The Novel's Professor

Rio opened the classroom door as he held a cup of coffee. Last day was weird. He was too careless, he didn't even realize he was too tired that he suddenly slept while sitting on the couch. He had a feeling something important happened during his sleep but he couldn't figure out what.

Well if he couldn't figure it out, he might aswell forget about it. He couldn't do anything at the moment anyway.

As soon as he opened the door, all the student's eyes were redirected to him. Rio, looking back to the students walked upfront and announced his presence,

"Good morning."

""Good morning!"" All the students greeted as they stood up and respectfully bowed.

"Are all of you here already?" Rio asked calmly, observing the seated students. There seemed to be no empty seats, good. The means there were no absent students.

"Indeed, Professor." Eugene answered respectfully as he smiled. It seems the Professor that helped him yesterday was his teacher. What a surprise.

"Good. Then, let us begin with an introduction," Rio said as he sipped his coffee, he continued, "My name is Rio, Rio Salem. I am your Magic Theory mentor. Call me Professor Rio. I'm in charge of teaching you fledglings about the theories and origins of Magic, simply put."

"To start this class, our very foremost objective is to understand Magic." Rio said as he continued while sipping his coffee, "Then what is Magic?"

"You then," Rio pointed at Amber who had her hand raised. Ah, Amber. If the novel descriptions hold any value, then he had a clue what she will answer.

"It's a limitless, infinite, and miraculous energy from the vast expanse universe that has no ends to it's usage." Amber said concisely. This was the type of an answer Rio expected from Amber. A text-book concise answer. She was the type to rely on the textbook summarization more than her own opinion.

"Factual, concise, yet textbook." Rio nodded as he pointed at Eugene next. He wanted to hear the main characters answers. Their answers to this question will reveal their personalities.

"It's what we use to battle, and kill enemies," Eugene said casually as he smirked, he continued, "In essence, a way to show who is more superior."

"Partly correct, however just a fraction of what it is." Rio commented as he picked Arcuied next. Eugene was what he expected, whilst a battle hunger fool, has a degree of prideful superiority.

"…I guess, something we use to protect people..?" Arcuied said with hesitation bubbling over his words.

"Is that your answer?" Rio asked as he stared directly to Arcuied eyes. Was this really his answer? In the novel he was indeed heroic, however why was there hesitation and confusion on his words?

"No," Arcuied shook his head, the blue eyes of the professor stared directly into him. It was like the professor knows everything about him.

"Then what?" Rio asked in a serious tone, this was a key to understanding what kind of person Arcuied truly is. The Arcuied in the novel always had contrary and messy thoughts, as if his actions and goals were not aligned.

"…A tool to use for searching for the truth." Arcuied expressed quietly.

"Like a historian, or truth seeker." Rio nodded as he covered his shock and picked the last one, Xiao Long. It seems Arcuied had a more personal reason that was not entirely revealed in the novel. If that's the case, then he couldn't trust the novel blindly. Or else, he would just be faced with surprises left and right.

"What else? A tool used to achieve personal goals, well if you want my reason? It's to be rich and happy." Xiao Long said cynically. Magic as Amber said, was limitless and infinite, but the most accurate answer for Xiao Long was to achieve personal desires.

At a human cynical standpoint, he was indeed right, Rio thought. Magic in essence for humans was a more convenient tool to achieve what they want. Whether it is to be rich, to be a hero, to be a murderer or to be master.

"Cynical, but I won't deny that." Rio nodded as he put down his coffee in the desk. Now it was time to explain the semantics of Magical Theory. He had the basic knowledge from the library, and advanced knowledge from the novel.

"As Ms. Amber said, magic is a limitless, infinite, and never ending energy." Rio said, as he continued, "But how do we use it to begin with?"

"Now, this is where people discover whethere they could be a Miracle Invoker or not," Rio expressed, "To use magic we need to have a strong imagination, or for a better term, strong spiritual sense."

"Those that couldn't invoke magic into reality, are people that don't have high spiritual imagination." Rio stated coldly infront of the class. The seperation of talented and trash was not only limited to modern society, but even more so in an fantasy world.

"That spiritual sense, or imagination, is what crystallizes magic." Rio said, as he continued. "Then professor, if we imagine or wish it hard enough would we be able to use magic?"

