Jia Xiu Was as Charming as a Succubus

"Someone handed in their paper?"

Piyede shrieked until his voice cracked, his face full of disbelief.

He had painstakingly exhausted every effort, staying up for who knew how many days to devise this impossibly difficult exam paper.

It contained everything he understood about spell-related questions, as well as the highest pursuit of his mathematical hobby.

How could any examinee finish so quickly? It had been less than an hour.

If he had not written the questions himself, even someone of his level could not have completed them that fast.

Impossible, absolutely impossible. It had to be because the questions were too difficult. The student knew they could not solve them no matter how hard they thought, so they simply chose to give up rather than waste time.

Right, that was it.

How could any examinee grasp the essence of his greatest achievement so quickly?

He was just scaring himself.

Still, to be safe, Piyede decided to see just how well this examinee had answered.

Saint Dero's method of handing in papers was also unique. As long as a paper was placed in the designated spot on the desk, a spell would collect it.

After being teleported a short distance, the paper arrived at the office's designated storage area for that examination site.

The academy also had no rule that papers had to be sealed immediately after submission or that no one could know who had completed which paper, so Piyede headed straight to the storage area to inspect the only paper there so far.

"Jia Xiu handed in his paper?"

At the same time Piyede screamed, Margaret nearly cried out as well.

Why had he handed it in so quickly?

Could Jia Xiu have chosen to give up the exam? How could he give up the exam?!

She had believed in him for nothing.

Was there even the slightest possibility that Jia Xiu had truly finished before handing it in?

Impossible. She herself had not fully figured out the last few questions.

But what if? What if...

He had quietly dealt with an undead creature that even she, his mentor, might not have been able to handle.

Margaret sat in the office, anxious beyond measure. She desperately wanted to go next door to the paper storage area and look at Jia Xiu's paper.

But she still had invigilation duties. Slacking off a little in the office was one thing, but leaving outright for the storage area next door would be inappropriate.

Time passed second by second.

Margaret herself found it strange that she was so nervous. She had not even been this nervous when she took the exam herself.

No, where had Professor Piyede gone? He was only looking at a paper. Why was it taking so long?

Whether the answers were good or bad, say something already.

Finally, after Piyede had been gone for nearly twenty minutes, movement came from next door.

Not just a little sound, but a huge commotion.

"A genius! He's simply a genius—"

The professor's impassioned, hoarse shout echoed down the corridor.

This was followed by hurried footsteps, with a stumble mixed in somewhere along the way.

Then the office door was violently pushed open.

Professor Piyede stood in the doorway, his eyes wide as saucers and his hair a complete mess, clearly from all the head-scratching he had done just now.

"Would you believe it?!"

It was as though he had made some major discovery and could not wait to share it with everyone else.

"That Jia Xiu answered everything! Every single question! Even my latest research, he proved it too! In one hour—less than one hour!"

"Professor, could he have read the paper you published in the journal beforehand?" a young mage asked.

Another lecturer interjected, "How could an examinee read journals before even enrolling? And it could not have been a spell journal either. He would have had to read a mathematics journal."

"Who knows?"

"No, he didn't," Piyede denied the other teachers' speculation. "My paper only provided one method of proof, but he gave two on his paper. Two! How could he give two proofs?"

Hearing the professor's words, the invigilators in the office all reacted differently.

Some were shocked, some were puzzled, and some secretly delighted.

Margaret was one of the secretly delighted ones.

You said you would see what happened if someone managed to prove it. Now someone really had, and you were unhappy instead.

She now felt that the one thousand krona she had invested in Jia Xiu was absolutely the best money she had ever spent in her life.

She had struck gold. Once Jia Xiu entered her laboratory, who knew how much help he could provide? These next few years were the critical period for her application to the Larven Outstanding Young Spellcaster Fund. She desperately needed a student like Jia Xiu, with exceptional talent in both spells and mathematics.

When she imagined the future—herself becoming an Outstanding Young Spellcaster, then an Exceptional Young Spellcaster, then an academy fellow of the Association Research Institute, while Jia Xiu also achieved success in his studies and the two of them became a pair of fellows, turning into a legendary tale in the spellcasting world—she could not help wanting to laugh.

However, Margaret's sneaky grin lasted less than two seconds before she could no longer smile.

"Quick, go find out where Jia Xiu lives. I need to see him immediately."

Piyede ordered his assistant.

"I've finally found him—the student I've dreamed of! May the God of Magic bless me!"

Margaret froze.

Was Jia Xiu a succubus or something?

