Cross-Verification

"Ancestor?"

"An ancestor is naturally an ancestor... the eldest and most senior elder of our rat clan. Oh, right, its magic is also the strongest. I heard it even made one of the school's professors cry!"

At the mention of its own ancestor, Ding Dang Ear immediately became much more animated. It seemed unafraid to boast to these young wizards about all the glorious deeds and magnificent image of its clan's ancestor—perhaps it thought this would make the wizards, cats, and foxes before it respect it a little more.

Zheng Qing had his doubts.

Although the young wizard Lin Guo's eyes shone as he clicked his tongue in amazement at Ding Dang Ear's stories, while those foolish cats and silly foxes sat in neat rows with their paws tucked in, listening with great delight, the truth was far too distant from children like them who lived inside the walls. They had neither the means nor the interest to investigate and verify it in person.

That said, Zheng Qing was not openly doubting that some very old rat was the ancestor of these clothed, talking rats. He merely doubted what a rat would have to be capable of to make one of the school's professors cry. Besides, Ding Dang Ear's claims about its ancestor's age were also highly questionable.

According to Ding Dang Ear, their ancestor had been serving as the rat clan's mentor since thousands of years ago. Yet only a few minutes later, when mentioning the medieval Black Death that had swept through the Bading World, the rat orator claimed that it had happened before their ancestor had even come of age—because it wanted to portray that terrifying plague as the grave consequence of their ancestor casually throwing a tantrum as a child. But that instantly reduced the rat