"Yes, however some talented people don't need to try hard at all, as their spiritual talent allows them to instantly use magic," Rio said, as he paused before continuing. "But even if you have spiritual talent, or you imagine hard enough, the best you can do is use beginner level skills."

"Even a spiritually talented person would have a hard time understanding complex high level skills. To master such skills, you need practice and time," Rio stated, stood upfront at the room.

"In essence, there is a limitless, infinite, never ending energy in this world called Magic. The way humans use magic is by crystallizing them by spiritual imagination. Magic synchronizes with your mind, spirit, and body." Rio declared, causing a second of silence to pass by the room

"…So what if we wanted to magically produce food using magic?" Xiao Long quipped, if it had never-ending ways then surely that was possible right?

"You can, indeed. If you have the right skills ofcourse," Rio said as he chuckled, he continued looking directly at the students, "Or else you will make random gibberish."

"Huh...is that how famous restaurants at the Royal Capital make food?" A student quietly muttered in suprise.

"Don't be an idiot," The student beside the person expressed, "Do you think magic taste something?"

"Well, no." The student replied, staring at the person seated beside, "But, have you tried tasting it..?"

"...You have a point," The other student paused before answering, "Wanna try cooking at the dorm later?"

"Take those conversations after class or you two will be going outside." Rio ordered as he turned his back to the blackboard, in his hand was a small white chalk.

The two students embarrassedly turned quiet as they were caught talking to each other in the middle of class.

—

In the hallways of the academy, a brown haired professor hummed silently admist the silent hallways.

Rio looked at the doors that he passed by through, searching for the faculty of teachers they were supposed to stay in during academy hours. Ah, there it is.

He arrived at the faculty room. He looked at the inside, noticing that there were only few teachers, most likely because most of them have not come back yet.

Surpisingly, one of the few teachers that already came back is Samantha. He approached his own desk, as he greeted her,

"Good morning, how was it?"

"Ah!" Samantha yelped in suprise at being greeted suddenly without warning, she looked beside and saw her first supposed friend teacher.

"You surprised me, Mr. Rio," Samantha sighed as she continued, "I did just fine, I was nervous at first, but after getting into the lesson…it just flowed naturally."

"I knew you could do it." Rio expressed sincerely as he took out his laptop, "You just have charisma that charmed even me,"

"Uh, are you hitting on me, Mr. Rio?" Samantha asked, half embarassed as she tilted her head confusedly.

Rio paused at that. He was about to open his laptop, but it just hit him on what he just said. It was a poor choice of words. Even though he was so ashamed and embarassed right now, he need to calm down.

"Ah," Rio said with a poker face, looking directly at the embarassed noble girl. He continued, "Is that how it came out to you? I apologize then, I just meant you were a natural charmer."

"…Those are poor choice of words, Mr. Rio." Samantha said, chuckling.

"That, I agree. Ms. Samantha." Rio nodded in agreement. Well atleast she was not misunderstanding anything anymore. But, he needed to reflect over his poor choice of words after this.

After that little misunderstanding, they each focused on their own matters. He needed to arrange his plans of getting The Formless Seed as the weekends were near.

He first needed to search up where the place actually is. He knew what it was called and where at the map it was, but physically? He didn't know where exactly. All he knows is the location.

He searched up the location. The place was called "Valley of Encantiá", It's was named after the settlement near it, Encantia City. The place was actually limited as only those accompanied by Miracle Invokers can tour.

That was to be expected, since magical beasts still roam free in the world, endlessly multiplying. Making them extinct was a no brainer, as it would just ruin the ecosystem.

However, magical beasts are just minor problems for humanity as a whole anyway. The biggest problem was the relationship between the other races, aside from humanity. The daemons were an exception, they were natural enemies of the everyone.

As he was searching, he found out that the world was actually a supercontinent. There were no divisions of land, but the lands converged into creating a gigantic continent.

The world was large, there were many places that was unexplored and havent been researched yet. It didn't help that since the era of magic, humanity was in constant danger and chaos was everpresent.

Only in the last millenia's were peace was achieved. And that peace was gonna break later this year. If the novel events hold any weight, the serene and still peace that was present was merely an illusion by a greater danger surpassing imagination.

Rio sighed, it seemed he needed to get stronger quickly. The plot, the schemes and danger was ever present in this world. If he wanted to have a chance to live he needed to get stronger.