Chaos Cycle: The Eye of Genesis

Elior and the dozen upperclassmen were standing while Professor Aleister was watching all of them from his chair, arching his brow, trying to find an optimal way to punish everyone.

"Elior," he called. "Have you completed the homework I have given you?"

Elior nodded and heard the professor say: "Show me."

After he got the exemption from the elementary magic classes, Professor Aleister himself looked over his progress in spell casting. He had explained to him the theory of many spells and how to customize them together, and his homework was to make progress on them.

"Here?" Elior asked as there were a dozen upperclassmen present. Perhaps the professor wanted them to see his might, so they would not bother him anymore. Well, if that happened, it would be for the best.

Elior completed three elementary spell formulas, but before forming the three fireballs, he actually connected the three and a much larger fireball appeared. In no way, it could be called an elementary spell, yet the formulas it took were just the simple elementary formulae.

"It will take me 10 hours or more practice to succeed in connecting four elementary spells," he said, among the startled gazes of the upperclassmen. Even though most of them were of the warrior department, some of them took classes in elementary spells and knew how difficult it was for them.

"So you are not ignoring the task I'm giving you," Aleister said. "Some words came to my ears that you are trying to precipitate in the next Trial-I, which will be held in next month?"

Elior nodded silently.

"We'll look into that later," the professor said. "First let's see what's your senior has to say." His eyes drifted towards the students one by one. A couple of them actually had their arms twisted, while mostly they had light wounds that would not even need any medicine. He asked them what the matter was about.

One of the upperclassmen started with his general lying that they were trying to help their junior, but the junior was too cocky and attacked one of them just because he had crossed words with him. When the others tried to stop him, Elior beat them up as well.

Professor Aleister nodded and looked at Elior. "Do you agree with their claim?" he asked. "That you did not take their advice, but instead use your strength to bully them?"

Elior thought for a second. "No," he said, bringing out the truth into the light. "They probably came with the agenda to make me look bad in the eyes of the academy staff so that I won't have many chances to be the student president. I reckon there is someone else behind them who just used these fools to do their own bidding."

"Professor, I swear it is not like that. We were just there just to converse," the upperclassmen yelled out. Many joined in the swearing.

"Silence." Professor Aleister raised a finger and looked at Elior. "What you just said was your hypothesis. Tell me what happened from your perspective."

"I was returning from the Artificers department," Elior started, "and when I arrived on the second floor, I heard the upperclassmen yelling all sorts of nonsense about me. I did not put my ears at first, but these loving seniors are so good that they surrounded me to listen to their nonsense. All of these were alright, but then one of them pulled my collar. The result you have seen."

The teacher frowned. He could guess the upperclassmen were there to make a mess with Elior and someone else of the Elite students put them to do it, but the way Elior presented the situation showed he was at fault as well.

"The second floor where the incident took place was the department of alchemy," Professor said, looking at the upperclassmen. "I wondered how the dozen of you were doing there? Not even a single of you look students of the Alchemy department to me."

The upperclassmen turned silent, and after a few seconds, only one of them opened his lips. "We were there to look for a friend in the alchemic department."

"That sounds convincing," the teacher said. "I would like to meet that friend of yours." His eyes drifted towards Elior. "You beat all of them up just because one of them pulled your collar?"

Elior shook his head. "I have beaten the one that pulled my collar, and given them chances to walk away, twice," he said as if it was generous of him. "But they came at me trying to defend their friend."

"Professor, he's lying. We have not defended ourselves in case we, unfortunately, injure a newly admitted student." The upperclassmen barked out again.

"Do you have anything to say against them?" Aleister asked.

"I do not attack one who does not defend themselves." He only said that as if it explained everything.

Professor Aleister rubbed his forehead. He was very sure with Elior's inflexible personality, it would not end here. "Let's start with apologizing," he said, and eyed the students before them. "Elior, you start first."

Elior sighed and eyed the upperclassmen. "I apologized for using a little heavier hand," he apologized, though it only looked like he was doing it for using more force. Well, in truth, he could have let them go, but his mood was quite bad then, and he thought showing how conceited they were was a better thing to do.

Professor Aleister's lips twitched a little, but he did not say anything. The upperclassmen apologized halfheartedly as well.

"Now for the points of penalty and punishment," the teacher said from his seat. "You dozen, with the experience of a year or more, could not even stand up against a student of the freshman year. Do you know what this tells?"

The students were silent and still. None of them muttered a word or even looked at the professor.

"It means we teachers have failed. We have not managed to pull the potential out of you," Aleister announced. "For your punishment, all of you have to run 100 laps of the field wearing 2nd-grade training suits."

The exterior of the upperclassmen darkened, but they knew very well what would happen if they complained at this moment. It would only make their punishment worse.

"Points will be taken according to how many laps you fail to accomplish." Aleister's eyes drifted off the only freshmen then. "You have single-handedly beaten a dozen upperclassmen, though the situation is not something I'm aware of. Are you proud of your accomplishment?"

Elior shook his head. What's there to be proud of? They were just the bottom feeder of the pyramid.

"You will be responsible for cleaning all the toilets of the freshmen year for a week." The professor added. "And you are not allowed to use any ability related to the usage of mana."

The moment Elior heard his punishment, his lips twitched. Not to say who dislikes the job, it will waste a good amount of his time. The precious time he can't have enough off.

"Professor, can't I just run the laps?" he asked.

"You want to run?" Aleister said. "Fine, you would do both cleaning the toilet and running on the tracks."

Elior almost slapped himself. He should have known his old mentor would in no way compromise with the punishment he was already given.. At least not until he knew him better.