Jia Xiu had been under quite a bit of pressure lately.
It wasn't because the experiment to kill a Demonfolk had yet to succeed, or because the Demonfolk had already set their sights on him, or because there had been little progress on the magic computer research—
All right, he admitted those factors had contributed to some of the pressure.
But they weren't the main reason.
The main reason was that his thesis defense was starting to turn into a full-blown inquisition.
First, for some reason, Master Larven had taken an interest. That would have been fine on its own, but then, somehow, Aurelius had heard about it and said he would come back to watch. Then even the association's Ancient Dragon said he was curious.
It was already ridiculous by that point.
Yet whether Master Larven had been spreading the word, Dean Nico had done it deliberately, or Aurelius simply had a wide circle of friends, professors from other institutions and association consultants kept joining in one by one. Every few days, it was as if the dean had gathered another batch, and he would come by to tell Jia Xiu which new person had joined the defense panel.
Jia Xiu really wanted to ask whether there was no limit to this thing.
At this point, it was hard to say whether what awaited him was a thesis defense or an academic conference.
In terms of scale, it was certainly a far cry from an ordinary defense.
Jia Xiu didn't have any fond memories of defenses. In the end, he had quit school to work in games, rather than graduating smoothly and then changing careers.
He had thought graduating from Saint Dero would be no more than finishing an undergraduate degree. Since he'd also received special permission to graduate