26 26. Secretly Messing with his Soul?

Gaus nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"What brings you here at this hour?"

Gaus was pretty sure the woman wasn't speaking to him directly. Her lips moved but not in line with the words spoken. It sounded somewhat detached, like a... malfunctioning machine. This wasn't how she spoke in class.

"I appreciate how a member of the senior generation has taken their time to teach our class and I have no complaints whatsoever. But I've seen the curriculum for this month and I feel a bit down. You see, I learned a lot about enchantment even before coming here. If possible I want to learn something new as soon as I have the opportunity."

The woman sighed. "Judging from your performance today in class your pronunciation of the syllables is below average, and you need to learn runic writing and mana insignia to even start enchanting. Yet here you are complaining about the curriculum when many of my colleagues are already saying I'm rushing you."

"I've learned mana insignia and runic writing."

The woman was silent for some seconds before she retrieved a small stone and a quill from her inventory and threw them at him. "Make that glow."

Gaus snatched the stone with his left and the quill with his right.

<Runic writing activated.

Mana insignia activated.>

He used the quill to inscribe the word for 'glow' on the stone. Then he pushed mana into it to turn it into a rune.

It glowed brightly, creating a lamp of a sort.

"Change the color," the woman said indifferently.

He slightly altered the inscription by deleting a few aspects and adding some more. It took him ten minutes but he did it. The glow changed from red to orange.

"Change the color."

He added another part to the rune and it changed to yellow.

"Another color."

He gave her a blue.

"Another."

He gave her a green. It went on until he produced the seven colors of a rainbow.

"I want all the colors together."

Gaus rolled the stone in his hands, gauging its size. "Ma'am, it's not feasible to produce all the seven colors on a stone of this size. There's no space to write all the seven runes at the same time. I'll need a much larger stone."

"Until you can make all the colors glow at the same time then you don't deserve an extra class." She deadpanned.

"But there's just no space to put down all the seven runes on this size," Gaus said, puzzled.

"Then compress them."

"What? But I don't know how to do that."

Instead of answering, she threw one book at him. "These are some exercises that'll help you to compress runes without destroying everything. Don't ask for an extra class if you can't even master a simple compression."

Challenge accepted.

He left the old woman and went to Linc's office. The man opened the door immediately after the first knock just like the last time. Gaus was beginning to think he was waiting by the door just to answer calls.

"Class rep?"

"Good evening, sir, can I come in?"

"Evening, class rep, how're doing?"

"I'm fine, sir, thank you."

There was some silence as Linc waited for Gaus to speak.

"May I?" Gaus pointed at the opposite seat.

"Please, sit."

The conversation started just like last time with Linc asking if he was there to complain about his colleagues.

"I'm afraid not. A friend of mine told me about a mentor-mentee program going on under the ground. I just want to confirm if the academy has the right to pull something like this behind our backs?"

Linc furrowed his brows slightly. "You made it sound as if we are running a cult."

Gaus opened his mouth to respond but Linc stopped him by raising his hand. "I don't want to hear it. Why are you here?"

"I want to be your mentee if you will have me." Gaus went straight to the point.

Linc laughed. "That's not how it works. Even if I want to teach, you need to show your worth before I can select you."

Gaus was confident in his ability to impress the teacher. He retrieved a finger size dagger from his inventory.

<Sharpening activated.>

He channeled mana into it and the reddish smoke immediately appeared. He levitated it above his palm and then spun it clockwise.

"Stab it on the floor," Linc said.

Gaus did as he was told and the small dagger went into the ground with ease.

"Pull it out with levitation," Linc said.

The dagger was buried in the ground such that only the hilt was visible, but Linc wanted him to pull it out using just levitation.

<Levitation activated.>

He tried, but the dagger didn't budge.

"Unless you can do that then I can't be your mentor."

"But you've already promised to give me one extra class every five days," Gaus complained.

"And I intend to fulfill that promise, but don't forget the extra classes are for the introductory classes you have missed. But if you can pull that little thing out of the ground using levitation then we can talk about the mentor-mentee program."

Both teachers considered his levels and skills to be inadequate for any special teaching. But he wasn't going to give up easily. It was just pulling out a small dagger from the ground and suspending it in the air using levitation, and inscribing seven colors of the rainbow in one place. He could pull it off.

Gaus didn't realize how much trouble he got himself in until he started. Let's just say trying to compress the runes distorted their structure thereby inactivating them. Even if by some miracle he created a functioning rune, it became exponentially difficult to channel mana into it. At some point, the runes started to explode as soon as he channeled mana into them.

Also trying to wrench the dagger out of the ground was proving to be... not so easy. A simple levitation involved focusing on the whole dagger, but now he'd to focus only on the hilt to exact more force and try to pull it out. That hadn't only proven to be difficult but impossible at his level. One book advised him to try levitating multiple objects all at once before he tried to do it.

It had already been six loops since he came back and he wasn't assassinated. Nobody seemed to care about him. Tyren was erased four days ago and for some reason, he didn't show up in the academy. Gaus's desire for red hair was still there but he'd learned to live with it.

It was late and Gaus had nothing to do at the moment but sit in the cafeteria and hear the heroic deeds of XM9999 and the other legends of the academy from the waiter. The muffled chattering of the other students from nearby seats keeping him company whenever the waiter left to serve his customers. It was surprisingly peaceful. He started to doze off as the morning breeze hit his face.

Then the blue panel suddenly flashed in his vision.

<Gaus's immortality is assessing the severity of soul damage...

You'll be returned to 20 seconds before sustaining damage.

ERROR... skill was interrupted.

Assessing ERROR...

The ERROR has been evaluated and rectified.

You'll be returned to 20 seconds before sustaining damage.

ERROR... skill was interrupted.>

And the blue panel disappeared.

***

Suddenly his butt hit the hard surface that was his seat; his consciousness and vision cleared. He was back in class again.

"Vuiblooour."

"Hell, no!" He shouted.

"Excuse me?" The teacher glared at him murderously.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean to..."

"Keep your thoughts to yourself and don't ever shout in my class again."

Surprisingly, he got off easy. But that wasn't even his concern. Why was he repeating the loops for the second time? The first time it was the assassin who tried to destroy his soul and Gaus's immortality brought him back, but there was no assassin now. He was fully alive and well, sitting in the cafeteria and enjoying the company of the waiter when it happened.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that the reason behind it all was someone trying to mess up with his soul. Gaus's immortality detected the silent attack on his soul and tried to rectify the problem by Rewinding, but there was an 'error'. If someone was secretly messing with his soul then it was no surprise he was experiencing adverse effects and unusual behaviors. Whoever was messing with his soul would also be responsible for his sudden and unexplained desire for red hair. The only person he could think of that had the motivation to mess up with his soul was Tyren.