This was his favorite lessen, the deep self dive into history. The class buzzed with anticipation, they have heard from many people that this assignment was amazing to do and so much fun to research. One class gets this assignment, his advanced history students, would be given a paper to write. "Now there are four weeks to write this paper on anything that is not in this book." He would set down his personal binder of history events. "Either you will be able to create a story that I can believe and dig more into and prove wrong. Which will give you a passing grade or better, the more believable the story the higher grade. And if you don't lie and find a new story, it is an automatic passing of the semester. There are no requirements on the length of the paper. Take your time, as there will be nothing else for this class until the due date of these papers are in."
The class shouted in applause and looked through the booklet. It covered every single major history event known to man. Spilling secrets behind everything from the ancient Egyptians, Greek, Romans to more modern things like the outbreak and the latest of proxy wars. Even having some from other countries. These stories covered every waking hour of history. Featuring past students and their assignments and even some of Astral's old assignments. It was the perfect blueprint for the students to follow. Many would take turns looking at it, shooting pictures of some of the assignments. It allows the students to go all out on their project and show their passion for history. "In the meantime, if you want to come into lectures for the next month I will be open to teaching about any of these, you can work on your project if you want. These lectures are for those who want to keep learning. Hell even if you come to these lessons and work on your projects. Having me be your background noise is fine."
His students praised him and smiled. Saying that he is the best professor that they all have ever had. He thanked them all for the high praise. During the month he would mainly sit around in the lecture room. walking around and helping other students in their various classes while working on grading assignments from his other classes. All of his students would show up and ask him if they could lecture about some of his adventures while finding out about more on the papers in the binder that he has done.
He was more than excited to share each and every story, each student would be staying engaged and asking several questions. Asking about his travels to several countries and how he got along with the locals. How many oral stories has he heard and how he does it. He would answer each one thoroughly. Telling them that he takes time to learn a new language before traveling to a new place, having learned twelve languages already while willing to learn more. He showed them many pictures of his travels and some of the more extravagant things he had done in the past.
Each student was so wrapped up with his class and enjoyed it to the fullest. Hearing his stories inspired them to find new sides of history. They dug deep into themselves. Constantly finding new material to research and more avenues to explore. Each of his thirty upper level students wanted to add their name to that binder and add to the experience of history. They all felt like it would be the most rewarding thing to be a part of some major legacy.
Once the month passed he asked for all of their papers. Each of his students would hand him paper booklets, varying from ten to fifteen pages each. With one being considerably larger than the rest. "It looks like everyone has turned in a paper. Take your time next week off, I know most of you have tough midterms coming up. Use my class as a study session. Help each other out when having problems. I will be using this class next week to read each and every one of these papers for this class, and if you have questions for any other classes I can still help. One good thing about working here is that I haven't stopped my quest for knowledge. I'm quite well versed in most classes."
One of his students came up and hugged him saying thanks. He hugged them back. His class all thanked him and he dismissed them for the day. However they stuck around and worked on their other classes until they had to leave. He would read each and every paper for the next week. Reading about seven of them a day each one intrigued him into furthering more research into the project. Each one had its own twist or pushed in element that made it unique. Exploring each paper would take him several days if his desk didn't have three monitors all running at once. each of them finding facts that verified almost every paper. With his work arounds and vpn's he was able to explore every topic and get them added to the binder.
Each one of these topics seemed like a sub branch of stuffrom his binder. Each student found something and became more focused and honed in on something that drove them. One of his students focused on the slave uprising featuring Spartacus. A different student explored the side of the romans during each of the triumvirate periods. Students working together in union seems to be a popular thing among each of these papers. As two students found stories about the Berlin wall both of them from each point of view. A different student talked about a man made of flames in Vietnam. Highly fascinated he would see all of these stories linked to the same theme, each time the body disappeared.
Another student would track down everything of ancient gods and deities giving an example for each and every one having influence on daily life. Covering everything from the Norse, to the Egyptians, featuring the Buddhist and hindu gods and deities could have been its own paper. The similarities between the Greek and Romans. The Chinese, Korean and Japanese mythos. It seemed so detailed like it could be real and that this student explored each aspect of them to try and find out what caused each one to come into existence. The constant turns and notes from each of these topics could each be its own paper. Astral was impressed. Adding it to the front of the binder for how much it covers in such a small paper.
Seeing how creative all of the students were. Each one wanted to expand the history binder even if it wasn't perfect for their standards. Each one found a new side of the story. Most of them sharing ideas with each other, allowing for the branches of history to be filled in more. Two of them caught his eye. With one day left in the week he had to read the two of them. Both were new to him. One about the history of Chinese communist parties. It explored every major power shift as well as any events that happened. All the way from the incidents in world war two from the tyrannical punishments of the country.
The other paper was a bit different, it was on a US military project that went rouge, called Project Star. He finished the communist description, fact checked it and adding it to his binder and marking off his student for a new thing of history. The big booklet of Project Star remained.
It featured images of documents he has never seen, as well as pictures of many of the things that Project Star was involved with. He was marveled by it. Staying up all night finding out more and more. Seeing an overlap of projects between the last two projects and seeing their connector. Whatever Project Star was, it made him so interested, if it was fake, it was one amazing story, if it was real, there was a shroud of mystery that felt like he was connected to it. He passed that student as well before adding it to the binder. He would keep digging deeper and deeper into the giant rabbit hole known as Project Star. Seeing how it's caused so much pain and death. It was well into the morning on Saturday before he went home. Alot of the research he had to backdoor into to find more information. He needed to ask the student more about the project. He was so wildly fascinated that his heart was fluttering. He was wildly confused about each and every part of the story he wanted to see the student to receive more clarity on the matter.
He felt like this project was different somehow, the way it related to him on some weird level. There was this weird tingle added to him that he couldn't shake, and with his gut feeling usually being right. He felt like it would be right to