Good Laughter

I sat cross-legged in the jungle that made up most of the campus slowly breathing in and out, in a state of meditation. The flora around me was intense, practically covering my entire body in green, but I didn't mind. If anything, this atmosphere made cultivation even easier.

Normally, I would be cultivating while searching for the inheritance, but I decided to take a break in my search and focus on cultivating. This wasn't because I was being lazy though, it was because I was feeling something strange coming from my Duranian. I could tell that I would break through to the 2nd level soon.

I breathed in and out, Genesis Essence filling the pathways that connected to my Duranian. This one felt different from the others. It was like taking a bite of food even though you were so full, one more bite would make your stomach burst. This strange feeling continued until the Genesis Essence was sucked into the ground of my Duranian. All of a sudden I could hear a loud, short pop blast throughout my Duranian, the only sound I have ever heard come out of it.

After the pop, I could see a strange, mostly translucent film begin to blanket itself over everything in the Duranian. Starting from the center it expanded outward, covering everything in its path: the houses of my town, the trees of the jungle, every blade of grass, and even every grain of sand was soon wrapped in this see-through material. Once everything was covered, the film slowly began to recede. Actually, it would be better to say that it got sucked into everything that it covered.

Soon the film was gone, only the mundane sight of the Duranian remaining. But, after spending some time with this Duranian in my body, I could tell something was different. It felt more... alive. The Duranian, while still having no movement of any kind, seemed to be breathing, if only a little. Not only did the place feel slightly livelier, but the Genesis Essence that surrounded my island and filled the town's well was slightly denser as well. The soil seemed richer, and the stone of my town more compact and stable. It wasn't much of a change, but it was something. After this week of stagnation, I needed something like this.

My relationship with Pulchra, while stable, wasn't changing whatsoever. It was the same as normal. I would meet up with her after school, we would go somewhere and hang out for a while, and there would be some passion in the air, but nothing would actually happen. I would normally be more assertive, but I couldn't grasp her character well enough. I've never been this bad at resonance before, and with this seemingly super-powered brain of mine, it should be even easier. Yet I just couldn't understand her; it was incredibly bizarre.

No matter with that though, I was sure something would happen eventually, so that was fine. What irritated me was the progress of the inheritance, or rather, the absence of it. I've searched almost the entire southeastern corner of the campus, and nothing. There were some significant landmarks as well, but still nothing. I know that I shouldn't expect to be so lucky, but with how smoothly everything has been going recently, I held the hope of this going smoothly as well, 'I suppose I shouldn't hold such thoughts. Luck never was one of my strong suits. That wouldn't change no matter where I found myself.'

I opened my eyes after observing my Duranian a bit longer and swung my arms around a bit to stretch. It must have been the effects of cultivating a Technology Path Fruit, but they felt stronger than before. I looked at the tree beside me and considered punching it, but decided against it. I wasn't nearly strong enough for that yet, though a good crossbow bolt could probably go through it.

I looked up at the night sky, it was time for me to retire for the night. Tomorrow would also be interesting. I was the last one in the class to get to the 2nd level. It made sense though, I had the worst Cultivation Talent and the lack of constant cultivation didn't help either. But since everyone now was at the 2nd level... school would get a lot more interesting.

____________________________________________

"Phew."

I sighed in relief at the fact that I was able to avoid Spiravit's daily routine of giving me a beating. It was almost a game between the two of us now. I would try to avoid him, and he would try to intercept me. However, having about 400 years of experience with people gave me a bit of an advantage...?

'400 years? That's strange, how come I can only remember about 150 of those, could I be misremembering? I was only the Demon King for 150 years, so how could I have lived longer than that?' I once again felt that feeling of forgetting something important, but decided to just shake it off.

Today was a big day so everyone, including Hasrem, got to class earlier, the only missing, of course, being Spiravit. I went to my seat, and along with everyone else, waited for Spiravit to arrive.

But it seemed like even Spiravit was in high hopes as he arrived 15 minutes earlier. After Spiravit took his seat, Hasrem stopped sifting through her notes and began writing something on the large blackboard. A couple of seconds later she backed away and the words she wrote became apparent.

Martial Arts and Magic Arts.

I could feel the focus of the entire class come to a standstill as these words were read, tens or even hundreds of times over. Seeing the class's reverend gazes toward these words, Hasrem nodded her head in approval. But she soon got annoyed at the fact that no one put their focus on her and she coughed a couple of times, getting the class's attention.

"Seeing as all of you, even Spiravit, came into class earlier, I can tell you are excited about this. I'm happy you are all so ready to learn... but there was really no point in coming earlier. I won't be teaching you about these subjects, so you all still have to wait for Cultivation Arts class to finish."

The air suddenly changed from an anticipating silence to a dead one as realization washed over the students. I already expected such, but in the sake of not wanting to catch the irritation of others, decided to join the bandwagon anyway. I took a look around the room and most were showing gestures of embarrassment. Some covered their face with their hands, others hid their face on their armpit on the desk in front of them.

Pulchra wasn't ashamed though. She probably knew this before the fact, but she normally got to school earlier, so she just ended up getting bunched in with the others. Spiravit was also unrespondent, he must have been dragged into coming earlier by one of his gang members. Surprisingly, that shy girl, Capcis was her name, she wasn't embarrassed at all, an abnormality for her.

