Heaven's Greatest Professor

Chapter 312: Vacation - Day 1

Their housing was far more mundane than most had hoped, though none complained. Instead of something extravagant, it was a small guest house made entirely out of wood.

There were no other houses in the surrounding area, and Gale had booked the whole place to ensure no one else would be there to bother them. Other than a couple of attendants and Stewart, only nine of them were present in the house.

"Are you feeling down that your elf lover is not here with you?" Jenni asked.

He clicked his tongue. "Go check your room before others take away the best ones."

Jenni's expression changed as she hurried into the house, bossing around all the other adepts.

"It's a bit cold here," he said, turning towards Dawn, who had kept silent most of the way. She was still in her shirt and pants, not showing any visible sign of feeling the chill.

"Sir, I'll go prepare your room," she said, ready to depart into the house.

He shook his head. "There's no need for that," he said. "There are attendants for that. Also, I told you not to call me Sir."

Dawn said nothing.

"Come walk with me," he invited her and started down the path towards the lake. There was some snow around, though not enough to cover the trees in a white blanket. The path was damp and full of life, though there was not much undergrowth. It was barely a few minutes' walk to the lake, the tall, white mountains in the background indicating the way.

Gale thought the lake would be frozen, but he was pleasantly surprised.

"Thankfully, it's not frozen," he said, dipping his hand into the water. "Though it is cold."

Still, swimming in the lake was not out of the question.

"Is my home as picturesque as this?" he asked.

"It's far more pleasant there," Dawn answered.

"What do you think my best course of action should be?" he asked, meeting her gaze. Dawn kept her silence as though not wanting to offend him. "Come on, I need more prospects."

"I would say to reunite with all your acquaintances and find a way back," Dawn said. "Unlike you, I have spent close to two years in this realm, maybe more for others."

"The Oracle, the assassin, and you," he nodded. "Who else is there?"

"We're not certain how many of us fell into the dimension crack."

Gale became contemplative. "Do you have any idea what caused my amnesia?"

"I'm not certain," Dawn said, looking at her feet. "You were fighting someone when the dimension crashed. I think the Oracle can give you a better answer."

"The Oracle," he mumbled. "You said she's in Iman?"

Dawn nodded.

"And the assassin?" he raised an eyebrow, still not understanding why he had hired an assassin in the first place. Dawn mentioned it was for security purposes, though he didn't believe assassins were best suited for that kind of job. "You mentioned they noticed me first. Why didn't they show themselves?"

Dawn did not answer. She probably didn't have one. "Perhaps they are trying to communicate with the Oracle in Iman."

He sighed. "I guess I need to go there," he muttered. "After I finish on the front lines and deal with some other business."

***

"Alright, adepts," Gale addressed his students—some of whom were even older than him, and one was double his age. "You should already know my vacation takes precedence over whatever I'm going to teach you all."

Apparently, it hadn't been common knowledge as a few of the adepts exchanged glances with one another, as though asking if he was being serious.

"So I would be mighty delighted if I do not have to point out the same thing twice," he continued. "This is how I'm going to do things. Every morning, I'll hold a two-hour session where I'll explain everything there is. If there's any question, you'll ask then, or wait for the next day. You are free to discuss among yourselves, but do not bother me. Am I understood?"

A few of the adepts nodded.

"Am I understood?"

"Yes, Sir," most of them said in unison, all except Jenni.

"If you're waiting for any special treatment, I can show you the way out," he told her, his eyes radiating the familiar coldness.

Jenni froze, a shiver running down her spine.

"Since you're ahead of most of them here, I'll deem you the group leader," he told her. "Your duty will be to make sure that all of them forget their sleep and eating habits and work all their waking hours on improving. Am I understood?" Experience more on mvl

"Yes, Sir!" Jenni saluted.

He snorted. "Alright, today, we'll go through the advanced designing class," he said, moving next to the whiteboard Dawn had procured for the job. "You all have mastered a few runes to tier-III, but what's the point of mastery if you can't use them in the most perfect way? You may all recognize that an error in the design may cause the script to mis-perform by as much as ninety percent.

"Now, I know none of you are incompetent enough to make such an elementary error that would cause ninety percent efficiency loss of a script. No, I'm going to teach you ways to help improve your designing capabilities."

Everyone was ready with runic graph papers and their stylus.

"Darren, tell me what is the rule of thumb for designing?"

The dark-skinned man sat up straighter. "Always look for ways to make the script the most efficient while keeping the most utility."

"However, efficiency and utility may clash with one another. A runesmith's task is to find the middle ground between them," he added, his eyes moving towards Aki, one of the sharpest adepts. "What equates efficiency?"

"The number of runes, perfect symmetry, and quality of the materials," he said, counting on his fingers.

"So, other than the quality of the materials, the efficiency of a script depends completely on the skill of the runesmith. For the first two days, we'll work on improving that efficiency."