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"Get down!"
The moment his roommate from the same major walked into the classroom, Quirrel instinctively let out a sharp, piercing shriek. His body moving faster than his thoughts, he sprang out from behind the desk he'd been using as cover, launched himself forward with the greatest burst of speed he'd ever mustered in his life, tackled his bewildered roommate to the ground, and covered his ears. Almost simultaneously, an orange core barely grazed the top of their heads, slammed straight into the opposite wall, and exploded with a deafening blast, sending orange dust everywhere. For a few moments, Quirrel felt like the entire room was trembling.
The student whose experiment had just failed stared at the wall for a good while, confirming that the dangerous explosive had completely disappeared, before he nervously scrambled to his feet, dusted himself off, and turned to look at his still-clueless roommate. They stared at each other.
He didn't know which was worse: that he'd nearly accidentally injured someone else, or that their project report had just slammed into the wall and exploded. No, it wasn't a choice. Both had happened at the same time.
"What the hell? Aren't you supposed to be doing experiments in the lab? And I thought we were researching the creation of simple unconscious organisms?" His shaken roommate looked from Quirrel to the explosion site in disbelief, trying to find evidence that the thing that had nearly killed them had ever existed. However, perhaps due to the archive's excellent construction quality, not a single piece of plaster had fallen off after such a violent explosion. He had no choice but to turn his full attention to the culprit. "Did you secretly switch to a weapons research project without telling me?"
"There were too many bottles and jars in the lab and I was afraid the explosion shockwave would shatter everything. Also, there aren't enough outdoor shelters for hiding." Quirrel defended himself, but his voice grew smaller as his confidence waned. "Besides, the product isn't as dangerous as it looks. I discovered that this kind of explosion doesn't damage surrounding objects, but only harms living beings within range. And it's only... about twice the average attack power... of the city guards..."
He fell silent, guiltily looking away.
His roommate glanced at the experimental materials nearby, trying to reconstruct the scene. "At least this has to be somewhat related to our research direction, right?"
"Long story short, it's some kind of life core." At this, Quirrel perked up, the guilt from the pressure moments ago vanishing entirely. He picked up various reagents and tried to replicate his earlier result, explaining as he went, "I've determined that it already has some basic behavioral logic. Aside from being unstable—which, as you can see, makes it prone to explosion—it basically meets our original expectations for a 'simple organism.'"
"Wait," the listener interrupted. "What do you mean it already has basic behavioral logic?"
"That's exactly what I'm about to demonstrate." He poured in the final ingredients, gestured for his roommate to find cover, and stood in an open area himself.
The various reagents in the container began to interact, their colors shifting continuously until finally settling on orange. The solid material at the center absorbed the surrounding liquid, expanding until it formed a core nearly the size of their heads.
The moment the expansion was complete, the core launched itself at Quirrel.
Quirrel dodged the attack with practiced ease, letting the core slam into the wall behind him. Amidst the aftermath of the explosion, he walked over to his roommate and explained, "As you can see, it locked onto me immediately. In fact, it targets the nearest detectable active individual within its attack range. This proves it can respond to its environment."
A grin spread across his roommate's face, exaggerated to the point of being unsettling. He was nearly moved to tears. "Our project is saved! Thank goodness... I don't want to fail another class!"
Quirrel couldn't bear to shatter his roommate's joy, and felt a pang of guilt for what he was about to say. "If we submit this, we'll still fail. Have you forgotten? It can't exist stably right now. It just explodes. If it flies into Professor Monomon's face, we will not only just fail to graduate, but also end up in the City of Tears' prison."
"What's going to fly into my face?"
Both bugs slowly turned around and saw Monomon watching them with a knowing look.
The roommate instinctively flinched. Quirrel, however, lit up and said eagerly, "Professor, you've come just in time! I have some questions—"
"I just saw your experiment's product." Monomon said thoughtfully. "Do you think adding an organic gel layer around the core could improve stability?"
