A skirmish broke out in the crowded guestroom.
The Earl howled and barked, waving his arms wildly in the air as he decried the greed and shamelessness that the Sorcerer’s Association had displayed. He was on the verge of punching them in the face, but the sorcerers calmly halted his acts with all kinds of magic.
Finally, an outstandingly courteous sorcerer patted the back of the Earl’s head, asking in amusement, “Blown off all your steam yet, My Lord?”
“I. Do. Not. Accept. Such. A. Heinous. Extortion! No one would be fucking willing to accept this bloody extortion! I am going to sue all of you in the Sorcerer Association!” The Earl shrieked, but his body did not budge; he had been chained by the sorcerers’ 1 spell.
“You’re joking, right? Suing the members of this Association over the price which the same Association has already accepted?” The same sorcerer replied scornfully, watching the fuming Earl like he was watching an idiot parading on the street.
The man finally calmed down at that realization. He shook his head in defeat and said, “This cooperation is over!”
“Oh, you’re really giving up on it now?” That sorcerer raised his eyebrow. “I’ll let you in on our plans: we have already filed a copyright request for the runes that we are gonna produce from this formation. With that, only organizations that obtain permission from the Sorcerer’s Association can produce these runes. Other parties that use these runes and formations without permission, breaching copyright infringement laws, shall face horrifying consequences.”
“From now on, this particular formation right here is registered right under the Sorcerer Association. What you have right here, you see, is already considered an unauthorized replica. You’ll receive a notice shortly,” another sorcerer, who was still playing around with the guiding formation parchment, added candidly.
“you…You!!!” The Earl could no longer form sentences in his mouth as fury filled his veins.
The sorcerer who had stood beside the Earl bent down, moving his mouth right next to Earl’s ear. “A quick reminder? The sky has always belonged to the sorcerers. People like you should really learn not to be greedy; don’t ever try to have a cake that was never yours.”
Chuckling, the three sorcerers left the Earl lying on the cold floor, shaking.
Baiyi had no idea that his cake was just about to be stolen by some grubby fingers.
He was leisurely hopping in and out of magical vendor shops, purchasing raw materials for his guiding formation. Baiyi was only able to go out shopping because he entrusted his teaching sessions to his own teacher, The Archmage, who would teach the Elementary Formation Class in the form of the hammerhead shark plushie.
Being able to have the Sage Emperor of the Magi, as told in the legends, teach anyone was a royal, once-in-a-lifetime honor that no common man would ever have the luxury of experiencing. Back when the Ancient Empire of Rosherl existed, only sorcerers who were at least Legendary-level had a slim chance of attending his class; that was only if the Emperor even felt like giving classes. These fledglings had no idea how lucky they were.
Unfortunately, only Mia, Tisdale, and the other humans had seen the might of the Hammerhead Shark. The new flora-and-fauna students, however, did not seem to believe the capabilities of a mere plushie, especially because this was their first class. For instance, the kitsune even had the gall to try to bite the plushie with its mouth, and it became the first newcomer to experience the unique massage that only a feather duster could give.
When Baiyi returned home with his grocery bags packed, he was stunned to see his students all paying utmost attention in class. Nobody was daydreaming, and nobody was sleeping; everyone was paying complete concentration.
“Huh? I don’t remember his class being this interesting! When he was teaching me back then, it was a torment of the mind and will, and it was especially grueling to fight off sleep. Has he finally change his approach?” Baiyi said to himself as he stood outside the room, which had been turned into a classroom, feeling curious.
Baiyi listened to the lecture a while and almost fell asleep himself. The Archmage had not changed his approach at all; and worse, now that he could not speak because he was in a plushie, he used his mana to scribble his words, lectures, and explanations in the air. His boring and complicated text was written all over each other, almost besieging one’s eyes to roll over into the back of the socket. It was the perfect visual lullaby 2 .
‘So, how are these students managing to concentrate?’ Baiyi still could not answer his own question. He stepped into the classroom and announced a recess of ten minutes.
The students, upon hearing this, let out a collective sigh of relief and immediately laid their heads on the desks. The owl even fell onto the desk with its legs pointing upwards, as though it had died long ago…
‘Damn, all that concentration exhausted them, didn’t it?’ Baiyi thought as he took the plushie and sent the Archmage’s consciousness back into the Void.
“Do you now see how it is done? Ha! Go ahead and give yourself a round of applause for choosing the best substitute teacher, aye? Did you see how focused your students were? They were even more focused than you were back then!” The Archmage beamed proudly.
