The Mage of Primordial Chaos

An instructional day at Counterhex Academy contained four periods, each lasting an hour and a half (90 minutes) in length. School began in the morning at 8:30 AM, followed by period 1 and 2, then came lunchtime at 11:40 AM (5 minutes of travel time between each item on the schedule). Lunch was an hour exactly, bringing us to 12:40 PM, and period 3 started at 12:45. Finally, Period 4 began at 2:20 PM, and ended at 3:50. 

Apart from those times, there were barely any limitations related to time in the academy. There was no curfew, and surprisingly enough, many of the recreation facilities at the school are in fact open 24/7, even past midnight. Of course, there was a strike system in place, where if you're late to class three times, you'll receive a formal warning, and once you receive three warnings, you're expelled, so it's not like people could just skip class and still enjoy the recreation facilities.

But that aside, it's almost as if the school's encouraging the students to stay up at night without sleeping, contrary to most other academies. I'm guessing the reason behind this is that once the Hex are here, emergency summons will occur frequently, so we must always be prepared. These summons will most likely also be at night, since that's when the Hex will assume we have our guards down. As they say, if you want something dirty done, you wait for lights out.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of thinking about all that, since tonight, I had to go to Sylvoir. Before that time arrives, though, I think I'll head back to the dorm right away after school concludes for the day, simply to get some sleep and rest in preparation for what's to come. 

But before that, I still had the 4th period to get through… and it was going to be a boring information-type class as well. Sigh. I can only pray I don't fall asleep during the lecture.

In any case, the teacher for this class didn't appear to be anyone I knew, which was good. If three of my four teachers were going to be previous acquaintances, I might faint from biased treatment, for better or worse.

"Welcome, class," the teacher said upon everyone taking their seats, and looked around at his students professionally within the standard, normal modern classroom they were in. "My name is Mr. Delysilcaphloriation, and no, you cannot call me Mr. D for short. It's a pleasure to meet you all."

It took a total of about two seconds for our hopes to get shattered.

This teacher, out of the three we've already had today, seemed like the most 'normal' and 'professional'. I had originally thought he was from another school, possibly the old University of Fragment, before getting transferred here, but I don't think any school would accept a person with such a name who refused to let students address him by something easier to pronounce and remember. As it would seem, every teacher at this school, while skilled, also had some kind of weird  and unique trait to their personalities.

Quite frankly, it also took a total of about two seconds for Prince to immediately shoot up a hand in question, and Mr. D-whatever-it-was smiled at him before calling on him.

"Yes, dear student? Is there a question already, before I've even covered any material? A very proactive class! I like it!"

"Yes, sir!" Prince replied formally, standing up from his chair and saluting for whatever reason. "I have a question. May we address you as 'sir', instead of your real name?"

The teacher smiled warmly at him, and delivered a profound-

"Nope."

"…"

"And, for calling me that just now, you, my friend, are going to remain standing for the rest of the period. Now then, everyone else, please remain seated. When I call your name, stand up and say you're here, loud and clear. First up—Aiko?"

… This teacher was truly built differently, that was for sure. I'm going to refrain from speaking in this class even more so than usual, simply because I didn't want to risk getting myself into a situation where I had to use his name.

In any case, attendance was soon complete, with everyone being here. Everyone sat back down again with the exception of Prince, who tried to blend in with the crowd but was met with a friendly smile from the teacher that stopped him in his actions.

"Now then, class, with attendance complete, let's discuss the topic of this course. I will do my best to remember all of your names, but that will come with time. In return, I only ask that you remember mine as well—Mr. Delysilcaphloriation. A fair deal, is it not?"

A fair trade my ass! You think our names can compare to yours?!

"In any case, I will be your instructor in the Hex Knowledge course for the rest of your time here at this Academy. This class is mainly information-related and will not have many hands-on activities, so I deeply apologize for that, but I hope you all do not end up falling asleep."

Damn, without the whole thing with his name, he's actually quite the nice and laid-back teacher. Duly noted.

"Alright. Today's lesson is a simple overview of the Hex. This unit will be called nothing, because it is really just a simple overview. We will move into Unit 1 in our next lesson: the History of the Hex. But for now, let's begin. Please turn all your eyes to the display monitor behind me."

Saying that, he used the remote lying on the desk in front of him to activate the screen, and immediately, the introduction slide of a slideshow was presented. A real, professional-looking slideshow that looked like it was actually made by a teacher, unlike the kindergarten-esque one made by Doc in Period 2. The difference was as stark as day and night.

With that, Mr. D-whatever-the-hell-his-name-was began the lesson, and in my head, I began to think.

We'll need to come up with an actual name to refer to him by in the future…