Competitors

"Many people objected to your joining the ranks of the teaching assistants. To get them to shut up, I had to temporarily assign you a dormitory in the student area. Once you've mastered the necessary skills, things will naturally change." Alona gestured toward the buildings stretching out before them as she explained.

He nodded. The reason was obvious to him. Strength was the most important measure of someone's worth. For the other teaching assistants, who had real ability, it was only natural to resent an inexperienced young man becoming an assistant responsible for teaching and nurturing students. It was unfair. To put it bluntly, he'd pulled strings to get the position, so he had to keep a low profile.

When she saw that he showed no sign of discontent, Alona nodded. After giving him a few brief instructions, she turned to leave. But before Lanlos could say goodbye, she suddenly asked, "By the way, how is that old coot Fergus?"

Fergus...

His step froze in midair. With his back to the door, his face was obscured by the light behind him. "Something happened in Golden Branch Village. The news should reach Silvermoon City soon."

Alona turned around. Her startled eyes fixed on the young man's motionless back, and for a long while, she said nothing.

"I-is that so?" Alona murmured, almost as if speaking to herself. "That stubborn old coot. If only he'd listened to me back then..."

"Ha, sorry. I didn't mean to bring up unpleasant memories. If you need anything else, let me know right away. I'll be going back now." Alona quickly reined in her emotions, gave a dry laugh, and waved with a flustered air before turning and leaving the room.

Even without looking, Lanlos could hear how heavy and unsteady her footsteps were. It was as if she were walking on blades of ice, each step landing on his heart.

Considering how little charm he had, Alona's kind treatment of him made it obvious that Fergus's letter of recommendation had been the key.

Old man, I never expected you'd help me so much in the end.

Lanlos held the same pose for a long time, the scattered footsteps echoing in his ears. He hadn't turned around. He hadn't dared to. He didn't dare find out how much Fergus had meant to Alona, or dwell on the grief and anguish that would overwhelm the victims' families and friends when they heard the news. He was afraid—afraid that if he closed his eyes, all he'd see would be the families crying out and demanding his life.

There was nothing he could do now.

But...

Bright green flames flickered in his eyes, and an irregular, cone-shaped crystal quietly appeared before him.

But he wasn't doomed to be useless forever.

After taking several deep breaths, Lanlos calmed his restless emotions, sat down, and took out the course materials and handouts Alona had given him. He began reading them carefully, line by line.

Alona had already made it clear that enrollment for the past few years had closed, so he was only going to learn under the title of teaching assistant. Still, he had to familiarize himself with the basic work procedures and responsibilities. As she'd said, he couldn't let her down.

The bright, beautiful sunshine not only woke the young men and women who'd come to study, but also the young elf who'd just joined the ranks of the teaching assistants.

It was always a good idea to leave people with the impression that you worked hard. Especially since he'd learned he could get paid, Lanlos had risen early that morning to prepare everything he needed. He reached the suspended corridor before anyone else.

No—not everyone else.

Lanlos pushed open the classroom door and froze. An elf in robes was arranging textbooks and teaching tools. "Who are you?"

"You're late." Without looking back, the elf focused on his task. Though he was only preparing for class, his meticulous attitude made Lanlos feel like he was in for trouble.

"Mentor Alona's class meets twice a week, and it always starts promptly at nine. As her assistant, we have to prepare the necessary materials and tools beforehand. But it's already past eight, so you have less than an hour. The apprentices will be arriving one after another. That's nowhere near enough time..." Paileron talked to the young man as he busied himself with the things on the desk, his voice devoid of emotion. No—he was lecturing him.

Rigid.

That was the word that came to Lanlos's mind. He immediately recalled Alona mentioning the truly rigid assistant who worked under her.

"Are you Lansan?"

"Lansan Paileron." The impassive elf finally looked up and stared into Lanlos's eyes, sizing him up. "I'm Mentor Alona's assistant."

He emphasized those last two words. Lanlos knew exactly what he meant. Though he resented it, the facts spoke for themselves: he really had gotten the job through connections.

He swallowed his irritation.

With a smile, Lanlos placed the handouts and course materials on the desk and held out his hand. "So you're Lansan, the one Mentor Alona praises to no end? Ha, I've heard so much about you. Compared with a senior like you, I'm inexperienced and still have a lot to learn. Whether it's work, study, or daily life, I'll be counting on your guidance and understanding."

