Qi Control Arts (1)
The head professor looked flustered.
"This is your first class on handling qi?"
The students had just insisted they had already been attending lectures before the semester even began.
"Teaching assistant, I don't believe I've heard a word about this."
The masked figure standing beside him lowered his stance and handed Professor Mophy a document.
Deep creases formed between Mophy's brows.
"Hold on—what is this supposed to mean? Today's the first class after the start of term."
The cadets began to stir.
"Huh? What? I had class last week."
"What class did you take? I did stealth arts and… hand techniques and…"
"Dagger arts, too."
"I think the headmaster said he was moving dagger arts up a week."
The color drained from the cadets' faces.
A low murmur swept the room.
"So those were days we were supposed to be stretched out in the dorms resting?"
"But Professor Felix even gave us homework…"
"Does that mean sitting on a wood block every night practicing stealth was all for nothing?"
"Damn it. This is what happens when you can't check the school board…"
They were getting heated over classes they never should have had to take.
"Who were the professors who taught last week?"
"…"
"Well, dagger arts is important, so I'll let that one slide."
The masked man gestured with a hand wrapped in a black armguard.
"Ah—Felix and Professor Yuzuha. Those two, honestly."
Professor Mophy pulled out a chest, grumbling all the while.
"If you're a full-time professor, you're supposed to set an example. This is exactly why I don't understand the young faculty."
He smacked his own forehead.
"What good are hand techniques and stealth arts when you haven't even learned how to handle qi!?"
"…"
"That's nothing but parlor tricks and camouflage! Aigoo, my head."
The casual speech was a sharp contrast to his kindly face.
When the masked man kept gesturing, Mophy nodded.
"Ah, so they pushed the schedule forward because they were curious about the cadets' faces… Aigogo. I'll have to lodge a formal complaint with the headmaster over this."
"…"
"Not the cadets—just one cadet? Who?"
Professor Mophy lifted his head with a slow turn.
"Ethan Cass?"
He scanned the students, then frowned.
"We're one short."
"…"
"Ah, must've gone to the restroom."
He couldn't find Ethan anywhere.
"Anyway. Ah, the professors said they were curious who the top student was. Hmm…"
"…"
"To be honest, I was curious about Cadet Ethan's face myself, so I did ask the headmaster to place my class earlier in the term, but… still, this is a bit much."
Mophy released the locking formation on the chest and raised his voice.
"In any case, everyone. My class is the most important one at this Thief School. Understood?"
It actually was the most important, so he wasn't exactly wrong.
Ethan pulled one of the unusually refined lecture chairs forward and sat.
"Oh, Ethan, when did you get here?"
"We were sitting together until just now."
Ethan listened to Carson's chatter and thought to himself.
None of the professors spotted me first.
That one almost made eye contact with me just now.
Ethan decided to add Professor Mophy to the list of people who required careful watching.
Theory made another appearance.
It began with history and rolled straight into an explanation of the thief lineage.
"It's hard to deny that the origins of the thief class began with common pickpockets."
Magical ink wrote itself across a great slab of marble.
"But when the founding emperor and Thief Master, Valois Solitaire, appeared, he completely overturned the way people saw thieves."
That much was true.
Without Solitaire, the first Thief Master who founded this school, they never would have been treated like people.
"…"
No—he meant the thieves. Not us.
I'm not a thief.
In any case, social perception really did matter that much.
Professor Mophy tapped each word with his pen.
"Mana. Qi. Holy power."
"…"
"These three are the fundamental forces that make up an adventurer."
Ethan felt it instinctively.
He's talking about mages, thieves, and priests, isn't he?
He didn't know the exact nature of the three forces, but it had a three-elements kind of feel.
For the first time in a while, it actually felt like he was in school.
This is more worth listening to than hand techniques.
This class, he could sit through—thief content filtered out.
Of course, if Professor Felix had overheard that thought just now, he would have quietly lowered the corner of his mouth and tugged his fedora down.
"Before I explain qi, we need to touch on something called fortune. You've heard people say someone is 'lucky,' right? That kind of fortune—luck."
"…"
"For any intelligent being, fortune is an essential limit engraved upon them from the moment of birth. And that fortune instinctively guides them along their path."
He laid a palm over his chest.
"Every intelligent being living on this continent possesses something called a heart."
Professor Mophy continued.
"And those hearts take shape as a single dream."
"…"
"I'm going to be a blacksmith. I'm going to be a mage. I'm going to be a thief."
He thrust his hand straight out in front of him.
"When those dreams—those hearts—transform into qi, you become a thief. When they transform into mana, you become a mage. Unless some decisive event intervenes, this is almost always fixed from the moment an intelligent being is born, and it does not change."
Professor Mophy added a single character and completed the word.
"We call that destiny—or fate."
He stepped to the center and cupped both hands into a sphere.
"The greatest difference that sets thieves apart from other classes is precisely this: the operation of qi placed upon that fortune."
Snap.
Sparks burst above the hands Professor Mophy had cupped together—
Then a green force like fireworks shot free and struck the lecture hall ceiling, exploding.
The energy separated into colors like a rainbow, and brilliant multicolored sparks embroidered the dark ceiling where no light entered.
