Chapter 277 — Worth Studying

"Let's wait until Miss Rebecca recovers before discussing this further," Camille quickly calmed down from his researcher's state. "And there are too many unknowns. I need to replan my own work."

After the meeting ended, Gao Yang and the others left the administrative hall one after another, and soon the meeting room grew quiet and deserted.

Camille stayed until the last. He floated up from his seat, but before leaving, he heard a faint sound from beneath the table. Then a long tail first poked up over the table's edge onto the tabletop, swept back and forth twice, and only then did Tiel rub her eyes and climb up.

"Haaah..." The siren lady seemed to have taken another nap during the latter half of the meeting, and still could not quite grasp the situation. "Everyone's gone already?"

Then she vigorously stretched her upper body, her tail snapping straight and nearly bouncing against the wall. After one lazy stretch, she shook her hair in satisfaction. "Back to sleep, sleep..."

Camille watched as this siren seemed not to have noticed him at all, and could not help breaking the silence: "Miss Tiel, please wait."

"Huh? There's still one who hasn't left?" Tiel paused, then slowly turned her head to look. "Oh, the glowing one—you fell asleep too?"

"I stayed until the end," Camille said, not someone skilled at joking, answering stiffly. "Miss Tiel, I would like to talk with you."

"Talk about what?" Tiel lazily raised her eyelids. "If it's about researching our siren magic or technology, then forget it. Our spells and technology alike are completely different from you non-elemental creatures—the gap is even bigger than between human and elven magic systems."

"No, it's about those... mutants."

Tiel only wanted to hurry back to sleep: "Mutants? Then go find Gao Yang. He's the expert—he died in that field in his past life."

"It's about what you said on the city wall today," the arcane sparks in Camille's eyes flickered. "You mentioned that mutants are 'failures' that failed to fully mutate during the magic tide—that they were not born from the magic tide, but transformed by it... Is that so?"

"I didn't put it that definitively, but that's roughly the idea," Tiel stopped yawning. Supported by her serpentine tail, her upper body rose slightly, almost looking down at the floating Camille. "No wonder I felt such an intense energy reaction from you back then... You said you were frightened by one of Rebecca's spells, but an ancient master mage like you wouldn't be so easily frightened by a single spell."

Camille said nothing, which amounted to tacitly agreeing with Tiel's words.

"I've heard Gao Yang tell the story of the Fortress of Defiance, and your plans back then. It moved me deeply... so I can roughly guess what answer you hope to get from me," Tiel slowly lowered herself, then suddenly reached her hand toward her own abdomen. Camille watched this scene with horror (in his heart) as he saw this siren actually thrust her hand directly into her own body—her torso, arm, and part of her clothing turning to a water-like substance in the process. Tiel rummaged inside her own belly for a moment, then pulled out a fragment of bone radiating an ominous dark red hue. She handed this thing to Camille. "You'd better find the answer yourself. This bone fragment is one I found on the city wall, from a mutant. Its chaotic magic energy has already been purified by me, so you can study it safely—but you must be quick. It is self-disintegrating at every moment."

(Recommending a book full of imaginative ideas and creativity—Xia Hua's new book *I Really Am Immortal*, already 800,000 words, ready to be devoured. As for the content... you can guess from the title: the protagonist is an immortal person living in modern society...)