As Yasuo looked up, he saw a student glaring at him angrily. As Yasuo had literally done nothing besides sitting in his seat and writing in his notebook, he got angry himself.
Yasuo gritted his teeth, but soon realised that lowering himself to that student's level wasn't worth it, which calmed him down.
Looking the angry student in the eyes, Yasuo decided to be the bigger person and, in a relaxed tone, asked : "What's wrong?" As he was genuinely curious as to what he could have possibly done wrong.
"What do you mean, what's wrong? You are in my seat buddy!" The angry students said, raising his voice.
Yasuo chuckled, as he had every right to sit in this seat, more than anyone here. Looking around, there were twenty or so students in the lecture hall, and not one of them were from the top ten.
Hearing Yasuo chuckle at him, the student got even angrier. "You think this is funny, huh?! Don't you! Yesterday the whole class decided on a seating arrangement. You weren't even here yesterday, so who are you to get to sit in the best seat?!"
Yasuo let out a sigh. 'How could someone become so angry about something so minor, ugh.'
"Who am I to sit in this chair, you ask? Well, who are YOU to ask ME to get out of this seat, which is rightfully mine." Yasuo said, taking out his student badge, signalling that he was from the top ten. 'I really didn't want to reveal this so that I wouldn't stand out, but he left me with no choice… This is such a hassle.'
The whole room, including the angry student standing in front of Yasuo, fell silent. No one could believe that Yasuo was the tenth ranking student as he had never really shown himself, but seeing Yasuo's badge made the students quickly accept the fact that he was a top ten ranking student.
The angry student looked even more annoyed and doubled down: "Then, why are you in a rune drawing class?"
Yasuo was dumbfounded by this question, even insulted by it. Feeling no obligation to answer such a question, Yasuo moved the student's hand from his notebook, slowly ripped the smudged page out and calmly started to rewrite it on a new page.
The angry student became even more annoyed by it, asking Yasuo a bunch more questions, but Yasuo decided to just ignore him and continued writing in his notebook, until the students finally gave up, taking a seat somewhere else.
While Yasuo was preoccupied with rewriting his notes, he didn't know the reason why the student suddenly gave up, but he soon found out when he heard footsteps in front of him going onto the podium and heard the voice of a teacher. "Welcome students, today will be a two hour lecture.
Yasuo strangely recognized the teacher's voice, even though he had never gone to the lecture before.
Out of curiosity, Yasuo immediately looked up to see a man he recognized. '…n-No way… t-That is master Mae Hoon, probably the most well respected and famous figure amongst rune type awakeners…'
The teacher, who also looked up, locked eyes with Yasuo. "Oh, a new face in class."
Hearing this instinctively made Yasuo stand up. "Yes. I am Yasuo Mun. Sorry that I wasn't at the lecture Yesterday, I had something I needed to take care of. I will make sure that I attend every lecture going forward, I will be in your care from now on." Yasuo politely said before bowing and sitting down again.
The teacher warmly smiled at Yasuo and acknowledged him, before quickly starting the lecture.
As it was a two hour lecture, a lot of information was given. The main topic that Yasuo could derive was: Ways to improve a rune's quality and grade.
As the teacher was carefully explaining topics one by one, the first half hour of the lecture went by relatively slowly, because it was all information that Yasuo already knew.
Information like: placement of the rune is important, proficiency and mastery is the number one deciding factor of a rune's grade, and so on.
Even though Yasuo already knew all of this, he still diligently wrote down everything in his notebook. But then suddenly Yasuo heard something, that he had never heard of before, making his pen jitter in his notebook.
"Strangely a lot of beginners don't know this, but when drawing a rune, mana is required. Many people start out using something like mana ink to substitute it, but that will eventually fall behind what an awakener is capable of. When drawing runes it is of the upmost importance to channel mana into your brush, which might be one of the most difficult things to do, but will also provide better opportunities to get higher grade runes."
Hearing this dumbfounded Yasuo, as he had never in his life heard of something like that, and also never read anything about this. But looking around, it seemed like all the students already knew about it.
'I can't believe it… How did I miss something so important?' Yasuo thought with a slightly upset expression. But luckily, that expression didn't last for long, as Yasuo positively shifted his mindset. 'That means I will be able to improve my runes again!'
Being curious to learn about this, Yasuo raised his hand.
"Yes, Yasuo." The teacher said, who immediately saw Yasuo's hand.
"When you say to that it is important to use mana while drawing a rune, does that mean that it is best to use as much mana as possible?" Yasuo politely asked. And it seemed as a reasonable question, as the other students kept quiet after Yasuo asked it, also wanting to hear the answer.
The teacher also looked pleased with the question and gladly answered. "Hmm, that is a difficult question to answer. At your guys' current level, it is best to use as much mana as possible. But if you get to a higher level, the answer would be no. This is quite the complicated topic, which I will explain in a future lecture. For now I can say that mana usage while drawing a rune is related to the true meaning of runes."