Flattering others while putting yourself down might sound laughable, but it was one of the most common ways to break the ice in social situations. Human nature was narcissistic: people readily accepted praise but struggled to tolerate criticism. This kind of insincere trap often worked on people like that.

Unfortunately, Lansan didn't seem to be one of them.

"If you don't know what you're doing, don't mislead the students!" Lanlos's offhand attitude seemed to infuriate Lansan, and his voice turned heated. "Forget your ability. We're educators. We're shaping Quel'Thalas's future. This is a serious responsibility. And you? You haven't even got the right attitude. Where did you get the nerve to think you could do this job?!"

"Do you know what people are saying about Alona because of you? A beginner as an assistant? You're clearly unqualified, and you're only going to hurt her and the students! I don't know who recommended you, but they've got some nerve!"

"Ha." Though Lansan had a point, even the meek had their limits. Lanlos gave a cold laugh and looked at him with disdain. He didn't get angry or answer back. He simply stared at him in silence, his expression full of scorn and pity.

"What, you think I'm wrong?" Lansan had only meant to vent, and he soon realized he'd gone too far. But when he saw the mockery in Lanlos's eyes, anger flared in him.

"You're right." To Lansan's surprise, before he could go any further, the young man backed down on his own. But a brief retreat didn't mean surrender. It could just as easily mean he was gathering strength.

"You're right. I'm unqualified and have no business teaching theory. But if you think education means simply reciting what's in a book to the students, then I suggest you find another line of work."

"What did you say?!" Lansan was furious at being mocked by a newcomer who'd pulled strings to get the job. But just as he was about to grab Lanlos by the collar, the young man stepped back and went to the lectern.

"To me, education is a tree shaking another tree, a cloud pushing another cloud, one soul awakening another." Lanlos opened the handout he'd brought and picked it up, displaying the pages upon pages of closely packed notes.

"Anyone can teach by rote. Anyone can learn to read and write. But that isn't education. Those are just labels for the roles of mentor and student. They're only the basics."

"Sure, I don't meet those basic standards, and I can't be a mentor who teaches and nurtures students. But I understand exactly where I fit in. Or rather, that's precisely why I'm indispensable."

At some point, Lansan had taken the handout from the young man. He flipped through it again and again, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. The once-neat pages were now covered in lines and questions.

Some questions were meaningless, or so silly they were laughable. "Why do spellcasters all wear robes?" "What are staves and wands used for, and what's the difference between them?" "Why do you have to form a spell matrix to cast a spell?"

Other questions invited deeper thought. "Why does magic exist throughout space, yet remain invisible to the naked eye?" "Why does the magical light visible to the naked eye come in so many different colors—blue, purple, red, and even green?" "What's the difference between Arcane and magic?" "What social value does the development of magic actually bring?"

But most astonishing of all were the many questions that even he, a veteran who'd spent over a century as a teaching assistant, couldn't understand. "Is magic a wave or a particle?" "Is there a necessary connection between why magic exists within living creatures and their respiratory, digestive, and reproductive systems?" "If a space contains neither macroscopic life nor microscopic particles, can it still exist after magic is removed?" "Is the essence of spellcasting the conversion of energy into energy and matter into matter, the conversion of energy into matter, or the conversion of matter into energy?"

Questions like these ranged from simple to complex. They began from the perspective of an ignorant new student, progressed to that of a scholar seeking the truth, and even reached a level he couldn't understand.

"You wrote all this?" Lansan's voice trembled slightly.

"I read through this handout several times. I marked down the parts I found difficult to understand and the questions I had about every topic. Then, as I went through it and worked out the answers to those basic questions, more theoretical questions came to mind. But since the handout only covers the basics, it couldn't answer the deeper questions, so I started having all sorts of wild ideas."

"Some of them may be ridiculous, but I wrote them all down. I knew that if a beginner like me could come up with these questions, then the apprentices might ask them too."

In this world, the study of magic was inseparable from talent. Take Fastherin, for example: the basic requirement for admission was being able to channel magic. So in the kind of teaching Lansan knew, no one ever asked how to channel magic or why they could do it.

The curriculum did include lessons on theory and definitions, but the subject was dull, and it had no direct bearing on how many spells the apprentices could master or how much their abilities could improve. As a result, teachers naturally glossed over it. If the apprentices didn't press for answers, the mentors didn't explain further.