"Wooooaaah—!!"
The cadets cried out in awe.
The lecture continued.
"You'll learn this later, but the energy formed when the qi of vital force and the fortune of luck combine is a more advanced form. For now, you will learn to handle qi itself."
Professor Mophy raised his pen and pointed to his own chest.
"Everyone, close your eyes."
One by one, the cadets shut their eyes.
"Focus on your own heart."
Whoosh.
Behind Ethan, who still had his eyes closed, a presence stirred.
A low, resonant voice filled the lecture hall.
"Resolve to draw out the power within yourself, just once."
"…"
"Concentrate. I know it sounds simple when I put it like this, but today may be one of the rarest moments of your entire life."
Mophy snapped his fingers.
"This place was built atop the lake where the greatest concentration of natural qi in the entire Thief School gathers."
The floor turned transparent, revealing the dark blue river flowing beneath the Five-Pointed Star Hall.
Blue energy began to rise steadily from the river.
The energy gathered together, becoming a dark mist that settled low throughout the lecture hall.
"Ugh!"
"Something's… tingling."
"Same here…!"
Soon the seated cadets began to sense something on their own.
"…"
Every one of them was twitching their brows and fingertips.
Professor Mophy walked among the students, correcting slumped postures one by one.
"The qi each of you emits has its own unique nature, strength, and color."
Snap.
He flicked his fingers.
"Now. Everyone—release your qi."
A rush of air.
The lecture hall filled with faint traces of qi.
"…Huh?"
Professor Mophy's voice came out edged with doubt.
"G-good. Stop! Everyone stop!"
He halted the practical exercise in a hurry, breathing irregularly.
The cadets looked faintly disappointed.
"Aww… I felt like something was about to happen."
"I've never felt like this before! Do you think I can use magic too?"
"No way. Magic and techniques stand at opposite poles."
Mophy pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away sweat.
Wrinkles carved themselves into a face that had been bright the entire time, and the creases at the corners of his eyes tightened further.
…What on earth is this?
Before he knew it, Mophy was struggling to rein in the killing intent that had begun to leak faintly onto the floor.
Why can't I sense even a scrap of qi from that student alone?
At the end of his wavering gaze, Ethan's crimson eyes met his.
Thirty years as a guildmaster and twenty years teaching—I've never seen a case like this in my life.
A hollow laugh slipped from Professor Mophy's lips.
"Cadet Ethan?"
His trembling fingertip pointed at Ethan.
"Is something the matter, Professor?"
"Ah—no. I must have been mistaken."
Professor Mophy had no idea what was going on, but he let it pass for now.
In Ethan Cass, something called "qi" simply did not exist.
This… isn't a problem that ends at a lack of talent.
He had seen plenty of cadets hit a wall in qi operation and give up on becoming thieves.
But humans, demi-humans, animals and plants, insects…
If you were born onto this land carrying life, it was only natural that you possessed your own unique qi.
This shouldn't be possible.
Having no qi at all meant you were an inanimate object.
Even the undead possessed their own inherent qi.
It makes my skin crawl.
For the first time in his life, Professor Mophy felt something like fear of the unknown directed at a student.
Ethan Cass.
He was certain he had seen the boy operate qi during the scramble for seats.
Deliberately concealing qi is the domain of a Master. Claiming he hid it doesn't make sense either.
Whatever the reason, Ethan's qi could not be sensed at all.
Professor Mophy decided then and there to put Ethan on his list of research subjects.
"…"
Meanwhile, Ethan was just blinking.
Nothing's happening?
He looked around at the other cadets, but all he heard were impressions like "I felt something" and "It was like using magic for the first time."
Ethan was seriously starting to wonder whether he had wandered into a cult meeting.
Do I just have no talent for qi control?
It made sense, in a way.
Ethan's qi was the next best thing to nonexistent in the natural world.
Formless, odorless, tasteless.
Which meant it was the kind of thing that could become anything at all.
But Goddess Vespera had been so flustered that she hadn't given Ethan a single word of warning—and that was the root of the trouble.
And what's with the mist?
If Ethan had known the true nature of his own qi, he would have asked the goddess something like this:
This feels like one of those mixed spiritual roots from a xianxia novel with every attribute dumped in. Is that actually a good thing?
Of course it is! It's a form of qi that has never existed except in the previous Thief Master!
Damn it. Thieves again.
For now, he had no choice but to contact the goddess or figure it out on his own.
"Ethan, did you feel it too?"
"Feel what. My disgust for thieves?"
"…Let's drop it."
Dormuut agreed with Ethan.
"Ethan is right."
"Since when do you ever side with me."
"You said something that deserves a beating."
"…"
Even after a round of orc-style conversation, Ethan couldn't muster the will to argue back.
This is so goddamn irritating.
Because that pink orc had said it while seriously pushing his glasses up with one index finger—click.
Isn't this full otaku at this point?
Watching him put on those otaku glasses every single class made Ethan's hands itch for a padlock…
"Ethan. There's an impolite smell coming off you…"
"Don't talk during class, Dormuut."
Ethan resolved that someday he would buy a padlock in exactly the right size for Dormuut's glasses.