Hasrem took in the abashed atmosphere before continuing her speech, "In other news... today's lesson will be only a couple hours long instead of the four it would normally be. Since you are now all at least on the 2nd Level of Dirt Class, today's lesson will be about interacting with your Duranian with the use of your mind... but class starts in about 15 minutes... so I suppose it'll be a study hall until then.

I could hear a couple of people around me groan as they came to terms with their blunder of coming early. It sort of made me want to laugh.

____________________________________________

The two hours passed quickly, mostly because today's topic was very interesting to me. For some though, those two hours seemed to take forever to pass by, as evidenced by their exhausted faces. I observed this as Hasrem guided us through the school, to the Martial Arts classroom. And it wasn't soon until we found ourselves in front of the double doors that led into the classroom.

When Hasrem opened the doors, my first thought was this: 'Could this really be considered a classroom?'

The inside was massive, I wouldn't be surprised if half the building was dedicated to this room alone. It was filled to the brim with arenas of different environments, each separated by a wooden path that spider-webbed across the entire room. As I looked closer I could see areas with practice dummies, and some looked more advanced than others. It was a magnificent sight to take in, and, in the rush of seeing something so grand, I looked over an important detail.

Located about 20 meters in front of us was a person who sat on the ground cross-legged, one of her arms holding onto her leg, the other a wooden sword that she put pressure onto to keep stuck on the ground. She sported a jet-black body suit, probably used for keeping her as flexible as possible, though the tight suit did more than just that, it did things I couldn't help but notice. I wasn't the only one who understood this fact, as evidenced by how the other guys around me didn't let their eyes wander from her.

I too, thanks to my unreadiness of such intense feelings of lust, couldn't hold back and dumbly stared as well. I felt a cold glare digging into my back as I gawked at the woman in front of us, but I didn't care too much about this as I suddenly noticed something about this woman. She had very familiar body features, and the puffy black hair that fell down her head, it too felt very familiar... Oh no, this was bad.

She slowly turned her head upwards, and I could instantly grasp her identity after taking a look at her face.

"Oh? Have to students finally arrived?" She began to stand up in a way that felt similar to an old master. When she got up, she stretched a little and began to slowly walk toward us.

The other students began to cower a little at the sight of this. I also had to admit that she was very intimidating at that moment... but after remembering who she really was, I couldn't feel anything of the sort. I couldn't feel fear toward her, nor those feelings of lust that I felt a moment ago.

She cracked her fingers as she approached us with a cruel smile growing on her face, "I was beginning to grow impatient, so it's good that you all arrived sooner rather than later. I don't take kindly to tardiness." I could hear a couple of people gulp out of fear as her words struck them. It seemed like her intimidation was taking quite the effect, on most anyways.

"Well, now that you all are here, I hope you are ready for hell on earth. Starting now, this school year will become a lot more difficult than before. Prepare yourselves-"

"Mphf." I let out a little laugh, causing the teacher to shoot her gaze at me. I quickly began to explain myself, "I'm sorry, I just-pfft- I can't help but laugh with how differently you're acting, Hahaha!" What started as a small snicker turned into an entire belly laugh. I just couldn't handle it. Maybe it was because of how much stress I'd been putting myself under, or maybe the curse was turning stronger, but I couldn't hold back this laughter. Though maybe that wasn't too bad, this was a good time to laugh.

"I-I... What are you talking about? I-I've never met you before." She was still trying to keep her serious attitude but was failing a bit as she stuttered her words. This was a perfect chance, she was obviously trying to come off as a cool, intense, and strong master, so I would destroy that in just a couple of sentences.

My laughter receded a bit as I wiped the tears off and responded to her unconfident speech, "We haven't met before? Then what about that one time when I found you drooling on the desk in the library? Or when I also found you sleeping away in the Fruit Hall? Let me recall... what was it that you began accusing me of after waking you up for you to do your job?"

"Stop it! Don't you dare continue. I am your teacher now, so just forget about that..." I smiled slyly at her as she covered her mouth to stop herself from continuing her sentence after realizing what she just said. It was too late though, she already took the bait.

"Now that I think about it... she does look a lot like that gloomy Fruit Hall clerk that is always sleeping when I need materials for my Fruits."

"Yeah, it could actually be her. I remember how hard of a time she gave me when all I wanted were some Fire Leaves..."

"You know, all of a sudden, she seems a lot less scary than before."

The woman they spoke of heard all of these loud whispers, each hitting harder than the last. I flashed a victorious grin at her dismay. Even if she were a teacher, I would make sure I won whenever we saw each other.

She saw the way I delighted in her pain, and turned meek all of sudden, "Um, well, c-class is... class is canceled. I can't handle any more- Owch!" She rubbed her head in the spot where she was just hit. Her head turned in anger to find who had punched it, only to see Hasrem standing there, menacingly swinging her fist in the air, "Oh Telferr... Don't tell me you plan to abandon your teaching duties, especially with that contract you signed with the dean still in effect. What was the cost of terminating the contract again? Oh I remember, it was 5,000-"

"Ahem! I meant to say, let's get class on the way! I can't wait to impart my knowledge to you young pupils, so get ready. Let's start with some stretches!"