When Baiyi had been trying to find a substitute teacher among the Voidwalkers, a few had volunteered; the Archmage, the Soul Armature Practitioner, the Explorer, the Sorcerer, the Scholar, and the Apprentice, naming only a few. Baiyi first rejected the offers from the Soul Armature Practitioner and the Explorer because he did not want his students to turn into beast-trainers or a gravedigger respectively 3 . He also rejected the Sorcerer because that heretic would have probably taught his students how to cast Lumos while fighting with their fists…
In the end, when there were only three contestants remaining, Baiyi awarded the position to the Archmage; after all, the old geezer had the most experience; he was the man that Baiyi trusted the most, and he was the perfect choice for a class about formations. The Archmage practically invented formations! Choosing him should be no problem.
“Yep. I knew that choosing you would be no problem at all,” Baiyi said, giving a little ego-boost to his teacher.
“Of-bloody-course, child! Because you are my student! Ahahahhahahah!”
Ignoring the guffawing old man, Baiyi approached Little Mia by her side. Seeing her rub her head, Baiyi caressed her hair quizzically, handing the plushie to her. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want Sharkie?”
“N-no! No Sharkie — !” She, surprisingly, cried out and raised both her hands, blocking off the plushie, as if she was guarding herself against a monster.
Baiyi maintained his awkward position and turned his attention inward.
“What have you done?”
“Nothing! Just what a teacher should do!” An indignant reply rang out.
After some interviews, Baiyi uncovered the truth; apparently, a class about formations had been forcefully altered into a Magical Resistance Training class. Next, every student who had the misfortune of being found spacing out or napping was subjected to the wrath of the plushie’s magical attacks, ranging from electricity to ice to fire. There were no magical attacks considered too dangerous to be used in the name of discipline.
Thankfully, the Archmage was very deft in his magical manipulation, so his attacks were painfully effective; however, they were not so effective that it caused the students to really get hurt.
When Baiyi had gone out to shop for his materials, the classroom had been filled with cries and howls of fear and lamentation, causing the only two students who did not need to take the magic class to get goosebumps.
“And that was how you give classes?!”
“Is there something wrong with my content? Are you doubting my teaching capability? You may have my knowledge and technique, but you have not yet gained an understanding as deep as mine in formations! Do not be bested by your hubris, my student.”
“Excuse me, but that wasn’t what I was saying at all! I asked for the reason behind your physical punishments!” Baiyi retorted, a little hysterically.
“What? That’s an issue? Don’t you do that to them, too?” The Archmage replied, feeling puzzled. “I thought I was pretty reserved with the punishments. Back in the old days, if anyone were to be brave enough to drift off in my class, the punishment would be way worse than some second or third grade parlor tricks.”
‘That was why no one slept in your speech back then, huh?’
Baiyi had no words to his teacher anymore, so he turned to his fatigued and tormented students and announced, “My apologies, the Auto-Teaching Program in this plushie went haywire; I will adjust it as soon as possible! Please believe me when I say it won’t happen again. Trust my professionalism, guys! I’m not those rated one-star teachers…”
Baiyi went on the declare the class dismissed, and the students loosened up later on after they had gotten some rest.
That night, when it was time for bed, Sharkie, the sleeping companion who had always been highly sought after by the girls, was lonely and wanted. Not even the original owner, Little Mia, wanted to rub on it.
That really made things awkward for Baiyi. In the end, he had to invite the Warrior to enter the plushie so that she may mend the broken bond…
This time, the plushie acted differently this time; it patted Mia’s head gently, and it then rubbed her cheeks quietly. After some mother-daughter bonding session, Little Mia finally felt calmer, making evident the content she felt from the care. This made Mia decide that her Sharkie had returned to normal, so she went to sleep with it in her arms.
“Thank you so much for that help! You’re a lifesaver,” Baiyi said to the Warrior, who had just returned to the Void.
“As it should be.” Came the calm and only reply, followed by silence.
‘What a caring soul,’ Baiyi thought to himself. For some reason, he felt a similar warmth that Mia did.
The next morning, Baiyi, who was immersed in his work on the guiding formation, sensed s new presence to his home. Suddenly, the morning’s peace was disturbed by a long bout of forceful knocks.
“What’s this? The water bill department?” Baiyi placed his work down, walked out of his lab and saw that the fox had already dashed to greet the guests.
Immediately, he heard a racket from an unfamiliar voice, “Gah! Master Hope is an animal? Owwww! not there, not there! Don’t bite me!”
‘Which idiots dared to infiltrate us?’ Baiyi thought and approached the door.
He found Idiot #1, Undine, frantically trying to explain something to the fox. Furthermore, being squashed by the fox was Idiot #2, a nobleman, who was clad in high-class clothes.
It seemed that the annoyingly asinine comment had come from this nobleman, who was about to be ripped to pieces by the fox’s fangs.
“Careful not to snap his neck too hard,” Baiyi remarked steely and made to return to his room.
“Master Hope! S-Sorry! I was wrong! S-s-save me, please!”
After a while, a very depressed Undine and the embarrassed nobleman were sitting in the guestroom of Baiyi’s home.
Baiyi studied their expressions and chuckled. “What’s up? Did you come here so early in the morning just to call me an animal?”