Professor Teia
“Ugh, finally I can stretch out and sleep. He won’t be showing up for a while, right?”
“Was he that annoying?”
Meia took Alan’s academy uniform jacket and hung it on the rack as she asked. Alan was already sprawled out on the sofa. He grumbled in response to her question.
“Think about it, Meia. Every single time I go to meet Princess Lin, that guy’s right there behind me, glaring daggers like he’s gonna kill me.”
“If you wish, I can intervene.”
“Nah. A princess’s bodyguard’s gotta be no slouch. I don’t wanna see you get hurt over something stupid.”
“…I’m confident I could subdue him.”
“You know I’m not doubting your skills.”
Meia bowed her head at Alan’s response. Did her young master realize how much those casual words startled her?
“Meia?”
“…It’s nothing.”
Thank goodness he wasn’t looking back, Meia thought. She was desperately fighting the urge to smile, pinning down her rising lips with superhuman self-control.
“I have to step out for a bit. I’ll be leaving the room for a while.”
“Could you swing by the café on your way back and grab some pastries?”
“The usual ones?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Understood, Young Master.”
The moment Meia slipped out of the room with the most composed face she could muster, she shut the door and collapsed against it like her strings had been cut. Her face—stuffed tight to muffle any sound—wasn’t that of the usual stoic super-maid. It had melted into the blissful expression of a girl who’d just realized she was in love. Her blue eyes behind her glasses and her flushed cheeks formed a strange, charming contrast.
Does Young Master know… how deeply I mean it when it comes to him…?
Meia steadied her breathing while slumped on the floor. It didn’t take long to calm her flushed face, straighten her clothes, and reclaim her cool composure. The white-haired maid stood tall and set off to fulfill her young master’s “request.”
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Young Imperial Writers Issue Counter-Statement Against Old Guard, Splitting the Literary World into Factions in Heated Debate…
“What a mess.”
Alan scratched his cheek as he scanned the imperial newspaper, which had erupted in chaos over the aftermath of volume 2.
“I mean, I expected this kind of backlash… but damn, it’s really catching fire. The more it burns, the better for me.”
Thanks to that, volume 2 was selling like hotcakes. Adonel Publishing was apparently living their best days ever, all courtesy of Alan’s Shuren Chronicle. Though they were probably sweating bullets too. A mid-tier publisher grabbing a golden opportunity like this? Yeah, they’d be scrambling.
“Do these people even realize their outrage just means my novel’s a hit?”
Shuren Chronicle volume 2 picked up right where volume 1 left off. Obviously. After finishing his secluded training and mastering the first half of his clan’s swordsmanship, Shuren hits the road again. Along the way, he encounters the black mage, Count Melnoir, in Melnoir territory. It’s not what he wants, but he can’t ignore the suffering locals forever. He ends up helping them half-forced into the hero role. He gives a fake name—Langke—and leaves, chasing the black mage’s trail, which leads him straight into the Evil Emperor Cult. That’s the story’s backbone now.
“For now, Shuren should keep powering through without too many setbacks.”
Alan jotted down his thoughts in his notebook. Even just the first half of the clan’s swordsmanship made Shuren plenty strong. In the novel’s setting, he was on par with the continent’s top-tier swordsmen. But not the absolute elites—the so-called Sword Masters.
“Sword Masters need their own secret techniques, of course.”
Sword Master meant those who’d chased the sword’s pinnacle and come closest to its ultimate essence. In murim terms, that was the Flower Realm; Grand Sword Master would be around Transcendent Realm. He hadn’t bothered with anything like Life-Death Realm. Fantasy worlds didn’t have that anyway.
Alan closed his notebook.
“Gotta nail down a character to teach him the futility of revenge, too.”
Shuren’s themes were revenge and wandering. A journey taken purely for vengeance, but along the way, he learns its emptiness from the people he meets. Fate. Alan added the keyword.
“Revenge, fate, and wandering. At the journey’s end, he realizes revenge’s hollowness—so his mid-story rival should be a revenge ghost too, right?”
A martial art built solely for killing leaves nothing but ugliness in the world. The more such a practitioner dominates, the more good turns to hatred and evil drowns in blood, tainting the land. Anyone who starts martial arts will eventually face the massive wall they’ve built on their path to the Flower Realm. If it’s built on killing arts, that wall screams only the Dao of slaughter. That’s the path to becoming an Asura.
