Sofia spent the next two days working on her venerable physique one drop at a time. The competition's first event ended, and the rankings would soon be published, but first, it was time for her first public class. She made her way to the backside of the amphitheater where the class would be held, and Beryl was there, waiting for her, notepad in hand.
“Good, you’re here on time,” she welcomed her.
“Yes, though I'm a bit lost, honestly. I am still unsure about how I should go about this. Will there even be anyone here to listen to me?”
“Oh, I would not worry about that. Your name has been making rounds, especially since your demonstration in the arena.”
“Ah, right. That happened. I wonder what kind of people that will bring… The Headmaster mentioned an entrance fee?”
“Yes, but since this is your first time, there is no entrance fee. This will bring more people. Depending on the popularity, we will decide on how much to charge next time. The number of seats is limited, so the more popular, the more expensive the places will be. You get to keep 80 percent of the fees, and the academy takes the rest. So it's in both of our interests that we make this work well. Do you have any idea what the contents of today will be?”
“Absolutely not. This could go in a hundred different ways. I think I will improvise depending on how many people there are and what they want to see. How long should I stay in there?”
Beryl wrote something on her notepad, then stored it. “It's fine; you are looking good. I have no doubt you will manage to make this interesting. If you can just show some interesting new magic, it would already be enough to make some of the students come back next time, so the bar is quite low. Length is up to you; technically, you have all day, so 14 hours maximum, but most public classes last for around 4 to 6. Just don't make it too short. This time is fine since it is free, but when people pay, they have higher expectations. That being said, if it is interesting enough, like the headmaster’s lectures, even half an hour can do.”
“I see. Thank you, Miss Deathmarch.”
“It's my pleasure, Teacher Vakaria. Now, head inside. Gerard will outfit you with the sound artifact and tell you when to enter. Have a good class,” Beryl told Sofia before leaving.
Making her way through a narrow corridor, Sofia arrived backstage. It turned out she recognized Gerard; he was the librarian who had helped her with her questions on divine runes. He gave a small pin to attach near her neck, designed to amplify her voice. Then he explained that there was another one for the public that he could carry around for her if she needed to. She politely declined his help, saying she had skeletons for that.
“I will be in the public, then. If you have any technical issues, just give me a sign,” the white-bearded old librarian told her. “The public is mostly settled; you can go in whenever you are ready. The path to the scene is right this way,” he added, pointing at a path separated from the room by a heavy curtain before leaving through the back door.
Pareth appeared near Sofia, and she also summoned Bookie’s new form to accompany her.
“Alright, let's go.”
Sofia had purposely been restricting her mana senses to avoid spoiling herself with the surprise of how many people would be there waiting for her. She felt her nerves bundle up as she walked down the corridor to the stage, remembering her speech to the elven army in the trial.
I'm really not good with crowds…
Somehow, she both hoped and feared that the room would be empty at the same time. But the thought was fleeting as she could already hear the chatter coming from the room ahead. Taking the final steps of the corridor, she stepped into the light and discovered the large amphitheater reserved for her class—it was almost full.
Holy crap, am I this popular? This is like 300 people!
The chatter stopped as she entered. With a quick glance, she recognized a few faces—all of her students were there, including the two human princesses. There were also Alith, Saria, Cinthia, and Astelia sitting in a corner with a bunch of snacks. But more surprisingly, Sofia recognized one of the few high-level people as one of Death Church’s priests, and there was also a familiar inconspicuous Exidian lady sitting by herself in the back row.
The Empress?
Doing a double take, Sofia [Identify]ed the lady, seeing that she showed up as a level 82 mage, which felt all kinds of wrong, but she didn't have free time to spend wondering about that. Sending some mana to turn on the voice amplifier artifact, she announced the start of her class.
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“Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming to my first public class at Brighthall. I am Sofia Vakaria, teacher of summoner combat strategies, necromancer, and saintess of a mad god, among other things. These two are my main summoned Heroes, Pareth and Bookie; they do a lot of the fighting for me. I'm sure you have a lot of questions already, so I will be starting this class by answering a few questions.“
Sofia gave the voice amplifier artifact for the public to Bookie and sent him to the first person who raised their hand to ask a question. The level 60 student was surprised to see the small skeleton running at him, but he rapidly understood what was going on when he was presented with the artifact.
