Jiuyou Academy.
Dean's Office.
Old Yao sat behind his broad desk, patiently and meticulously packing tobacco into his pipe. Slender golden dragons struggled and howled at the old wizard's fingertips, yet were stuffed bit by bit into the pipe bowl without the slightest power to resist.
It was extraordinarily tiny, yet somehow breathtaking.
Professor Yao's gaze, however, was not on the tobacco or the pipe. Instead, he tilted his head back, narrowed his eyes, and stared at the shifting smoke above him. Fleeting scenes flashed through the haze, and his eyes were full of emotion. "No wonder everyone wants to become a legend. If you aren't a legend, how could you know where life's true splendor lies?"
"Being a legend means responsibility and duty, not peeping at students' gossip!"
A reproachful voice rang beside the dean's ear. The next moment, Professor Emma's imposing figure filled the previously somewhat empty office once more. Dark red and silver-white divided the room into two sharply distinct halves. "If you have spare energy to watch children playing house, you might as well spare some concern for Edge Academy's project."
Professor Yao finally shifted his gaze away from the smoke overhead.
"Am I allowed to participate in that project now?"
There was a trace of amusement in his gaze as he looked at Professor Emma. "Besides, I wasn't peeping at students' gossip. I was comprehending the true essence of magic... just like what you told me in this office last time: 'Sacrifice is an ancient form of magic, one that follows the principle of Equivalent Exchange.' The principle of Equivalent Exchange exists everywhere in the magical world."
He seemed to be teasing the "Equivalent Exchange" that had just occurred between the two young witches on campus.
Or perhaps he was emphasizing something else.
Professor Emma