Splashing water to wake up Tay and seeing his annoyed look was a great start to the day. Seeing his face fall when I told him to cycle brightened the entire week and finally seeing him groan getting out of bed was the icing on top of it all.
Everyone in the common room stared when I entered, while at the same time trying to appear like they weren’t looking. There was one person that was staring at me more circumspectly and I walked over to his table and sat without an invitation. “Morning sir, mind if I sit here?”. The man gave me a once over before nodding and giving me a cautious look. He had decent mana channels, probably either someone eyeing me up for an assassination, or maybe they were in the Princes employ.
Leaning over and speaking in a stage whisper, “Did you hear, the prince was caught walking the streets with a hole in his pants?”. The mana stiffened slightly, imperceptibly, at least to a less perceptive man.
“You have made the Arizont house look like a fool, this injustice cannot go unpunished. You should not have done what you did, you’ll be lucky to last to the end of the week!”, The man had put a sound barrier up the second I started talking about the prince, I could have pushed through it but decided to keep it in place.
“Your charge was the fool, I only showed it to the world, and for me dying? Well, you can try, but that feat is difficult for even me to accomplish, but you can try. Make sure they are good assassin; I do like a challenge. I’m Ruther by the way.”
The man just stared at me, very rudely as well, not even giving me his name. I stared back and he blinked first, another win! I only lost a staring contest once in the last 3 millennia; well, that’s not completely true, I lost a staring contest to a rock elemental who had fallen asleep midway through and somehow stared with his eyes open for a few years, so I don’t like to count that one.
“You may believe yourself unkillable, but what about your apprentice? I do not want him dead, but I have no choice if you do not die he will.”, I let out a sigh, I knew this was coming, that’s why I came prepared. I tossed a few images of the prince with a red butt running through the streets and a prototype forcefield generator which I made and threw away ages ago that I found on the price. I wonder how that got to him, random crap I throw away had a habit of ending up in weird places. But he really shouldn’t be relying on that think for protection, it had some serious flaws.
The man reached out to grab the objects, but I snatched them back. “Very well, I will do my best to avoid any targeting of your friend, but be warned, I can only do so much, if the prince or the king presses for his death I will have no choice.”. Nodding I returned the forcefield and the man walked away, without even giving me his name, kids these days have no respect for their elders. At least he vacated the table in time for Tay to come wincing down the stairs.
I flagged a waiter who had mysteriously been avoiding the area around my table. She nearly jumped when I called her over.
Tay gulped down the food and I sat back. So, what’s the plan for today? Let’s see, wait what’s my schedule? When does my class start? Ohh shiiit, I’m going to be late.
. . .
I speeded walked into class with my long hair in a mess. Luckily the headmaster had my schedule waiting on his desk when I came in or I would be later than I already was. My black robe swished around my thighs as I approached the door. I had teleported Tay in already.
I pushed the doors with a stack of books to the sound of the muttering class. “Sorry I’m late, I had a bit of trouble with the schedule.” I approached the blackboard as the children slowly quieted.
“What happened to Mr Lake?” A student called out.
“I have no idea, but I have been assigned to this class so I will teach it.” I plopped my books down on the table and wrote my name on the board. The class was a mix of people, the youngers being 17 and oldest 25. The male to female was roughly 50-50 which was what I would have expected for internal mana manipulation. Tay was sitting in the corner where I had teleported him, trying to avoid contact with everyone.
A Female stood up with the same number of accessories and wore the same colours as Hispoh and stared down at me with her nose up at the same time, somehow. “I have never heard of a mage named Daisy Clover, what gives you the right to teach at this school you commoner!” some people really think too much of themselves. Like, how do their ego’s grow so big?
Tay glanced at her then quickly glanced down with his cheeks slightly turning red. Arrogance seems to run in the family. “I would list my titles, but we would be here all day, and I made most of them up. Since you think so highly of yourself, why don’t you come down here and show us how great you move your mana around.” I held out a metal sphere with some random patterns on it. “This device here will show us how effective you are,” she appeared uncertain standing still, “You know, I heard your brother lost to a peasant, I knew the Arizont family was poor at magic but losing to a random mage, disgraceful.” That seemed to finally do it and she charged down the stars, thunder clouds brewing behind her eyes. I really needed to teach these kids a lesson, getting angry leads to a lot more problems than it solves.
“Great now touch this and start cycling” I through the metal disc at her and she snatched it out of the air. Quickly scanning her body, I displayed her channels to the entire class via an illusion, as I did with Tay. She had a better flow than Tay, but by my standers, it hurt to look at. I heard a few awes in the crowd at the display. “As you can see here, this young miss has absolutely disgusting mana channels, there are blocks and knots everywhere the flow it uneven and slow.” She had a smug grin on her face, but it slowly slid off at my ridicule. Why does everyone think they have good mana channels?
“You should also never show anyone your mana system to anyone, like the princess here just did, it will tell your opponent’s your strengths and weakness, so thanks for volunteering princess.”
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She dropped the disk, but I continued to display the illusion. “What?! You just made me show the entire class my weaknesses! I am a princess of Sylvena, this could get me killed! My father will hear of this!!” She shrieked right into my ear, while it didn’t hurt, her high-pitched voice was certainly annoying.
“Blah, blah, blah. Now shut up.” I put and an anti-sound ward around her, while she continued to point fingers at me and blab her mouth. I made it so she could hear herself talking but no one else could.
“Now, I hear no one ask, how do you get rid of these dastardly knots and tangles. Well, brilliant question me, you either have to slowly whittle away at them, or attack them with a concentrated burst of mana. The first way is slow and the other is extremely painful. I will go over the first method soon, but for now, pay close attention as I will be showing you the fast way!”, the class was starting to mutter and shift in their seats, bunch of pussies.
