As for Lumiere's sudden parachuting in as a substitute teacher, after a single second of silence, the entire class finally exploded.
"Damn! It's you again, the guy who's always wandering around the school!"
"I'm numb—why does it have to be you…"
"It's already raining so we can't do practical battles, and now we can't even listen to Teacher Fanma talk about his adventures when he was young… All of today was supposed to be his classes."
"Why is Rowlet wearing the Magikarp outfit today? I like the Snorlax one more."
"Can't they switch to someone else? I really don't want to see this guy showing off again."
"Ah! Eevee looked at me! So cute~"
"Isn't this guy Cynthia's bodyguard? That idiot from the class next door tried sneaking photos and got caught by him several times—every photo was confiscated."
"I really wish I had that many admirers too. I'm so jealous of Cynthia."
...
Lumiere quietly swept his gaze around. Aside from Cynthia and a handful of others, everyone else was making a ruckus—it felt like being back in school again.
Only back then, he'd been one of the people tormenting the teacher from below the podium. Now, he was the one on stage being tormented.
"That's enough. Calm down a bit—don't let others laugh at us," Cynthia said, already a little fed up, standing up and patting the desk.
Once she spoke, the other students immediately quieted down and sat properly.
Seeing this, Lumiere suddenly remembered and muttered, "Almost forgot—Cynthia's the class president. This really does make things easier."
After a moment of silence, he had Rowlet and Eevee stand on the podium, then sat down himself and began speaking. "Even though I don't have any teaching experience, at the very least, I'm still a trainer…"
Before he could finish, a student in the front row raised his hand. "Teacher, everyone here is a trainer."
"Trainers can't all be lumped together. The capable become teachers, the dead deserve respect—what really matters is experience!"
"But you're only about five years older than us, right? Does winning battles really give that much experience?" another student pressed.
"I may only be sixteen, but I have over twenty years of battle experience. Can any of you do that?!"
"???"
After several rounds of "verbal combat," the students who kept heckling were finally left speechless. Dealing with students required student tactics—who hadn't been through this before?
"You guys lack too much purity. You should start training from standing still first."
Lumiere smiled smugly, his gaze inadvertently landing on Cynthia in the corner.
He noticed she seemed to be listening intently while also taking notes.
"So studious…"
Only then did Lumiere realize that in over two months of being around her—despite tailing her almost every day—he'd never really observed her carefully, since he didn't want to disturb her.
But looking at her now, he honestly didn't have much battle knowledge to teach her anyway. What, teach hand-to-hand combat with mud pellets?
"Since I'm a substitute teacher anyway, and I took over Teacher Fanma's class, I'll definitely make sure you all have a fun day. So just say it—what do you want to learn?"
Lumiere decided to just go all in. At the very least, he'd once been a mid-to-upper-tier battle trainer.
Even if it was from a game, the fundamentals were largely the same. If he had to explain things, he could still manage.
Hearing this, the front-row student raised his hand again. "Since you have over twenty years of battle experience, you must've gone on a lot of adventures too, right? Could you tell us some stories from your adventures?"
"That'd be great. We liked listening to Teacher Fanma's stories before too."
"Yeah, Teacher, tell us!"
"I want to hear them too!"
Seeing all the students—and even Cynthia—looking at him expectantly, Lumiere could only reply, "Alright then."
He paused to organize his thoughts, then asked, "Do you want to hear the story of a student at twenty-four, or an adventurer at forty-eight?"
"Student!"
"Adventurer!"
"I want both!"
Watching the atmosphere heat up, Lumiere shook his head. "Forget it. Consuming too much of that kind of content would have unpredictable negative effects on you teenagers, so I'll switch topics."
"Eh…"
Lumiere waved his hand to quiet them down, then said, "Before I start telling stories, I have a question for all of you."
"Have you ever noticed something strange—why do some trainers really like throwing Poké Balls during battles?"
At that, a student suddenly replied, "Now that you mention it, yeah. I've seen people do that all the time. Why is that?"
Lumiere explained with a smile, "Because throwing the ball looks cool. Another reason is that during battles, trainers are highly focused and their nerves are in an excited state. Putting force into throwing the ball helps relieve pressure or vent emotions."
"So that's how it is…"
The students nodded, half-understanding.
Seeing that they were starting to follow his rhythm, Lumiere continued, "But have you noticed something else? After trainers throw the Poké Ball, how does it come back?"
"This…"
"That's the question I want you to think about. You can discuss freely—after ten minutes, tell me your answers."
With that, Lumiere began smoothing the feathers and fur of Rowlet and Eevee, while the students below—now fully drawn in—started thinking and discussing possible answers.
Cynthia spun her pen in her hand, seriously pondering the question. From time to time, she even drew diagrams in her notebook, carefully analyzing.
She even hid in the corner and secretly threw a Poké Ball to release Gible, trying to verify it.
And sure enough, the Poké Ball inexplicably returned to her hand—she hadn't even realized how.
"What a strange phenomenon. But it's worth researching!" Cynthia nodded thoughtfully.
Ten minutes later, seeing that the students had likely finished discussing, Lumiere lightly tapped the desk and asked with a smile, "So, does everyone have an answer?"
It was still the front-row student. He raised his hand confidently and answered, "It's a yo-yo! Trainers wrap invisible string around the Poké Ball, then throw it out and pull it back. It also prevents the ball from accidentally falling, so it's convenient and useful."
Lumiere glanced down at him. "So what, you're supposed to buy a Photon Pokémon to practice too? Check whether the string falls off when the Poké Ball opens. Pull it back with your head? Next."
A girl sitting in the middle raised her hand. "It's psychic power! I once saw a theory on a forum—humans might also be a kind of special Pokémon, so having psychic abilities like Psychic-types could be possible!"
"If that were true, psychics would be everywhere by now. Stop browsing shady forums—the waters there are deep, you can't handle them. I even tried throwing my hair—no clothes popped out. Humans aren't Pokémon. Next."
Then an unremarkable chubby kid raised his hand mysteriously. "Teacher, actually, there are no trainers, no Poké Balls. All of this is fictional. This world itself doesn't exist."
"You know too much. The universe has no obligation to explain these things to you, so maybe have your parents take you to the hospital sometime. Next!"
"I don't know. I've never thought about this before."
...
Listening to the increasingly bizarre and outrageous answers, Lumiere started to wonder if he'd tuned into the wrong channel.
Just as he couldn't take it anymore and was about to reveal the answer, Cynthia in the corner suddenly raised her hand!
At once, the entire class turned to look at her. Everyone wanted to hear the class president's take.
"C—uh, Cynthia, you'll answer last," Lumiere said.
He wanted to see her answer too—after all, he'd clearly seen her little experiments from where he was sitting.
Cynthia stood up and answered seriously, "I feel it has something to do with some kind of mechanics. But it's too strange—by all accounts, it already transcends physical phenomena. It feels impossible to explain, so I still couldn't come up with the correct answer."
Seeing that even the class president Cynthia couldn't answer it, the other students sighed one after another.
It was clearly something that appeared all the time in daily life, and should have been very simple—so why was it so hard to understand?
But Lumiere smiled and replied, "No, your answer is actually one of the closest ones. At least your line of thinking was correct."
"Hm?"
Cynthia, who was about to sit down, shot him a puzzled look. The others followed suit.
Seeing everyone looking at him, Lumiere stood up, his expression serious as he began to explain.
"The answer is rotation! Every trainer, through daily battles, unknowingly gains the power of rotation!"
The Way of Rotation—now officially serialized!