Chapter 124: Professor Valerius

Chapter 124: Chapter 124: Professor Valerius

Felix had never backed down from a fight in his life. Whether it was a mutated drake or an ancient dungeon boss, he always charged straight in, head-first.

Yet right now, standing outside a classroom door, he was genuinely questioning every life choice that had brought him here.

He stared at the brass plate on the wall.

First-Year Hero Course — Class 1-C.

He looked down at his communicator screen. Guest Instructor: Felix Valerius.

He looked back at the door. Then back at the screen.

"Somehow, this feels harder than clearing an S-rank rift," he muttered.

The woman at his side gave a quiet laugh. "Considerably harder."

Felix turned his head. She was dressed in the crisp dark-blue uniform of the Hero Academy faculty: early forties, short black hair, holding a digital tablet under her arm.

"Professor Helena Ward," she reminded him with an amused smile. "Head of combat training for the first-years."

"Felix," he offered automatically.

"I know who you are."

"Right. Of course."

"The academy is thrilled to have you here, Doctor Valerius," she said.

Felix rubbed the back of his neck. "Honestly, I still don’t get why they picked me."

"Because three out of four kids in that room have your raid clips saved on their phones."

Felix blinked. "What?"

"Probably more, actually."

"That is deeply embarrassing."

Helena laughed out loud. Felix just gave a helpless shrug.

She watched him for a second, then reached out and turned the brass doorknob. "Well, Professor Valerius. The floor is yours."

"Professor?" Felix winced. "Don’t call me that."

"Just for today," she smiled, stepping aside. "Good luck."

With that, she turned on her heel and walked down the hall.

Felix stared after her retreating back. "She really just abandoned me out here."

Inside the room, the sounds of loud chatter, laughing, and desks scraping against the floor were clearly audible. Felix took a deep breath, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped inside.

The room went dead silent.

Thirty-two pairs of eyes snapped toward him at the exact same instant. The students’ faces shifted from casual grins to pure shock, curiosity, and wide-eyed excitement. In the third row, a boy’s mouth literally hung open.

"It’s him," a girl whispered.

"No way."

"Is that really him?"

"The Mad Healer?"

"Shut up, he can hear you!"

Felix took a slow look around the room. Thirty-two freshly awakened teenagers, barely fourteen or fifteen years old. Most had only discovered their mana cores within the last six months. They were at the very beginning of the road.

None of them had ever stepped into a real dungeon. None of them had watched a teammate bleed out on the dirt. None of them truly knew what real fear felt like yet.

They were still just children, excited because their hands could make sparks or frost, dreaming of glory and capes.

"Good morning," Felix said, keeping his voice relaxed.

"Good morning, sir!" half the room chorused back.

"Morning!"

From the very back row, a quiet whisper cut through the silence: "He looks way younger than in the news."

Felix shifted his gaze to the back corner. The boy who had spoken instantly snapped his spine ramrod straight, staring fixedly at the ceiling. "I said nothing. Total silence."

"You are a terrible liar," Felix noted dryly.

The whole room burst out laughing, and the stiff tension in the air dissolved.

Felix walked up to the podium, set his communicator on the wooden desk, and leaned back against the edge. He crossed his arms and looked at them.

"Let’s get one thing straight before we start," Felix said.

The kids sat up, leaning forward on their elbows.

"I am not going to teach you how to get strong today."

A wave of confused looks rippled through the desks. In the second row, a girl with short red hair raised her hand.

"Yes?" Felix nodded to her.

"If you aren’t teaching us how to get strong," she asked, "what are you teaching us?"

"How not to die."

The room went dead quiet.

A boy in the front row frowned slightly. "Sir... isn’t that pretty much the same thing?"

"Not even close," Felix said, tapping his fingers against the wood. "Being strong helps you kill things. It doesn’t guarantee you stay alive."

The room listened with total focus now.

"The second your core awakened, your first thought was probably to see how hard you could punch, or how high you could jump. That’s totally normal. I did the exact same thing when my magic woke up."

The boy in front leaned in. "You did?"

"Of course I did."

"Did you become strong really fast?"

Felix gave a small, wry smirk. "Eventually. But if your goal is to make this a career and survive into your thirties, don’t make the stupid mistake of thinking raw power solves everything."

Felix pushed off the desk and began walking slowly down the center aisle.

"You’re going to spend the next four years training your output, running laps, mastering your element, polishing sword techniques, and drilling squad formations. Every bit of that matters," Felix said, stopping beside an empty desk. "But none of it matters as much as the most important weapon you have."

A student tilted her head. "Which weapon?"

Felix pointed a finger directly at her forehead. "Your brain."

"My... brain?"

"The gray mush between your ears," Felix said. A few kids giggled, but Felix kept his expression deadpan. "Heroes don’t die because their mana runs dry. They die because they make arrogant, stupid decisions under pressure."

The giggles died down.

"Most of the time, the strongest guy in the room is the very first one to die," Felix said softly,

"simply because he was too proud to believe he could lose."

Nobody made a sound.

"Eventually, the Association will send you into a real rift," Felix continued, turning back toward the front. "You’ll see real beasts. Some of them are ugly."

"How ugly?" a kid blurted out.

"Nightmare-fuel ugly," Felix answered without missing a beat, earning another round of nervous laughs. "Some are faster than you. Some have crazy abilities you’ve never studied in textbooks. And some of them are flat-out smarter than you."

A cadet near the back raised his hand, his brow furrowed with genuine doubt. "Monsters can actually be smarter than humans?"

?"The high-ranking ones?" Felix replied without missing a beat. "Without question. Some of them will play you like a fiddle before you even realize you’re being hunted."

?The boy swallowed hard. "Then what are we supposed to do if we run into one?"

?Felix leveled a finger straight at him, offering no easy out. "You tell me."

?"Run," the kid blurted out, almost by reflex.

?"First-class answer," Felix said, a rare, approving smile touching his lips.

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