Settling down

With light steps, Wu Xue left the Principal's room. His expression was as always and he was thinking about the near future.

He wasn't very worried about the vow, he already experienced death many times and his masters always managed to bring him back. A mere magical vow like that was insufficient to make him feel much fear.

"Let me guide you to your new residence, sir–... No, Professor Wuxue," Roger closed the door behind them, "I will instruct for your suitcases to be sent there as soon as possible, I'm sorry for this inconvenience."

"Don't worry," Wu Xue shook his head, "Please tell me more about the academy while we walk, and also about my future students."

"I was about to start," Roger smiled and took the lead.

The Polar Magic Academy received its students in two ways. One was through payment, and the other was through exams. Nobles normally entered through the first method, while commoners through the last.

The academic grade was seven years long, and the first two years focused on helping the students advance from being Defiants to mages. From the third year onwards, the students would choose a specialty to focus on, they will then begin to work on their magic path.

The academy assigned them a primary mission, to lit the Fifth Star before the end of the academic grade, they would be considered disqualified and wouldn't graduate otherwise.

Normally, students enrolled in the academy when they were thirteen years old, so they would graduate when they were about twenty years old if they didn't miss or reprove any year.

Surprisingly, the amount of commoner students in the academy was about the same as the nobles, although the quality varied because of the different circumstances.

Most commoners possessed no magical background and so were initially behind the nobles in terms of prowess, but this kind of environment helped the academy to find gems among the pebbles.

The exam to enroll in the academy was difficult, so all commoners who managed to pass were talented, contrary to the nobles who mostly relied on money to be accepted.

It caused an interesting phenomenon. While in the initial years, the nobles suppressed the commoners, in the last years the commoners suppressed the nobles.

That kind of friction formed factions within the academy, among employees and students alike.

There were three major factions: The Noble Faction, the Common People Faction, and the Neutral Faction. The names were quite self-explanatory.

Clara was a member of the Neutral Faction, and Roger was a member of the Common People Faction.

Joining the academy as a professor, Wu Xue would inevitably be forced to choose a faction, mainly to avoid vain provocations from those who find him to be excessively passive towards the situation.

Wu Xue was in no hurry to choose a faction since he found it rather irritating, so he simply refused Roger's indirect invitations and began to size up and down his new residence, which was where the deceased Jonath once lived.

The place was located a bit far from the main buildings of the academy, but more for privacy than for being excluded. It exuded an ambiance of old-world charm and enchantment.

Outside, it seemed just like any other building found in the streets of the capital.

Its internal architecture reflected the richness of the era, with rich mahogany paneling and intricate molding adorning the walls, while a grand fireplace, adorned with aged marble, stood as the focal point of the living room.

Bookshelves, laden with tomes on arcane arts, line one corner, and a plush, velvet-cushioned armchair beckoned for quiet contemplation.

The windows, dressed in heavy, opulent drapes, filter in soft, ethereal light, and cast a warm, inviting glow across the spaces.

All professors' residences were sanctuaries of knowledge, mystique, and history, where magic and tradition coexist in perfect harmony.

"If you need anything, please call for me," Roger said after seeing Wu Xue's belongings finally being carried inside his room by servants, "This is the official insignia of the teachers here, wear it in your chest as much as possible."

He then handed an insignia the size of a nail that resembled a flaming sun to Wu Xue.

"Wel..." Wu Xue sat on a big chair close to the fireplace and sighed while massaging his temples, he casually fixed the insignia on his suit jacket.

He was informed that he would need to give classes the next day, so he had to prepare himself. Fortunately, as an official professor of the academy, he had access to the main library.

He didn't want to waste more time and simply walked outside towards the great building where the library was located, in the center of the complex.

Wu Xue didn't want to waste time with formalities to be allowed to enter, but he knew that he had no choice. The academy had quite a few powerful people, all capable of sensing his presence even after an invisibility spell was cast.

After going through the formalities, he was given a permit to enter the library and access all of its layers, even those that contained dangerous knowledge.

The library was divided into eleven layers, each layer on a different floor. The higher the floor, the deeper and more valuable the knowledge stored there.

He first began to browse the books in the first layer, since he needed basic knowledge about magic.

His presence attracted the attention of many students there since he was using the insignia of a professor with the appearance of a child, but no one approached to ask questions.

Until two daring persons appeared.

A young boy and a young girl approached Wu Xue as he was reading a book about the first steps needed to learn magic.

"Are you really a professor?" the young girl was the first to ask, "The offense for impersonating a professor is grave, you might be expelled!"

"Sister," the boy sighed and apologized, "I'm sorry, I couldn't contain her."

Wu Xue stopped reading and felt bothered, he was deeply concentrated and found that happening to be unpleasant.

"I am, can you leave?"

