ACADEMY'S UNDERCOVER PROFESSOR
"Flora Lumos, what the hell are you doing here? Moreover, you're like a thief hanging around the door while hiding your presence."
When Ludger pointed her out, Flora stood up quickly from her spot and coughed while dusting off her school uniform skirt.
Flora's forehead was still burning red after Ludger opened the door, but she opened her mouth while desperately pretending to be okay.
"Ahem. It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Ludger. I came here just because I wanted to ask you something."
'Act in a proud and elegant manner.'
She acted while repeating those words in her head, but she couldn't hide the subtle trembling of her voice.
Ludger was about to point the slight tremble out, but he decided to let it slide.
"I don't mind if you come whenever to ask me questions about the lesson, so you don't have had to wait outside like this."
"No. Not that. I'd like to thank Professor Ludger, first of all."
"Thank me?"
"I… uh… You saved me from a spell failure that almost went out of control."
He was wondering why she was there. Was it because of that?
But she was there to say 'thank you'?
Flora was furious when Ludger stared at her with a surprised gaze.
"Why? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Nothing."
"Urgh."
Flora felt very awkward about herself, perhaps because she had never thanked someone like that before.
Speaking her gratitude made her feel something ticklish in her skin, but she was determined to say it no matter what.
"Uh, thanks to you, I didn't get hurt either."
"I just did what I had to do as a professor."
Ludger's voice, which sounded so flat, seemed to say that he had never been the slightest bit interested in her gratitude.
Flora knew that it was obvious for him to be like that, but it also strangely hurt her pride.
No matter how he had no interest in it, couldn't he at least ask if she was okay?
He was a man whose sensibility was so hard to find.
Still, she decided not to complain because she had gone there to apologize as well.
"And, uh… I think that professor's words back then were not wrong."
She said so while twisting her fingers in her bangs.
Ludger tried to seriously recall what her remark was about.
'Not wrong?'
And he immediately realized what she was saying.
—What she meant was his nagging when she used the overlapping element magic.
-Use meaningful magic. Don't lower your value.
Was it that?
"As long as you knew that."
"…More than that, uh, are you alright, Professor?"
Ludger wriggled his eyebrows as he listened to Flora's question.
"What are you talking about?"
"You must have consumed a lot of mana. I was exhausted from suppressing the mana, too, wasn't it harder for you than it was for me? Usually, it should be many times more burdensome for the person who helps in that kind of incident."
"It was nothing."
Ludger said so, but in fact, he had almost fainted from mana exhaustion.
He was lucky that there was a mana recovery pill that he had prepared in advance in case of an unexpected situation, otherwise, he might have collapsed disgracefully in front of the students.
It was fortunate for him to have a lot of pills in case of lack of mana.
Of course, he was almost out of the medication that he'd prepared due to having to stop Flora's out-of-control mana.
'Well, I can just make those pills again.'
The place was Sören.
Obviously, there were places where people studied in pharmacology classes, and there were also pharmacology rooms in the research building where professors could freely enter.
Since the drug room, where the professors could make as many drugs as they wanted, was equipped with a lot of materials, the professors could just fill out the entry list whenever they wanted and do their experiments right away.
"Uh, how many elements can you deal with?" Flora asked while fiddling with her fingers.
"Why do you ask me that?"
"Just because… You dealt with five elements in the class. Isn't that a lot?"
Ludger suddenly wondered why Flora was asking him so many questions.
Most children who were geniuses did as they pleased, and they did not continue to have a conversation with others for long because they had a strong ego.
Ludger thought Flora was one of that kind. He also thought that she had tried to use the triple overlapping properties in the class before because of that.
Still, students are students.
They wanted to see how good the professor who taught them was.
Ludger pondered about what to say.
'Actually, I think that I can handle most of the elements.'
The ten elements that most people commonly referred to…
Ludger knew how to use them 'all'.
He could be said to be the opposite of a single attribute wizard who could only use one element and could achieve the peak of the related element.
—An all-property owner.
However, that was why none of the elements that he dealt with had achieved a certain level of proficiency.
He might seem like an all-around talented person to others, but Ludger evaluated himself as a jack-of-no-trades.
'Even so, it'd be a problem if I said that I could use all of the properties here.'
Among the wizards who were in the history of the magic tower, the wizard who was known for dealing with most elements had only achieved eight.
The wizard had the official number one record that was specified in the that could be called the history of wizards.
But Ludger had already smashed that number one record.
If that were to become known, the magic tower would probably be overturned once more and be in chaos. If there was a short-tempered wizard, then they would want to dissect Ludger alive.
In fact, Ludger did not find it unusual that he could deal with all 10 elemental properties.
'My teacher didn't say anything nice to me in the first place, anyway.'
Of course, he was the number one teacher who had the greatest influence on Ludger since he was born again in this world after his life in the previous world.
He was the person who had taught Ludger magic since childhood, and he had also taught him how to live in this world along with giving him other tips and knowledge.
He had chosen Ludger as his disciple purely because he was unique and interesting, so he just thought of Ludger as a pet.
Even considering that, Ludger was quite grateful to his teacher.
However, he was such a cranky person that he only evaluated Ludger's source code spell as 'not bad'.
Of course, he was also such a teacher who had advised Ludger—who was able to use all of the top 10 elements—by saying, 'If you go anywhere and show it off, you'll get hit by rocks'.
So, under the serious advice and instruction of his teacher, Ludger never felt conceited or great, even if he knew how to handle all of the top 10 elements.
However, Ludger was objectively aware of the severity of knowing how to use all 10 elements, so he had not informed anyone about it.
So Ludger had decided to just limit it to the five elements that he had shown the students in his class.