As the teacher had finished his explanation, all students could be heard murmuring. For Yasuo, this also brought up a lot more questions, but for now he got a good enough answer: 'Use as much mana as possible at my level.'
As the students quieted down, the lecture continued. And with a smile on his face, Yasuo listened contently as the lecture had proven to be useful.
At some point, the lecture's pace started to pick up and Yasuo could barely keep up with taking notes. Trying to catch up with writing everything down, Yasuo decided to concentrate on his notes for a few seconds, but then heard the teacher mention something that caught his interests.
"- the brushes I use are all of high quality. Okay, next topic."
Yasuo quickly put his hand up before the teacher could begin with his next topic.
"Yes, Yasuo?"
Having quickly put his hand up, Yasuo wasn't fully prepared to ask a question and just said the first thing that came to mind: "Can my brush be a limiting factor for me?"
Hearing Yasuo ask this question made the other students laugh and whisper amongst each other. "Yeah, sure. That must be why. Just blame it on your Brush." They said, mocking Yasuo.
While nearly all students were making fun of Yasuo, the teacher stood silently before the class with a stale expression on his face, waiting for the class to be silent again before answering Yasuo's question.
"Ahem, now that you guys have quieted down, I can answer this boy's question." He said with a certain disdain in his tone, directed towards the students who were making fun of Yasuo.
"A brush can indeed be a limiting factor for drawing runes, but all in all, your proficiency and mastery is the most important."
Yasuo understood, and politely nodded in response.
The teacher looked at the clock, before asking: "Yasuo, do you want to come forward and show me how you draw a rune?"
Having asked that question, students started whispering again, but this time in envy of Yasuo: "Wow, how lucky. He is going to get advice from master Mae Hoon."
While everyone seemed to really want to draw a rune before master Mae Hoon, Yasuo was hesitating. 'My runes won't work on objects, only on my body…'
But then, an idea popped up in his head when he saw a normal ink bottle on the table. "Uhm, sir. Can I perhaps just draw the rune with normal ink and without any mana?" Yasuo asked.
"…Yeah, that works fine." Mae Hoon responded after a brief pause.
With his only worry out of the way, Yasuo happily stood up, took out his brush and walked toward the teacher, who had prepared a piece of paper for Yasuo to draw a rune on.
The teacher looked at Yasuo and hesitantly asked: "Is that your brush? Your only brush?" to which Yasuo happily replied "Yes!".
With the teacher not asking any more questions, Yasuo dipped his brush in the ink and started drawing. 'I will draw the [Mana Circulation] rune.' Yasuo decided, as that was his most complex rune, where he could use the most help with.
Yasuo was immediately extremely focused, drawing the rune like he would at home, despite a full class and master Mae Hoon staring at him drawing the rune.
The room instantly fell silent, as they watched how Yasuo drew his rune. Fully entranced by Yasuo's 'demonstration', the minutes passed by quickly and Yasuo completed his [Mana Circulation] rune.
A few seconds of silence went by, before the student who was previously angry at Yasuo started clapping, which soon turned into an applause. The students who were previously mocking Yasuo, had gained a certain respect for him after seeing Yasuo's proficiency and passion in his rune drawing.
Mae Hoon also looked pleased, before giving his final verdict: "Excellently done Yasuo. The rune would probably have gotten an 'excellent' grade."
"Who of you are able to draw an excellent grade rune?" Mae Hoon asked the class, to which two students raised their hands.
Yasuo, who thought he was a step behind everyone in rune drawing, was surprised that only two students in the class could draw an excellent grade rune.
To follow up this question, Mae Hoon asked: "And if you had Yasuo's brush, could you also have drawn an excellent grade rune?" to which both students put down their hands.
Mae Hoon then looked at Yasuo and started explaining the importance of brushes, which opened up a whole new world to Yasuo. Mae Hoon explained that almost every rune scribe switches their brush multiple times when drawing a rune, using a thick brush for bold lines and a small brush to create small details.
"You are so proficient with this brush that you were still able to make the rune neatly, but if you had a smaller brush, it would be far easier to portray and accentuate the small details of the rune, which could improve its quality and grade." Mae Hoon said, closing of his explanation.
To Yasuo, who had been using a the same thick old brush for over a year, this was a lot to take in. He politely thanked Mae Hoon before sitting down again, quickly writing down this important piece of information while it was fresh in his head, while Mae Hoon slowly started the lecture again.
But for the remainder of the lecture, Yasuo couldn't follow it, being preoccupied with his own thoughts.
'I thought that a rune had to be drawn with one brush in a single sitting. How can I be so dumb? Why would a rune have to be drawn with only one brush?' '
Quickly moving on from thinking how stupid he had been to overlook that he could use different brushes, Yasuo was focused on thinking about how he could utilize different brushes to make his runes better.
*Ring - Ring - Ring*
Before Yasuo knew it, the lecture had ended and Yasuo started to pack up his stuff, quickly wanting to use the newfound knowledge of today to improve his runes.
"Yasuo do you have a minute?" Master Mae Hoon said, asking Yasuo to stay behind for a bit.