Chapter 325

  Another Hour, Another Failed Teaching Experience

  Well, that could have gone better, I think to myself as I quickly exit class.

  Just moving on instinct, I left. I never felt so vulnerable. There I was telling everyone my deepest inner thoughts, when they all just stared at me like they were waiting for a punchline.

  Splash.

  Then somehow, I ended up here.

  This is one of those odd times when I am thankful for the fact that all my clothes are self-cleaning, for this is my first me moment.

  Yes, on instinct I found myself going to the Kujo Caverns. But not the upper floor with all the pups. I will want to see them, and check to see how Kujo’s Mistress? That is the term for a promiscuous Pomeranian that can morph into a dragon is called and apparently has children with a fully committed Kujo.

  Well, apparently not fully committed.

  But with Kujo? Yeah, we’ll go with that.

  The Pomeranian water queen that Zero had interest in was somehow seduced by Kujo, the acid drooling pup that would burn away your self-healing floor by thinking about kibbles.

  Honestly, that Pomeranian isn’t good enough for Zero.

  I think I need to play wing-woman for Zero as well. I’m pretty sure there were some eggs that I left with one of the Simulacrum, right?

  I don’t know.

  Tingle.

  All I know right now is that this pool, after having a month to gather energy is divine.

  I’m just enjoying the feeling of having a few moments to myself, before my next class begins, when the first disturbance comes.

  Slithering.

  There is an odd slithering sensation as the muscles under my skin begin to move ever so slightly.

  I’m about to protest when I realize it was the very person I was thinking about. Well, is being called a person the proper term for a dragon?

  I mean, I guess I could refer to him as an entity, but that seems far too impersonable.

  “Ahh,” Zero sighs in relief as he comes out to join me in the nurturing pool.

  “I know, times like these. Moments that you steal away for yourself. These are the moments that make everything so worthwhile.” I state, while stretching out my body and momentarily dunking my head under the warm liquid.

  Liquid that is even now being soaked into my body and helping to alleviate all the pain and worries I have had since I got back.

  We stay like that, both of us just silently drawing in the energy of the room cleaning pool water.

  I have to say, regardless of what the system named this place, this is probably my best gift to myself that I ever came up with.

  “I have to say, that you did a good job of somehow getting rid of the smell of death, while creating this pool of matriculating power,” Zero comments.

  “That’s a back handed compliment if I ever heard one,” I reply.

  “Well, you did, I mean we are effectively soaking in the latent power of your slain enemies and…”

  “Whoa there, these are not my slain enemies, I don’t have any enemies,” I respond, cutting him off.

  “That are still living,” Zero replies back jokingly.

  “Because I don’t have any to begin with,” I reply equally jokingly.

  At that comment Zero just stares at me. A completely useless gesture as we are both blind and both have the same level of Angel’s Sight, but it still makes the gesture feel more impactful, somehow.

  “Okay, there is the one,” I admit, not trying to think about it, but Zero is right that she found us once, and she might do so again.

  Zero just continues to stare at me.

  “Okay, and her three lackies,” I admit, knowing that somehow that being of unspeakable horror managed to take the bodies of the three cursed Legrand spies with her, to her realm. Where she blessedly brought them back to life.

  At least, that was what I assumed was a blessing at first, but then I realized they were still cursed.

  With the ancient being bringing them back to life, they were once again immortal. Their bodies that healed under any circumstances made them perfect assistants for that harsh void realm. A realm that threatened to rip me apart if I stayed outside of my protective magical cage for too long.

  Zero, reading my face and seeing that I was now clearly in deep thought chose that moment to twist the proverbial knife a bit harder.

  “You know that you will have to deal with them again, right? That our fates are still intertwined?” Zero asks.

  Hearing him speak, I perk up a bit, then look at him. “You can see intertwined fates?”

  “You can’t?”

  Hearing that question thrust back at me, I just go quiet.

  There is a lot to think about, and as far as I can tell I only have about twenty minutes left of a break before I must go back and get ignored by yet another class of students. Also, there is my Apprentice that I still need to spend time teaching, but I just need a moment to myself.

  Honestly, I’ve kind of been thinking about coming here from the very start of my day, but something always came up. But now, I am being selfish and taking this one quick time to soak up energy and recharge for the rest of the day.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  While I’m here, I focus on seeing the difference between the natural Qi energies that this world produces, and the radiant Cosmic Qi Energy that served as my ability to finally escape.

