It’s an Academic Fact That Rankers Are Model Students – Chapter 163

Chapter 163: The Truth Less Than 1% Knew

“Huh? M, Mana gene……”

Following the confusion caused by the curveball earlier, Ceram couldn’t help but be even more bewildered by the word he had never heard of before, let alone mana.

“Mana genetics, haven’t you heard of it?”

“Yes…… I’ve never heard of it. This is the first time I’m hearing it.”

“Yes. I guess there wouldn’t be.”

It was only natural not to know.

In the first place, genetics would not have developed in World, a fantasy world.

Anatomy would have developed somewhat since it would be useful to necromancers, but not genetics.

World was a place where the concept of bloodline existed, but not the concept of genes.

However, Kyung-joon was different.

‘While I was preparing for the Biology 1 exam this time, I studied a little more deeply, and before I knew it, I ended up reading all of general biology.’

Kyung-joon, whose science internal subject changed from physics & chemistry to biology & earth science from the second semester.

Especially while studying biology, he kept following the ‘why?’ as if chasing a tail, and before he knew it, he was turning the last page of general biology.

It couldn’t be more ironic.

“Anyway, so I was thinking about the earth attribute and the forest attribute from before, and I thought I’d increase the wrinkles in my brain?”

“Increase the wrinkles in your brain……?”

“Ah, it’s an idiom. Usually, we players say that if you’re smart, you have a lot of wrinkles in your brain.”

“Aha……”

“Rather than that, take a look at this.”

Kyung-joon spread out the research paper in front of Ceram.

A bunch of papers with 『Mana Genetics Draft』 written on the front page in Kyung-joon’s handwriting.

It was a study that Kyung-joon had been working on in his spare time for Ceram.

As written in the draft, it was only the beginning, requiring further in-depth research and verification.

Still, it would be enough to awaken Ceram’s narrow view.

‘I don’t think he’ll understand everything. It’s enough if I can just convey the gist. Ceram has been studying for a month, too.’

For about a month, while Ceram was in the territory, he studied magic theory with the residents to some extent.

Besides, since he was a fairy who could instinctively use magic, he would definitely be able to understand what Kyung-joon was trying to say.

“While I was learning scroll magic, I became very familiar with the work of converting mana into information.”

The act of engraving magic on a scroll means storing mana as information on the scroll.

In other words, mana = information.

And in biology, there is a discipline that claims that organisms = information.

That is genetics.

The basic premise and beginning of genetics is that each species of organism has a defined ‘information’, that is, ‘genes’.

“Then, applying the same logic, I wondered if there might be something like a magic or mana gene in magic, just like genes in biology.”

Just as person A and person B are clearly different people, but clearly share the same ‘human’ genes.

He thought that fireball and hellfire would also have the same ‘fire attribute’ mana gene.

“So I analyzed the commonalities between fire attributes, water attributes, earth attributes, and so on. That’s this table.”

The process leading up to this table was as follows.

『1. Teemo learns various attribute magic based on the knowledge he has uploaded from various libraries.』

In the first process, Kyung-joon unintentionally acquired mastery of various attributes.

It started with the level of his original null attribute mastery increasing, then fire attribute, water attribute, earth attribute, wind attribute, forest attribute……

He learned the mastery of as many attributes as he could name.

As a result, the number of skills in the skill window became so large that God of the World gave him one.

[All Attribute Magic Mastery]

▶Increases the damage and efficiency of all magic by 30% regardless of attribute.

▶Skill Level: Lv.1

▶Skill Type: Passive

▶Skill Rank: Rare

Now Kyung-joon was able to use magic without being picky about attributes.

This is how the foundation for experimenting with various attributes was established.

The second process was as follows.

『2. The learned attribute magic is converted into information using the self-developed scroll magic.』

This was already the scroll magic 『Kyung-joon style writing method』 that he was learning.

It was just a process of intensifying it a little more.

Rather than intensifying it, it was more like breaking it down better.

For example, it was similar to converting what was originally programmed in English into computer language consisting of 0s and 1s.

The last third was the easiest.

Because Kyung-joon didn’t do this, but Teemo did.

『3. Using Teemo’s computational abilities, analyze the digitized data in various ways.』

After analyzing and re-experimenting whenever he had time, the following table came out.

━Fire↔Water: Attribute match rate average 52.3%

※As expected, water and fire showed a value close to 50%, which corresponds to being diametrically opposed. The reason why a value of 50% was shown despite being diametrically opposed is probably because both attributes are derived from the same null attribute system.

━Ice↔Water: Attribute match rate average 71.4%

━Ice↔Fire: Attribute match rate average 81.2%

※This is a somewhat interesting result. Ice was actually closer to fire than water. The reason for this is presumed to be that both ice magic and fire magic involve ‘temperature’ related techniques. However, this is not generally the case with water magic. Therefore, ice, or the ice (氷) attribute, is closer to fire (火) than water (水).

.

.

.

“W, Wow……”

Ceram, who understood the results of Kyung-joon’s attribute research, let out a series of exclamations of admiration.

The attributes Ceram had known so far were just 『Water is water and fire is fire. And water and fire are diametrically opposed, as you can see.』 That was all.

Other famous wizards would definitely know more.

