Chapter 181: Good School, Damn University.

Studying is something you have to do because they say so.

Because parents tell you to do it.

You obviously have to attend school, and since school is a place for studying, you study.

For Hyunsu, studying was like that.

He had never felt that learning knowledge was enjoyable.

Because there were plenty of much more interesting things in the world.

Until now.

The Slime teacher strangely kept making him think ‘why?’.

And following that, ‘ah!’ thoughts also came up.

Even if it was induced, maybe it’s because he realizes it himself.

Information in his head was easily organized.

When he usually studied, it felt like forcing knowledge in.

He couldn’t find the underlying things.

He could find the middle ones, but while rummaging through the mountain of information, the top ones would flow down and go missing.

But now, the desired information came up much more simply.

And the information that came up was immediately linked to what the Slime teacher was teaching.

It wasn’t like roughly piling up knowledge to make a mountain, but rather like steadily building a tower.

As the first class ended, Leo and Oliver approached.

“How was the class?”

“It’s good, but I still don’t know well.”

Hyunsu trailed off his words because it might just be this subject.

But the second subject and the third subject weren’t much different.

All of them were interesting.

And surprisingly, the Slime teacher’s teaching method varied by subject.

In the second subject, it felt like dusting off and organizing the piled-up knowledge.

In the third subject, it felt like traveling back to the past.

“Amazing!”

Hyunsu couldn’t hold back and exclaimed to Oliver and Leo.

“Right?”

Leo and Oliver looked triumphant, as if they were the ones being praised.

“We should eat. Let’s talk on the way.”

Leo and Oliver led the way to the cafeteria.

“Is it okay to go this leisurely?”

It was so different from the school Hyunsu had experienced.

At lunchtime, there were always a lot of students rushing to the cafeteria, but at Slime School, no one was in a hurry.

“There’s still a lot of lunchtime left, so what.”

Lunchtime was a full 2 hours.

“Doesn’t the cafeteria get crowded?”

“Not yet, because there aren’t that many students.”

“Even if the number of students increases, the cafeteria doesn’t seem like it will get crowded. Dad will expand it.”

Upon arriving at the cafeteria, Hyunsu understood Oliver’s words.

The cafeteria was very spacious.

It was spacious now, and if they expanded it, it didn’t seem like it would ever be lacking.

“If there’s a dish you want to eat, order it there. If you don’t want to think, you can choose today’s set menu. If you don’t like or can’t eat certain ingredients, tell them and they’ll remove them. They also adjust the portions.”

Oliver explained kindly.

“But you can’t leave any.”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t leave food.”

“There is alchemy cooking over there, but it’s popular so you’ll have to wait. What do you want to do?”

Due to the excessive freedom, Hyunsu felt like he might get dizzy.

“Oh, today’s set menu….”

As soon as he ordered, he received the dish on his tray.

The delicious smell rising with the warm steam from the tray made Hyunsu’s stomach growl.

Just by looking, he could tell that the quality was completely different from the school meals at the schools he had attended so far.

Because there wasn’t a single side dish that looked like a mass-produced item.

The three of them took their food and sat down.

Hyunsu was surprised after taking a bite.

It was more delicious than he expected.

Before he knew it, he was engrossed in eating.

“Luca!”‘

Leo called someone loudly and waved his hand.

A blonde girl who was looking around noticed them and approached.

She saw Hyunsu and hesitated.

“Who?”

“This is Choi Hyunsu. He’s amazingly good at math from Korea!”

“Math?”

Luca’s eyes changed.

Hyunsu couldn’t help but be confused.

What on earth is math that it’s like that?

“Is being good at math that important?”

“No, you don’t have to be good at it.”

As Oliver denied it, Hyunsu became even more confused.

“Being good at math means you like math, right?”

“W-well, I don’t like it….”

“At least, you don’t want to run away the moment you see a problem.”

“Th-that’s true, but.”

“That’s enough.”

“Yeah. That’s enough.”

Leo was happy, and Oliver and the female student called Luca nodded.

Only then did Hyunsu understand the reactions his classmates had shown.

For some reason, it seemed like this group had gathered math haters.

“Even though the Slime teacher teaches so well, do you all hate math that much?”

“Math is the devil’s subject.”

“Even the Slime teacher couldn’t make math fun.”

“No matter what they say, I don’t understand why we have to learn it.”

For some reason, Hyunsu wanted to spread the good points of math.

“It’s Yeonwoo.”

Suddenly, Leo spotted someone and raised his voice.

“Yeonwoo?”

Hyunsu followed Leo’s gaze.

There was a small child wearing a pink phoenix costume.

