— — — — — —
After Fujiwara Chika's relentless protestation—
Houraisan Kaguya finally agreed to drop the honorifics and just call her by name.
"Alright then, now that you two know each other, Kaguya, why don't you give her a proper introduction to the whole concept of 'spiritual stuff'?"
Leaving Chika in Kaguya's care, Veyron turned and headed off himself.
He had something else to do—namely, check in with Yagokoro Eirin and see what results her latest research had produced.
— — —
As soon as Veyron stepped through the door, Eirin noticed something different about him. Without a word, she grabbed him by the arm, dragged him outside, and—with practiced hands—pulled off his shirt.
She inspected his sun-drenched, radiant body.
"Third Tier, huh?" she said.
"Yeah," Veyron nodded, "I just unlocked it right before coming back."
He added, "But you know, the Third Gene Lock mainly upgrades brain function. It doesn't impact the body nearly as much as the first two stages. Most of these changes you're seeing… they're actually from photosynthesis."
"...I see."
Eirin placed her hand on his back. With Veyron's permission, she used her spiritual power to scan his body.
After a few moments, she understood.
Before, he could only heal himself. But now, he could store up excess energy in different parts of his body.
"What a shame," she sighed, pulling her hand back.
"I don't think it's that bad," Veyron said, raising an eyebrow—he knew exactly what she was lamenting.
Eirin was disappointed because his flesh—and anything else from his body—was practically priceless, but she couldn't use it.
Despite all the physical exams they had done, apart from the very first one (where she took samples of his blood at three stages: before, during, and after unlocking the Gene Lock), afterward, Eirin could only check him using spiritual scans.
Why? Because they had discovered something bizarre the first time around:
Whether it was his blood, hair, fingernails, or whatever small pieces they tried to extract— Once separated from him, these fragments started to lose their "connection" to him.
Within three days, they would completely disintegrate into nothing.
This self-protection mechanism was absolute—it wasn't influenced by Veyron's will at all.
No matter what, after three days, poof—gone.
And trying to use any of his extracted materials within that three-day window? Totally useless.
For example—After they figured this out, and with Veyron's consent, Eirin had tried to make some potions using his blood.
But as soon as three days passed, the blood components vanished from the potions entirely, leaving behind only broken, useless mixtures.
So when Eirin noticed that not only had Veyron's photosynthesis improved after this trip, but his overall state was even better, her heartfelt sigh made total sense.
Given his relationship with Kaguya, Eirin knew that even being allowed to draw a little blood for research was already pushing her limits without making this princess mad.
She wasn't about to slice up the guy Kaguya herself had acknowledged as "family."
Even if one day Veyron and Kaguya had a falling-out, Eirin doubted she could bring herself to dissect him—this one-of-a-kind treasure.
She'd rather pamper him like a precious artifact than risk him falling into depression over mistreatment.
"I'd rather talk inside," she said after Veyron had put his shirt back on.
With a wave of her hand, she changed her made-up world, dimming the artificial sun in the Pocket World, and led him toward her lab.
"First, here's the thing you asked for—a serum that can purify an entire planet of the Undead Virus."
Eirin handed Veyron a sealed test tube containing a green liquid.
"Technically, it's not the whole world," she explained, "because the serum needs a medium to spread. One vial like this can cleanse a single planet, but beyond that—space is a dead zone for it."
"That's actually perfect," Veyron said, taking the vial and inspecting the liquid.
"If it really could spread across the entire universe, I'd be worried it might mutate after combining with some weird alien microbes and create something even worse than the Undead Virus."
"That's impossible," Eirin said, reassuring him.
"This serum works by stopping the spread of the virus inside a host, and it has been modified to directly devour and assimilate the virus while drastically speeding up its metabolism."
"Basically, it eats the virus to reproduce. But once it runs out of virus to eat, it burns itself out and self-destructs."
"Ooh!"
"So if it can be tweaked to devour viruses… could it theoretically be tweaked to devour other things too?" Veyron caught onto the key point immediately.
"Of course," Eirin smiled slightly. "It's actually much easier to design a replicator that eats normal matter than one that only targets specific things."
As she spoke, she opened a nearby cabinet.
Inside were neatly arranged rows of test tubes—some containing blue liquids, others green.
"These top two rows are T-Virus and its corresponding serums. The bottom row is the Undead Virus and its serums..."
"Wait," Veyron interrupted, pointing at a test tube rack that was half empty. "Did you already use some of these?"
"Yeah, I was just about to explain," Eirin nodded.
"Remember how you asked me to study the T-Virus's potential for human enhancement?"
"...Can I ask," Veyron's eyelid twitched, "what exactly you tested it on?"
"Why?" Eirin asked.
"I just want to make sure you didn't use yourself as a guinea pig..."
"You worry too much."
Eirin laughed and led Veyron to the next room.
Inside were rows of bamboo cages, each holding a rabbit.
"I used them."
She casually picked up a cage and inspected the rabbit inside as she spoke:
"Even though most poisons or drugs in this world wouldn't affect me anyway, as a rule, any real pharmacist knows—you never experiment on yourself unless absolutely necessary."
"Whew... you scared me for a second," Veyron let out a long breath of relief.
Now that he wasn't panicking, he finally took a proper look at the rabbits.
Copying Eirin's movement, he picked up a cage and poked at the bunny inside.
"Are these the famous Moon Rabbits?" he asked curiously.
"Nope," Eirin shook her head.
"I didn't have time to bring any down from the Moon. These guys were actually caught by that dog yokai you brought back. It snatched them out of the Bamboo Forest."
"..."
Veyron didn't know whether to call these rabbits lucky or unlucky.
Come to think of it... were there even rabbits in this bamboo forest before?
.
.
.