High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1137: Chapter 199: Resurgence of Waves

It was soon proven that the area around Zheng Qing was indeed the most dangerous in the school.

However, this time the storm didn’t fall on Zheng Qing himself, but instead struck his classmate, Nicholas Green Oswald.

As a veteran who had been held back two years and transferred schools three times, Nicholas always kept a low profile. Whether in Jiuyou Academy or in his class, he rarely participated in public activities — unless those activities offered academic credit.

Most of the time, Nicholas would quietly sit in a corner of the classroom, hidden behind a stack of thick textbooks, silently working on exercises or test papers alone. Occasionally, when professors called on him to answer questions, he would hem and haw without being able to get a word out, and over time, the professors got to know his personality and stopped troubling him during classes.

When Zheng Qing was forming a hunting team, he had tried to get Nicholas to join, but he had politely declined. As for the other students in the class, perhaps only when chatting with students from other classes would they occasionally mention this once-held-back ’infamous’ classmate.

In the whole Astronomy Class 08-1, or even in the entire Jiuyou Academy, only Liu Fei Fei truly entered Nicholas’s world.

Liu Fei Fei who corrected his test papers, Liu Fei Fei who helped him make study plans, Liu Fei Fei who called him a fool, Liu Fei Fei who hid with him in the library corner to study.

In private chats with his friends, Zheng Qing had analyzed the magical romance between the two, and ultimately, everyone concluded that Liu Fei Fei and Nicholas had a complementary love: the complement of a smart person and a fool.

Although this complementary romance was not viewed positively by other students in the academy, it did not hinder the increasingly close relationship between the two young wizards, nor did it prevent Nicholas from achieving good results in the midterm exam with the help of Liu Fei Fei.

An average GPA of 3.95, which converts to an average score of 89.5 percent—compared to Zheng Qing’s own average score of 91.5. Although Nicholas had not yet reached the class average of 90.5, his score was already very impressive in Jiuyou Academy.

According to Professor Yao, as long as Nicholas continued his study habits next semester, his promotion to the second year was guaranteed.

This was very good news for Nicholas, who was under tremendous academic pressure, and it gave him more confidence in his future. Consequently, at the start of the new semester, he became much more active in class discussions and participation in class activities.

But as they say, ’Calamity leans on fortune and fortune on calamity,’ a good score that restored Nicholas’s confidence and active involvement in school activities, also brought him significant trouble.

On Monday afternoon, just before the Talisman class, while Zheng Qing was discussing with Xin Fat Man whether the center of a storm was safe or dangerous, the classroom suddenly became noisy, and soon, Zheng Qing heard someone shout:

”Nicholas, are these the words you said on this report?”

”Are you really a student of Jiuyou Academy? How could you say such things in front of outsiders?!”

Zheng Qing stretched his neck and looked outside, just in time to see a male wizard waving a copy of the ”Beta Town Post” in the air, making a whooshing sound. The image accompanying the front-page commentary—several menacing horse-men—was blurred by the wild shaking, falling softly to the ground.

Like him, other classmates also looked up, pricking their ears, curious about where the shocking accusations had come from. The female witches in the front row of the classroom turned to look back, worry flickering in Liu Fei Fei’s eyes.

Compared to these onlookers, the other protagonist of the incident, student Nicholas, was currently holding a feather pen in one hand and a piece of yellow paper in the other, drying a talisman. The yellow paper had a freshly drawn Tranquility Talisman, its cinnabar ink not yet dry, flashing bright streaks of light in the sunlight.

His expression was one of great surprise.

It was clear that he had not yet realized what had happened, nor did he understand the question the warlock was asking. His slightly dull expression seemed increasingly detestable in the eyes of the questioner.

Just at that moment, the stick figure behind the classroom door suddenly screamed:

”Class is starting, class is starting!”

”Teacher Zhang Huaigu has already passed through the main gate of the teaching building!!”

”Everyone, hurry back to your seats, open your textbooks, and pretend you are seriously reviewing your lessons!”

The classroom for the Talisman class was located at central-101 on the first floor of the teaching building. It was only separated from the main gate of the teaching building by a screen. Students sitting in the front row could faintly see the shadow of the main gate through the classroom door.

Teacher Zhang had already passed through the main gate of the teaching building, meaning she would be entering the classroom any moment now, in less than half a minute.

The stick figure’s warning was very timely not only allowing the students to pretend to be good students before the teacher entered the classroom but also preventing a sudden conflict from erupting.

So, when Lecturer Zhang Huaigu walked into the classroom, what she saw was an array of students engrossed in flipping through their textbooks, diligently behaving like eager learners. However, beneath this quiet scene, a stifling atmosphere was brewing.

The teacher couldn’t help but frown.

She did not ask what was going on nor did she immediately greet the students in the class. Instead, she turned around, closed the classroom door, and first bent her fingers to tap on the stick figure’s head:

”You just shouted too loudly; I’m afraid the whole teaching building heard you... That’s quite embarrassing for me.”

The previously somewhat oppressive atmosphere in the classroom was immediately alleviated by these words, and a few students who were good at livening up the atmosphere even laughed out loud.

The stick figure, clutching the few long hairs on its head, pretended to grimace in pain and then, after receiving a stern look from Teacher Zhang, immediately shut its mouth.

After the laughter, the atmosphere became gloomy again.

Teacher Zhang, holding her lecture notes, stood at the podium, looking around, feeling somewhat stuffy in the air. As a young lecturer, she was not much older than the young wizards sitting below, so she could easily sense the air filled with a reluctance to communicate with the teacher.

But if no one communicated with her, how would she know what had happened, how could she adjust her teaching plans?

Her gaze wandered around the classroom, quickly noticing Zheng Qing sitting in the back corner. Then her gaze paused momentarily, remembering the buzzing incident that had lately taken place in the academy.

She felt she had grasped the core of the problem.

”Zheng Qing,” Teacher Zhang suddenly spoke up, calling on the sponsored student, and asking a question that left everyone puzzled: ”Can you answer the basic principles of drawing a Tranquility Talisman?”