Bear School Astartes

”Are you saying you met an old man named Tom Bombadil?”

The Lady of the Lake looked at Lann, who had somewhat recovered his senses, with a puzzled expression.

The Demon Hunter had briefly recounted their journey to another world.

Old Tom was, of course, an unavoidable topic.

But to the Lady of the Lake, who once resided in the Blessed Land of Valinor during ancient times, this name seemed very unfamiliar.

Lann didn’t find anything amiss.

After all, the Lady of the Lake probably didn’t even know where the Middle-earth Continent was at that time.

And Tom Bombadil’s range of activity could be said to have been on the Middle-earth Continent since the world’s inception.

This cheerful old man’s status and power were beyond words, but he was clearly not the active type.

”Never heard of him.”

As expected, the lady twirled a strand of her dark green hair with a finger and said while reminiscing.

”But that’s to be expected, nothing surprises me from that place.”

It seems that the Lady of the Lake also had a clear understanding of how deep the waters of the Ardan World were.

The Creator God observed from outside the world he created, while numerous Villa, Vilya, and Maia gathered within Valinor in the world.

Among the firstborn of the Creator God, the outstanding ones were capable of competing and fighting against the fallen Maia.

On the surface, Ardan was a world where people wielded hammers and axes, rolling and fighting in the mud of the battlefield.

But in reality, the wars of the First and Second Eras of Ardan were of a destructive level that altered the geological structure of the world.

Even the current shape of this planet was formed because the fighting at the end of the Second Era was so intense that it shattered the world’s original shape, forcing Ilúvatar to reshape it into a sphere.

The world of the Third Era was just a reflection of the scars left by the battles of the previous two eras.

Although during the time when the Lady of the Lake resided in Ardan, even the First Era of the sun and moon’s rise had not yet begun.

But undoubtedly, the young lady back then already knew very well the level of those beings within Valinor.

She also understood the depths of Ardan.

The design of the Lady of the Lake’s Sword was created by the God of Forging, Auri, as a teaching tool for Galadriel and the Lady of the Lake.

”Thank you for your hard work, my champion.”

The Lady of the Lake chuckled, leaning down from her frothy throne to tuck a strand of silver hair behind the Demon Hunter’s ear.

”Thank you for finding my long-lost friend.”

”Now that Ardan has reappeared before me, I can ’personally have a chat’ with this old friend!”

As she spoke, the lady’s face displayed a mischievous and eager smile.

And beneath this expression that seemed ’dangerous’, the Demon Hunter, Elu Cat, and Ancient Dragon exchanged knowing glances.

Then, with great coordination, each of them quietly retreated outside the Da Gun Altar.

It wasn’t until they reached Black Seagull Island that a soft golden glow began to emerge faintly from the direction of the Da Gun Altar, like sunlight reflecting off the lake’s surface in the morning.

Considering that the Elf Beacon could record the world coordinates it had experienced, it seemed entirely reasonable that the Lady of the Lake would record Ardan’s coordinates to ’talk’ with her old friend.

The Lady of the Lake’s reunion with Lady Galadriel was something Lann deemed himself too timid to participate in.

But at that moment, he pressed his temple and slowly exhaled.

”My goodness...”

This exclamation had nothing to do with the Lady of the Lake but came from what had suddenly appeared in Lann’s mind after Tom Bombadil touched his forehead!

From that moment, Mentos seemed to glitch, flashing on Lann’s retinas with over a dozen progress bars.

It wasn’t until just now that all the progress of these progress bars was completed.

The annotations in front of these progress bars were: [Blood Regeneration Organ], [Lariman Organ], [Neural Ganglia], [Preinstalled Stomach]...

A total of sixteen progress bars in total.

This was all the processes of the Interstellar Warrior transformation surgery Lann underwent!

All the surgical memories!

These memories were originally buried within the vast memory contained in the [Genetic Seed].

In the ocean of memories that spanned millennia, they were like seashells buried beneath the sand, difficult to find.

Without tools to assist, the only way to ensure nothing was missed or incorrect was to dig laboriously piece by piece.