First Emilia, and now Professor Piyede. How many more professors would he attract during the later rounds of the exam?

She regretted it. One thousand had been too little. If she had known, she would have signed a magic contract with him right away and locked him down first.

Now, she could not compete with Emilia in family wealth, nor could she compete with Professor Piyede in spells. She had no advantage left!

What should she do?

Watching Piyede's hurriedly departing back, Margaret was frantic with anxiety, yet she could not leave.

She had been here first...

At that moment, Jia Xiu had taken Bubu out for a good meal.

They had eaten at the inn for the past few days. Now that the exam was over, they had to eat at a proper restaurant to celebrate.

Of course, he would be the one eating. Bubu was merely changing locations to read knight novels.

Larven did not have restaurant reviews, so Jia Xiu chose somewhere nearby and entered the restaurant across from the inn.

When you had money in your pocket, you got bold. Sitting by the window, Jia Xiu did not even look at the menu. "Bring us a few signature dishes."

While waiting for the food, he noticed Bubu staring intensely at the neighboring table.

"What are you looking at?"

"That looks really tasty."

"Which one?" Jia Xiu followed Bubu's pointing finger and saw that the neighboring table was eating ice cream. "Excuse me, we'll have one serving of ice cream first."

The cream-based ice cream covered in blueberry sauce soon arrived.

Bubu excitedly scooped up a huge spoonful.

"Ahm..."

"I can't taste it."

Bubu's little bean eyes curved, and her disappointment was obvious to the naked eye.

"It's fine. Your boss will think of something. I'll figure out an ice cream you can taste."

"Really?"

"Trust your boss..."

Just then, a voice suddenly rang out from the street. "Is examinee Jia Xiu here?"

Hearing someone call his name, Jia Xiu turned to look.

A little old man with wildly frizzy hair and beard stood at the entrance of the inn, looking completely unhinged.

"Boss, do you have enemies here?"

"Probably... not?"

Perhaps the old man's perception was unusually sharp, because he suddenly whipped his head around, spotted Jia Xiu inside the shop across the street, and immediately jogged over.

He grabbed Jia Xiu's hand. The sincere, clear gaze in his eyes was so intense that Jia Xiu felt his scalp tingle.

He doesn't have some unusual hobby, does he?

"You're Jia Xiu?"

Jia Xiu shook his head.

"You are Jia Xiu!"

If you know who I am, why ask?

Bubu's little hand was already resting on the Judgment Sword. Jia Xiu was touched, but he would have preferred Bubu to prepare a spell rather than draw her sword.

The newcomer was naturally Professor Piyede. His voice trembled with excitement. "How did you figure out, in such a short time, how to prove that every differentiable extremum point of a differentiable function is a stationary point?"

He was referring to the final major question on the written exam.

"Are you from Saint Dero?"

"I'm the head of the question-setting team."

"Ah, hello, Professor." Jia Xiu pondered how he should answer. He could not exactly say that he knew Fermat's Lemma because he had learned it in his second year of high school. "Uh, inspiration. Inspiration struck all at once."

"Exceptional mathematical intuition! How wonderful! Become my student. With your talent and my knowledge, we can surely create an entirely new subfield in mathematics."

"Thank you for your appreciation, but I'm more inclined toward the field of spells."

Jia Xiu knew himself well. With mathematics, he had merely learned a lot. It was not as though he truly possessed any talent for it.

"I know spells too!"

"I'm still not sure whether I can pass the later rounds." Jia Xiu chose to continue declining tactfully.

"I can admit you through special enrollment!"

He froze.

Jia Xiu suddenly did not know what to say. This old professor might indeed be highly capable, but he could not stand Margaret up. He was not that kind of person.

After thinking it over, Jia Xiu came up with a good idea.

"Professor, how about this? I have a question I'd like to ask. As long as you can clear up my confusion, I'll definitely study under you."

"That's wonderful."

In Piyede's eyes, this student was already his. Geniuses always had a bit of pride. He even wanted to test his teacher—how interesting.

"The question is this: do you think that when the integer n > 2, there exist integer solutions such that x^n + y^n = z^n?"

"That question, well—"

Piyede stopped halfway through his sentence, suddenly stunned. His expression gradually became solemn.

"Good question, good question. It really is a good question. Give me a few days. Wait a few days for me..."

Then he left the restaurant, muttering to himself.

Watching the professor leave, Jia Xiu sighed. "Bubu, tell me—if number theory and geometry make great advances in the future, should some of the credit go to me..."