The first afternoon class at the Magic Academy was elective. Students could freely choose to head to either the Alchemy Department or the Magitech Department to study.
The school operated on four-month semesters, with a major exam held at the end of each month—four major exams per semester in total.
Written examinations took place at the end of the first and third months within the school grounds, while the second and fourth months featured practical assessments, either on campus or at external locations.
The specific content of the practical exams varied each time and offered little reference value. Overall, they tested the students’ ability to adapt and respond to random situations in real combat.
Written exams, on the other hand, needed no further explanation. They assessed knowledge and application in the three major fields—magic, alchemy, and magitech—along with pure cultural subjects such as history.
As long as the combined score across all subjects reached 60% of the total, the exam was considered passed.
Ye Xu naturally headed to the Magitech Department.
The reason was simple. Even someone as powerful as Ye Xu was not omnipotent.
His achievements in magitech far surpassed his accomplishments in alchemy.
If one had to describe the relationship between the two fields, alchemy was, in most cases, the study of how to process one material into another material as needed, with the additional study of various magic potions.
Magitech, meanwhile, was primarily the study of turning raw materials into finished magitech devices.
Clearly, all of Ye Xu’s current achievements leaned toward the latter.
Fortunately, the Magic Academy had never expected its students to become all-rounders.
Although the end-of-month exams tested all three subjects—magic, alchemy, and magitech—only the higher score between alchemy and magitech would be counted toward the total. Therefore, specializing in one field was completely acceptable.
It worked like this: if you did well in both, you would receive extra rewards. However, as long as one of them barely passed, even if the other was a complete zero, there would be no penalty.
Ye Xu had no intention of standing out too much. He also didn’t want to overwork himself in this second chance at campus life. Naturally, he chose to focus on what he excelled at rather than struggling with something he wasn’t good at in his newly restarted life.
[“Magitech Department station. We have arrived. Students and faculty getting off, please…”]
As class time approached, most people on the train were students rushing to their departments. The moment the train stopped, they all poured out together.
The Magitech Department building as a whole resembled a hollow five-pointed star structure. It had four floors, corresponding to the first through fourth years. The top floor was reserved for teachers and graduating students conducting in-depth experiments.
Each floor housed multiple classes taught by different instructors. The day’s schedule was posted in advance beside the entrance, and students simply chose the class they needed.
On the second floor and above, there were also classrooms dedicated to hands-on practical teaching.
There was no roll call and no registration. Students could even skip class and study by themselves in the library. As long as they passed the monthly exam, everything was fine.
In other words, even if his alchemy studies were only slightly above the level of most alchemists in the human world, once morning classes in his own department ended, Ye Xu could skip afternoon lessons without anyone coming to look for him or even noticing his absence.
However… there was no need for that.
“Hurry, hurry! Professor Penny’s class is about to start!”
“Move it, you idiot! There won’t be any seats left!!!”
Ye Xu discovered that while the first-year students were still cautiously choosing classrooms based on the course and teacher names posted at the doors, resulting in roughly even numbers per class, the situation on the upper floors for upperclassmen was completely different.
Some classrooms were already packed full, every seat taken, while others still had barely half the students even as class time approached.
Perhaps it was due to the teacher’s skill level, or maybe because of the specific subjects being taught?
Ye Xu followed the flow of people into a particularly lively classroom on the second floor. He glanced at the teacher standing at the front of the lecture hall preparing her lesson and nodded to himself.
Yep, very pink and very large. No wonder her class is so popular.
Unfortunately, Ye Xu had no interest in that.
He was only coming here every afternoon to build an image of a diligent and studious student so he wouldn’t seem too unusual.
Thus, he casually picked a still relatively empty classroom where the teacher hadn’t arrived yet and sat down at a seat by the window in the very back row. He took out the first-year magitech textbook issued by the school, leaned elegantly against the wall with his legs crossed, and began reading.
Before long, the teacher arrived.
