High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 2052: Chapter 273: The Invisible Hunting Team

While Xin Fat Man was eating snacks and babbling on, Doctor Xiao was deeply focused on the homework in front of him.

Heavy reference books and textbooks of varied thickness were spread beside him, yet showed almost no signs of being opened. Sitting next to him, Zheng Qing could only see a pale green feather pen dancing across the parchment, leaving behind row upon row of gracefully flowing words, giving a delightful feeling.

”... In my impression, Doctor’s homework is always finished first. I’ve never seen him catch up on homework while others are having a break!” The Fat Wizard chewed on beans, a puzzled look on his face, ”Plus, I don’t recall ’Magic Universe Study’ requiring us to draw a star map?”

This semester, he and Xiao Xiao elected for Magic Universe Study together, prompting such a dilemma—rather than caring why Xiao Xiao was doing homework, he was more concerned whether he had missed an assignment given by the teacher due to zoning out in class.

”It’s not homework.”

Doctor Xiao lifted his eyelids and glanced at the Fat Man above his glasses frame, ”It’s just an after-class exercise, just like you’re not eating dinner but having a snack.”

”Remarkable difference.” The Fat Man grinned, instantly relieved, no longer concerned with those darn star maps, and proceeded to stuff another Arhat Bean into his mouth.

The young public-funded student drawing talismans couldn’t help but smirk.

The ’after-class exercise’ Xin Fat Man cared about was precisely the task of ’drawing a star map and marking the adventure route’ he assigned to Xiao Xiao, and it seemed the motivation provided by two jade coins was quite sufficient.

After finishing the first invisibility talisman, he raised his head, once again noticing the darting feather pen, suddenly recalling something, and immediately leaned toward Doctor Xiao’s ear to whisper a reminder: ”...You know you can’t use your own feather pen to write this ’exercise,’ right?”

Xiao Xiao gave him a sideways glance and snorted: ”You’ve reminded me when it’s already too late... Relax... The feather pen was taken from Green’s shop at noon, an invisible feather pen, and the ink was a mixture of different bases. The answers are all standard contents from the textbooks... No one can trace this assignment back to you as the big public-funded student.”

Helping others write assignments violates the school rules at the First University. Xiao Xiao assumed Zheng Qing was worried about this. Hearing this, Zheng Qing chuckled awkwardly, didn’t say a word, just lowered his head and continued working on the talismans at hand.

Immersed in the process of drawing talismans, it becomes difficult to feel the passing of time.

When Zheng Qing raised his head again, a small stack of exquisite works had accumulated beside him. He laid down the talisman pen, rubbed his sore wrist, and with small movements performed a few rounds of ’Unarmed’.

On the podium, Professor Yao’s projection was slowly clearing up from blur, and the classroom’s noise gradually quieted, becoming a hard-to-capture rustle. Whenever it reached this point, Zheng Qing always felt like stepping into a silkworm room, filled with hundreds or thousands of hungry silkworm babies ravenously gnawing on mulberry leaves.

”Today’s time is tight, let’s talk about three things.”

The voice from the projection was formal, showing no sign of the ’tightness’ in the words: ”First, we congratulate the exciting performance of several hunting teams from the class in the selection competition—”

Before he finished speaking, the classroom immediately erupted with enthusiastic applause, the professor on the podium had to make several hand gestures to signal everyone to calm down.

”—Tang Dun’s hunting team,”

He began commenting individually, ”From the entry ceremony to tactical arrangements, everything followed the rules, reflecting the finest performance of young wizards at your stage, especially their application of basic spells, magic potions, and divination skills, which should earn them an excellent evaluation for practice performance this semester.”

Tang Dun, seated in the front row, stood up, representing the hunting team to express gratitude to the surrounding enthusiastic applause.

”Matthew’s hunting team,”

The professor pointed at the young vampire sitting by the window, ”demonstrated sharpness unlike any typical Moonlit hunting team, especially in the third battle against the demon, daring to abandon the protective array to swiftly execute guerrilla tactics, which was truly impressive... In my opinion, any behavior bravely breaking conventions deserves praise. Especially within the Moonlit Clans, known for ’tradition’ and ’stubbornness,’ it is even more commendable.”

Matthew quietly stood, saluted, and returned to his seat, the entire process was almost soundless, like a shadow. Advising the class, Zheng Qing couldn’t help but cast another glance at him. Since Sir Friedman’s silence, this young vampire seemed as if he had enclosed himself in a casing, every movement like the most intricate clockwork, making it easy for people to overlook his existence.

Yet Professor Yao’s comments today made Zheng Qing realize that Matthew wasn’t as conservative as he appeared—there’s a semblance of magma boiling beneath the calm lake surface—a truly conservative vampire wouldn’t have the courage to make such radical tactical arrangements in the hunting ground.

”And the Fringe Hunting Team...”

The professor raised a hand, pointing at Nicholas and then at Liu Fifi—the classroom immediately erupted with ambiguous laughter, the witch shyly buried her face into her arms, while Nicholas waved cheerfully, generously saluting to the surroundings.

”If I were to describe the Fringe Hunting Team with one word, I would choose ’surprise’.” The professor spoke in plain language carrying strong contrast: ”... As for where the surprise lies, you will find out when the selection competition results are announced shortly. I believe everyone will be astonished.”

Being described as ’surprising’ and ’astonishing’ by a legendary wizard immediately caused an uproar in the classroom, with almost everyone starting to talk, trying to inquire about the Fringe Hunting Team’s performance in the selection competition.

But, embarrassingly, i wasn’t anyone in the class who had watched the Fringe team’s match completely—Absolution Hunting Team had the allure of Councillor Su as their guidance, and the Second Rank battle array as a hype tactic, already drawing away most of Astronomy Class 08-1’s attention. The little remaining attention was shared between Tang Dun and Matthew, leaving none for others—rendering the word ’Fringe’ particularly fitting.

”They should change their name to ’Little Transparent Hunting Team’.”

Xin Fat Man turned around, muttered quietly, ”From what I know, the few newspapers that have been following the school hunting competition almost haven’t paid attention to their matches... Our campus newspaper assigned a journalist to them this year who’s a novice—she needs to keep track of seven arenas simultaneously—not like Absolution, where the campus newspaper allocated six journalists to focus on every member of our hunting team, also assigning an extra journalist to always be ready to interview Councillor Su.”

”It’s seven.”

Zhang Ji Xin interrupted the Fat Wizard’s muttering, earnestly correcting, ”The campus newspaper also arranged a journalist joined with Absolution, ensuring to retrieve firsthand materials anytime.”

Zheng Qing couldn’t help but chuckle.

”With Zhu Si’s help, they inherently have an advantage in the selection competition.” Xiao Xiao thoughtfully analyzed, ”Just like how we know Tingdalous Hunting dogs, so merely shaping a ball ensures to pass smoothly... As for hunting teams unfamiliar with this magical creature, they’d likely be torn into pieces by those dogs.”