"What are you doing?!"
Hearing Bruno's commotion, the students crouching by the muddy ground hurriedly stood up. "M-Mentor."
Bruno shot them a glare, then fixed his eyes on He Xi. The meaning was obvious: This is your method? Learning to croak like frogs?
He Xi ignored him, his Adam's apple shifting slightly.
"Croak-gulu—gulu-croak."
A deep frog call, carrying a strange rhythm and astonishing authenticity, emerged from his throat.
The next second, the giant frog that had been lazily sprawled in the mud, blowing bubbles, abruptly shed its slovenly posture and neatly drew its hind legs together at its sides.
Like a soldier awaiting inspection, it sat upright in the mud. Its half-lidded eyes opened fully, its frog face solemn.
"[Animal Communication]?"
Bruno blurted it out instinctively, only to reject the guess himself a moment later.
"No, there are no mana fluctuations."
Moreover, the essence of [Animal Communication] was to establish a mental connection. There was no need for the caster to imitate an animal's sounds at all.
"No spell connection... what did you use to establish perception?" The old mage could not hide the shock in his eyes.
He Xi withdrew his gaze and smiled. "Teach it to read."
Seeing the old mage's ever-changing expression, He Xi explained calmly, "But before making creatures with single-digit intelligence understand complex Common, wouldn't it be far more efficient for us, whose intelligence is at least two digits, to first learn their language?"
"Croak!"
Bruno opened his mouth, looked at the giant frog standing there like a post, then at the several students beside it who had been drawn over earlier and had begun learning along with He Xi. For a moment, he did not know how to refute him.
"You make it sound so easy... How could anyone possibly master frog language completely?"