———
It was a stern-looking old mage who appeared to be around sixty years old. He wore large reflective glasses, had a gloomy aura, and was dressed in a dark-colored robe. He walked in radiating an oppressive atmosphere.
“Hello, new students. I am Vilans · Deken, a teacher from the Magitech Department.
“The topic for today’s class is ‘The Basic Principles of Magitech.’
“Please open your textbooks to Chapter Three…”
With a brief introduction and straightforward words, the old mage began his lesson in a rigid, methodical manner, explaining the operating principles of magitech devices and the differences between the “runes” inscribed on magitech equipment and the “incantations” used in magic.
Such directness left the students who had entered this sparsely populated, quiet-preferring classroom momentarily stunned.
However, to avoid failing the monthly exam, they could only grit their teeth and listen attentively.
The old mage paid them no mind. Using rational, information-packed sentences, he unfolded the world of magitech before the students’ eyes.
Ye Xu listened to a few sentences and nodded slightly in approval.
———
You had to admit, if you could actually follow along, you’d discover that although the old mage’s class sounded boring, it was actually quite substantial in content.
It probably wouldn’t take long before this old mage’s classroom became the exclusive domain of high-scoring top students, while ordinary students or slackers avoided it like the plague.
Rustle rustle
Ye Xu continued leaning against the wall, quietly reading his book.
Not long after…
“That student. Yes, you.”
The teacher’s voice rang out. When Ye Xu looked up, he found the old mage stroking his large beard, gazing at him with curiosity.
“What are you doing flipping through it so fast? Can you actually understand it?”
Professor Vilans looked across the spacious classroom and showed curiosity toward this special student.
After all, in this large classroom, students were either completely immersed, clearly in the zone and earnestly digesting every piece of knowledge the teacher provided, or they had already completely dozed off in a slacking state.
Over half the students in the school were nobles; as long as they didn’t chat or cause trouble disrupting order, he couldn’t be bothered to care.
But this handsome male classmate was different—sitting alone in the back reading a book. Logically, a textbook that couldn’t be understood without explanation was being flipped through at an astonishing speed in his hands.
Vilans had initially thought he was just flipping randomly, but the calm, serene gaze in Ye Xu’s eyes, radiating rational wisdom, dispelled that suspicion. Thus he specially spoke up to inquire.
“…”
“Reporting, I have some foundational knowledge in magitech, so the content of your lecture isn’t particularly useful to me for now. I’m just previewing the later material on my own.”
Ye Xu and Simar had agreed to build an image of a genius noble student at school. In that case, appropriately showing some talent was fine—just like when he had beaten up Tela · Malye outside the grand auditorium and become famous in one fight. Ye Xu had never planned to hide his abilities too much.
“Oh? You’ve studied magitech before?”
Vilans grew even more curious.
After all, a person’s energy was limited, unless it was a family renowned for specific alchemy or magitech techniques.
For the vast majority of families, compared to alchemy and magitech—which required considerable time and financial investment—
having their children diligently cultivate magic, and if conditions allowed, practice swordsmanship or similar, to reach higher mage ranks at a younger age than their noble peers, or even obtain titles like “Knight” while still young, wasn’t that a higher return and a better way to showcase the family’s offspring’s talent and bring honor to the family?
After all, magic potions, magical materials, various magitech devices, and even Magitech Knights could all be bought with money from others.
But magic was the one thing that could only be cultivated through diligent training.
He had seen this student a few days ago. Hera that girl had specially used her authority to report the three treasures in her class to the higher-ups, requesting the school to focus on cultivating this year’s geniuses.
She had also mentioned that the child seemed to have mastered extremely advanced third-circle, or even fourth-circle, protection-type magic.
He had originally thought this was a normal student majoring in magic, but unexpectedly the boy also had considerable achievements in magitech?
“Do you have any works you can show? Let the teacher take a look.”
With that, Professor Vilans slowly walked forward, accompanied by the curious gazes of the entire class, and arrived beside Ye Xu.
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