Professor Xue

He had no experience in being a teacher, and he was still not a mage, he just reshaped his Natal Acupoint. He should have been a student there, rather than a professor.

The classroom he was walking to was a harmonious blend of classic mundane aesthetics and enchanting mystique, featuring a meticulously designed tiered seating arrangement. It provided ample space to comfortably welcome as many as 75 students. The tiered layout ensured that each seat offered a clear, unobstructed view of the front, creating an ideal environment for interactive and engaging learning experiences.

The decor exuded an air of academic elegance, with ornate details adorning the room. Rich wooden paneling and plush seating enhanced the ambiance, while large, arched windows bathed the space in a soft, otherworldly light that seemed to dance with a touch of magic.

A raised platform at the front of the room served as the focal point for professors, and there, a subtle, almost imperceptible shimmer of enchantment added to the overall sense of grandeur and purpose.

When he finally entered the classroom, he was greeted by many gazes, some surprised and others confused. It was the classroom of the third-years, their age was about fifteen years old, and very few had one year less or more.

He walked into the raised platform and began to write his name on the huge blackboard, his caligraphy carried traces of his native language.

"Wu Xue," he said in a high and clear tone, "Not Wuxue, and not Wushue.

"My name is Wu Xue!"

He looked at his new students and continued his introduction, "I will be your new Life Magic professor, I hope we get along and learn from each other from now on.

"Does anyone have a question?"

Although he seemed calm, Wu Xue was inwardly nervous. He was trying his best to imitate the fictitious professors he once read in books.

A boy raised his hand, he was quite handsome and had long dark blue hair.

"Is it about my appearance?" Wu Xue asked with a stern face.

The boy hesitated but then nodded embarrassedly.

"I won't bother to explain too much," Wu Xue snorted, "If you doubt my ability because of my appearance, you better review your own knowledge of magic.

"Appearance can be changed at will with illusion magic, and even be permanently changed in different ways.

"I, for example, am someone who reached the Eighth Star and successfully rejuvenated my body to this young state."

Wu Xue praised his own tick skin for lying spontaneously without batting an eye.

A young girl then raised her hand, she was very similar to the boy from just before, and anyone would judge them to be siblings.

Wu Xue nodded and allowed her to voice her question.

"Why did you exaggerate your rejuvenation? I never heard of a mage willingly returning to a child's state," the girl asked with a faint smile.

"Because I wanted," Wu Xue answered with a grin, "Any mage can do the same after achieving the Eighth Star, but most won't do it because of some inconveniences, such as...

"People glaring at them strangely, and even judging them just because of their appearance."

It was a complete lie, but Wu Xue said it with such confidence that no one doubted him.

The girl felt embarrassed and just said no more.

Wu Xue snorted and then said, "My predecessor, the deceased Jonath, only taught you a few times, and his last class was about... the basic circle formation for life magic, such as healing magic."

Wh Xue took a deep breath and continued, "But I'm not him, I won't teach you the same way he did.

"I will teach you what I know, all of it, but whatever you can learn anything will depend on your efforts.

"Now, I ask the best in Life Magic among you to come here and demonstrate what he or she knows about it."

The whole class looked at the blue-haired boy who had asked the first question before.

He sighed and walked to the platform with a dejected face.

'Yes, show me what you know!' Wu Xue was eager to learn, so much so that he partially forgot he was the actual professor there.

"What is your name?" Wu Xue asked.

"I'm Franklin Dover, sir."

'He is probably a noble,' Wu Xue judged but said nothing about it.

"You can start," he said and sat on the only chair on the platform, he was attentively observing.

Franklin swallowed hard and felt great pressure from being scrutinized by the new professor. Even for a noble like him, someone at the Eighth Star was a great mountain.

He began to condense magic circles above his palms, those circles were full of geometrical symbols and letters of their alphabet.

"It is the magic circle of a medium healing spell, capable of temporarily stabilizing grave wounds such as deep penetration by swords," he explained.

Wu Xue analyzed everything with his soul sense and asked, "What is the basis of the magic circles you just condensed? Please keep it condensed but don't cast it."

"I was taught that Life Magic depends on magic circles with many details but great simplicity on them. The symbols must carry the meaning of persistence, and the letters must refer to humanity's life."

Wu Xue narrowed his eyes and looked at the class, "I ask for the best in the class in the field of elemental magic to come forward."

Everyone looked at a blonde girl in a corner, she wore round glasses and had a gloomy look. She sighed and walked to the platform.

"What is your name?" Wu Xue asked.

"Emily," she answered, "No surname." She then cast a sharp glance at Franklin.

"Show me your best elemental magic, only to the part of the magic circle's condensation, of course," Wu Xue ordered.

She nodded and two intersecting magic circles condensed above her right palm, everyone except Wu Xue was shocked.