The young girl frowned and looked at the book's title, "This is a book for novices in magic, why are you reading it if you are a professor?"

Wu Xue was unwilling to waste time and tapped his finger on the table, a energy barrier surrounded him, blocking all sounds from outside.

"See, I told you," the young boy said and tapped the girl's shoulder, "He is someone who attained rejuvenation, let's stop bothering him."

The girl felt a bit ashamed and left after giving an apologetic look to Wu Xue, who ignored her.

After they left, Wu Xue dispelled the barrier to spare energy and returned all of his concentration to the book.

He spent the whole day and night studying there, he gathered as much knowledge as possible about the foundations of magic.

Magic was a bit similar to the literary path, it used knowledge as a way to form a bridge between the caster and nature. Instead of refining the natural aura into something entirely owned by them, mages just stored the natural aura within themselves without alteration.

They stored the natural aura within the Magic Stars located in their hearts. Interestingly, they used the Natal Acupoint as the storage space for those stars and developed it into something akin to the dantian.

Wu Xue found it incredible, he never heard or read it was possible to use the Natal Acupoint permanently, he always thought it was just a tool for the activation of one's cultivation potential.

To light the first Magic Star, the Defiant had to develop his knowledge about magic enough to resonate with the natural aura, until it gathers in the heart and condenses into a star.

In that world, knowledge about magic was knowledge about the laws governing the world, so just knowing about it tempered their souls and thus their soul power.

After understanding and reading a few basic techniques to condense the first magic star, Wu Xue was troubled.

He didn't have a Natal Acupoint anymore, it collapsed when he first began cultivation!

It meant he had no proper way to begin practicing magic, and thus had to find another path to try and refine the natural aura around him for cultivation.

He first planned to first learn and practice magic and then transform the natural aura inside him into his True Qi, but it was clearly improbable.

Unless he found another way to practice magic.

When the sun was about to dawn on the horizon, Wu Xue slapped his cheeks hard and steeled his heart.

"I have always been a genius when it came to deduction and comprehension, can't I find a way by myself now that I have this basic knowledge?"

He didn't know of a way to restore the Natal Acupoint, but it didn't mean he had no way to discover a way.

"Order," he muttered and a barrier of literary power infused with his Order Artistic Conception appeared developing him, "Control."

His body stopped its functions as if time stopped. But his mind was still active. Only his True Qi was freely coursing his meridians and nourishing his body.

He focused on the small space in his heart where the Natal Acupoint once existed, it was empty and formless.

'Since it's related to my own body's structure, it's better to use my Yuan Qi,' he thought and channeled his Yuan Qi into that void space.

"Space," he muttered, "Boundary."

His Yuan Qi acted like his literary power, forming the two words he muttered and imprinting itself into that void.

"Limit!" he frowned and focused on the limit, his literary power formed a perfectly round barrier surrounding the words formed by his Yuan Qi in that space.

"Condense," he continued to mutter words of command, "Fix!"

The Order Artistic Conception in his literary power and his Yuan Qi began to resonate strongly and acted as he wished.

Wu Xue felt a huge constriction in his heart as if something was about to break, his body was not handling that process very well.

He supported the discomfort and had a sudden flash of inspiration, he used his Life-Death Artistic Conception with his True Qi to envelop his own heart, healing it constantly.

Moreover, he connected the Life-Death artistic Conception with the Order Artistic Conception. The first was naturally a subordinate branch of the latter, so it was easy.

'Come here, life,' he thought, ' I know you are there somewhere.'

He continued to circulate his energies until he felt a deep throbbing inside his heart as if something was trying to sprout.

He was happy and knew he succeeded, he continued that process until wisps of innate life energy began to appear inside his heart, that was the energy that normally only unborn babies possessed when they were still developing inside their mother's womb.

He used his literary power to channel that innate life energy inside the space he artificially formed inside his heart, where his Natal Acupoint once existed.

'Do your job,' Wu Xue happily said in his heart, 'Life!'

"Integrate!" he muttered and his Yuan Qi began to actively absorb that innate life energy, mutating in the process.

The words "Space" and "Boundary" began to fuse and transformed into "Beginning."

As if the universe was being opened, the space inside his heart began to glow, that bright colorful light even affected his whole body, making him look like a human lamp.

Wu Xue felt his Yuan Qi acting by itself, without his command, it began to strangely act inside his heart and nurture a new acupoint, and he completely succeeded.

Suddenly, Wu Xue felt the natural aura around being stirred to his presence.

"Wondrous!" he muttered, marveling at the situation. Just possessing a Natal Acupoint made him completely able to absorb the natural aura around him.

"As long as it is absorbed, I don't really need to practice magic, but..." he dispelled the barrier surrounding him and looked at the great number of books around him, "I don't want to simply give up."

The whole process of him reshaping his Natal Acupoint took two hours, and his classes were about to start.