Elite Mages' Academy

Chapter 181: New Courses

The courses on Monday were the same as ever. He had General History of Planet Norma In the morning and Basic Swordsmanship in the afternoon. It had been more than a month since Xiao Lin saw Professor Dai and he felt a little emotional. After comparing the Dawn Academy’s Professor Dai with Judge Academy’s Professor Brown, he realized that the two of them shared some similarities. They were both knowledgeable in their respective fields, Professor Brown being a linguist and Professor Dai an excellent historian.

Professor Dai was the same as always. He gave his lectures in an animated and focused manner, and his display of various magical images ensured that his classes were never boring.

Xiao Lin actually hesitated to attend the history class at first. After all, he had the authority to sit in any class as he pleased and could choose whatever classes he wished to take as long as he could fulfill the conditions to advance to sophomore year.

After pondering over it for a long time in the morning, he finally decided to attend the class. He hoped to gain a more thorough understanding of Planet Norma. Professor Dai’s lecture that day was about the history of the merfolk, a race which bordered directly with Dawn Academy’s colony. In the hundreds of years of colonial history, the merfolk had engaged in several wars with Dawn Academy, and the conflicts were especially fierce in the early days when Dawn Academy was founded.

The feud between two sides could be regarded as an age-old one. Countless lives died at the hands of each opponent, especially during the period where the resurrection tower had not yet been built. In order to restrain Dawn Academy, the orcs provided the merfolk with a large number of weapons and equipment, giving them the necessary support to fight back against Dawn Academy. It led directly to the most tragic battle between Dawn Academy and the orcs.

Professor Dai first gave a brief introduction to the history of the merfolk. The race had a long history and were the first to appear when life was born on Planet Norma. The merfolk evolved from the ocean’s fish life and in general, possessed most of the characteristics of a fish. However, their hind limbs have evolved into two functional legs and they gained the ability to walk on land.

The earliest territory of the merfolk was around Dawn Academy. Dawn Academy tried to avoid conflict in the early days and discovered that the race had almost zero intelligence. It was a race that relied entirely on instinct for survival and any agreement with them was not binding. Dawn Academy then decided to go to war, and for decades, the merfolk were almost completely driven back to the sea.

Xiao Lin noticed that Professor Dai used the words ‘driven back’, not ‘defeat’. After expressing some puzzlement, Professor Dai explained that the merfolk possessed extremely terrifying reproductive abilities. The number of their offspring would only increase, and in the end, there was no other way except to drive them back to the ocean and launch a war against the orcs. Those low-intelligence races retreated quickly after their supply source was cut off.

In addition to introducing the history of the merfolk and the history of the war with Dawn Academy, Professor Dai also briefly explained the language system of the merfolk. Although the course content in that area was not his strong point, he said that Mermish was a compulsory course in the early days of Dawn Academy, perhaps even more important than Planet Norma’s Common Language.

The others were all amazed, but Xiao Lin was not surprised. The academy’s courses were oriented around training and nurturing, and since the academy considered the merfolk to be a major hidden danger, courses relevant to merfolk would naturally become more important.

The Mermish script was messy-looking, but they were not difficult to learn. Most characters could easily be identified through their shape, as they bore some resemblance to hieroglyphs. Their language however, was difficult to learn, with the key aspect being the lack of a unified grammatical system as well as an extremely confusing pronunciation system.

The morning class ended quickly and was not that boring for Xiao Lin. As a student of Dawn Academy, it was not a bad thing to gain more knowledge about the school’s history. In spite of that, Xiao Lin was a little confused when he heard complaints from other students after class. From those complaints, he discovered that Professor Dai had apparently changed the topic at the last minute that day, and the original topic of that lesson ought to have been elvish history.

As the lecturer, Professor Dai had every right to change his lecture contents at any time. Xiao Lin did not take that episode into his heart, but he was rather surprised to see an extra skill after querying the central computer: Basic Mermish Mastery LV1.

Xiao Lin did not know whether to laugh or cry. He could not help but wonder if he really had the talent for learning languages?

Later that afternoon, Xiao Lin paid more attention to his swordsmanship course. When he reappeared in the training hall after being gone for more than a month, it was only natural that he would arouse excitement and whispers from the other students.

The T-rex’s temper was still the same and she instantly silenced the chattering training hall with a roar. The dean had probably spoken with all the lecturers and tutors beforehand, and the violent woman did not seem to show any favoritism toward Xiao Lin.

The contents of that lesson were skill training and the skill being trained was the Slashing that Xiao Lin had already mastered. It was not a difficult skill to learn, but the training required to master it took up a lot of time. According to the tutor, that skill was a prerequisite skill for many skills and it was advantageous to master it as soon as possible.

Xiao Lin however, had his own ideas. After the group practice started, he took the initiative to meet the tutor and ask, “I’d like to learn Basic Sword Aura.”

The woman stared at Xiao Lin fiercely for more than ten seconds, then said in a rather unkind tone, “You again! Are you trying to trouble me on the first day? Even though the dean gave us all a heads-up, the old man also told us that he won’t lower the standard for your assessment. You understand what I mean, don’t you!”

Xiao Lin smiled helplessly. “Tutor, my basic swordsmanship is already level eight, I think I’ve already reached the required standard for learning Basic Sword Aura.”

“You don’t understand do y—” The tutor swallowed her last word abruptly. Her eyes widened in surprise, and the others reacted similarly, looking at Xiao Lin as if he was a monster.

Xiao Lin had seen the basic skills of the others in the class, and most of them were only around LV5. Taking into account the increased training difficulty that came with progressive advancement of one’s skills, LV8 was already considered an unimaginable level.

“The learning standard of the Basic Sword Aura course is indeed level eight Basic Swordsmanship, but I don’t believe you can do it. Prove it to me! If you succeed, I’ll teach you how to master Basic Sword Aura!” The tutor still seemed skeptical.

“My information is there for you to check.”

She looked impatient and said in a soft voice, “Don’t take me for a fool. How can I check when the dean has already encrypted your data!”

Xiao Lin was stunned. The dean had not told him about that, so he said helplessly, “Then what can I do to prove it? Am I supposed to fight you?”

“Fight him!” The tutor pointed at Cheng Ming, who was just beside Xiao Lin.