"You master dual condensation already?" Franklin muttered in a trembling voice.

Wu Xue read about dual condensation earlier in the library, along with other knowledge about magic circles. He knew it was quite awesome for someone so young to master it.

"It is a spell that creates continuous waves of scorching heat, capable of causing severe burns in unprotected people," Emily said with a weird smile, she was constantly looking at Franklin.

Wu Xue analyzed and compared it with Franklin's earlier life magic. In just a few seconds, an idea popped up in his mind.

He couldn't do magic because he lacked the aura to do it, all the aura he absorbed was refined into True Qi and didn't stay unrefined. But he believed he could alter other people's magic temporarily with the help of his versatile literary power infused with his Order Artistic Conception.

"You two, bring the magic circles closer," Wu Xue ordered.

Although they were afraid of the magic circles colliding and causing an accident, they trusted Wu Xue. He was, in any case, an official professor of the academy, and presumably could protect them.

When the magic circles were just a few inches separated from each other, they began to show signs of rioting.

Wu Xue pointed at them and muttered, "Order." His black-and-white literary power emerged from his finger and reached the magic circles in a flash.

Before anyone could react, he muttered again, "Suppress!"

His literary power took the shape of the word "suppress" and began to float just below the magic circles, who instantly stopped rioting.

Then, another strand of literary power was shot from his finger and he muttered, "Merge."

That strand took the shape of the word he muttered and hung above the magic circles.

Wu Xue felt a weak constriction from the world around him, he knew it was because of his actions of going against the natural course of that world's magic. But because it was just two simple spells, the constriction could easily be ignored.

The magic circles merged successfully and the incredulous students didn't know how to react, they never heard or even imagined that kind of thing was possible.

Wu Xue smiled and took complete control of the spell from the hands of his students, he cast it without hesitation.

Just as Emily and Franklin thought they would be hurt by a dangerous experimental spell, what hit them was a warm wave of heat that brought with it a sensation of relaxation and healing.

Not only them, but the whole class felt their bodies being bathed in waves of healing heat waves. Although hot, those waves didn't hurt and instead made them feel incredibly comfortable.

"How?" Emily asked Wu Xue with complete but earning eyes, "How?"

"Just watch my classes attentively from now on, I will eventually teach all of you, how it was possible and how you could do it," Wu Xue chuckled and waved for them to return to their seats.

He said "how you could do it," and not how HE did it. He wouldn't teach them the literary path, but he knew how mages could do it.

"Magic circles were just a way to control and execute magic, not the only way," Wu Xue made a statement, "If you keep yourselves confined in your predecessor's train of thought, you will never reach their levels, and certainly won't surpass them."

The students were dumbfounded. It was the first time a professor hinted they should aim to surpass their predecessors, who for millenniums stabilized the known magic system.

"This first lesson will be about expanding your short horizons," Wu Xue grinned and began to write theorems on the blackboard, all fruits of his own deduction and understanding.

When the lesson ended, all students felt like it was just a dream, a scary dream. Wu Xue left them to their own thoughts and left for his next class, with fourth years.

A similar thing occurred in that class, but the students reacted more strongly. They were more learned than his last class, knew more things, and had more common sense about magic.

They not only knew about the immense difficulties in rejuvenating into a child's body, much more difficult than just rejuvenating to a young adult state, as they also knew how impossibly ridiculous what Wu Xue did was.

Magic circles were not just a crystallization of human knowledge, it was also a mirror of that world's natural laws. Tempering with it the way Wu Xue did should have been impossible for someone still in the Magic Star Dominion, which was the boundary divided from the first magic star to the tenth.

Perhaps someone who transcended that dominion would be able to do that, but they did not know such distant things.

Wu Xue was in charge of four different classes, each of them full of talented individuals, but the class he most took note of was the one consisting of Fifth Years, 1E Class.

Particularly, five individuals from that class caught his attention, they were too strong compared to their classmates, and even stronger than most students about to graduate. Two of those individuals were nobles, and the rest were commoners. Three were girls and two boys. They were all about seventeen years old. All of them were Fifth Star mages and had a rather great mastery over magic to their level.

Wu Xue then remembered he still hadn't received information about his students from the academy, probably because of the hastiness of his employment.

The time when he returned to his residence was 10:00 OT, two hours away from sunset.

The Empire divided the twenty hours of a day into two parcels, OT and MT. OT was the twelve hours of daytime, and MT was the twelve hours of nighttime. It was not the main time division of that world, but everyone inside the Evergreen Empire used it.

When he was about to enter his residence, a servant of the academy handed a package of papers to him and explained it was information about his students.

Wu Xue thanked the servant and entered through the door, he suddenly felt he had fun during the day while working as a professor and had the will to put in more effort for a while to see if he really had a greater knack for it.