“Be careful. She’s the boss of our school.”

“Boss? That small child?”

“Shh. If you get on her bad side, it’s a big problem.”

Leo lowered his head and whispered carefully.

“Remember well. In this school, only the strong can survive.”

Hyunsu suddenly got scared.

He had barely escaped from violence, but was there something like that in this school too?

“Pfft.”

At that moment, Luca burst out laughing.

“Puhaha!”

Leo laughed and patted Hyun-su’s back.

“It’s a joke. Why take it so seriously.”

Oliver was also laughing.

“It’s a joke, but it’s better to be careful.

Yeonwoo is very shy.

Once disliked, it’s not easy to fix.

Imagine such a cute child avoiding you. How sad that would be.”

Luca and Oliver looked at Leo.

Feeling guilty, Leo’s face turned red.

“I was too young back then!”

“What happened was….”

Luca smiled mischievously and started the story, while Oliver grabbed Leo.

“Hey! Hey!”

After hearing Luca’s story, Hyun-su couldn’t help but laugh.

“You too! Hyun-su, share your embarrassing past!”

Hyun-su hesitated and then brought up one story.

“Really?”

“Oh~.”

“I see.”

The three responded appropriately, and Hyun-su got excited and continued.

The two-hour lunch break passed in an instant.

Even though he had only been here for less than a day, Hyun-su made up his mind.

To transfer to this place where his friends are.

***

The transfer to university was this cheerful, but the university itself was different.

“Is this a school? A school? Let this damn school go bankrupt!”

A alchemist shouted toward the sky.

“What a useless thing. It’s just making me hungrier.”

Ha Hyunjun, the Grade D alchemist who had stolen Kim Suhyeon’s achievements as the genius of bombs, clicked his tongue at that sight.

Currently, the only department operating at Slime University is one.

Only the alchemy department.

Those attending there were the ones eliminated from Alchemy Slime’s previous ‘Slime Land’s Got Talent’.

Among the people who flowed into Alchemy Slime because the Korean alchemy world exploded and they had nowhere to go.

Even though Alchemy Slime gave them a room full of ingredients and time to explore freely, those who learned nothing.

By Ash’s standards, the world’s greatest alchemist, they were fake alchemists.

As Alchemy Slime said, they were alchemists who didn’t even have basic skills.

What they did at the university was simple.

Survival.

Like being stranded on a deserted island, they didn’t have to solve everything from start to finish on their own.

They were given a room with a bathroom and clothes.

But they had to get food themselves.

Alchemy Slime evaluated them as follows.

They only had vague motivations, their will was weak, and they wouldn’t develop unless someone pushed them hard.

So, Alchemy Slime drove them by using the desire for appetite.

Getting food wasn’t difficult.

From rolling stones to wandering animals, everything was edible slime.

Those who remember the cake event might think of that place, but this is not an easy place like that.

“This really tastes awful.”

Everything existing here was edible, but none of it tasted good.

It was different from things that have no taste like water or things that make you want to vomit.

It was a tastelessness that denied the sense of taste.

“Mountains are mountains, and waters are waters.”

Some tried to endure the tastelessness by finding mental peace based on enlightenment.

“If I’m about to starve to death, maybe a little…!”

Some tried to use the market as a side dish.

“….”

No matter what they did, it didn’t taste good.

The feeling of ‘Do they expect us to live eating this?’ breaks after a few bites. Soon, they reflect, thinking, ‘Eating this must mean I did something wrong.’

“If you had explored with that mindset, you could have eaten something tastier earlier.”

“What can we do about it not working? You’re still here saying that!”

“I’m almost done.”

The way to eat delicious food here was simple.

Make delicious food through alchemy.

Combining ingredients changed the taste.

If you created a successful product, it turned into delicious food.

If you created a failure, the taste worsened.

The alchemist, exhausted from shouting uselessly and getting hungrier, gathered ingredients.

Tools were provided, so they made alchemy potions with them.

“Ugh.”

As soon as they put it in their mouth, they spat it out.

It was a taste more vicious than <Poison Jelsl>.

“Why! Why isn’t it working!”

This is the very bottom of Slime University.

Those who could make delicious food themselves had already left.

The alchemist used the same ingredients as those who left and made the same thing.

But it only resulted in something unbearably disgusting.

“Idiot. You can’t copy someone else’s recipe.”

“Then what should I do!”

“You have to create your own recipe.”

Just as there are no completely identical things in this world.

Even if they have the same appearance, not all slimes are the same.

Their traits are different.

Without grasping that, copying what others do won’t produce proper results.

“Ah, damn. This tastes worse than before.”

