed to give something that the research branch can use to carefully observe.
Soon, the students settled down and listened to Eli as she eloquently explained the concepts of heat transfer, entropy and pressure.
She used a phase that was neither slow nor fast.
She also didn't forget to stop discussing the theoretical part from time to time and chose to demonstrate them by operating the prototype so that the listeners could see how the concepts were applied in real life.
"Now, I am done explaining and demonstrating the concept of pressure. Can someone explain how much water pressure we need to push the water to flow through our upward pipes, for instance, to distribute water on the highest floor of your house? Consider these values I have written on the board." Eli then wrote certain values on the black board and asked someone from her listeners to answer her question.
Alicia, who was unaware that she had already become too absorbed of the new knowledge, subconsciously raised her hand along with the other research members!