“Since we have a perfectly willing participant right here, I will demonstrate on her!” By this point the princess had realized no one could hear her, and my words had finally sunk in, as she slowly backed away. “Any objection?” She tried to say something, but no sound came out. “Great, let’s get started,” I said with a grin.
She tried to run but I levitated her back, she even tried to cast some spells at me, but I stopped them before she could even gather the mana. “This may hurt a bit,” I said as I slowly inserted my mana into her. I created a red arrow at the knot I was targeting and changed the colour of the mana I was inserting into her green on the hologram. “Watch carefully, you don’t want to get this wrong when you do this yourself, trust me.”
As my mana reached her knot her mouth opened in a silent scream and she collapsed onto her knees. “As you can see, my mana is constantly pushing against the knot, after enough time the knot will decrease in size until it disappears, letting the mana flow through better,” I said with a sweet smile. Most the class was staring at the princess in total stillness, or at me with a pallid face. A few were completely ignoring the princess’s agony and were furiously taking notes.
I increased the speed my mana went into her as she started writhing on the floor continuing to silently scream. “I’m speeding up the process, but you should take it slow, it could take you up to a month depending on how large the tangle is, or how much you can push through the pain. Don’t do it in one sitting without supervision!”. When I first entered the room, a few students stared at me with concealed lust but now they were all at least a little green. Well, not one, she seemed to be staring at me a little too intensely, creepy.
The princess had passed out, but I continued the lesson, for the allotted 60 minutes, with a cherry smile on my face. No one had anymore objections to my teaching.
“By the end of the week I want all of you to have a meeting with me, you can do it in groups of up to 5 if you wish. No one will try this before our meeting, even if you have had prior teaching in how to remove knots.”, A few of the faces in the crowd looked like hell would be more appealing – well, most of the faces. “If you do not book a meeting, we will have a hands-on session on what to do.” I manifested a few metal boards on my desk. “Each of you take one of these, it will have instructions on how to book a meeting. Now get out of my class.”
There was a moment of silence before every person in the room got up and rushed out of the class as fast as their legs could carry them, each stepping a good metre around the unconscious princess, as if whatever I had done to her was contagious. In a matter of seconds, only three people remained, my apprentice who had his head down, dragging his feet, sighing loudly, the moving girl on the floor and the creepy girl who stared at me earlier.
She started walking towards me with a wide smile and staring into my eyes. Nope, I had seen enough crazy to know to get the fuck away from here! I infused my legs with mana and shot away from the room before anyone could blink. Leaving a puff of compressed air, but no sound.
. . .
I caught the unconscious form of a princess just as I teleported her above my hands, 10 kilometres outside the city. I am really putting my title of princess catcher to good. Thou, it is strange how many princesses need catching.
Placing the princess of the ground I conjured a few litres of water above her. The water rained down completely soaking the girl and making her splutter awake. “Glad to see you’re up.” The princess sat up and looked at me puzzled before shivering and looking down to see her wet clothes sticking to her. She screamed and tried to move mana around to cast a spell only to scream louder and roll on the ground in the fetal position.
I winced; young girls always have the most annoying screams. “Ouch my ears, I could have left you in the class unconscious you know?”
“Who are you!? My father will hear about this! WHERE AM I?” She stopped screaming from the pain, just to scream some more.
“I’ve heard that threat a least a million times in my life. Like seriously, you have no idea how many people say, ‘do you know who I am?’ or ‘you will hear from my father’. It is the most boring threat ever conceived. At least put some spunk into it, like; ‘My father will reach inside your pussy and pull out your lifetime supply of eggs, then force them down your throat, and when you shit out your possible unborn children, he will shove those eggs right back up your ass until you can taste them again! Now that is a threat.”. The poor girl was looking up at me with confused horror. She tried to get up, but only groaned again and flopped back down onto the grass.
“As for your other questions, I am currently Daisy Clover and we are a bit outside the city.”
“I remember you! You’re that teacher that came into my class with no qualification a-and tortured me!” Her vehemency was quickly lost as she stared into space and shivered. It wasn’t that bad, I put more mana into Tay, and he was only slightly traumatized.
And you passed out in my class, that’s very rude you know.” She stared back at me with much less fire in her eyes.
“Now that you have shut up, the reason I have brought you here is to tell you to not use any mana for the rest of today, but since you have already failed to not do that you know the consequences for using any more. You should also cycle before you go to bed tonight and tomorrow morning, it will hurt, but don’t be a baby and just do it, I will know if you haven’t.” A cold wind blew by and she shivered in her wet clothes.
“Lastly if you decide to leave my class, I will have the headmaster expel you.” Out of everything I had said this brought the most shocked look to her and she fumed.
“The Burning Wisper will never do such a thing! He knows of my bloodline and my importance; in fact, I will get you fired!”
“Whatever, have fun walking back to the city.” She stared daggers at me and tried to follow as I walked away. Slipping on the wet grass and mud, but none sticking to her dress.
“I blocked your communication devices, by the way, so no calling for a lift,” I said as I walked, then teleported away.
I looped back around and made myself invisible, watching as she walked back to the city. Wouldn’t want her to get kidnapped after all.
It took a good five minutes to get herself off the floor, spewing insults and groaning all the way - It didn’t hurt that bad – and started walking back. Trying a few of her magical items, I blocked them all. She huffed as she walked back, cold and wet. Halfway back she tried to change her face and body using illusions from an enchanted item, but I blocked the change as well; she didn’t notice.
She walked into the city an hour later, drawing stares as she walked, men and some women surreptitiously glancing at the clothes sticking tightly to her body and her perked nipples. She made it to an inn, and I left to alleviate my boredom.