  Even here, in this moment I feel guilty. Knowing that I need to push myself as far and as fast as possible. Clearly that old crone was able to find us once. Granted, she was separated by a veil, but part of her did manage to cross over.

  Looking at Zero, I remember the moment when she took him.

  At the time I had been so self-assured that I could do anything. That I could feel the void being’s malicious intent if she in fact had any. I was so overconfident that I let her take an ailing Zero, knowing that she would revive him.

  Honestly, I don’t know what she did to fix him, or if he has some type of Manchurian Candidate programming now that will pop up at the worst timing.

  All I do know is that I will never let myself be in a situation where I have to trust complete cosmic strangers for help.

  With that thought in mind, I begin channeling the ambient energy of the saturation pool into me, and all but force it to condense multiple times down to the size and intensity of the Cosmic Qi Energy. It is not the same, the frequencies of the energy are different, but I did get a lot of insight into how to condense energy into a tighter pocket from watching Cosmic Qi Energy.

  “Hey, you are taking up all the heat,” Zero protests after a few minutes of this intense focus on my part.

  “Soak it in faster, we need to leave here shortly anyways,” I reply, speaking while still letting my body cultivate and try to match the intensity of the Cosmic Qi Energy to the energy that is native to our world. It is close, but not quite the same. The difference would be the equivalent of a candle trying to stand toe-to-toe with a blowtorch.

  But I think I can work with this new knowledge.

  Starting with myself, I focus on condensing everything down and creating pockets of moving gravitational mass within my body. At least that is the goal.

  Ideally, I would have the Cosmic Qi Energy rotating around, but it is too heavy and far too dense to do more than let it naturally float to my center, where it just rotates about its axis. From there the other types of Qi in my body also rotate at similar but different speeds. Almost like a gear with more and less teeth that allows the gear next to it to rotate faster, this is the same for Cosmic Qi Energy.

  While I can only get my Cosmic Qi Energy to move at what feels like a glacial pace. Its size and mass cause the other less dense Qi energy types to spin about much faster within my body.

  The sensation of having three or more different cultivation speeds of energy is the only thing that is disconcerting at this point. Once I get over the mental idea that all Qi speeds should be equal, the process becomes far more natural.

  It is also at that moment that when I stop fighting the energy flows and let the move as they tell me that they should, that is the moment when everything seems to click in my mind, and I am rewarded by the system for figuring something out.

  Always a good sign. You leave, and then only once you complete your second quest do you realize there might be an integration problem. Or maybe a synchronization problem? Maybe if I slept and restarted this might fix itself?

  But I don’t have time to sleep.

  Also, just the thought of sleeping causes me to think of my time there. Where all I could do was sleep. Well sleep, wake up, cast until I was bone dry, then go back to my magical protective cage, pass out, and repeat.

  What came next was a nice distraction from the idea of sleeping.

  There were a few new things that came with this advancement. First and foremost, I saw two new entries: Cosmic Breathing, and Cosmic Cultivation. The other thing that was added was Intelligence was now increased, and of course all of my percentages went from 10% to 15%. Meaning I was now going to remain looking like I am a fourteen-year-old pixie for 35% longer. Ten percent for the base, and the other twenty-five percent for cumulative increase for the first five Tiers that were now being recalibrated.

  At this realization, I think this is still more of the world trying to protect me from having to make any real decisions about what to do with Rob, well Robi’dob’dob. Again, how can he ever expect to be taken seriously when his name sounds like a bath toy.

  I’m hoping that my physical age influences me when I can be considered a legal adult. Honestly, already being married likely shields me from many future conflicts and possible arranged marriage issues.

  Also, there is one thing, one reason why I want what I can do to be based on my apparent age. It’s not that I’m petty, but I’m pretty petty, and I think forcing Rob to be in a loveless marriage with me…

  I trail off at that thought, realizing that this was likely why he left in the first place.

  No, I need to end this sham of a marriage once and for all. Cut him loose and set him free to do whatever Robs do in this new world.

  With that realization met, I get the last and final system notification.

  This is probably the best reward for the whole Quest, to be honest, a three-time Attribute increasing skill that will effectively go up by simply breathing as it is related to my current cultivation state.

