Sitting in the classroom, my eyes drifted toward a captivating woman who looked around twenty years old, with rich chestnut hair and matching eyes. Her mature makeup and sophisticated outfit added a couple of years to her appearance, giving her a polished, adult allure.
This woman, whom every boy in the room was openly ogling, was Tang Yue. A mage with talent well above average, she was the niece of the Magic Court's presiding judge, a Guardian of the Poisonous Totem Serpent, and an intern magistrate. She was kind-hearted, slightly overly trusting, and, most importantly, someone I knew I could rely on. While I had no intention of exposing all my secrets to her, casually revealing my totem pendant and dropping a hint about the deliberately dug tunnels in the sewers seemed like a safe move.
Doing so would build rapport and establish my reputation as a capable hunter. That, in turn, would secure me a spot on a joint mission with her to capture a criminal after the Bo City disaster-a minor affair, truth be told. The real prize was the subsequent mission to protect the Totem Serpent, which offered a chance to earn crucial votes for a spot on the national team for the World College Magic Tournament.
Over the past five months of relentless cultivation, interspersed with periodic sewer sweeps and occasional resource-gathering raids against the generous Mu Yuans of parallel realities, I had broken through to the second tier in Light, Mind, and Time. Space was currently in progress.
I wasn't particularly worried about getting caught with an excessive number of elements. Mages could only sense the raw strength of a person's primary element-specifically its overall tier, not its precise sub-stage. As long as my Ice element advanced to the Intermediate level before the others, my secret would remain entirely safe.
While the rest of the class remained mesmerized by the new teacher, I channeled a pulse of mana into my pendant, silently sending out a focused mental signal. The pendant discharged a faint wave of magic toward her, triggering a sympathetic resonance in Tang Yue's earrings. Connection established.
Her eyes snapped toward me, flickered with brief astonishment, but she quickly regained her composure. Adjusting her original plan on the fly, Tang Yue addressed the room.
«Class, we are heading to the practice field. I will demonstrate what real magic looks like. Everyone, follow me.»
She herded our class toward the training grounds like a mother duck. Once there, she showcased the second tier of the Primary Fire Element-Bone Burning-reducing a solid practice dummy to nothing but ash in seconds.
«How many stars can each of you control?» Tang Yue asked.
Energized by her display, the students eagerly began boasting about their progress. Zhou Min held the top spot, controlling five stars. Mo Fan distinguished himself in his own peculiar way, claiming he controlled zero-though in truth, he should have already mastered the stars for his Lightning element.
«And what about you?» she asked, turning to me with a slight pause, not yet knowing my name.
«Mu Bai. I control seven stars,» I answered, offering a slight, confident smile. Drawing her attention was precisely why I had used the pendant; otherwise, I would have just been ignored in the crowd.
Her eyes widened briefly in surprise, a reaction shared by the rest of the class. Quick to hide her amazement, she asked, «In that case, perhaps you could demonstrate your magic? Don't worry if it doesn't work on the first try. That happens,» she added, her tone carrying a double meaning meant only for me.
With a faint smirk, I cast the Primary Ice spell, Ice Spread, instantly freezing a target adjacent to the one she had incinerated. The spell launched in just two seconds-a respectable speed for a Primary mage, though far from the peak. Experienced mages could cast it in under a second.
The class erupted into excited chatter. Reining in her shock once more, Tang Yue delivered the line I had been waiting for.
«As you can see, I am a Fire mage,» she announced, «so I will only be conducting practical lessons for Fire students.» The sheer volume of despair radiating from the non-Fire boys was thick enough to birth a Dark Beast.
«Mu Bai, as the top student in this class, stay behind for a few pointers. The rest of you are dismissed.»
We waited until the training grounds cleared out completely. Once we were alone, Tang Yue stepped closer, her eyes scanning me with intense scrutiny.
We stood in silence. Seconds ticked by, and her eyelid began to twitch slightly. Me? I just stood there, perfectly comfortable. Seven months had passed since my transmigrative arrival, and having largely come to terms with my losses, I felt free to indulge in my old favorite pastime: annoying people.
«Alright,» she finally snapped, unable to hold out any longer. «Which totem are you a Guardian of?»
«The White Tiger,» I replied calmly. «Though I'm still far too weak to venture anywhere near its domain. But what is the Guardian of Hangzhou's Poisonous Totem Serpent doing in a small backwater city like Bo?»
«I'm looking for something,» she replied, neatly dodging the question.
«I have a pretty good idea of what that might be,» I said, offering a smile that practically begged for a punch to the face. But this was the exact moment I had set up from the start.
«And what would that be?» the intern magistrate asked, clearly hoping to bait me into giving up valuable information for free.
«Two million.»
«Two million what?» she asked, momentarily thrown off.
«Pay me two million yuan, or I won't say a word. That information took a lot of hard work to get.» And hard work it was-the sewers smelled absolutely horrific.
After a bit of haggling, I produced my Hunter Badge, which I had registered under my past-life name, Su Yutao, purely to sell rat carcasses. Seeing the badge finally convinced her that my intelligence was legitimate and worth paying for, and she promptly transferred the funds.
With the payment settled, I reported the unnaturally massive network of tunnels dug beneath the city by rats, offering a plausible theory about an impending rat tide attack. After all, throwing around accusations about the Black Vatican would look entirely suspicious coming from a high school student, no matter how bright. With our transaction complete, we went our separate ways.