Ning took back his earnings from the quest he had successfully done and left the registrar a new one. With his Grade 2 badge in hand, he left back to this room.
Over the course of the next few days, he slowly improved his Alchemist grade. After reaching the 5th Grade he had to stop since the higher grades were only tested once a month.
The price of it had also increased, but Ning didn't worry about that. Since he had also joined with the guild after taking a test after reaching Grade 5, his costs in the guild would now be reduced by quite a bit.
Similarly, his classes were also going quite well. As he had expected, his students had dropped by quite a few over the course of the week, however, there were still about 400-450 students on average during each class of his.
He was a little disappointed that he wouldn't get a Gold badge immediately, but he was still happy about the silver badge.
Ning had just finished his classes where he taught exclusively about a single ingredient. His class had about 435 students today, so it was better than most days.
He dismissed the class and walked out.
"Teacher Ning, wait," Nilo said and ran behind him.
"Yes, what is it?" Ning asked.
"Can you check this?" Nilo asked and handed him a talisman. Ning quickly read the talisman and made a curious face.
"Can you tell me why you decided to add the Fire Ginger's Nectar?" Ning asked.
"Uh, it has a yang component that can greatly boost my mental capacity and drive away any tiredness my body might have," Nilo said in a tone that almost made it a question.
"And how long will it drive away said tiredness?" Ning asked.
"Uh… I don't know. Is it not forever?" Nilo asked.
"No. This will work for 3 days at most. After that, the fatigue will catch up and you will have to sleep again," Ning said. "You are trying to get rid of the fatigue that has already built up when instead you should be stopping the fatigue from ever building up."
"Find something that will stop you from getting tired, instead of finding something to cure your tiredness. Get it?" Ning asked.
"Ohh, that makes so much sense. Thank you teacher Ning," Nilo said and walked away. With just that bit of help, Nilo had enough confidence to do the whole thing by himself.
Ning smiled and walked back to the staffroom. As he entered, he saw a bunch of teachers making a group as they looked at something.
Ning slowly walked forward and a teacher noticed him coming towards them. "He's here. Teacher Ning is here," someone shouted.
Ning was a little surprised. "Um… what's going on?" he asked as he looked at the faces of all the teachers who were wasting their time here instead of going to their classes.
"Um, teacher Ning, did you offend someone recently?" someone asked.
"Huh? No, I hav— Oh wait, there was this one guy from beastmaster wing that came asking me to return one of his students. I told him the student wasn't mine to give back, but he seemed pretty upset about it," he said.
"Did he have dark skin?" someone asked.
"Yeah, he had surprisingly dark skin. That complexion is quite rare in this place," Ning said.
"In just a week of entering the sect, you managed to pick a fight with teacher Gonez, teacher Ning?" someone asked.
Ning was a little confused. "Pick a fight? What do you guys mean?" he asked. The teacher who held the talisman that everyone was reading, handed Ning the talisman.
-Under the authority of my name as the head of this school, I hereby approve of the fight between Teacher Gonez and Teacher Ning. The fight will remain to non-physical combats. Please be mindful of what you say-
-Signed, The Principal-
'The principal approved of two teachers fighting and even tells them how to fight? Is he a nut job?' Ning thought.
"Um, can anyone of you please explain to me what all of this means?" Ning asked. One of the teachers came forward and started explaining it all.
Due to the nature of how the school was run, there was bound to be discontent between two or more teachers. A full-blown fight between two teachers would be detrimental to the students, so the academy had decided to hold a non-combat match between two teachers to determine the winner.
Before the fight, both of the teachers would gamble something of theirs that the other party would be fine will taking.
Most of the time, the bet objects weren't agreed upon, so the two teachers would bet until they were bet the one thing they had been looking forward to.
In Ning's case, the bet object was most likely going to be Nilo, but Ning wasn't sure how that was going to work since Nilo was not his to bet away.
He also didn't know what this teacher Gonez had with him that he would want to get.
More than anything, he wasn't sure what sort of non-combat competition would he fight in. According to the rules, it was decided by the participants, however, Ning and Gonez were both teachers from two separate professions, so Ning had a hard time realizing what competition he would even have to take part in, or would choose.
"So, I am compelled to fight? Is there no denying?" Ning asked curiously.
"No. This one costs a teacher a hefty amount of spirit stones, so it's very unlikely the academy would let you go after teacher Gonez already paid to fight you. You just have to prepare yourself, Teacher Ning," the teacher who explained everything said.
Afterward, everyone left the staffroom and went to their own classes, leaving Ning and a few other teachers to the classroom.
Ning looked at the talisman once again.. "So, I will have to fight with him in some sort of competition in 7 days, huh?" he thought.