Tough It Is
The two-hour lecture by Professor Morgan had come to an end.
After she left the classroom, I let out a small sigh.
“Haa—”
“Was the class that hard?”
Yuli, whose face looked a little tired, said with understanding, sitting beside me.
I had assumed she had been struggling with the math problems earlier, so she seemed to read my mind.
“Yeah. It’s not like it was anything special.”
I answered vaguely, but the sigh hadn’t been for that.
Throughout the lecture, I had tried my ability on various students, and what I learned was that it was even harder to use on demons who possessed mana.
They probably didn’t notice, but their mana instinctively resisted the suggestions I tried to plant, weakening their presence.
“Not a firewall or anything…”
Even if the effect was somewhat reduced, I could overcome it by lowering the suggestion’s existence or increasing mana consumption, but there was another issue.
“I was never supposed to just throw it at people anyway.”
Thought Encroachment required two prerequisites to work properly.
First, profiling—analyzing emotions, personality, and mental state to craft suggestions tied to the target’s desires or fears.
Second, high favorability—lowering psychological barriers by earning trust or intimacy, making them more receptive to my words and thus more vulnerable to the planted suggestions.
Unfortunately, the students in the classroom were basically strangers who had only met that day, so neither was feasible.
“It’s a good skill, but…”
It lacked instant effect and had too many restrictions.
I had no choice.
For now, I would have to slowly build connections over time.
After Morgan’s class, another began.
The new instructor was a female demon with brown hair curled into round buns on both sides, the so-called “dumpling head” style.
A monkey tail sprouted from her rear, and she wore a crop top that clung tightly to her top, revealing her 11-shaped abs and muscles.
“She looks like an athlete.”
She was beautiful overall, but in a wild way—good to say, or slack in a bad way.
“Nice to meet you, brats. I’m Professor Meibao.”
Seated in her exclusive chair, she propped her long legs on the desk and spoke in an utterly relaxed posture.
“No lectures?”
—…….
Clap clap.
“Mm.”
Professor Meibao nodded with satisfaction, then launched into a story completely unrelated to the class.
“My uncle or older brother or big bro is so handsome. Yeah.”
—…….
Heavy silence followed again, and the professor’s face twisted.
“None of you? Damn… these new students are terrible.”
The students’ faces twisted in turn.
“I was going to let you slack off for the rest of today after introducing you to a decent guy, but…”
“Everyone, stand up.”
At this sudden command, we all stood awkwardly from our seats.
Professor Meibao said, “We’re moving to the auditorium now.”
The Class 1 students returned to the large lecture hall just like yesterday and received workout clothes similar to the training uniforms.
“Change and come outside.”
I didn’t know what she was planning, but I did as ordered.
In the changing room attached to the auditorium, I swapped clothes, and just like yesterday’s uniform and the academy-issued ones, the sizes fit perfectly.
After changing, the students followed Professor Meibao again and arrived at a wide open plain like the northern part of the Cradle.
Professor Meibao stood with arms crossed in front of the students, flashing a sadistic smile.
“From now on, kill each other.”
—?!
“Just kidding.”
Was the professor really like this?
Suspicion mixed with doubt spread through the students when
Professor Meibao finally started the actual class.
“The subject I’m teaching is ‘Combat and Training.’ It’s a practical class focusing on mana circulation through Body Strengthening and combat techniques for real use.”
She continued with detailed explanations on Body Strengthening.
“Body Strengthening is the technique where mana in the heart is spread through the body to enhance your own physique. It’s the most basic way to use mana, and the more you understand your body and handle mana, the better the effect.”
She crouched on the spot and demonstrated, grabbing a protruding stone from the ground.
While the students watched with bewildered eyes, strength flowed into her arms.
“Uchaaaa—”
Ku-gugung!
With a loud sound, the ground cracked, and a massive boulder the size of Professor Meibao’s body was pulled out of the earth like a sweet potato.
Our mouths fell open.
“Don’t worry, it’s not too early to be surprised.”
Professor Meibao extended one leg backward.
Her toned thigh tensed, her calf flexed tautly, then she swung it in a beautiful curve like a whip.
Thud!
With the sound of a bomb exploding, the boulder shattered into pieces.
Amid the rising dust, Professor Meibao said calmly, “Once you master Body Strengthening, this is nothing.”
Clap clap clap!
Deeply impressed students clapped.
Since demons naturally admired strength, they were excited by her overwhelming power.
Seeing the students’ eyes sparkling with anticipation as they learned Body Strengthening, Professor Meibao smirked.
“This is a technique that also varies in power depending on your own body ability, so don’t slack on training. Got it?”
