"How could you know me without my name tag?" Ara hissed, her eyes calculative of her environment.
The students in the first two rows dashed to the backseat to avoid being on the receiving end of the crossfire.
'Although I don't need this, for the presentation I have to go through with it, how amusing.' Tenji sarcastically thought, exhaled, and focused his attention on giving them a show.
The faster he was done with his teachings, the better chance he would get to check if the sources were true about Maiyu's return to the academy and most importantly, in what condition?
Tenji eased his body and stood in a still motion, drawing the weakened spell formation he had created for the students in the air.
The green spell formation was bound by rotating glow circles.
Ara had expected the spell formation to get absorbed into his body, instead, she witnessed it zooming in her direction.
'What the hell?!' She ducked just in time before it could attach itself to any part of her body.
Sprinting almost immediately, she chose to channel her energy in an offensive mode while he stood–idle.
Aiming for his side, she planned on creating a little art she had prepared beforehand and place it on him in an attempt to catch him unawares.
Catching her open palm easily by the wrist, her head raised in shock to his deflection.
Clicking his tongue, he shook his head and whispered. "As per your question earlier, if I know your name personally, doesn't that also tell you, that I would know even if it's a bit of your ability or attacks?"
Ara's eyes widened and tried her best to pull away from his firm grasp.
In a fit to get herself free, she pulled and gilded below him.
To her dismay, he held her in place and had stopped her legs with his on a counter.
"The more you struggle, you might end up hurting your wrist or end on your ass."
Ara had not registered what he had said when she felt him kick on her legs, causing her to lose her balance and her wrist released so she could free fall.
Thud!
Landing on her buttocks, she grimaced and rubbed her wrists.
A loud cheer erupted from the students, they took it as his way of punishing her for the lewd drawing she had done on the whiteboard.
Most especially the female students watched with delight to see Ara sitting on the floor and engrossed in soothing her wrists.
"How..." She muttered and bit down on her bottom lip, her gaze still focused on her wrist so she could save her face and keep it cool at the same time.
Offering his hand to pull her up, he put up a smile in hopes of appeasing her with his little gesture.
Ara completely ignored his reach and pressed on the floor to get to her feet.
Drawing up the courage to ask, she raised her head slightly to lock eyes with Tenji, "how is it possible you could still deflect one of my secret moves even though the formation had not touched me?"
The classroom fell silent as this was the very question they needed answers to if they were to effectively use this in combat.
"The formation I had created was merely a diversion," Tenji said with a smile, calling on the formation to return when he opened his palm.
Spores were collected from different parts of the classroom, surprising some of the students when bits of it detached from every single one of them.
They let out gasps on how relatively possible it was not to notice it had been divided.
Ara could hear her mates murmur amongst themselves and she had wanted to look over her shoulder when she heard a fast-moving object from behind and sidestepped just in time to avoid yet another hit by the formation.
'Why am I a target?' Ara narrowed her eyes as the formation made a boomerang effect toward Tenji.
Catching the formation in his palm, it disintegrated upon his touch. "What you had seen it do was just a fraction of the true power of my experimental creation."
Ara stood awkwardly in front of him, feeling humiliated, and could rightly see why this mysterious teacher had unintentionally expanded his fame as far as her previous academy and numerous others she had known from her cousins in other parts of the city.
In her desperate need to know why such a talented person chose the one profession looked down on by other males, she had implored her parents for a transfer.
"Thank you for your participation in the demonstration, could you please return to your seat?" Tenji brought back her attention as he gestured towards her desk.
Timidly she gave a light bow before turning around towards the gestured direction to her right.
Brushing past her mates amidst their stifled laughs and stares in her direction.
Once she had taken her seat, Tenji adjusted one of the buttons on his black long-sleeved button-down shirt.
He realized it would only be a matter of time before he might pass out from exhaustion if he used his mana without rest after what he had endured in his home.
"Professor Tenji, you don't look well, are you sure you can continue with the class?" A male questioned at the last row, being the only one who had noticed a flash of distraught in Tenji's facial expression and his struggle to stand upright after the demonstration.
All the students' attention was drawn to the unfortunate student, "how dare you to try to jinx our beloved professor?"
"I just need a bit of rest," he gave a nod of acknowledgment and appreciation for the concern, especially from a male for a change.
"But that doesn't mean I can't explain what the formation does." He raised his index finger and chose to pick up the light marker to scribble his hypothesis with his formation.
'I can't use my mana and risk passing out or losing control.' His sweat dropped at the grim thought since it was tempting to take the easiest route with his magic.
All students furrowed their brows at how strange it was he had made use of the marker but said nothing as this had provided an opportunity they didn't get very often–a teacher's notes on the whiteboard would automatically transfer into the spellbook created for the class.
Ara had her hand curved above her eyebrows so she could hide and mask her presence after what she had endured in front of everyone, her head low and focused on her spellbook.
As she read through the words that automatically transferred with every line written by Tenji, her eyes doubles in size as she immediately caught on to what she had missed that led to her defeat.
*****
A/N
I do apologize for the delay in the release of the chapters as I'm juggling a busy life schedule, daily updates on my first book, and author's block, I just hope this makes up for it.
I would really appreciate your comments and support of this novel with your power stones. Your active comments would motivate me to write more chapters.
Discord server link which has the character reference of all main descriptions of my characters ┐
https://discord.gg/NhMzNqgzwn
¶ If you were in a class like this, what part of the activities would you wish you experienced?