Chapter 110 - Mini Field Trip

"Good morning you two! Where's Marie?"

"Good morning Teacher Larks," Jean answered. "Big Sis appeared a little checked out today. I don't think she will be attending."

"Should I go fetch her, Master?" Markus declared with a serious frown as he leapt up from his seat.

Guy shook his head while smiling and said, "That's okay. She's probably tired or burnt out. She'll come when she's ready."

"It's actually for the best since I wanted to test a few hypotheses out today and was worried that it would alienate her," Guy added immediately after.

"Is it about what happened yesterday, Master? That place again?" Markus probed.

Right as Guy nodded, Markus instructed Jean to follow him and sat down on the ground in the lotus position. Guy didn't even need to instruct them before they entered a steady state of meditation. With a satisfied smile, Guy followed the two and proceeded to move through his meditative stances, in order to reenter The Church.

Although Guy could very easily access that place using the mask, he wanted to maintain caution. The Church was a wild-card. It was only through gruelling introspection that Guy obtained safe passage into it. He planned to thoroughly explore the nuances of this mysterious space and unearth all of its secrets before relying on the mask. Guy wasn't planning to drop the mask altogether, though. He knew that to present the more abstract and out of the way concepts to his students, he would have to rely on the "other Guy". However, he'd prefer to delay this till absolutely necessary.

After a few minutes, Guy found himself once again in his core space. He then retraced his steps and entered through the film-like pool at the centre of the room, and entered The Church. The ambience hadn't changed much since he'd last accessed this place. He walked over to corporeal forms of Markus and Jean and brought them into The Church by grabbing them.

"Master!" "Teacher Larks!" The two exclaimed in unison.

Guy noticed that Jean's presence was much clearer than last time.

"How is it now, Jean?"

"It's better. It isn't as choppy as yesterday."

"That's wonderful! I've brought you two here to evaluate something," Guy started. "If you remember, last time we left off, we were covering the topic on cells. Can one of you tell me the definition of a cell?"

Jean was the first to respond, "The basic building block of life, that is a cell."

"Good. So as you know, every living organism is made up of cells. We've seen how these cells work using the |Magnification| cantrip as well as the |Inspect| cantrip. Today, I want us to dig deeper and actually observe the various processes a cell can undertake."

Guy was confident that he could present this topic through the power of The Church because he vividly remembered his Bio lab-sessions from school. As a scion from a rich family, Guy had the privilege to study in a private academy with top of the line lab equipment. Through it, Guy received an in-depth understanding of the topic, and he was confident in his ability to recollect this information in its entirety.

His students prepared themselves for whatever was about to come. Guy concentrated inwards and drew out his clearest memory pertaining to the topic. As he did so, a black screen materialised at the dais. Markus was familiar with this visual, he was shown the same right when he received the revelation about the black hole.

"Prepare yourself, Jean! You will be subject to a lot of information and stimulus at once. Keep yourself calm at all times and absorb everything in pace," Markus warned as he started to circulate his mana and calm his mind. Jean's blank face narrowed slightly as she took her Senior Brother's advice to heart. She too started to circulate her mana accordingly and entered a deeper meditation.

The black screen grew up to a point and halted abruptly. All of a sudden, the students found themselves getting sucked forward into the screen. After a disorienting bout of transition, the two jerked to a halt and felt a sense of weightlessness. They were floating through some sort of fluid that felt a bit viscous, but they didn't feel suffocated or restricted. They could see clearly around them and could move around by mimicking a simple swimming motion.

"Where is this?" Jean was the first to voice her concern.

"I'm not sure. But the place does look a bit familiar..." Markus responded. He started spinning around and tried to situate himself. He gazed into the distance and noticed many weird looking particles floating around. These particles also looked familiar somehow...

All of a sudden, a moving object caught his eye. It looked distant but was also quickly approaching them. As it grew larger, Markus made out its yellow colour and weird box-like shape. Once the distance was shortened further, he realised that it was a machine, given its metallic shell. It had two globular bulges up front that were illuminated, they somewhat resembled a pair of eyes because of the presence of a wobbling black ball within them. It had four round, black wheels, two up front and two behind.

"It's some sort of a vehicle?" Markus muttered.

"What is it, Senior Brother?"

"Look over there," Markus replied as he pointed towards the approaching object.

The yellow vehicle came at them at a high-speed but quickly started to decelerate once it drew closer. It stopped right in front of the two and a windowed door at the side opened up magically.

"Get in, you guys!" Guy's voice called out from inside the box.

Hearing their Teacher's, familiar, shout the two students swam in without hesitation.