—Yes!
“Good, glad you understood. Now, everyone lie down.”
—???
Confusion rose in the eyes of students who had been shouting “I understood!” just moments ago.
“What, standing there stupidly? I have to teach you how to lie down too?”
At Professor Meibao’s scolding, we all awkwardly placed our hands on the ground and lay down.
From then on, hellish push-ups began.
Push-ups, squats, burpees, hanging on a rope tied to a tree and staying there for a long time…
Professor Meibao squeezed the students’ muscles in various ways.
By the end of class, everyone except a few was exhausted and collapsed.
“Weaklings.”
Professor Meibao clicked her tongue in disdain.
“You should stretch properly and sleep well. My class is every day.”
The students looked at her with disgusted eyes.
We had expected to learn Body Strengthening, but it was just endless rolling around…
We acknowledged the need for physical training, but we felt betrayed for expecting too much.
With our exhausted bodies, we somehow ate lunch and returned to the classroom.
Classes at the Cradle ran from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., six hours excluding the one-hour lunch break.
Students in the first year took four subjects in total.
“Basic Learning” and “Combat and Training” were in the daily schedule.
The other two subjects alternated every other day, one of which was “Reinforcement and Imbuement.”
“I heard from the other class that the professor in charge of this subject is a dragon.”
“Dragon?”
My ears perked up at Yuli’s words sitting beside me.
Dragons were strong among demons, and their reputation for being ancient and wise was well-known.
But it didn’t take long to realize that rumors were just rumors.
“All right, female students on the right~ male brats on the left.”
A middle-aged male teacher who introduced himself as Zegerof immediately changed seats according to gender when class started.
I was already on the left, so I didn’t need to move.
Staying still, a smaller-than-me green-skinned male student with green skin sat in my seat.
I greeted him lightly.
“Hello?”
“Mm. Nice to meet you.”
His name was Karib.
He had green skin like Jugo, the ringleader of Broccolin’s alleys, but he was a goblin race, not an orc.
Maybe he was naturally quiet?
I stopped trying to talk to him while he fixed his glasses and focused on class.
Zegerof, the muscular teacher with a striking red beard, turned his gaze toward the female students and spoke in a gentle voice.
“Well, our fairy girls, did you learn how to handle mana from Professor Meibao’s class?”
—Kyaa!
—Fairies, huh~
—We haven’t learned yet!
Despite the overly sweet title, the female students answered with a giggle, delighted by the title.
“Haha, well, it’s your first day, so it can’t be helped.”
Zegerof laughed and nodded, then looked at the male students.
“You?”
His voice suddenly dropped.
Still, the male students answered energetically.
—We haven’t learned!
“What’s with that confident tone? Is not learning something to be proud of?”
—……?
Confusion flashed across the male students’ faces.
“Professor Meibao is really… she never does anything annoying, which is a problem.”
Zegerof made an openly annoyed expression and sighed.
“I’m the one suffering because I have to teach these blockheads. Ah, that wasn’t meant for our fairy girls, so don’t misunderstand.”
Did he have multiple personalities? Or was he a crazy dragon?
His tone and expression changed abruptly every time he switched between male and female students.
“He’s just like a cow…”
The lofty and wise image I had known of dragons had already been shattered long ago.
Just as I suspected that some shady lobbying might have occurred in the Cradle’s professor hiring process,
Zegerof placed his hands on the desk and explained the subject.
“The subject I’m teaching is ‘Reinforcement and Imbuement.’ It’s about learning techniques that use mana to maximize the properties of certain materials or to imbue new attributes or concepts.”
Even just hearing the explanation was exciting, but he immediately poured cold water on it.
“But what you can learn is at most enhancing properties. Imbuing is difficult for anyone without talent, no matter how much I try.”
Zegerof explained that imbuing attributes or concepts through mana was a skill only a few among the blessed could manage.
“It’s really, really difficult. I wonder if any of you will actually do it properly? Hmm… probably not.”
It was really tough right from the start…
He kept bringing up demoralizing words, and whenever he did, his gaze inevitably turned toward the male students—that was the annoying point.
It wasn’t just me feeling this way; other guys were also clenching their fists, their faces showing they wanted to punch him.
Zegerof saw it and smirked.
“Well, I’ll still show you a demonstration.”
He took out a thin wooden stick and a thick iron rod from his pocket.
“This is the iron rod, and this is the ordinary wooden rod. Wood can bend like this…”
Crack!
“It breaks easily even with just a little force.”
Zegerof bent the thin wooden rod in half and said while surveying the room, “To show you, I’ll need a volunteer. Who… who would like to volunteer?”