Volume 4: Chapter 9 – A Duel of Words with the Teacher
I lazily walked into the classroom and sat in my seat. I had no idea what was happening during the lesson. Forget it! I decided to sleep for a while.
While lying on the table in a subconscious state, I felt a burning gaze on my back. Even if my senses were not very sensitive, I still would have easily noticed it. I thought that it was Mu Zi who was looking at me. I sniggered in my heart. Did she really believe that I had fallen in love with her? I decided to just ignore her and make her wait in suspense.
Without realizing it, I started to doze off.
In my semi-conscious state, I felt someone pushed me strongly. I instinctively pushed the person’s hand away from me. However, that person kept on pushing me as I continued to push him away. I got annoyed and sat up, shouting, “What on earth do you want? Why are you so annoying? Stop disturbing my sleep!”
I was surrounded by gasps. Only then did I remembered that I was still in class. At that moment, I woke up from my sleepy state. I looked in the direction of the person who had been pushing me and saw Mu Zi angrily glaring at me. I blankly asked her, “Why did you push me?”
Mu Zi’s face reddened instantly and she pouted and her lips pointed in a direction. The students near my desk heard our conversation and started to laugh loudly. I followed the direction her lips were pointing to. Wah! There was a middle aged male teacher with an ashen expression on his face on the lecturer’s platform. Hmm. Why were his lips shaking?
The male teacher said in a low and shaking voice, “You, stand up!”
I used my finger to point at my nose and questionly asked, “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes, you! Quickly, stand up now!”
I lazily stood up from my seat. It seemed like my brain had not fully woken yet. I totally did not understand what the teacher meant. I asked, “Teacher, you don’t look well. Are you unwell? I think that you should go to the hospital to have a checkup. If your illness is serious, it’ll be terrible.”
My surroundings suddenly became quiet. The students were all thinking, this student really dares to challenge the teacher’s authority? In the morning he irritated one, and now, in the afternoon, he’s irritating another one. It was just too impressive. They looked as if they were filled with anticipation as to how the teacher would deal with me.
The lecturer inhaled deeply as though trying to calm his strong emotions. He glared at me and said, “You come up and answer this question. I want to hear your explanation.” As he said that, he pointed to the whiteboard, which had the main question for the lesson. Likely the teacher thought, if Zhang Gong answers wrongly or doesn’t know how to answer, I’ll immediately send him out of class and punish him by making him stand in the corridor.
I looked at the whiteboard and saw that it was about the relationships between the magic elements.
I frowned and thought for a moment. The teacher thought that I didn’t know how to answer and was about to scold me, I started to speak.
“I believe that asking about the relationships of all magic is too general. Everyone should know about the different elements of magic. The six main elements are light, dark, water, fire, earth and wind. I said I found the current question too general because the relationships between the magic are just too complicated. In simpler terms, I believe that all magic can simultaneously support and counter when they interact.”
The lecturer coldly smiled and said, “Able to support and counter each other at the same time? Everyone knows about magic countering each other, but support I’ve never heard of. In that case, water magic and fire magic can fuse together to become a flame?”
My brain had finally fully woken up. I thought, aren’t you just trying to put me on the spot? I’m afraid that you can’t. Your knowledge level can’t be compared to mine as even Teacher Di found my theory new. There is no way that you can fight against my theory.
I smiled and said, “Of course, water magic can become fire magic, and wind magic can also become earth magic. These examples are the simple ones. Light and dark magic have many similar properties. Let me ask everyone, if there is no light, where does darkness comes from, and vice versa? Even though they are countering magic, did that occurred naturally? If we dare to make a daring assumption, maybe before light and dark magic separate into two different magic, they were actually one kind of magic.”
“Are you just frightening the class? If not, how are you going to prove that what you just said was true?”
I shook my head and said, “I haven’t found any actual proof for it, that’s why I said it was a daring assumption. Even though I haven’t determined the exact relationship between light and dark magic, I can show an example of magic simultaneously supporting and interacting with each other.”
The lecturer was stunned, and seemed to forget that he was just making things difficult for me, said, “Continue speaking.”
I smiled and said, “It’s hard to believe if I just say it, so take a look.” I lifted both of my hands and casted two equally sized balls of water and fire magic. (I could use any elementary magic, except for dark magic.)
I continued to explain, “Everyone should know that water and fire magic counter each other. It should be like this.” I fused the two magic together. “Pu Su~” The two magic balls completely vanished.
“This is what happens when the amount of elements are the same. But if they had different amounts, what would happen? Everyone take a look at water and fire magic fusing together.”
Like last time, I summoned a ball of fire and water in each hand, but this time the fireball was much larger than the waterball. I slowly placed the waterball on top of the fireball. The waterball started to steam. This was because the fire magic was stronger than the water magic. Under my control, the waterball caught on fire. (To those who know physics, they should know that water can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen gasses. One of the gasses was used as the catalyst in combustion.) Slowly, the two balls started to fuse and become one.
All of the students, including the lecturer, gasped in amazement.
The lecturer asked curiously, “How on earth did you do that?”
“Actually, it is very easy. At a certain point, the water can be lit on fire but won’t be extinguished.” This new information was hard for everyone to digest and accept fully.
“I will now continue to demonstrate fire becoming water.”
This time, I used my left hand to cast a light magic ball of about fifty cm in diameter and casted a small fireball in my right hand, before placing the fireball in the center of the lightball.
I easily controlled the two magic and said at the same time. “Everyone! Please focus on the inside of the lightball.” As expected, in a short moment, droplets of water began forming inside the lightball
I stopped the magic and made a conclusion. “That will be all. Those were two examples of magic interacting with each other. The countering aspect of magic is only part of the truth. There is nothing that is absolutely right as under different situations, it can be changed. This is something that I am still researching on. Teacher, I’m done answering the question.”
The lecturer looked as if his spirit had left his body. It was not only him; the other students were in similar states. Any student who could attend the Academy was undoubtedly a genius, but they were being restricted to traditional magic. After my demonstration and explanations, everyone felt as though they had gained new knowledge about magic, but couldn’t exactly tell what the new knowledge was. Thus, they were caught up in their own worlds and thoughts.
I looked at Mu Zi who was beside me. She was also in the same state as the rest. Haha, looked like my explanation wasn’t bad. I decided to let them continue to think about it, and play chess with their ‘God of Dreams’.