Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Beast in the Garden

Arcane inscriptions are a profound and intricate discipline, the very foundation of all spellcraft.

Inscriptions vary wildly across ranks and schools of magic. Beyond the demands they place on mental power, they also require a certain measure of intellect to understand their meaning.

Under Chu Yun’s arrangement, the students began studying the planar composition of inscriptions.

Considering that these students did not have the same supply of spirit potions as Nancy, and that Chu Yun could not guide them one by one in the world of the mind as he had before, he changed his teaching method. The model tools he had asked Richard to prepare yesterday had already been finished through overtime effort.

These tools were wooden spheres, each with many small holes into which sticks could be inserted, teaching aids fashioned by Chu Yun after the molecular structure models used in chemistry classes.

Each inscription was akin to a more complex molecular structure, and with these aids, which gave such a strong sense of three-dimensional spatial form, the students could grasp its mysteries even without seeing it manifested in the spiritual world.

The spheres without any markings represented ether particles. When a certain stage required a change into fire element, it was enough to affix a red sticker to symbolize that element.

Chu Yun still had the students copy each inscription a hundred or two hundred times before they began assembling the models.

He had originally wanted Nancy to take over that task, but she had stayed up all night, so Chu Yun had sent her back to rest just a little earlier.

Fortunately, because of Nancy’s situation, Anna’s spirits were unusually high. Even though it was not her shift today, she volunteered to come and study. She would be teaching at the academy for a long time to come, and Chu Yun’s methods had opened her eyes.

After the two of them completed the first model, Chu Yun had the students gather around the large framework to observe it from different spatial angles, then begin learning to construct the first inscription in their minds.

Alas, the students’ success rate was not high. Chu Yun had no choice but to mark numbers on the wooden spheres, indicating the order in which ether particles were to be assembled at different positions.

The beginning is always the hardest. Throughout the entire morning, without the help of mirror duplication, the students managed to learn only one inscription’s structure.

By afternoon, however, things had improved. The students learned two more inscriptions. Having finally rested, Nancy also spent the afternoon using the model to review and fix those structures in memory, then repeated the spellcasting process from her notebook.

By nightfall, the students had worked overtime again and learned two more inscriptions.

Although they had mastered five inscriptions in one day, only three days remained, and they still needed to leave some time for learning the actual process of spell construction.

Moreover, today’s progress was only the average; some students were faster and some slower, far from even.

Chu Yun’s goal was for everyone to advance together. He was not in a hurry to give them cheats. After all, any method of cheating could only last for two days, and if he were truly going to cheat, he would do it on the fifth day. He also wanted to see whether these students could truly learn on their own with the help of the models.

On the third day, Anna’s teaching progress was still quite good. She was not as lazy as Chu Yun. With the aid of the models, she still gave special guidance to the slower students through mental instruction.

The worst students managed to keep up a little.

By the end of the third day, the average student had reached twelve inscriptions, while the faster ones had already completed them all.

By then, the mirror duplication effect Chu Yun had placed on Nancy had also worn off. But in these two days she had studied diligently, so even without the duplicate effect, her formidable memory still allowed her to cast the spell, if only just.

Nancy was somewhat anxious about her decline in spellcasting and even went to ask Chu Yun about it. After he comforted her for a while, she finally felt much more at ease.

On the morning of the fourth day, aside from having the students continue learning the remaining inscriptions on their own, Chu Yun gathered the top students who had already mastered all the runes. Then, using the second set of smaller models, he demonstrated the changing patterns of inscriptions during the casting of Spark Flame, and repeated the demonstration in each of their minds.

In the afternoon, these top students were divided into groups to explain things to the others. Whenever mistakes arose, Chu Yun would step in to correct them. In this way, not only did the top students deepen their own understanding, but his workload was also reduced.

By night, most of the students theoretically understood the process of spellcasting and began frantically memorizing it. Any misstep in the casting sequence could cause failure, and every detail had to be remembered.

By the time evening self-study ended, students had begun one after another to cast Spark Flame. Some spells failed partway through, or the flames formed poorly, but when they saw their efforts bear fruit, they all burst into tears of joy.

Chu Yun’s students were all girls, many of them those whom their mentors had deemed unpromising and discarded. To prove their strength filled them with boundless gratitude toward Chu Yun.

It had to be said that Chu Yun’s model-based teaching method was exceptionally effective. By the fifth day, more and more of the students were successfully casting the spell, and everyone’s mood grew lighter and happier.

Still, among the students there remained more than a dozen failures who had not managed to complete the casting; some had even forgotten much of the original fifteen inscriptions.

Even so, in Anna and Richard’s eyes, Chu Yun had already created a miracle. Richard even hoped Chu Yun would take his daughter as an apprentice; compared with the academy that had only just been established, he trusted Chu Yun far more.

Unfortunately, Chu Yun had no such plans at present and declined Richard’s proposal. However, both he and Anna still received Richard’s gratitude payment. This time Anna again received five hundred gold coins, while Chu Yun, after taking five hundred himself, was privately given another five hundred by Richard.

Although Anna had also taken extra care of Nancy during the teaching process, it still could not compare with Chu Yun’s rare one-on-one guidance. By now Nancy had not only mastered basic Spark Flame, but under Chu Yun’s instruction had also learned simple variations in controlling the flame’s temperature and range.

On the evening of the fifth day, Chu Yun finally activated cheat mode once again, allowing those students who truly could not learn it to “master” Spark Flame just before evening self-study ended.

“Chu Yun, we did it! We actually got every student to learn it!” Anna’s voice trembled slightly. Such a thing had been utterly unimaginable to her before.

“Don’t let your guard down. Performance on the day of the exam matters too. Tomorrow’s assessment will be in the morning, so let everyone rest early. Get up early tomorrow and review a little before the test.” Chu Yun had seen too many examinees with excellent scores in ordinary times who nonetheless failed to pass the entrance exam; sometimes strength mattered, but so did the ability to perform under pressure.

Everyone fell asleep with bright hopes for the future in their hearts.

Yet deep in the night, a scream jolted the students awake from sleep. Immediately afterward, a great swarm of vicious monsters began surging up from the ground in the manor’s back garden.

“Ironclad ants—no, it’s an ironclad ant swarm!” The patrolling guard trembled so badly his legs nearly gave way, and then the swarm engulfed him in an instant, devouring him to the bone.