The door slowly opened, behind it was a normal classroom full of kids. Many of them were lively chatting with another, just like any normal class whose teacher hadn’t shown up yet. Only a few people looked over to the door, while most others didn’t care and continued with whatever they were doing. However, those who had taken a look, seemed as if they had seen a ghost, their faces displayed an image of blank yet terrified eyes their pupils were shaking in an unusual manner.

“Wulan!”

One of these terrified students let out a voice, it was obviously not his intention to cry out because right after he used his hands to seal his mouth as if he had said the name of some evil god. 

The rest of the class turned their eyes there as well. 

“Wulan? Isn’t he the laughingstock of the whole city? Why are you acting so weird?”

Some of the students turned their heads away because it was “just another student” others laughed as they saw the “trash of Gore city”, however, the most exaggerated response was the people who were present at the exam prior. As they saw him, their reaction was the same as the boy who said “Wulan!”, they froze up and their expressions torted into ones of fear.

Not being able to understand the reason for their reaction, another kid asked the one who cried out earlier,

“What’s going on? Why is Wulan in our class, he could never pass the test! This person is the greatest laughing stock in the history of Gore city and the weak disgrace of the Red Molin clan after all.”

“Shut up!! You don’t know it since you took the exam yesterday but this guy is no trash, he is a monster! Keep your voice down if you don’t want to get killed.”

The whole classroom became noisy, one part was looking at Wulan with anxious expressions and the other part was laughing at those people.

The reason for that was that only a few people of the thirty present came from the test today, most of them had participated in a different test that took place yesterday. 

Gore city had more than fifty thousand inhabitants, so there was no way to examine all the potential new students on one single day. Most of the people who were accepted had participated in the test yesterday, while today only twenty people passed. 

The two reasons for the difference in accepted students was first, that most of the students took the test on the first day already and only those who failed yesterday tried again on this day. The second reason was that the test on this day was more difficult than the one yesterday.

“This seems to be my class, I wonder who my teacher will be… well, he isn’t here yet, but he will probably arrive soon.”

Wulan ignored all the attention that was focused on him. He had already surveyed the whole room with the first glance, so there was really no reason for him to keep standing there.

Some of the faces present were familiar, those were the same people who passed the same test as Wulan and also the ones who witnessed Wulan kill Wyknus.

‘Hmm, where shouldI sit? Somewhere in the back would be good, I think. With my perception abilities following the lessons won’t be a problem even if I sit in the very back. And while they talk about all the stuff I already know, I will already study everything I need. After all, if it comes to knowledge, there isn’t a thing that this academy could teach me. The ones who taught me were the most talented, knowledgeable and wise people there were. I don't expect much from this teacher who is coming. He should at least let us borrow the library once in a while, not much hope of learning element control in this small academy.’

Wulan wouldn’t have ever attended if he wasn’t in dire need to get his mind straight and let him control both Magus and Martial arts. Having already got the basics of Mana with the help of the Brill Ore, now he has another complicated situation of not being able to control elements..

He stared at the ceiling while reminiscing about the past and recalling his teachers, all kinds of faces appeared in front of his inner eye, all of them were the greatest experts during the time of the war and Wulan was taught by every last one of them.

As mankind's greatest hope against the Demon Monarch, of course they would try to make him the strongest man there could be. Being the teacher of humanity’s savior, how could any of the experts resist such a temptation? 

Wisdom and knowledge were also a kind of strength, so Wulan studied all kinds of different things. How could he, the “Martial Monarch”, be taught anything in such a little school? 

“Ey!”

A voice right next to Wulan forcefully interrupted his reminiscing.

“Mind to step down from my foot?”

While he wasn’t paying attention Wulan stepped on the foot of a boy that sat with his feet in the way. Maybe he was doing it on purpose, but it could also be that he did so without thinking about it. And, indeed, Wulan had stepped on his foot without realizing.

The kid had a chubby face and brown eyes, his hair was glittering in the sunlight, it looked a bit strange. Even though he had a chubby looking face he looked pretty muscular, this kind of body was unusual among Magus, after all, they weren’t fighting with the power of their raw strength. 

‘Is he a Martial Artist? No, he is Magus, so why does he have such a body?’

“What are you staring at? Are you not able to hear me?”

There was a great unrest in the class, especially amongst those who witnessed Wulan kill Wyknus just a bit of time prior. 

“Oh no! Did Wulan purposefully step on his foot?”

“Does he want to provoke a fight? Wait, we are in a classroom right now, he can’t, right?”

“Ah, ah, he-he won’t right? Wait, he already killed Wyknus, but he won’t kill someone for just being in his way right?”

The unrest transformed into a big commotion, some of them had a bad feeling, others were afraid and some were looking forward to a fight. Well those were the ones who didn’t know that Wulan literally killed someone.