"Those five elements are everything."
"Five elements, I see… That's surprisingly a lot."
"Is that the end of your questions?"
"Oh. There's also a question related to the source code: are you going to teach the source code to all of the students in the class?"
In the first class, Ludger had deliberately shown the source code and attracted the students' attention.
It didn't end just as a show-off, either. Ludger actually intended to teach students the source code.
However, he had not properly explained to whom, how much, and when he would teach the source code.
* * *
* * *
"Well. Come to think of it, I didn't give you any notification. I won't teach the same thing to everyone because this spell is like a foundation to me. There are conditions to learn it."
"What are the conditions?"
"That I'm only going to teach it directly to the top five students."
Flora smiled at his answer with interest.
"Five students, huh. It's a little bit small… Still, the total number of students are 80 people."
"Because the spell holds that much worth."
"What's the evaluation? Are you going to give the evaluation at the end of the semester? In Sören, the students are evaluated by dividing a total of four parts in a semester. It'll be hard to decide because the rankings keep changing for each evaluation."
"I already anticipated that and came up with a method. It's this…"
Ludger immediately casted a spell technique on his palm.
It could have been seen as monotonous because it was made up of only white lines of mana, but the complex structure that it evoked made the spell not look ridiculous.
Flora also voiced a slight admiration for the color that she felt in the spell itself.
"It's… a part of it, huh? To be exact, it's a part of the source code spell that you showed us."
"You saw it precisely."
Ludger nodded.
Just as Flora said, the spell technique that he showed was one of the source code's main components.
"I call this the Framework."
"Framework….."
"That Source Code, the spell that I casted, consisted of a total of four Frameworks."
"Then are you going to give this Framework to the top 5 people in every quarter of the semester?"
"Yes. The semester is divided into four parts, and I will teach the four Frameworks in each part of the semester. In other words, the students who can't steadily reach the top five won't be able to learn the right spell."
In the end, if the students wanted to be properly taught the Source Code spell, they had to take classes with a burning passion, submit assignments steadily, and do well on the tests for the whole semester.
Realizing that, Flora stared at Ludger with a slightly bewildered look.
"…So you have carefully calculated it."
"Did this solve your curiosity?"
"But can you really show this to me?"
"What do you mean?"
"The Framework that you casted… What if I'm analyzing it?"
Flora pointed to the Framework spell that was still floating in Ludger's hands.
No matter how few other people saw that spell, it was unlikely for a wizard to continue exposing their spell technique like that.
It was impossible to do unless the wizard trusted the person they showed the spell to that much.
'Oh.'
Ludger belatedly realized his mistake.
Wizards basically didn't show others the spell techniques that they had developed for a long time.
If maybe they had submitted a paper or a patent related to the spell, it would be a different case, but if someone copied the spell technique and insisted that it was theirs, it would be a headache.
In fact, that kind of case happened frequently.
That was the reason why wizards thoroughly kept their own vision magic a secret.
Ludger recognized his mistake, but he decided that it wasn't a big problem.
"It doesn't matter."
"Pardon?"
"It doesn't matter if it's you who saw it."
Especially if the one he was showing it to was Flora Lumos.
Flora Lumos was a genius.
Ludger also didn't know if she was an actual genius because he had only heard it through rumors, but when he had only helped her a little bit with the triple overlapping elements in class, he had realized that the rumor was true when he saw her ablility to complete it.
-Ah. She'll get first place no matter what she does in my class.
Even if she didn't get first place, she'd consistently be in the top five, so it wouldn't be a problem if he showed her one Framework anyway.
Because she'd be able to learn the whole Source Code spell.
"P-pardon?!"
But Flora took Ludger's words differently.
Her face flushed red and she soon began to stutter out of the blue, unlike her usual arrogant behavior.
"Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-what on earth do you mean by that?!"
"Why are you so flustered? I don't think it's wrong. You're going to take first place in my class and get the Framework anyway."
"N-no, well, that's that, but…"
But it was foul play for him to say that.
Flora Lumos replied in a low voice so as not to be heard by Ludger.
It didn't matter if he showed it to her, he had said.
It was just like he had given her special treatment.
However, while she thought so, she couldn't stop her heart from pounding hard.
Even though she pretended not to be that blunt on the outside, the corners of her mouth kept slightly raising at the fact that this man was having a good view of her.
"Then I'll be on my way."
When Ludger turned his back, Flora called him unconsciously.
"Oh, Professor!"
"What else? Do you still have more questions?"
"No. That, it, it's nothing."
When she looked back at Ludger's face, who was looking at her with an unwavering gaze, Flora's face turned red as if it was going to explode.
Having heard such words a moment ago, she couldn't possibly face Ludger.
Just by meeting his gaze, her skin became ticklish and she got goosebumps.
It was weird. She had never experienced that before.
Ludger looked at Flora with a flat gaze, who was embarrassed on her own and was at a loss of what to do, then soon turned his back and left.
Flora, who kept looking at Ludger's back that was getting farther away with a vacant stare, was finally able to barely regain her senses and calm down her excitement.
'Right. Calm down, Flora Lumos. You weren't supposed to be like this.'
She was always arrogant and confident and easily made fools of others with her own abilities.
In Ludger's case, although she had challenged him on the first day and failed disastrously and then lost again this time, her volition hadn't crumbled yet.
Didn't she make up her mind to exceed him next time?
She shouldn't have been that feeble already.
Flora strengthened her weakening heart.
'Oh, come to think of it, I was going to ask him what he talked about with the commoner girl earlier, but I forgot it.'
Even if she pretended not to show her interest in it, she was curious as to why Ludger had called Lynne away separately.
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