But like Kyung-joon, 『The relationship between ice and fire shows about 10% more agreement than the relationship between ice and water.』 They wouldn’t be able to do this.

‘To be able to analyze attributes so systematically……’

It seemed crazy, but this analysis, which was obviously great to anyone, was something only Kyung-joon could do in World.

“How is it? Amazing, right? Of course, my attribute magic isn’t that specialized, and the way I analyzed the results is a bit awkward, so it might not be perfectly accurate, but wouldn’t it be somewhat correct?”

<I think I’ll have to go to the Magic Academy later and check it out myself.>

Once the monster work he was currently doing was done to some extent, Kyung-joon was thinking of stopping by the Magic Academy again to get some scroll paper.

While he was at it, it would be quite nice and fun to have the wizards there confirm the attribute research he had just shown them.

Anyway.

“So, did you check it out?”

“……”

Ceram had been speechless for a while now.

And Ceram’s eyes were fixed on one place.

This was the reason why he had bothered to show Ceram this research.

━Earth↔Forest: Attribute match rate average 99.1%

※The difference between earth attribute and forest attribute is 0.9%, which is less than 1%. Virtually the same attribute. Since the forest itself is a more concrete attribute based on the earth attribute, it is possible to replace the two attributes by simply changing the 0.9% information.

“I, iIs this really…… true……?”

“Well? I’ll have to go through a separate verification process, but……”

Kyung-joon continued, with a faint sneer.

“But if it’s true, isn’t it ridiculous? They’ve been discriminating based on that less than 1% difference.”

The Silvas had been killing countless innocent black Silvas all along, just because they had different skin colors, based on a mere 0.9% difference.

“How stupid is that?”

“B, but……!”

Ceram’s hand holding the research paper trembled at the hard-to-believe truth.

“But, but this, this is too strange……!”

“Right. It’s strange.”

“Y, Yeah……! The magic you need to survive in Silva society……! Even if it’s only a 0.9% difference, there must be something you can’t use if you can’t use the forest attribute……! Surely……! Surely that’s how it is……!”

Ceram rather sided with denying the results.

He didn’t want to admit it.

No.

He couldn’t admit it.

If he readily admitted this, what would all the discrimination he had received mean?

He had been justifying his discrimination with the reason 『The attributes are different.』, and he had been convincing himself that it couldn’t be helped……

‘If I…… If I admit this, I……’

He would surely harbor feelings beyond hatred.

However.

“Ceram. Do you really think you can’t use forest attribute magic?”

Kyung-joon’s faint sneer forced Ceram to face an uncomfortable truth he didn’t want to admit,

“Focus your mana on your hand.”

and made him admit it.

Wooong.

The earth mana gathered in Ceram’s hand.

“Remember the feeling of what I’m doing now.”

Kyung-joon changed it just slightly.

Then, the earth mana, which had the same earthy color as Ceram’s skin, soon turned light green.

It was the mana of the forest.

“Now you try it, Ceram. Turn the forest mana back into earth mana.”

“……”

This time, Ceram manipulated the mana himself.

Wooong.

The mana gathered in Ceram’s hand turned back to the color of earth.

It was earth mana.

“This time, the other way around. Just like I did at first. Turn the earth mana into forest mana.”

Wooong.

The mana gathered in Ceram’s hand turned back to the light green color from before.

It was forest mana again.

This was checkmate.

He could no longer run away from the truth.

“Do you understand now? Why I said it’s ridiculous?”

A mere 0.9% difference.

It really wasn’t much of a difference.

There was only one thing different.

The color.

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

Ceram, his expression as if he had been punched hard.

What on earth is he thinking inside?

The Silva, whom they had discriminated against but still believed to be his own people.

Will he take this opportunity to completely hate them?

Or will he just brush it off as usual, thinking, ‘That’s just how it is’?

That’s all up to Ceram to decide.

All Kyung-joon can say to Ceram is this.

It is 『precedent』.

“You know what? In ‘Earth,’ where our players live, people get heavily criticized for discriminating based on skin color. In some countries, you can even get arrested for it.”

“Ha, ha…… That’s the complete opposite of our Silva, who kill if they’re different……”

“No? Are you fat?”

“……Huh?”

“To be precise, it was the same.”

1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Even until the United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights nearly 100 years later.

Yellow and black people with different skin colors were still discriminated against.

But even in that situation, things have been steadily changing, and finally, we have come to this point.

“So now, in some countries, you see black, white, yellow, and red people all over the place.”

Even in Korea these days, you can easily see foreigners walking down the street.

In the first place, even if you look at the players who connect to World, their skin colors are all different.

“I see…… But then, don’t they fight each other?”

“They fought. They fought a lot. They’re still fighting. That’s why it turned out this way, and we still live together.”

Although Kyung-joon hasn’t even lived for 20 years yet.

Still, with his experience of rubbing shoulders with all sorts of people and throwing a few punches, he thought that’s just how it is for people to live together.

“That’s what society is. And that’s how it should be.”

“…… “

Ceram listened silently to Kyung-joon’s words and thought.

Ding!

And at the same time, a new status window popped up in front of Kyung-joon’s eyes.

[ Research Progress of 『Mana Genetics』, the [New Academic Discipline], is being updated. ]

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