Chapter IV: Phantasms

A rustling sound from behind his back made him stop from reading the book he's holding.

"Professor, what's with all of these junk?," a guy with round rimmed glasses said. He was wearing a white lab coat and his unruly dark hair partially covered his ears and nape. His thick eyebrows were furrowed deep on his forehead as he scrambled over the piles of documents scattered on the floor. Leaning over the table stacked with books and papers of different sorts, he scooped down and held a tiny gray creature with big round eyes and yellow irises. The creature's body was slime-like, yet it seemed to have short limbs and a small mouth that produces a harsh hissing sound when it opens.

"Don't call them junk," the elderly professor replied. Struggling to stand up from sitting on his chair, he gently placed the book he's reading on his desk, which was also filled with empty laboratory flasks, notebooks and pens. There was a stain of spilled ink covering the upper corner of his disorganized table. His hair and beard are almost white, with visible streaks of gray, and along with his crumpled and stained lab coat, they all seemed to have been unattended for a long while now.

"It's an artificial spirit prototype made by yours truly, the great Professor-Inventor Zen Xiu, 'cha know?," the professor said with a sly smirk on his face.

The young student was amazed and filled with awe, his eyes wide with interest, but was instantly replaced by ripples of worry, leaving his face creased with apprehension.

"You're creating something that will most likely provoke some of the Elder Council again...," the young man replied with a worried look on his face.

Zen narrowed his eyes as he stared at the fretting student in front of him, completely taking his actions and worry as an insult to his invention.

"Jason, are you trying to say that the ONLY one with the privilege to create four great spirits is the great Elder Council? HM?," he raised his voice and grunted in reply as he grudgingly turned his back on him.

Jason chuckled nervously as he scratched his right right temple with his pointer.

"Please don't sulk like that, Professor. I, well you know...," he paused and walked towards the shelf near Zen's desk. Placing the creature in his lab coat's hollow pocket, he grabbed a book from the dusty shelf.

"Sine Scientia Ars Nihil Est," he said, reading the title aloud. Flipping the pages but without looking at them, he stared at the elderly professor's back.

"Spirits are fine partners for the world, Professor. But we can't fully explain their weird abilities with our science as of now, right? And we can't just go and disturb the balance, sir—"

Zen heaved out a sigh and turned his head only to look at the young man with a scornful face.

"This is why I don't like you Jason. You were never obedient to me. This is why your twin is better than you in being my apprentice," he said gritting his teeth out of anger.

Jason was taken back from what he just said. There was an unsettling silence that came over the room as he returned the book back to it's place. He peeked and saw that the old professor didn't even budge.

"Professor Zen, all I ever did was to worry about what the Council would think and react with what you're doing. But you're certainly misunderstanding me here," he replied as he headed for the door.

"And stop comparing me to Jake because him and I aren't the same. AT ALL."

The professor didn't even bulge as he went back to reading his book and sat on his worn down lab chair, without saying anything. It was as if he didn't hear anything. Jason stood there by the door in silence and decided to go out as the invigorating air swathe him.