As you find combinations that your tongue finds tasty, your alchemy skills naturally improve.

Those with desperately lacking sense or.

Those who can’t break old habits remained here.

Ha Hyunjun is a Grade D alchemist.

With the skill to make cheap alchemy potions that he remembers, he couldn’t escape this tastelessness.

Due to the habit of only mass-producing for a long time and the pride of having a higher grade than others, he fell behind.

But he didn’t want to stay in this place anymore.

Lets focus and explore

‘This… won’t work. This is it!’

Understanding the characteristics of the materials.

Without surpassing that stage, there’s no way to escape this bottom level.

And Ha Hyunjun finally did it

“Done!”

Ha Hyunjun swallowed the completed alchemy potion in one gulp.

The sweet taste spread in his mouth, and he couldn’t help but exclaim.

And a key came down from the sky.

“Fools! I’m going first! Rot here forever!”

The surrounding alchemists wanted to beat up the arrogant Ha Hyunjun, but violence was prohibited in this place.

With an expression stained with superiority and a sense of liberation, Ha Hyunjun inserted the key into the ground.

He opened the door and jumped inside.

Swoosh….

“Huh?”

The heavy rain falling from the sky pounded Ha Hyunjun.

The joy that had filled his chest was washed away by the rain.

His shoulders, which had risen high, were beaten down by the rain.

Having overcome food among the necessities of life, the next was shelter.

If he had laid the foundation for alchemy potions at the very bottom, then here it was time to build the foundation for alchemy tools.

The environment tormented them until they could build a proper house.

Rain fell.

Wind blew.

The sun beat down.

The next day after a blizzard.

A sandstorm swept in.

“May this damn school be destroyed.”

Ha Hyunjun, who had only experienced heavy rain so far, lamented without knowing what would come next.

Rumble crash, thunder growled.

“Ack!”

Ha Hyunjun suddenly had an ominous thought.

‘Is this going to take away clothes next?’

The Alchemy Slime did not take away clothes to protect human dignity.

Instead, it added monsters.

“Bring it on!”

There were alchemists who tried to act boldly, knowing that the monsters wouldn’t kill them.

Did the Alchemy Slime fail to anticipate that?

“Argh. Smell! So noisy! This is annoying!”

The monsters that appeared were specialized in tormenting people.

They smelled bad, made irritating sounds to the ears, and were very unpleasant when they touched the body.

“Aaaargh! I’ll do it! I’ll do it!”

Still, if they overcame this place, they could finally enter the university.

“Liberation! It’s liberation! Liberation….”

Did that mean the environment would change?

It did not.

As if saying that even if you skip preview, never forget review.

They had to build a house, and the weather was still capricious.

The weather attacked the weaknesses of the house with malice.

Food also had to be made and eaten directly.

On top of that, they had to attend classes and do assignments.

If they skipped classes and didn’t do assignments?

There was a special course for them.

“…May this damn school be destroyed!”

***

Hyunsu expressed his intention to transfer here.

It must have been made well after all.

On the other hand, the university side feels very different.

There are a lot of people who want to leave the school.

-Is this a school? Is it? May this damn school be destroyed!

From the bottom to the top, voices full of wishing for the school to be destroyed.

If these voices accumulate, it might become a curse.

But the <Slime> that makes up Slime Land is full of [Purification+] flames, so it means nothing.

The professor I hired for money says that if they pass all the experiential learning fields I prepared, the basics will be solidly established.

Well, that makes sense.

I reflected the characteristics of real materials in the slimes I placed in the experiential learning fields.

Alchemists who pass through that experiential learning field learn which materials with certain characteristics combine to produce good results.

I designed it so that by applying that experience, they can handle real materials and create quite decent alchemy products.

Alchemists who crawled up from the first-stage experiential learning field and barely arrived at the university building.

They can probably earn a living by just making and selling a decent manufacturing method.

If they knew that fact, the alchemists attending the university would definitely drop out and go that way.

Because human lazy nature doesn’t change that easily.

So I didn’t tell them.

How much time did my R&D team and I spend planning and creating Slime University and the experiential learning fields?

I have no intention of graduating alchemists who are satisfied at that level.

I’ll keep tormenting them so they don’t settle there.

It’s the path you chose.

endure with evil and grit.

You didn’t choose the path?

The moment you submitted your application to AlchemySlime Company, your fate was decided.

It’s not an absolute fate, so resist if you want to.

If you succeed in escaping, I won’t come after you.

***

The priest of the Hero Worship Cult returned.

Unlike last time, he was alone.

Moreover, his face was full of despair.

Well, that makes sense.