Moreover, Lann himself didn’t even dare to excavate too much at once because even if he could find these ’precious seashells’,

this vast and complex knowledge would be enough to overwhelm him.

The knowledge of four surgeries alone was enough to leave him stunned and dazed. Pushing beyond this limit all at once would make his head ache terribly.

However, as Tom Bombadil called it the ’gift’... all these problems ceased to exist.

The knowledge was precisely extracted from the ’beach’ of memory and then neatly arranged for Lann according to the surgical order.

Yet, the sheer volume of knowledge from these sixteen surgeries did not breach Mentos’s computational limits, nor Lann’s memory limits.

The biochemical brain simply could not comprehend how Tom Bombadil managed all this.

Given its current computational capabilities, it should have been utterly overloaded by such a massive amount of knowledge.

But even though the data volume had exceeded the limits, it continued to function like it was in a normal state.

This is akin to the horror one might feel upon discovering a knife embedded in their forehead, sensing the blade in the cranium, yet the body remains unharmed.

At least, it made Mentos feel quite horrified.

It was just until moments ago that it operated its computational power and archived all these memories, clearing up the confusion. These were the progress bars.

Thus, the crisis that could have been triggered by the influx of enormous knowledge into the main brain was resolved.

This explains why Lann has appeared stunned and dazed ever since Old Tom touched his fingertip to his forehead.

As a parting gift and so-called ’reward’, the knowledge Old Tom helped him to organize was invaluable.

Though comprehending this surgical knowledge requires time, creating the super organ needed for surgery still demands continuous research and experimentation in alchemy and biology.

Yet, it is a tremendous help.

At least he no longer has to rely on luck and hope for excessive bounty during [Memory Diving].

He can remain calm to appreciate the swordsmanship, tactics, extra biochemical knowledge, and even the art of the Emperor’s sons.

Moreover, this knowledge arrived very timely.

Because Lann’s original enhanced surgical process was at an impasse.

His previous biggest gain in surgical knowledge was obtained from Belisarius Kao’s Mechanical Cult personnel after killing [Spider Rom], who controlled time during Yan’an.

That time, he directly obtained the special three-item modification process for the Primaris Space Marine.

In subsequent [Memory Diving], he also made gains, but they were not linked in the surgical process.

Without preceding surgeries, follow-ups can’t be done, so they were left to gather dust.

This time, with complete procedural knowledge of the surgeries, those fragmented pieces of knowledge finally connected and corresponded.

”Boss, are you okay, meow?”

Elu Cat asked with concern, while Qilin snorted, twisting its graceful neck in his direction.

Lann waved his hand, exhaled deeply with relief, and smiled.

”Nothing, just Old Tom gave too much.”

”Meow?”

Elu Cat and Qilin exchanged puzzled looks and shrugged it off casually.

They were quite familiar with Lann, so if he didn’t want to elaborate then he didn’t.

At this time on Vizima Lake, there were far fewer boats than last time; whether people knew exploration was fruitless or due to weather factors was uncertain.

The flow of time between worlds is always strange and quite uncertain.

However, calculating it, Lann figures he needs to travel for several months.

The longest entry into the celestial sphere’s rift, returning to the magic medieval world, had already taken over half a year.

And this time, when he left Ardan, Old Tom was preparing Lady Jin Mei for winter grooming.

But upon returning to the magic medieval world, Vizima Lake was under a stretch of ominous clouds, with rain seemingly on the brink of falling.

This weather stirred the fresh scent of water vapor and aquatic plants in the lake, yet due to high humidity, it felt somewhat suffocating.

Low rumbling thunder carried far through the clouds, sporadic rain droplets the size of beans signaled a heavy downpour.

”Spring rain maybe?”

Lann extended his hand to catch a stray droplet of rainwater, guessing the current season roughly.

The Demon Hunter nimbly flipped onto the horse, while the cat deftly climbed onto the saddle on Qilin.

”Let’s just go, to Airetusa. This rain looks heavy and lasting.”

Currently, Lann only wore a lace-collared silk shirt, unaffected by temperature or anything else.

He just disliked soaking his hair and clothes.

So after returning, he skipped his habit of drinking at Dark Waters and listening to recent news, heading straight to Airetusa.