Alan added “Asura” to his notebook, with “revenge” as a sub-keyword below it.
“An Asura has no choice but the Asura’s path. So his rival needs to be one too for balance.”
Like mirrors reflecting each other. Two warriors consumed by revenge clashing head-on. Alan crossed out “another revenge ghost” in his notes. He’d changed his mind. One side shouldn’t be a revenge-driven killer. The one teaching revenge’s futility needed to show that killing leaves more than just emptiness—a true mentor.
“Need a character to teach Shuren the transience of life alongside revenge.”
Not the traitorous senior brother who betrayed the clan, or the wicked woman who doomed it. Those two had to die by the protagonist’s hand.
“Make it a chance encounter.”
Volume 3’s outline clicked into place. On his travels, Shuren would meet a persistent obstacle-turned-mentor who’d teach him that emptiness. A smile tugged at Alan’s lips.
“Nice. I like it.”
“Good morning, everyone. Even our celebrity showed up today.”
Today’s first-period lecture was Basic Magic Theory. Replacing the fired Professor Kenneth Lagus von MacKellan—who’d openly trashed Alan—the eccentric professor from the magic faculty, Teia Muronel von Bernhardt, wore clothes that clung to her outrageously voluptuous figure like a second skin. It was hard to know where to look. Even Lin and Felicia flanking him seemed on high alert around her.
“Basic magic’s mostly theory, so it’s not as fun as you’d hope. I’d teach cooler stuff in Practical Magic.”
Teia snapped her fingers lightly.
“Since our celeb’s here today, how about a fun theory lesson?”
The chalkboard etched itself with crisp white letters from an invisible white chalk. Teia grinned as the cadets’ eyes locked on the words.
“What’s the relationship between verbal spirits and incantations in spellcasting? Fascinating topic, right?”
It delved into magic’s fundamentals. Alan found it intriguing too.
The chalk, infused with Teia’s mana, underlined verbal spirits and incantations with a long stroke.
“The basics for casting magic are what we call incantations, verbal spirits, and formulas.”
“Question, Professor. Don’t magic circles count as basics too?”
“Formulas include magic circles, which is why we call them magic’s three core elements.”
Teia wrote “magic” on the board.
“So, what’s magic’s basic definition?”
No easy answer came. Teia scanned the room, arms crossed. One hand rose quietly: Alan’s.
“Your answer, celeb.”
“Reinterpreting the world’s inscrutable laws through one’s own gaze alone. That’s what I read in a book, anyway.”
“Spot on, celeb. Good job.”
Alan gave a wry smile at Teia’s praise. From his first attendance, her nickname for him hadn’t changed. To her, he was probably like some entertainer.
Teia underlined “magic” with heavy strokes.
“Magic splits into white, black, holy, illusion, and so on. Why those categories? How do verbal spirits, incantations, and magic connect? Super interesting research topic. Academia’s still droning on about it endlessly.”
The astrology professor—handling the magic faculty’s most niche class—with her killer curves tapped her lips with a finger and chuckled.
“Verbal spirits and incantations aren’t that different. Shouting your will to the world is a verbal spirit; rearranging mana through it to manifest your desire is an incantation. Together, that’s chanting.”
Old news to magic cadets. But to Alan—a literature major whose magic knowledge came from half-assed fantasy novels and a tossed-aside lit anthology here—it was riveting.
His quill raced across his notebook.
Verbal spirit: Medium to convey one's will to the world
Incantation: Controls mana via verbal spirit to cause desired phenomenon
Chanting: Encompasses both verbal spirits and incantations
Magic's definition: Reinterpreting the world's laws through one's own will alone
Interesting stuff, Alan thought. Kinda like martial arts, in a way.
The basics are similar—martial arts adapt to the individual too.
As Alan equated martial arts = magic in his head, Teia’s voice cut in.
“Alright, let’s hear from our celeb.”
“…Pardon?”
Alan looked up. Teia’s gaze pinned him.
“I’m waiting for your answer, celeb?”
A bead of cold sweat trickled down Alan’s forehead.