23 The Staff Room

In the First Son's Academy Staff Room.

The staff were unsure as to why they had been called to gather suddenly. Even though it was a holiday, most of the teachers and staff stayed on campus as the school provided lodging for them. Right now, they were trying to figure out what would be so important for the headmaster to convene a meeting. Silence filled the room as the door opened, and a middle-aged man with grey stubble and a scholarly atmosphere walked in.

James Brody, the current headmaster for the First Son's Academy, walked in looking over all the people in the room. He didn't know how to describe his current mood. An incident with two students earlier today had made him angry until he found out the details.

"I'm not sure if a lot of you have heard, but there was an altercation between two students earlier today during lunch in the cafeteria. Take a look at the recording," he said, projecting a recording from the Crystal Processor in the room.

The staff all looked curiously towards it. There have been altercations and fights between the kids before, but it has been rare to be called for a meeting due to it. Looking carefully, they saw a large kid intentionally shove into a short black haired child. They seemed to have a conversation, after which the older boy angrily tried to grab the smaller boy. The boy dodged out of the way and looked to be provoking him. As the older boy charged in to punch the younger boy, the boy seemed to have been scared out of his wits as he closed his eyes. When the punch was way too close to the boy, a lot of the teachers in the room squinted, expecting the little boy to get heavily injured. Suddenly, there was a flash on the projection, and the view right after once again left another audience flabbergasted. The younger boy seemed fine, standing exactly where he was, whereas the larger, older boy was crying on the floor with seemingly a burnt hand. The projection ended there, as the headmaster turned back to everyone else in the room.

After a period of silence, a cough rang with the voice of the headmaster following.

"The larger child, as many of you know, was the second year problem child from the Carlton family, Charles. He had gotten into a lot of arguments and cases of bullying last year, but it never escalated into fights. The younger child, most of you might be unfamiliar with his appearance, but you might know his name. He's Aser Scholt, the latest genius of the Southern Seas."

A mixture of confusion and understanding dawned upon the people in the room. They finally saw how the genius of the year, the receptor of the final Gold Standard Scholarship in this 50-year period, looked like. But the fight itself left many of them confused.

Understanding their confusion, James the headmaster continued, "Aser Scholt. The upper class told us to put as much pressure on him as possible without going past the lines. The Guild also want him to be under pressure as well. I was hoping that when we released the notice, he would come by to the main building and we'd expose him, but he's been spending most of his time in the library, not even going back to his own dormitory," the fact that this new genius stayed so out of the limelight, even going as far as to rent a study room for a month in the library made him not to know whether to laugh or cry.

"Either way, over the last few days, seeing that he has practically been keeping a low profile, a lot of the student body had been disappointed. We know our students, they like competition, they like to make plans and get ahead of their peers. Unfortunately, most of the student's plans fell flat seeing such a non-responsive attitude from Aser. This fight today though proved a couple things. First, none of the first years except a chosen few will be a match for him. The skill he used in the fight seem to be heat and light based skill, although we don't know how he learned it, but it doesn't match the records of any skill books in the library or the academy. So we can assume he created it himself. Second, he is already in Unknown Level 5, and is likely going to already be in Unknown Level 6 before school starts." the headmaster finished, looking at the people around the room.

Most of them didn't know how to react. They had heard about the so-called genius before, but they certainly didn't expect him to be so monstrous. Not even 2 months had passed since he unlocked his System, and already half-way past the Unknown Level 5! The fact that he created a skill by himself also knocked their pants off. Creating skills isn't a simple "try this and it works" issue. Everyone's System's only registers skills or actions as skill when they are definitive and have been proven to work by the Essence Cultivation System. Just hobbling together a few different movements together will never produce a skill!

"Headmaster James, are we sure that the skill he used isn't an innate skill and one he created?", asked a female teacher. She was going to be teaching the Social-type classes for the first year, and needed to know whether one of her students really created a skill by himself.

"I've verified with the Crystal Processor on his information. He only had an innate skill and a passive skill when he unlocked his system. He doesn't have any form of inheritance or senior to teach him such a skill from what we know of his background. So, the only thing we can safely assume is a created skill, and that's the likeliest and least monstrous of assumptions."

Receiving confirmation, the staff started murmuring among themselves once more. Does The Guild really expect us to put pressure on such a genius? Even if First Son's Academy is one of the top most Mandatory Education academies in the Southern Seas, they only have a higher percentage of the so-called "genius" or "elite" students due to their stringent admission requirements. When the pond isn't as large, the bigger fish are naturally more visible.

"The reason why I've called you all here is that I want to use this opportunity to bring Aser to the limelight. We will release a notice, calling for both Aser and Charles for disciplinary hearing. Charles has been shielded by his family and a few teachers too many times already." James said, looking towards a few hook-nosed teachers in the crowd who promptly lowered their heads. "There is a reason why we forbid combat in the school. Aser is new and we need to get the student body to be familiar with how he looks. Its necessary for us so that he gets pressured from his peers. Any questions?"

"Headmaster James, are we going to actually punish the both of them?" a staff part of the disciplinary committee asked. Seeing as most of the kids were actually kids, most of the punishments were either fines or home-arrest, rarely anything corporeal.

"Charles will get a punishment. I'll set the maximum to a penalty of 100 points. The disciplinary board will decide how much he is penalized. Aser will not get any punishment, but a warning for now. Usually, we wouldn't bother calling for a hearing with such a small scuffle, but we need to get Aser into the limelight, and taking care of a rowdy child at the same time is killing two birds with one stone." James smiled, seemingly a devil in disguise. Listening to his mostly biased reasoning, the teachers and staff shivered and nodded their heads to agree. "Okay, that's it for now. Release the notice by tomorrow, and the hearing will be in 2 days. Dismissed."