I walked out of the class with a smile on my face. Fucking with people always did that to me. But most of all, I was glad I didn’t have to deal with that crazy girl from internal mana manipulations. It was bad enough that I was within a hundred metres of her, I did not want to touch her.

I made my way to the staff cafeteria. I didn’t really need to eat, but it was good to meet some of my fellow teachers. You never know when you might meet someone interesting.

As I entered the staff area, every eye turned to me and then quickly averted. The sound in the room coming down to a whisper. I may have made a slightly too loud secondary impression. Am I the crazy person? No, that doesn’t seem right.

I grabbed some food, not caring about what I ordered and found a set alongside a pair of conversing teachers. They instantly froze at my approach. The conversation didn’t last must longer than that, with the pair trying to leave my presence as quickly as possible. I tried talking to a few other people, but the same thing repeated itself.

My loneliness was soon alleviated by someone clearing their throat behind me. I turned to find the same woman who had watched over my duel with the prince. I graciously, magically moved the chair opposite me back, letting her sit. She didn’t seem to appreciate my gesture as she stared daggers at me. She did sit though.

“I have heard what you have been doing to the students. Forcefully opening mana channels without consent, disrobing and making students fight naked. What kind of teacher does that!? I don’t know what you have on Whisper, but I will not stand still and let you continue harming my students.” Nora said.

Guess, this wasn’t a social talk. It was more fun this way anyway. “Jeez, what is it, your time of the decade? It’s for the students' own good. You have no idea how many people I have seen die because they had to fight naked, or fight next to someone of the opposite gender, and then look the opposite way, for courtesy or something, and end up getting a sword through the brain.” My response didn’t seem to appease her as her face turned red and she grit her teeth. Her efforts to apply a tracker onto me also became more forceful. Giving in, I let her apply the racker. I wanted to see what she would try.

“I am warning you, stop teaching. Quit working at this school and I promise to do nothing to you. I care for the students, and I do not want you to hurt them anymore.” She seemed to calm down somewhat when the tracker was placed.

“Elves are always so uptight, thinking you’re better than everyone else just because your body are more mana dense. Do you know your race was a failed experiment? What is an elf doing here anyway, shouldn’t you be in your grove, plotting how to show your superiority?” My words drained the colour from her face as her hands went to her ears, which appeared rounded. People instantly began whispering, around us. I even noticed a few incredibly rude people probing Nora, looking for illusions, the probes were not the rude part, the rude part was that I could sense them. I blocked those attempts. She was wearing an illusion, but I decided to let her keep it on. Let the people wonder.

To Nora’s credit, she quickly regained her composure. “I don’t know what you're talking about.” She actually appeared slightly confused.

I smiled and leaned in towards her ear and spoke in barely a whisper. My hot breath on her sensitive ears sent a shiver through her. “I think you do. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone, else, I’ll deny any knowledge of ever saying it.” As I leaned back, I took a slight detour by her mouth, giving her a quick peck. That seemed to silence anything she was about to say. Her face instantly turned flush and she vacated my table. Elves’ had this weird cultural thing, where they spurned touching beings they considered lower than themselves, and courting a ‘lower lifeform’ was enough to get you exiled from their community.

They believed that they were above animalistic desires, so sex was only for reproduction. I actually knew the guy who started that particular tradition. The elves really pissed him off, so he decided to get back at them. He started a rumour that elves transcended earthly desires, and only lower races had sex for pleasure (back then, the elves were really promiscuous). In just fifty years, the rumour was taken as fact and sex was shunned. It was actually really funny to watch a bunch of people who had been having sex every day only a few decades ago walking around extremely frustrated. You could literally just lightly touch their ears and they would start turning red.

With the entire staff’s attention on me, I left out the door. As I was leaving, I caught a few jealous glances my way. It looked like she was popular.

I headed to my next appointment. It looked like someone had booked a session with me! I would have been more excited, except it was the crazy girl. I contemplated skipping, but I was better off just dealing with it now.

I entered my office, which I made as messy as possible. There were books, papers, random pieces of metal, a few explosive enchantments and some toys strewn across the floor. The walls were also covered in completely nonsense blueprint’s for magical devices, with a few real ones hidden in-between. I contemplated creating a mental enchantment that forces anyone that enters my office to only speak the truth, but decided against it. Instead, I made an enchantment that makes a person fart every 5 – 10 minutes. Very loudly.

The crazy lady was already standing outside my door. She smiled as I came near, creepy. I walked past her and into my office. She tried to follow but I slammed the door in her face. I carefully walked (I wouldn’t want to accidentally make something explode) over to my gem encrusted pure gold seat behind my tall black marble desk. I heard a knock a few seconds later. I called her in and pointed to the shabby wooden chair opposite the desk. The crazy girl looked around the cluttered space before walking through and taking a seat. While taking a seat she let out a fart that could probably be heard on the other side of the school.

She completely ignored the sound and so did I. We stared at each other, her smiling and me with a stern face. She blinked, (another win), and I let out the widest smile I could. I jumped from my chair onto the desk, sitting down on the edge and leant down. Our faces were inches apart. Her smile slipped a bit and mine grew wider. To the point that it was about the limit any human could smile.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I suddenly laughed, the sound bouncing off the walls. Her smile dropped even lower, and she started fidgeting. Perfect. There was only one way to fight crazy, and that was to be crazier. I once made a complete lunatic, (like he killed an entire village because he found it funny, crazy), avoid me because he thought I was too insane.