"I've considered that option," Quirrel answered honestly. "The gel does enhance stability, but the core rapidly loses activity inside it."
"Have you looked into why?"
"It seems that when wrapped in the gel, the core cannot receive any external stimuli, so it doesn't react at all. Due to the lack of activity, the organism gradually becomes inactive."
"As if it's dead."
"Dead... yes, like it's dead."
"Well then," Monomon said, "have you considered using biomimetic technology? Perhaps I should remind you: we jellyfish can directly sense the external environment."
"That's it! I should adjust the ingredient ratios!" Quirrel immediately grasped her meaning and dashed out of the classroom excitedly. Before long, he returned with more materials.
His roommate watched blankly as Quirrel and Monomon added all sorts of things to the equipment. He knew he had never been good at the Biological Behavior Principles course, but not understanding a single word of the conversation between these two was deeply frustrating. They spoke too quickly, that he was still trying to process the first sentence when they were already putting it into practice.
By the time they produced the final product, his roommate finally understood their goal. A jellyfish-like creature floated in the middle of the classroom, occasionally drifting upward a short distance. The biomimetic experiment seemed quite successful. They had created a jellyfish.
"Did you succeed?" his roommate asked hopefully.
As if responding to his question, the jellyfish's movement grew slower and slower, and the orange core's color grew increasingly dim. In the end, it collapsed to the ground, as if dead.
"I don't think so," Quirrel said dejectedly.
Monomon thoughtfully placed a tentacle under her chin—if that could be called a chin. "External stimuli can indeed prolong the organism's lifespan," she confirmed. "But it's still not enough. What if we increased stimulation from the inside, allowing it to self-activate?"
This time, Quirrel couldn't immediately grasp his teacher's meaning. Monomon turned to his roommate and asked, "I recall that your other recent project involves the theory of behavioral regulation through quantifiable elemental ratios? I believe you gave it a name... programming?"
"It's... it's still just a theory," his roommate stammered. "We believe that as long as we can precisely control the internal elemental environment, we can stimulate the organism's behavior. Element ratios are also a form of information. Under specific conditions, they can be compiled and decoded."
"Why not apply that theory here?" Monomon pointed out. "That way, the core could achieve self-stimulation."
Understanding dawned on both Quirrel and his roommate.
In the end, the logic of the program they wrote was this: when the external gel is breached, the internal core will fly toward the attacker and explode. Organisms created this way could be used as defensive weapons. As expected, since the core would constantly scan whether the current environment met the conditions for the program to run, it would keep self-stimulating and remain active.
"We also discovered that under specific elemental environments, the internal program cannot express itself, but it can be read. Like the thoughts of a bug," his roommate said. "We call this 'annotation.' Maybe we could write something into it?"
"You mean that only bugs who can read minds would be able to hear the annotations?" Quirrel questioned. "What's the point of that?"
"The probability isn't zero!" his roommate argued.
Monomon chuckled. "That's an interesting idea. What do you plan to write?"
They thought for a moment, and finally wrote "...Monomon..." into it, saying that it was to thank their teacher for inspiring their project.
The final experiment went remarkably smoothly. The moment the jellyfish floated up, Quirrel and his roommate embraced each other joyfully, tears streaming down their faces at the thought of their foreseeable high grade for the semester. Regardless, this was definitely a great invention.
"I'm going to call it Ooma," Quirrel decided.
His roommate was about to question his naming skills when he heard Monomon say, "I like that name."
The roommate swallowed his objections.
They later attempted to create a smaller, non-aggressive jellyfish and named it Uoma. Compared to Ooma, this tiny jellyfish was much cuter.
"Your project has given me a lot of inspiration," Monomon praised. "As simple unconscious organisms, what you've created is quite excellent. Perhaps this technology could be applied to the creation of conscious organisms..."
She muttered to herself as she drifted out the door. Quirrel and his roommate exchanged glances, unsure what their teacher meant.
It wasn't until a few weeks later that they saw Uumuu in the Archive.
——END