  I love these just skills that improve you by just being alive and doing minor things.

  Thinking of this, I realize it is almost time to go and fail at teaching yet another class, but I feel better.

  I accomplished one thing, that is generating a new cultivation path based on the energies I have within my body and thereby increasing my insight and the growth potential of my body.

  Then there is now the fact that I have two more things to worry about. First, the realization that that being from the void realm will be back. Also, if Zero is to be believed, then I will also likely have to undo the torture techniques that I prescribed to the three Legrand spies. Spies who are now being tortured on a distant planet that has minimal life and magic to help them stay alive.

  Additionally, I must finally break things off with Rob.

  Sadly, I think I would rather deal with the imposing super monster from a distant void realm and her three minions that I cursed to be tortured for life, versus dealing with Rob.

  Both are mistakes I’ve made, but just different levels of terribleness that I will have to deal with.

  I also feel that whatever suffering Rob now feels is from his own actions.

  Whereas the three Legrand spies turned Cthulhu monsters, that was all me.

  Well, I did try to prevent them from enacting their terrible contracts of Immortally Suffering by putting them in those protective pods. Then again, that is the equivalent of saying, I didn’t mean for that gun to fire, I just put the bullets in, knowing that the safety was finicky.

  “Yeah, good talk,” I say to myself.

  “Hmm?” Zero asks, opening up one eye as he just proceeds to float in the water. Water that is now mostly empty of the once overly abundant energy that it had been saturated with moments ago.

  I can’t help but notice that even though Zero is languidly floating away, he still has his own issues, as his tail is wrapped around my upper arm. A sign that he still needs to be in contact with me. It’s okay, as I know I too need that reassurance that he is there. Then realizing that, I speak.

  “You about ready?” I ask.

  Zero just nods his head.

  It’s clear that he would stay a bit longer and draw out the last bit of residual heat, or energy from here, but his being with me is far more important.

  Tingle.

  With that acknowledgment, he begins to coil himself back up into my arm.

  I pause, letting him get comfortable. Then once he stops moving, I mentally brace myself. I even go so far as to fly up out of the water, to let my uniform dry for a moment.

  Again, soulbound items are such cheats, as they are dry within seconds.

  Then a quick straightening out of my uniform, followed by a quick Teleport aided by a Cosmic Anchor and I am back in my classroom just as the bell to start my next class, Enchantment + is set to begin.

  Right there up front is Penelope, again.

  As I appear she has a bright and radiant smile that lets me know that at least someone appreciates my efforts.

  Seeing her bright smile, I take a deep breath and smile myself.

  While I apparently didn’t get the reaction I had wanted in my Magical Resonance class, this is a new class and I will not geek out about how much I enjoy magic.

  Instead, I will just focus on a new method of teaching for these students.

  “Today…” I begin, but I am quickly stopped by the cries of a few of the students.

  Gasps.

  “Is that blood on your hair?” Penelope asks.

  I of course look to where she is pointing with my face, but I’m blind and the gesture is futile. Still, I don’t doubt the claim, for while my uniform my be soulbound and therefor self-cleaning, my hair is not.

  Realizing the oversight, I quickly clean myself.

  Cleanse.

  Then reply, “blood? What blood? I don’t see anything.”

  I answered truthfully, as again I never saw the blood in question. Though I did feel the dampness through my uniform, should have been a sign. New mental rule, always cast Cleanse while leaving the blood pool.

  That faux pas out of the way, I pause and try to continue my lesson plan that I had come up with a moment ago. Though, I think now it might come across my creepily than I had originally intended, especially with the idea that I just came from bathing in blood.

  Still, I didn’t plan ahead enough to have anything else to teach, so here we are.

  “Good morning, this is our first day of our new semester. I’m glad many of you chose the opportunity to try out this fascinating field of Enchantment +…”

  I begin by doing the customary first day of class speech, then finally I get to the good stuff.

  “Now that the introduction is out of the way, are you all ready and prepared to try to begin stealing the inventions and processes of your enemies, so you can crush them with your brilliant insights into the complex world of Enchantments?”

  Silence.

  Yeah, this might be yet another class that I fail at teaching.

  Oh well, I’m going to continue to try to get better, or at least talk until the time requirement ends, which ever comes first. Chances are, it will be the latter.

  “Okay, love that first day enthusiasm…”