Chapter 2388

2388 - Birthday!

"This...?" Robin furrowed his brows and began examining the book more closely.

"Hehe." Jabba sat back comfortably and started adjusting his clothes, "That's the proper reaction."

"You seem pleased."

From the side, Sakaar's deep voice struck his ear,

"Congratulations on having the Master's attention."

"..." Jabba shot a wary and hesitant sidelong glance at Sakaar without moving his head, then turned back to face forward, "Thank you, and you as well."

"I've felt your gaze on me since I arrived on the planet—not a kind look, with displeased expressions..." Sakaar continued calmly, "Is everything alright with you?"

"I'm perfectly fine, everything is well." Jabba looked the other way.

"Hmm." Sakaar nodded, "No problem then." He then continued quietly, "Between our two races there is much bad history; I understand that, but I ask that we not display such pettiness before the Master—it's shameful for both of us."

"Do you think I'm a racist or something like that?!" Jabba turned toward him quickly, "I study all kinds of creatures with passion, and you think I'd be prejudiced against you because of our ancestors' events!?"

"Am I to understand there's another reason behind those looks?" Sakaar turned to him, demanding an answer.

"..." Jabba took one final look at Sakaar from top to bottom, then turned toward Robin without saying a word.

From beneath the mask, Sakaar showed a displeased expression for a few seconds, then turned away as well.

His preoccupation with the glances of a creature like this would neither benefit nor harm him; the important thing was that he not use his status as the Master's only disciple to harm them in any way.

The simplest example of Jabba's standing was that the Master had given orders to evacuate the place to have a discussion with him, yet Jabba sat, spoke, and presented his proposal as well.

Sakaar continued his thoughts for a few more moments, but soon the silence was broken again by Jabba's voice—

"You know, a strange coincidence occurred today."

"Hm?" Sakaar turned toward him again, "What is it?"

"Asr," Jabba smiled and pointed toward the cliff, "today can be considered his birthday, the 14th day of the eighth month," then he pointed toward Robin, "that's the same day as the Teacher's birthday."

"..." Sakaar turned toward Robin, "These are trivial formalities that mortals love because of their short lives; the Master would not care about such things."

"...You're right." Jabba nodded and fell silent.

"..." Sakaar maintained his silence for a long while.

But he couldn't keep that state for long. "How old is he today?!"

Sakaar and anyone who examines Robin—if Robin allows them to, of course—would be able to deduce an approximate age for his cells and the amount of life energy remaining in him, but the exact number? That's impossible.

"Hehe, this is better." Jabba laughed, "Forget about his physical age, it's a bit confusing—he's about 120 years younger than the real one... We have his true age recorded historically. As far as I remember, his age at the Coronation was 212 years according to the Burton Family birth records." Then he stared at Robin's face with a smile, "And since 755 years have passed since the Coronation, that makes him exactly 967 years old now."

"......" Sakaar turned back toward Robin and stared at him for a long while, "Very young."

"Don't let him catch you saying that." Jabba chuckled a bit louder.

"You know what I mean." Sakaar replied quickly, then continued calmly, "What will everyone do if news spreads that Lord Human, the leader of the Cosmic Academies and the most influential person in The Universe right now... hasn't even reached his thousandth year yet?"

"Hmm, we'll find out if we throw him a thousandth birthday party, hehe." Jabba chuckled, "I can imagine the reactions from now."

"......" Sakaar nodded, "Better to keep it as is and not celebrate—everyone hates him enough already."

"Jabba!"

Robin finally seemed to snap out of his daydreams, then struck the book twice:

"Explain to me slowly what exactly this is."

"Umm..." Jabba gestured toward the book, "Did you not read it carefully, or..." When he felt Robin's sharp gaze, he waved his hand, "Alright, alright, I'll give you a brief introduction."

Then he placed both hands on his knees, "As you know, my teacher, I entered the world of research unintentionally because of my obsession with distinguishing between bloodlines, and your research on a way to make humans use the Fourth Level of the Laws made me fall deeper into this kind of research; to uncover why some beings can do something as simple as that and others cannot."

"...So I continued researching the fixed and variable particles as you know, with no notable results—I always circled back to the fact that beasts have variable particles transferable through blood, and ordinary humans do not possess them." Then he furrowed his brows, "But that didn't make sense, for humans represent the majority of intelligent beings, branching from them are the Mutants and Transformers who prefer to be called anything but *human variant* so as not to be linked to the weak human race."

"I asked myself, why and how? Why don't pure humans have even a simple advantage like this? And how can human bodies take the altered particles from mere beasts and handle them with ease after injection? This never made sense."

Then he raised his gaze toward Robin, "I'll reuse your earlier example—it's like a person born without a kidney, but the space for it exists and is empty, and when you transplant one that works normally, his life improves," then he narrowed his eyes, "but the person after the operation is still human—he hasn't changed, he merely regained something he was supposed to have, something whose existence made him better."

"…" Robin stared at Jabba's face with wide, focused eyes.

That kid…!!

Then Jabba looked down and continued, "Honestly, I won't lie to you—this idea had been circling in my head for a long time, but I couldn't make any progress or apply it to anything specific. That continued until my Eye of Truth mutated and I began to see new things, when my thoughts were finally translated."

"…" Robin showed a strange smile, "What do you mean by the Eye of Truth mutating?"