"Master!" "Teacher!"

"Take a seat up back!" Guy said while tilting his head out from the driver's seat.

"Seatbelts everyone!" He added with a nostalgic chuckle

"What are those?" Markus replied, interrupting Guy's mirth.

"*cough* Umm, it's those flat ropes attached to the seats. Follow the sign on the seat in front of you on how to wear them. It's for your safety."

"Teacher Larks. What is this carriage?" Jean asked

"It's a bus. It's used to transport a lot of people at once. This bus in particular is called a school bus. It's used to transport kids living in a neighbourhood to the school."

"That's amazing! How does it work?"

"Usually it works with an engine. Think of it like a mechanical heart that pumps energy! But this one... This one works with magic!" Guy answered while wearing a mysterious smile.

"Hold on to your seat class, we're going on a field trip!" Right as Guy finished, the vehicle lurched forward and zoomed forth into the distance.

"If you remember from last time, in multicellular organisms such as plants, animals and fungi the cells that make them up constantly grow and divide. This is how life is sustained. So can you tell me what are the two main ways cell division takes place?"

"Mitosis and Meiosis," Jean answered instantaneously. "Mitosis is when a cell makes an exact copy of itself before dividing into two, while Meiosis is when a cell creates a half copy of itself."

"Can you elaborate on what is meant by a half copy?"

"Ummm... It's to do with the chromosomes in the cell's nucleus," Jean responded with some uncertainty.

"That is correct. A cell's nucleus contains chromosomes are DNA molecules that hold the genetic material of the organism and directive on how the cell works. When a half copy, as you say, is created then the copy of the cell only contains partial amounts of the chromosomes of the original cell. Can you tell me where Meiosis might occur?"

Jean's face turned crimson as she replied with a low mutter, "S-sex cells..."

"That is also correct! Sex cells, or gametes, are special because they only contain half of the total required chromosomes to sustain Mitosis. Two gametes merge together through a process known as fertilisation to produce a whole cell or zygote, that can undergo Mitosis. And that is how children are born!"

"Today, we will these two types of cell division more closely!"

____

The quality and precision of experience provided through Guy's method are dependent on how well and deeply Guy understands what he intends to present. So in this case, because Guy has an intimate understanding of the cell functionalities, he can recreate this mechanism to a high degree of realism. To add some additional "Oomph!" to these visuals, Guy decided to wrap the information in a fun package that followed a gimmick from one of Guy's favourite educational cartoons during his childhood. 

Since the realism of this package wasn't of tantamount importance, certain details could be overlooked. For instance, Guy drove the school bus with inane familiarity. It wasn't excessively difficult, he just had to indicate through intention where he wanted to go, and the bus automatically moved according to his will. To play along, though, Guy opted to twist and turn the steering wheel in fake harmony with the bus.

After a short while, the bus arrived at a rather barren plane where strands of wavy outcropping rose from pores in the ground and extended upwards into a fine point. The students initially assumed that the place was some sort of a weird-looking forest. But as Markus observed the scene more closely, he managed to make an intellectual connection.

"It's the skin!" He exclaimed.

"Good job! It's exactly right. We are currently on the surface of a human's skin," Guy replied while bringing the bus to a stable halt. He opened the doors and allowed the students to step out.

Once Markus exited the vehicle, he bent down and started to feel the flaking surface more carefully. Slowly, a frown started to show on his face.

"What's wrong, Markus?" Guy inquired.

"I don't know. It's just... this all feels different from the last time," Markus replied.

"Of course! The visual you experienced previously was in outer space," Guy said.

"Not that! That last time, it all felt so real to me. The atmosphere, the feedback in my senses, it didn't feel jarring..."

"It does now?" Guy asked with furrowed brows.

"Well not exactly. It just feels less real somehow. I don't know what's making me feel this way," Markus explained with some difficulty. "It's just instinctual, I guess. It's like what you said a few months back when you were discussing Puppetry and Mechanics with Teacher Jeeves. I believe you called it the Uncanny Valley, Master?"

But Guy understood the boy's point. Although Guy knew enough about cell processes, replicating the human skin to such a level of accuracy with all that it contains wasn't within his wheelhouse. So some estimations were made that would definitely pull one out of the immersion if examined properly. With regards to how this was perceived, it was like when someone who's been playing games at 144Hz is forced to play the same game at 30Hz. Although the output is the same, the drop in quality cannot go unnoticed.

Guy smiled bitterly at the realisation that his other counterpart was better at creating such lifelike simulations than he was.. Even when the simulation was something Guy recollected from his past experiences.