I bopped her nose, and she finally broke. Her smile completely freezing. Standing abruptly, I jumped off the table, into a backflip, landing perfectly into my chair. Changing my smile back to neutral. “For being the first to book, I would like to give you a present.” I reached under my desk and pulled out a teddy bear. I tossed it to her, and she hesitantly caught it. “Press its centre.” She pressed and the bear spoke. “You are doing an amazing job, keep up the good work!” it said in a cheerful voice.

She looked at me with an open mouth, but I ignored her and just continued speaking, “What are you waiting for. You came to learn how to cycle, get to it.”

I may have made her act less crazy to me, but that didn’t mean she was normal. Cycling was supposed to hurt.

. . .

Tay’s training today began with him trying to sense the cognitive realm. He did a lot better today; it was always easier to sense something when you have already done it once.

This time I attacked with more manageable mental attacks. He was still pretty bad, but so was everyone when starting out. While sitting back and watching Tay struggle to defend against me, I thought about what to teach him next. The main thing he really needed above all else was better social skills. His were abysmal. I joked a lot about him needing a girlfriend, but he definitely needed someone to talk to. He had a lot of tightly packed emotions he needed to deal with, and a friend would help.

The only problem was that it was kind of hard to force someone to improve their social skills, they needed to want it.

Well, I know of one way to make him interact with people. There was that girl that he was talking too. She should do nicely.

. . .

The students in my mana manipulation class were perfectly well behaved. The class was completely silent as I demonstrated how to move mana around. The quiet was nice and all, but it was so boring. I may have gone a little overboard.

The class finished with no one getting, embarrassed, injured, put unconscious or dying. To the student it was a great relief, to me, it was disappointing. Walking out of the class in disappointment, I left to my next appointment. Some students had booked a session with me again.

When I let them in, the three students all stared with wide eyes at the cluttered space and large expensive chair and desk, completely out of place in the room. I led them to the cheap seats and started the lesson. Everything went fine, even if the students were very nervous. It was funny when they all started farting for like 10 seconds straight. Their embarrassed faces were priceless.

At the end of the check-up, I gave them gifts for being the second to attend. I provided each of them a pill that would be a big help in cleaning up their channels. It was almost impossible to buy on the market as it would get bought as soon as it was for sale, if it even was put on the open market in the first place. Luckily, if you knew how to make them, they were easy to create.

The students looked suspiciously at the pills but took them and left. I gave them parting words, that they should use it a place where there were no strangers around. I didn’t tell them the reason. They didn’t need to know that their pained screams would be extremely annoying to everyone around them.

Done with my chores, I found Tay at the cafeteria, as usual. He ate a lot, but I supposed he needed it. He was a twig, so putting on a bit of fat was good for him. He might even grow a bit, but it was unlikely. Malnourishment really hit his growth hard.

To my delight, he was spending time with the Ash girl. She first tried to leave the cafeteria as soon as my class finished – looking very grumpy – But she mysteriously ended up walking straight back to the cafeteria. She tried to leave a few more times getting more and more enjoyed each time, but she returned every time. She finally gave up and walked to Tay’s table looking uncomfortable in her dress. I should probably give her a gift basket for talking to him. I remained invisible as I watched the two until they left. I didn’t spy on their conversation because I really didn’t care what they said.

As they both got up to leave, I followed Ash. Tay talked with her until they reached the school exit where they parted ways. Tay went back to the inn, probably to cycle. He was doing an admirable job, he still couldn’t do it constantly, but he was getting closer.

Ash left the school and speed-walked down the city. She started to walk towards less savoury parts of the city. In general, the city was better than most, but every city has an upper and lower region.

Ash finally stopped at an ally, where she climbed up the side of the wall to a window and climbed in. I followed suit, climbing up the wall and teleported through the closed window. Changing my appearance to that of Ruther.

I watched as she changed (she was a little too skinny and had a number of scars) and sat on her lumpy and uncomfortable looking bed. Sitting in a meditation pose. I stared at her as she went through a basic cycling exercise. The one I taught. She was doing an ok job at it, but she only learnt it a few days ago so I gave her some slack.

I watched until I felt enough time had passed, dropping my invisibility. “Try to interpose the burst flow with a steady flow at a ratio of 1:2.” Ash’s eyes snapped open and a knife came flying at me. I let the knife hit me and bounce off.

Ash was already on her feet, putting a hand under her pillow and pulling out a well-kept axe. “That isn’t any way to treat a guest. Don’t make me put that dress on you. That’s a nice dress, by the way, you shouldn’t toss it like that.” Ash stuttered for a second at my threat, but she decided to ignore me and charge in.

I let out a sigh and proceeded to unclothe and reclothe her. That really was a nice dress, I had spent a good hour on it. It had some decent enchantments and was made of some expensive materials.

Ash didn’t appreciate my gift and sat on the bed staring at me as the dress held her body rigid. “Now that you are civil, I have just come for a chat. You have recently been spending time with my apprentice and he, let’s say, needs to learn to talk to people. He could also use a sparring partner. So, I am here to propose an offer to you. I will teach you along with him, you can leave at any time, and can even stop hanging out with him, and I will still teach you. All you have to do is follow what I say. Deal?” I would never have offered this deal if I knew she only hung around Tay for superficial reasons. But I had met enough people over the years to know when people will get along, and I had seen enough lonely people to know when it’s all but a given. That didn’t mean that the friendship would last, people are stupid after all.

Ash stared at me with one eyebrow slightly skewed before speaking. “Is this a joke? Do you mean Tay?” I gave a nod. “Who are you?”

“I forgot to introduce myself. That is terribly rude of me.” I gave a low bow. “My name is Ruther, you may have heard of me as the guy who beat some sense into Hisoph Arizont.”