The students taking Origin of Equipment were all doing so for the sake of their own interests and various schemes. They all aimed to get close to In-Cheol, one of the leading professors at Babel who received significant funding, to receive various benefits. Such a goal was almost identical to what Se-Hoon was aiming for.0

“How does this seem?”0

“Hm. It’s a bit iffy. It’s good that they used specific attributes of the materials to improve the resulting purity, but they completely failed to utilize any of the other advantages. It seems like they need to correct their entire forging method.”0

“Exactly. I was thinking the same. If it were me, I would have adjusted the ratios during the forging process…”0

However, from how Se-Hoon and In-Cheol were examining numerous pieces of equipment while naturally exchanging words, the students couldn’t help but realize that their opportunity had been completely taken by the first-year honor student who showed up for the first time in two weeks.0

“Let’s end today’s lesson here. You can come and study these whenever you like, and when you feel like you’ve understood the intentions behind the equipment, then you can come and find me.”2

With those words, they were dismissed and the students walked out with their shoulders slumped. Watching their backs, Se-Hoon couldn’t help but wear an awkward expression.0

“It seems like I’ve inadvertently crushed their motivation.… Is that alright?”0

“It’s fine. If they’re going to be discouraged by just this, then it just means that they weren’t even worth teaching.”1

Though it was a rather harsh statement, Se-Hoon nodded in agreement.0

“That is true.”0

Babel was not a place that forced people to move forward; it simply offered paths that people could choose to walk on.0

If the class was too difficult then that was one thing, but if they were so disheartened that they gave up this easily despite being in front of their competitor, then...2