Liar
Tap
Tap
Tap…
If one were to ask what is the most ancient yet effective strategy to lure someone in, then there might be many answers but there is only one true answer, it's the 'Stick and Carrot' strategy.
While it may not be one of the most efficient strategies to lure people to date, it's still the 'most ancient' strategy that has yet to be claimed ineffective back in my previous world.
So based on this fact, if I may, I would like to pose a question,
Why is it as such?
It's not as if it's an extremely confidential secret strategy that most don't know about, It's not as if it's so subtle that people can't figure it out in an instant? Then what is it that makes people fall for this trick?
This is a question that has yet to be answered and while many may argue that it has been answered by different fields of studies they are wrong, those are not concrete evidence of why it happens, those are just potential reasons of what may have caused it to take effect.
However, if someone asks this to me my answer would be…
It's our instincts.
Tap…
So what are human instincts? Well, a simple answer would be it's our fear and curiosity.
Tap…
The explanation of fear is very simple,
From ancient times we have feared things, and that pushes us on the constant desperate run of evolution.
We evolve, we eliminate our weaknesses, we innovate, we create things to protect and live, and then we evolve again, simply because we now fear new things, and that is why in the long history of humans' evolution we have never eliminated the 'fear' from our system.
And the 'Stick' invokes that fear, quite literally.
Tap…
Now, the explanation of curiosity is not so simple.
Our brain has a self-rewarding system or mechanism of sorts. Each time we do something to increase our chances of survival, our brain rewards us for that. Eat a big chunk of juicy meat, you will feel good, you will survive because now you are full of energy. Have sex you will feel good, you have had sex so now, you can have babies, so collectively and racially your chances of survivability increases. And finally, explore new places, you gain knowledge that increases your chances of survivability.
So the 'Carrot' invokes this, again quite literally.
And when you are being pulled from the front and pushed from the back to go in a direction your brain easily gives in.
However, while in my previous world it was like that, in this world it's meaningless, absolutely and utterly meaningless for a certain group of people.
Tap…
These certain group people are people who have gained everything, they are the king of 'their' worlds, people who can single handedly destroy countries if angered, people who are so old that, those who haven't seen them will only consider them as legends.
They don't fear anything and they know everything.
Tap…
The being I am about to meet now definitely comes under this category,
Yeah, the man or woman I am about to meet should definitely be one of the strongest beings in the entire world and should also be the wisest being in the world.
And what comes with great responsibilit- I mean, great knowledge? The answer is
Great Boredom.
Yeah, the more power you hold the more you realize that the less you have to do, eventually you can just give your subordinates or employees all your work, though that's only if you don't plan to grow more or you have gained everything.
The latter is the case with this grandpa or grandma
Tap…
And I took advantage of his or her's boredom to its fullest!
Tap…
Finding this guy wasn't all that hard, from [Almighty Awareness] I knew that there are some rumors, about there being a headmaster. But that's about all the information I got from it, I could guess why, it's because it's a 'secret' but that was enough, that in itself was more than enough evidence to figure out there was an all knowing, all mighty guy in the academy.
Tap…
This academy is genuinely the best academy in the continent and one could argue that, this is the best academy in the world,
Of course the emperor won't leave it alone, he will do his best to protect this place after all the princes and princesses also study here, but there are close to no guards here,
That could either mean that every teacher and official here is strong, which is partially true because just to get employed here one needs to be strong, even that fruit shopkeeper was stronger than me probably. But considering all the other continents are always hostile to each other, and the fact that other continents even have official stage 10 ranked people among their ranks, it's highly unlikely that the wise and cunning emperor will just leave the continent's biggest bastion of knowledge and development unguarded.
So that could only mean, someone who is, at the very least, just as strong if not stronger than those stage 10 rank calamities stays here,
I would have suspected that my empire has stage 9 ranked people staying here but I highly doubt the empire would do that because there are actually very few of them in our continent, and they are busy as fuck because Agnes and her partner who were just as strong as them, ghosted and died, respectively.
Tap…
Right, I never really elaborated the power ranking here, did I? Well,
For Mages, the ranking starts from E all the way to SSS rank,
For Enhancers, the ranking starts from half star, then a full star or a one star all the way to 7 star.
As for spirit masters they don't have any ranking their powers are based on how many or how strong their contractors are, and a spirit's ranks starts from lesser, then lower, then higher, then the great and then the supreme grade, just for context a supreme grade spirit can destroys continents in a matter of hours they are that strong.