Ever since the Highborne had learned to use spell matrices, teaching magical knowledge had become a formulaic process. It was like painting: guide magic with your mind to form a spell matrix, activate it, and the spell was cast.

In Lanlos's eyes, this basic handout was like a textbook catalog of formulas. It focused on teaching students to recognize and apply them, while mostly glossing over how to understand them.

True, this approach could rapidly train large numbers of Magisters with formidable spellcasting abilities. But it did absolutely nothing to advance the field of magic as a whole.

No wonder such a large proportion of Quel'Thalas's people could cast spells, and lived for so long, yet there were only a handful of top Magisters—and the Grand Magister hadn't changed for thousands of years.

Of course, it was also possible that the social environment played a part. Fastherin existed to train spellcasting machines who could master Arcane magic. The advancement of scholarship came second to the nation's power and influence abroad.

Lanlos wasn't denying that Fastherin's approach had its merits. If he were studying on his own, he'd undoubtedly focus on memorizing the spell matrices for each spell through rote learning. The more he memorized and the more he thought about them, the more he'd use his brain. His mental abilities would grow stronger, and the quality and quantity of magic he could control would naturally increase.

But these questions weren't pointless. Practical skill and deeper understanding weren't mutually exclusive. At the very least, when curious apprentices asked questions like these, their mentors had a responsibility to explain and guide them patiently, rather than brush them off with "You'll understand when you're older."

Curiosity and interest were the true keys that opened the door to the mysteries of Arcane.

As Lansan flipped through the handout, the question marks Lanlos had written beside his analyses of magic's functions and effects seemed to take him back to when he'd first entered the world of magical knowledge, hundreds of years ago. When had education become nothing more than counting how many spells an apprentice had learned? When had his curiosity and desire to explore disappeared?

As he held the densely annotated book, a feeling of admiration rose in his heart, clashing violently with the insults he'd just hurled. The turmoil of conflicting emotions made it harder and harder to keep his hands steady.

"Stop shaking. I can't see anything."

The displeased complaint suddenly sounded through the empty classroom. Before the two of them could react, the air beside Lansan rippled, and Alona's figure slowly came into focus before their eyes.

Invisibility spell? So you've just been standing there watching the whole time?

Lanlos froze for a moment, then his face filled with bitterness.

Alona took the handout from the speechless Lansan and went through it carefully. Then she gave Lanlos a playful smile. "It's only been two days, and you've already come up with all these questions about the handout I wrote? You must have a pretty serious problem with my material."

When she waved the handout, Lanlos's expression grew even more bitter. "Don't get the wrong idea. I wrote this for myself. Every time I read it, starting from the beginning, I came up with some questions and worked through others. Then I'd use the answers I'd found to ask even more questions, over and over. I only did it to push myself and reflect on my progress. After all, I'm starting from zero."

That was right. If Lansan hadn't kept pushing him, Lanlos wouldn't have thought to show off any of this. The knowledge of demonology in his mind worried him. He was afraid his preconceived ideas about magic might lead him astray, so he'd written down every question, big or small.

Naturally, some of the words on the pages were tied to his previous life. This world didn't teach microscopic theory, let alone wave-particle duality. If Alona pressed him for an explanation, he wouldn't know what to say. Fortunately, intelligence in this world flourished everywhere, and Alona didn't seem to have reacted to the unfamiliar terms.

"To be honest, until you came here the day before yesterday, I thought the same thing: Fergus had recommended you just to give you a way to make a living." Alona flipped through the book again and again, the enigmatic smile on her face growing wider. "But now I've realized that maybe, just maybe, you're a little more remarkable than I thought."

"Alona." Seeing the young man win the mentor's approval, Lansan grew flustered. "Don't let him fool you. All he did was come up with a few questions..."

"But these are questions the apprentices have asked, and even I've wondered about some of them." Alona cut him off. After thinking for a moment, she continued, "This class is full of students who enrolled over the past two years. Let's start from the beginning today and find out whether they have similar questions."

"Get ready. Class is about to start." She made the decision without giving Lansan a chance to object.

As for Lanlos, he was grateful that she was clearly looking out for him by starting from the beginning, but he couldn't help complaining to himself. Students who'd been here for two years still counted as new? Wasn't their sense of time a little too extravagant?