"As a musician and a performer, you will stumble upon things that wouldn't go your way. Sometimes you have to perform a piece with grace under pressure. Sometimes it will happen in the middle of the piece."
"More than that, sometimes you will meet audiences that will be hostile towards you. All of these have the power to affect your state of mind, and therefore your music!"
"And so I advise you young ones to ready yourselves in whatever may happen that could affect your way of thinking. Train your mind if need be, that's your key to standing above others!"
"Hahhaha…look at her addressing young people just a few years younger than her as young ones." Watching from the sidelines, Grandmaster Reuben could not help but whisper these words to Vice Chairman Bramwell.
"Well, no one would remain unfazed after hearing that. Only our Eli would. It's really a fortune to have her as the leading person on the team. Look at the eyes of the delegates. Earlier, they were ridden with anxiousness, now they were full of determination!"
Bramwell answered enthusiastically, he could not be happier to see that Eli was able to navigate the nervous delegates.
The meeting ended with the delegates all under the Academic Division recharged and inspired by Eli's speech.
Eli and the elders have no idea, that what seemed to be the words meant to just calm the nervous music students would become a motto for the entire batch of delegates of the institute regardless of what they belonged to.
Be it the Magic division, the Academic, or the Research Branch, Eli's speech spread throughout the entire campus, earning her another soar in her reputation.
After the assembly in the institute, Eli came straight to the new headquarters of the Anti Curse Committee.
A building was dedicated for them to be the base of their operations, like all of the other agencies in the Empire, the Imperial Family did not hold back from giving what they needed.
These days, the Anti-Curse Committee was in full swing in implementing and researching ways to protect the Empire of the curse users.
Their initial proposal of making the travel processing stricter has been easily approved by the council and the Emperor himself. The next move that they did was to strengthen the arrays that has been used up during the war with the Vesalas.
Eli and Mishael was the one who did this, while the others all went to the walls and other key areas of the capital to also implant more protective arrays for protection.
Kayden on the other hand buried himself to study two things, the hell wolves and the constitution of Baobao.
Using the accurate information from the book of knowledge, Eli provided Kayden with detailed information regarding Baobao and the entire Panda's anatomy.
With this, they worked to identify the features they thought that Baobao has that he was able to detect traces of the curse.
Entering the headquarters, Eli went straight to Kayden's research laboratory.
Out of all the research laboratories made for Kayden, this was was the most conservative and simple.
This was because many greedy officials might try to steal data and information in the laboratory, and so even if the facility had enough security features, Kayden was not comfortable going all out in researching in this area.
And so he dared not to do his experiments inside the head quarter's laboratory but instead does his investigative studies here.
Besides, he still preferred the research facility underground of the temple for it was near the vicinity of the curse users aside from those who were locked in the Court of Sinners.
"Big Brother, how is the task going?" Eli entered the place and stumbled upon Kayden who was deeply immersed in crunching the numbers from the data he just collected.
As she entered she carefully brought a tray of fresh coffee and a slice of sweet cake which she ordered along the way to the headquarters and put it beside him.
Without even looking at Eli or the food she brought, Kayden's hand automatically moved to take the cup and drink a few sips. After that, he took the fork and took a mouthful of the cake.
Eli did not take offense, as she knew that it was Kayden's habit whenever he was in the zone. She sat beside him as quietly as possible and started browsing through the notes that were on his table.
After some time, Kayden finally noticed her presence and informed her, "Little Sister, what we have initially suspected could be right after all!"
Eli looked at Kayden and saw a trace of excitement in his eyes as if he was about to reach an epiphany.
"You mean the mutated sensory receptors on the Panda race's noses?" She confirmed.
"Yes! The key might be in the sensory receptors. After weeks of observing many animals who had the exceptional ability to use their sense of smell, only Baobao, and the hell wolves were the ones who were able to detect curse traces!"
"Hmm, I can understand Baobao but how come the hell wolves could do that also?" Eli touched her chin and looked at the notes Kayden was holding earlier.
"You remember that hell wolves were nothing but mutant wolves if they did not smell the berserk potion? In any way, the potion contained the power of the curse, and so whenever they smell it, they would be driven into a state of madness."
Eli thought deeply for a while as she analyzed the data in the table. Rationalizing everything that was in the papers and her personal observation of the hell wolves' behavior, it seems like this was the case.
Nodding in agreement, Eli suddenly felt a sense of loss over the tens of hell wolves that were killed during the war. To this day, they only managed the hell wolves that Leon was able to capture during the encounter in Silver Dew Forest.
"Too bad, if we knew this beforehand, we could have made an effort to capture the Vesala's hell wolves alive." She mumbled in regret.
"Oh, Little Sister! Hehehehehe you need not worry about that!" At Eli's mention of the dead hell wolves, Kayden seemed to have been triggered and his eccentric mood became apparent.
With a mischievous look on his face as he smiled like a child who managed to swindle the adults of candy, he continued,
"I had Leon's men preserve the bodies of the hell wolves, every receptor they had were intact! Hehehehe! We don't need the hell wolves alive anyways, we only need their receptors!"
Eli felt a wave of goosebumps as he saw this side of Kayden, he was now like a mad scientist who was out to get his competitor, "Say, Little Sister, how would those evil scientists react if they see their own weapons become ours and used against them?"
Seeing the seriousness and the trace of vindication in Kayden's eyes, Eli was reminded of how Kayden's life was made miserable by the same group of people from the Spectre. "They might even make their teeth fall off from their seething anger!" She replied.
"Hahahaha! I know right?" Kayden chuckled excitedly.
"But Big Brother, how will you use the receptors? Are you going to implant them on another wolf like the hell wolves?" Eli carefully threaded through asking this question. As much as possible, she doesn't want Kayden to resort to the same methods as the mad scientist in Spectre.
Kayden looked at Eli and immediately understood her worries. Instantly, his gaze turned gentle as he patted Eli's head as he replied, "Whatever you are thinking, it won't happen…"
Then with his eyes full of wisdom and confidence he continued, "The reason they resorted to such methods was that they were too incompetent!"
"They could not think outside of the box and resort to such inhuman and malevolent ways!"
"Your big brother is different and is way much better than them! That's why you do not need to worry!"
"Because unlike them, I have a way to use those receptors without making mutant wolves and humans!'
"??? How do you plan to do that Big Brother?" Eli became curious as Kayden teased her enough to be interested.
"Hehehe, the answer is cultivation! Microbiology of course!"
"You mean you will treat them like bacteria?" Eli's eyes widened in surprise, she didn't know that receptors have this nature.
"Not exactly like that, to be more accurate, it's little related to how vaccines were developed in the world you were in. I plan to go by that route." Kayden explained to her briefly, for because of the ring he inherited from his father, he also had knowledge of the modern earth.
"Anyways, I still need to verify my claims after all. And we only have a limited number of receptors we can extract. For now, I still have to solidify my theories." Kayden started to wrap up the discussion so as to not let Eli dive deeper into the matter.
To divert her attention, Kayden intentionally shifted to another topic, "By the way, have you thought of the gift you would give at the Second Queen's Birthday Banquet?"