Artificial mages don't have an official ranking because an artificial mage can very easily hide his strength and therefore can cause misestimation.
And finally, there is another ranking system, and that is the overall ranking system, here you don't see if someone is SSS or not you see all of their battle prowess and then determine a rank. This rank starts from stage 1 to stage 10, Agnes, at her peak was a stage 9.
Tap…
Notice how I have used 'official' stage 10 when mentioning about the other continents? It's because my theory is that our continent also has level 10s but hidden, I mean our continent is hiding its trump cards from the world.
Tap…
Which is a good strategy, but a dumb one at the same time,
I mean they can't possibly expect that the other continents' spy network is so bad that they can hide their strongest and most infamous people in the shadows right? So, this could mean that I am either missing something or they are hiding their trump cards from something or someone else entirely.
Tap…
Anyways, now that it's clear that a stage 10 probably lives here, you might ask why would he be ageless?
It's pretty obvious, of course the emperor won't let his strongest assets die of old age, so he should have prepared ageless surgery for them, that is if I assume he doesn't have that power already, this coupled with the fact that [Almighty Awareness] never reported any official and public election of a new headmaster ever since the inception of the academy, I don't think he has died yet.
Tap…
And finally, the reason I think he is the wisest is pretty biased from my end, it's simply because if you were to be a king you can't possibly handover the responsibility of teaching the young generation of a continent full of noble heirs to a idiotic guy, right? At least, I hope not. I really don't want to deal with an overly prideful, idiotic guy, they don't fit well with me.
Sigh
Anyways, moving onto the topic at hand, if someone is centuries old, wise, and has everything in his or her beck and call, then is it really hard to assume that he won't be bored out of everything.
Tap…
Then they will definitely take note of me by now, I mean isn't my existence just too odd and strange?
It's true that if someone specifically don't pay attention to me and all of my movements then they will never figure it out, but let's just go with the assumption that he can see or atleast have a way to know all the events because if he doesn't then he couldn't have stopped Alfred's fire.
Tap.
My train of thoughts got interrupted as I finally stood in front of the [The Headmaster's Hall].
Creak…
As I stood in front of the door I couldn't help but get intimidated, what the hell is this!
The gate was massive, easily reaching 25 meters if not more, this room is separated and isolated from the rest of the academy by a huge wall and a really long, and dark hallway, while walking I wasn't really all that scared but standing in front of it now, I felt shivers ran my spine.
Gulp
On both sides of the gate, two massive pillars stood, each had a statue of a sort of horned demon they were sitting on their toes on top of the pillar, behind them, and in front of me stood the massive gate, on the gates' exterior there were carvings of many other demons I couldn't clearly see because of the fact that there was fog around the area but the most noticeable figure was that of a hooded figure who looked like a sage, and he was…doing something to the demons, I couldn't tell if he was killing them, or healing them or whatever.
Slowly the gate was opening as a bright light entered my vision. I couldn't see the insides of the room, yet.
The next second I felt someone or something pulling me towards the gate, my feet left the ground because of the speed, my vision blurred and I couldn't even see who or what was pulling me.
…
The next thing I saw was, I was inside of a room, a library to be precise, and then…
I noticed some scary looking guards, or more like doll-like statues with a mask on their faces holding a war scythe.
"Wahallo there~!"
"!?"
I quickly turned around to see, an old man, he looked old, wrinkled face, gruff voice,
But his body said otherwise, he walked straight, had hairs that were so black that they resembled a starless night, and his eyes were closed. He was using a staff to walk but I highly doubt he needs it, anyways the staff in itself looked mysterious.
It had a dark vibe in it, and on top of the stick a purple colored star shaped something was rotating ever so slowly.
"It is nice to meet you, if I am not wrong then you might be the respectable and rumored 'headmaster of the academy', if so, then it is an honor to meet you respected sir, my name is Yin William Orsolauv." I said, bowing, was it too formal?
"You are certainly calm about this meeting." The old man said in a flat voice.
"With all due respect, I may look calm, but I am very nervous and anxious inside, however my years of training that has been… taught to me by my beloved family won't allow me to show that nervousness." I lied, I can't get nervous regardless of what I do thanks to my system.
"Lies…"
"I smell lies…"
"I hear lies…"
"I see lies…"
Suddenly small, cute, black winged toddlers materialized out of nowhere and randomly started whispering that…
Crap I am fucke-
"You're pretty daring, aren't you? Or should I say, suicidal?" The headmaster chuckled.
As he said that, his staff started glowing…