Chapter Thirty-Four: Panic Again
Zenith placed his glowing hand on Layla's legs and helped the essence to circulate. The light soaked into her skin and a green light shone before it vanished.
Layla's cheeks heated up at the sudden skin contact but when she noticed the relief in her legs, she jumped to her feet and tried to walk.
"Um… thank you, Sir. Is that healing—"
"No. I gave you part of my essence." Zenith sighed as he remembered having the same conversation with Alexandria the day before.
Layla nodded, looking at her legs, she realized she could speak normally to him without feeling scared. Was that character development on her own part or he became less scary?
"I'm really sorry I came late then stayed on the ground like that…"
"As I said, I always find you in embarrassing situations so this is normal for me now." Zenith said, before returning to the class.
Layla paused, and she felt like her self worth just crumbled in front of her. He always found her in embarrassing situations? Was their first meeting one of them? She started panicking again.
Not only had she messed up multiple times beyond his forgiveness, but she also had hammered it into his subconscious that she was a boring and filler student.
She wanted the ground she once laid upon to wrap her in its sandy hands and aid her disappearance.
"Layla Herbert! Class!" Zenith called.
She looked up and nodded. "Sorry, sir."
She ran towards the class and bowed in shame as she walked in, she met the class quiet and everyone looking ahead, like they were possessed.
"Ah!! The Dark Mage had gotten to them already!" she ran to Alexandria. "Alex! Alex! Are you okay—"
Zenith pulled her back, holding her hair which was the closest thing he could reach when he suddenly jolted from her scream. "Are you normal, Layla Herbert…?"
Alexandria and Nephis' stared at him, and then at Layla. Her scream had snapped them back to reality, even Nephis was almost asleep on her desk and done with the reanimation. Nephis instantly sped to Zenith and pulled Layla and her hair from his hold.
Alexandria turned from Layla to the teacher and then to Nephis, who glared at the teacher. He frowned. "What'd you think he did to her? I remember Layla screaming like an idiot again—" He paused. "Sorry."
Zenith sighed, rubbing his temples and returning outside the class. He should've left her on the ground.
Layla noticed the rest were still in a daze and she whispered to Nephis, asking what's going on. She should've known that the Dark Mage wouldn't have reached here, even herself embarrassed her too.
"The reanimation." Alexandria said when he heard the question. "You're really annoying. I should've gone over that for the tenth time before snapping back."
Nephis smirked, folding her arms. "I went over it twelve times before snapping back myself. Did you have a hard time adjusting?"
Alexandria scoffed. "Of course not. It's not just a movie so I took my time to learn, not speedrun it."
As they spoke, Layla fell to her seat besides Nero. He was still in a daze, everyone else was. She looked outside the door and sighed.
Sir Zenith might really kill her this time, if she went to him to ask for a reanimation of her own. To be fair, she didn't need it and should only focus on healing.
As she shared at the door, she noticed a white ball of energy floating towards her. She knew it was the reanimation from yesterday.
He'd be giving her too? She smiled widely as it seeped into her head, her smile faded as she fell into a daze.
Zenith returned to the class and pulled Alexandria and Nephis, as their talk had turned to an argument. He wrote on the white board, 'Meet At The Field.' so that any student that awaken could join them.
He also casted a sensing spell in case something happened while he was away.
"We'd be starting the practical you need for today." He said to the two who followed him. "Can you remember the weapons each student wanted?"
He took one of his band unannounced and the two students jumped back on impulse. Zenith paused and turned to them. "Sorry about that. I'd be recreating each weapon with ice, it's easier with a high rank."
Alexandria nodded and hurried to his side. "You can create with ice? Have you maxed the Ice Element?"
Back to his questions again? Zenith sighed, and took out another band, leaving him at SS-Rank. "I maxed it at SSS-Rank. The Ice element is a natural elemental magic so not very hard to max out. It depends on the quantity of your essence too."
Alexandria nodded, thinking of how his own element was also an natural element, which means he could really grow with it and maxed it soon enough.
Meanwhile, behind them, Nephis stared at the teacher and student quizzically. The presence of the mage had become suffocating but she got used to it. Alexandria seemed to have adapted quickly.
Could it be because he was kidnapped by an SSS Dark Mage and stayed in his very evil fortress for hours? Could that have trained his body a bit?
"So he wasn't totally exaggerating the intensity of his kidnap, eh?" She came to the teacher's side and noticed the twin swords stuck on the ground.
Zenith stooped towards it and wondered if he should make it thicker and sharper.
"No, I should let it be this way so it'd not kill anyone." He smirked. "It'd definitely prick the skin though. Should I make it blunter?"
Nephis turned to him. Did he ask for their opinion? He didn't think he'd be the type to care what they'd think. She turned to the twin swords. It'd take Nero a while to be able to master the Ice element to that level.
"No, the sharper, the better, but you wouldn't want to make it too sharp." Alexandria glanced at Nephis. "In case Nephis dances to the tip of the blade suddenly."
She scowled and taunted back. "You are the one with glass eyes that can't see properly!"
Zenith raised a brow, glass eyes? The people of Guandan see the blue eyed people as being pretentious and fake, because they had eyes that mirrored the sea and its turbulence.
It didn't make sense to Zenith. One minute that race was in love with the sea and ocean, the next, they're insulting the creatures in it and calling the sea cursed for housing fishes instead of the true water people.
To avoid excessive injuries, Zenith made the edges of the twin swords blunt. They were hard enough not to break immediately they're hit.
With enough pressure, they'd give way. That'd mean failure for whoever lets their weapon break.
They'd have to protect themselves and their weapons from getting hit, quite a sadistic training but he hoped to enjoy it.