“Hi, uh, how can you be a Saintess and a Necromancer at the same time? Do you have multiple classes?” the Exidian student asked, uncomfortably speaking near the artifact Bookie held up in front of his face.
Of course, that’s what they start with…
“No,” Sofia answered. “You can only have one class at a time. That being said, my class is the result of trying to have two classes at once. I was chosen as a saint at the same time I became a necromancer, and due to an error in the system, the two classes ended up fusing together, for better or worse, which is the reason my heroes are all undead. The class name is ‘Saintomancer,’ and it’s just as weird as the name suggests.”
Already, shocked murmurs spread through the audience. ‘Wait, you can fuse classes?!’ ‘Do you think we can do that?’ ‘I want a fused class too!’ ‘Saintomancer? That’s so ugly…’
“I hear some of you are getting ideas already; I personally would not recommend trying this. I was lucky that things worked out well in the end, but the start was rough, and my future skills are still very unpredictable. And honestly, I am not sure you could reproduce this without a similar divine intervention. You’re free to try, though; just don’t piss off your scribe. Next question?”
Sofia glanced at ‘the Empress’ again, who was staring intently at her.
I really shouldn’t look in that direction.
Sofia let Bookie choose whoever he wanted for the next question; the skeleton ran through the seat rows and stopped in front of another student.
“Are you in a relationship?”
Bookie hastily pulled back the artifact and slapped the student, leaving a red bony hand mark on his face, provoking a few laughs after a moment of shock.
Sofia raised an eyebrow. Oh, he’s level 199; he’ll be fine. Try not to kill anyone, Bookie, please. “No. Serious questions only, please.”
Bookie walked to the next person with a raised hand. They were a young-looking civilian girl with braids who had been writing down stuff every time anyone spoke up.
“Hi teacher, why did you become a teacher at Brighthall and what do you want to accomplish in the future?”
Does she work for one of those newspaper things like they do in Red Winds?
Sofia took a few seconds to think about her answer. Seeing some people getting bored already, Pareth activated his armor, giving them some light to focus on.
“I came to Brighthall for a vacation. I have been fighting non-stop for two years and needed some time off to work on my skills and strategies. Teaching some promising people on the side to help make their life better is just a nice bonus in my eyes. As for my objectives… I have a God to kill, mainly,” Sofia seriously answered, nodding to herself, “And I won’t be accepting any questions on the subject,” she added as the voices in the public became much louder.
“T- Thank you for your answers…”
Unprompted, Bookie directly walked up to another woman, a level 156 Exidian student this time, who sighed as she was relieved to finally be able to lower her hand; she had been waiting from the first question.
“Hello, Teacher Vakaria, I saw your duel against Marquess ProudWall. Can you tell us how you made all of his spells disappear? Did you teleport them away? I couldn’t understand how it worked at all.”
“This I will not explain in detail, but it's the effect of my second specialization,” Sofia answered, “You should all strive to perform better than expected during the trials; the rewards are well worth it, specializations being the main draw.”
This, again, caused chatter to spread among the public. Some were asking the others what specializations were, while some were shocked that she had two of them, and some again argued that she needed at least that if she wanted to claim something as ridiculous as the ambition to fight a God.
You’ve seen nothing yet. “How about I show it off a few times for those who weren’t there at the duel? Anyone who wants to, come down and throw a few attack spells at me.”
Sofia expected at least a few people to come down, but it seemed Pareth and the sudden appearance of his huge sword of light dissuaded most of them. Sofia’s friends weren’t interested, very busy watching the spectacle while munching on snacks, with even Dopple slowly slurping up a shirt. While the students all looked at each other, each not wanting to be the idiot who goes on stage to see all their spells be effortlessly countered in front of their friends, someone stood up.
The conversations among the students started again, ‘Hey, who’s that?’ ‘Dunno but she’s hot’ ‘Brother have you not seen the teacher?’ ‘I’m not so into beige skin’, they stopped speaking when Bookie approached them with a hand raised.
Meanwhile, oblivious to that conversation, Sofia was having a mental breakdown, cursing internally.
NOT YOU!
Her thoughts screamed as ‘The Empress’ slowly walked down the rows of seats and made her way to the stage.
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