"Apologies for being late," Elior said, peeking his head inside the classroom. Beside him, Shin did not look a bit apologetic, even though the reason for their late arrival was none other than him. But Elior did not blame him—after all, he had nothing to learn from the Elementary magic class.
Professor Sarah looked at the two of them and then looked at the clock. Her eyebrow was raised instantly. "You two are fifteen minutes late," she said. "If it was professor Aleister, he would have cut 10 points from you, but I'm more lenient for today. But if you came late any other day, I'll cut double the points. Now sit down in your seats."
Elior nodded and went straight to his seat. Ileana was already present, taking notes on her Hollowbook. Shin followed, though he took as much time as he could.
"Why are you late?" Ileana hissed at him.
"We were just busy getting yelled at by an instructor," Elior said.
"I reckon your best friend did something stupid again?" Ileana whispered. "What is it this time? Did he run around, yelling? Waste food? Or get into a fight?"
"None," Elior said, laughing. "Apparently, a few girls reported him for harassment though he did nothing other than verbal."
"Did he fall that low?" Ileana said, giving a judging look to the boy with piercings and red and blond dyed hair.
"It was not my fault," Shin said and saw the look of Elior. "Well, it was not entirely my fault. Elior was similarly condemned for this."
"Come on, it is your fault for not taking the hints," Elior gawked at him. "And who told you to go after so many girls on the first day?"
Ileana raised her eyebrow at them, asking for more. Their talking did not explain the situation entirely. But her wish was not fulfilled.
"You three there stand up," Professor Sarah said with an angry scowl. In every class, she found a few disobedient students like that—it was probably because of her low experience or she was not imposing enough.
Ileana squinted her nose and gave a slight glare to Shin—as if it was entirely his fault. She stood up and was followed by Elior and Shin.
"Tell me what you need to look after if you want to cast an elementary spell?" she asked.
"It depends actually," Ileana started. "First is the focus and—"
"I did not ask you," the young teacher asked. "I asked the boy with the stupid expression on. Tell me what you need to look after while casting a spell?"
"You need to look after your focus," Shin said. He did not know if it was unconsciously or he was so used to others calling him stupid.
"And?" Professor Sarah raised one of her brows.
"Concentration," Shin said. "And mana."
The teacher clicked her and moved to Elior. "You tell me the boy with an annoyed expression."
"I'm not annoyed," Elior said. It was his bored look. "And for the answer, it needed some focus and precision while casting the formula and uniform mana flow. You can do it with nonuniform mana flow as well, but it would create problems with the spell, and learning higher-order spells will be close to impossible with that."
"At least some of you studied," Sarah said. "But this was a simple question. Tell me, if a person has 40 units of mana left, and the place he is in a place that has the mana density of 0.44 standard Axis unit, with fire the density of fire element is 0.87 in it, then how many elementary fireballs can he cast?"
The teacher had a rather smug face when she finished her question. Clearly, she knew there was no way for Elior to answer this correctly.
"This question is rather vague," Elior said with a straight face. "You did not mention many important elements that would be useful in calculating the problem. Such as that person's affinity towards fire element, the level of mana application, the level of focus, and most importantly the level of spell mastery. There are other factors too, but those have marginal effects."
"Take yourself as the standard and answer my question," she asked. Her brows were arched.
"That would be a little tricky," Elior said and found Ileana had already started calculating. He shook his head and took her hollowbook and pen from her. "Thank you."
Only after a few seconds, he answer, "Assuming my mana would not recover during the process, the least number of elementary fireballs I could cast would be 9 and the highest would be 14."
"That doesn't make sense," the young professor said. "Even the higher I could go is around 10, considering I do not have a high affinity to fire element. Give me the hollowbook, I would like to look at what type of calculation you have made."
"You can, though I don't know if you understand my handwriting." Elior gave the device and remained standing.
The blonde professor frowned instantly as she gazed into the device. "This is the most terrible handwriting I have ever seen in my career."
"My father is a doctor," Elior said. "I guess that could explain a little about it."
The young professor glared at him for justifying his terrible handwriting. She even thought he had purposefully done it, so that she could not judge it. Other than the marginally readable handwriting, she could not make sense out of the calculation. She thought it was because she could not read entirely, but the far she could understand the calculation did make sense, assuming the high level of mastery in the level this boy had put in intentionally.
"You have Level 12 in mana application?" she asked, as bewildered as a moth to the fire.
"You don't have to praise me in front of everyone. At least think about the poor kids."
"You are getting on my nerves now," she said, her glare piercing him entirely. "How can I assume you reached level 12 in mana application in just three weeks? Even some of the upperclassmen have not reached that level."
"There are a few factors into it," Elior said seriously. "Coupled with me being a genius, and more hardworking than anyone here."
"Or you could be a liar," Sarah said. "I have seen many during my learning years and teaching years. Students who show off their ability on the basis of lies."
Many students snickered in the class with a few laughter breaks as well. Most of them were taking pleasure in others' misfortune. Elior put no mind to them and even if he did, he did not blame them. They were just teenage kids—high on hormones and low in intelligence.
"Oh, boy," Ileana hissed, waiting for the drama to unfold. She could vividly imagine what Elior would say in the next moment.
Elior released a deep breath self consciously. "Professor Sarah," he said. "Remember, there are many things about me that can turn out to be false, but Liar is not one of them.
"The sun may not rise tomorrow, but know this, I Do Not, Can Not, Will Not, Lie."
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Hey fellas, a big thank you for the votes. I really appreciate it.