While the ones who didn’t saw the fight between Wulan and Wyknus were perplexed. They casually asked what happened just to hear something unbelievable from them...

“I’m sorry.”

Wulan apologized to the kid and took his seat in the corner of the last row. 

The classroom was surprised for a bit, they had speculated that all kinds of things could happen, but after what they had heard, they didn’t expect Wulan to just apologize. 

He quietly closed his eyes while leaning against the back of the chair, he didn’t care about what all the people gossiped about.

‘What is that all about? Am I a kind of demon lord or why are you thinking that I would kill someone just because of this. I was the person who stepped on his feet, so it is the right thing to do to apologize. Well, I know quite a few people who were that arrogant, but well, they are dead now. Arrogance doesn’t serve you well, it doesn’t have any benefits, it is only a big character flaw, a weakness.’

Even though Wulan was the “Martial Monarch” and was hailed as the savior of humanity, he didn’t become arrogant. It’s not like he had a low self esteem, no, he was rather confident in himself, but it was at a “healthy” level. 

‘No, weaknesses, no flaws, the strongest fighter there is, the ultimate human… Was that what Lenko wanted me to be? If you wanted me to be the best human there could be, why did you never let me experience something as humane as going to school with other kids, like right now? …’ 

“Listen up!! New Years! Pay attention!”

Together with this voice, the whole class immediately quieted down and 

+Wulan opened his eyes as well. 

Someone entered the class while speaking loudly, his voice was obviously one of a teacher, it carried authority but also a sense of heaviness as well. Deep in his eyes, Wulan could trace worry, but he was hiding most of it. Actually, it seemed that he was someone Wulan already knew. 

‘It seems that my teacher is mister Shi. I didn’t think he would be the teacher of his year's Fire element class. That is a surprise to be sure, but I don’t know if it’s a welcome one…’ 

{Ed: More Memes! *Clap, clap*}

Teacher Shi took out a small item that was emitting Mana. 

“I am your teacher for this year, my name is Shi but you will call me Teacher Shi.”

He said while writing his name in the air, the item started to glow and the words “Teacher Shi” appeared before him. 

 Even while writing he already continued, it seemed he was in a rush,

“This year is a lot different than all the others. We have to go at a faster pace than ever before so even the first day counts!”

Some of the students were confused about how fast Shi was talking, it seemed as if it was getting faster by the second. A girl raised her voice and asked a question that all the students wanted to ask:

“Teacher Shi, why is the pace different this year?”

“You noticed that the exam was more difficult, didn’t you?”

Instead of answering, he responded to the question with another question. It appeared this was his way of explaining the Academy’s situation.

“Yes sir, it was a lot harder than how my big brother explained it to be. He said that one just needed to collect certain items in the Ranuing forest.”

Teacher Shi answered without wasting a second and explained the whole thing:

“The ‘Anoh mable Academy’ of Anoh city which is near our Gore Sky city, challenged our academy to a duel against them that will take place in one month. The people who are participating are going to be decided by then. We must pick two people from each year including the students of the first year.”

Everyone was astounded by Shi's words, they all knew the Anoh city and the Anoh mable Academy. Anoh and the Gore Sky city were one of the major cities in the Blood Moon province, they were the rival of the Gore city in many ways. They were like brothers in the past but animosity grew towards each other in the past hundred years.

“Let’s commence our first lesson today, shall we. Do you have any questions, if you have, say it now, because I won’t be stopping for those once I start.”

Seeing that there was no one speaking he just assumed that nobody had any questions. He faced toward the board and wrote for a while until he finally stopped and said.

“There are seven different elements discovered until now. Many people have an affinity for an element and most of the people will specialize in the one they have affinity for, just like you all are going to learn the Fire element.”

He stopped for a bit and looked toward a kid and said, “Do you know the seven elements’ names that anyone should know, these are terms used everyday and the most basic wisdom.”

“Yes sir! The seven elements are named: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Light and Darkness.” He was a little panicked for getting called suddenly but the kid pulled it off. It was a common knowledge that everyone knew.

‘Hmm… Well, Wrong. Just wrong. There are more, Nature as an example. All the subcategories and fusions between two elements could also be called elements on their own. Nature is the fusion between Earth and Light after all, but it is still an Element! I think they don’t even know that something like this exists, they are a small and weak nation so their knowledge is very limited.’ 

Wulan was already spacing out a bit, but he could still easily follow the class, he was good at handling several different things at the same time, especially when it came to learning stuff.

‘I should be patient. In the future they will let us use the academy library and most of all, the training grounds. That would help more than this scrap of common knowledge.’ He thought to himself but he was already bored from listening to their nonsense.

“All the elements are different and we will not go specifically into all of them. In this class, I will be teaching you the basics of Fire magic and how it works.”

…………

                                          

                                        To be continued.