High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 2455: Chapter 676: Art of Body Transformation

”Report to the boss, I’m done with the exam!”

Just half an hour into the test, with Zheng Qing’s cup of tea not even half-empty, a sudden and familiar voice interrupted his reverie, sounding quite assertive.

Zheng Qing looked over, unsurprisingly, and saw Dingdang Ear, an employee of his small shop. As the follower of the newly inducted legend, the first generation of Mouse People, it and its brother were officially admitted to Edge Academy. This was probably some form of recognition and compromise between the Alliance, the school, and the Moon Council towards this new clan.

Of course, Dingdang Ear now has an official name, Ding Dang. Its brother, Dingdong Ear, has also had its name changed to ’Ding Dong’ on the roster.

Zheng Qing cleared his throat, enduring the curious glances secretly cast his way from the classroom, stood up, and slowly strolled over to Ding Dang’s side, glancing at its test paper.

On the large test paper, the rune box was filled with strange symbols, as if a little mouse dipped in ink had crawled over it haphazardly. Next to the rune box, in the blank space, the bright red number was still a ’zero’.

In other words, this Mouse Person fellow hadn’t transcribed a single standard talisman correctly.

Sure enough, those who turn in their papers early are either top students or slackers.

While mocking inwardly, Zheng Qing asked gently, ”It’s still early, why not write a bit more? Also, this is school, don’t call me boss, just call me teacher or sir...”

”Okay, Boss Sir!” Ding Dang solemnly agreed, gripping the brush again, and began racking its brains.

Watching its pen-holding method that resembled holding a stick, Zheng Qing’s mouth twitched slightly. Xiao Xiao, who was in charge of supervising Ding Dang, adjusted his glasses and gave the boy a helpless gesture.

The young teaching assistant suddenly felt that his job was a daunting one.

And after this interruption, his expectations for the new students at Edge Academy lowered a bit more. Taking the opportunity, he circled the classroom and found that only a few students could transcribe a single basic talisman. Writing three to five was already considered excellent, and the most outstanding of them was Nicholas. The bright red number in the blank space on the side of his test paper had already jumped to ’ninety-one’, just a step away from a hundred.

Although this number might not seem impressive among the Astronomy Class 08-1 students, it stood out in the Edge Academy students.

Of course, failing to transcribe standard talismans didn’t mean that the new students in this classroom had no foundation. On the contrary, during his patrol, Zheng Qing noticed that many of the talismans drawn by people were not invalid—like the ones drawn by Gypsy Witch Carmen, outside the standard symbols, she drew more than a dozen ’heteromorphs’. To put it nicely, she belonged to the classical magic school of rune-drawing skills. To put it simply, the talismans she learned from The Gypsy Witch Coven were already outdated and hadn’t been recognized as standard by the Alliance.

Standard talismans only require using cinnabar or black ink to draw rune shapes on yellow paper and then infusing them with spirit to take effect. However, some old-school talismans, like the heteromorphs drawn by Carmen, require using ink mixed with dragon blood and tanning magic animal hides as a talisman medium. Some complex talismans even need specific times, environments, or rituals to release.

Many more might have such skewed foundations.

Normally, to make a crooked tree straight again is far more difficult than planting a straight tree from the start. Perhaps this is why the school gives these Edge Academy preparatory students a whole semester for adaptation.

Zheng Qing frowned, pondering this matter, completely oblivious to the fact that he had been standing by Nicholas’s desk for quite a while. Long enough for the previously confident Nicholas to start feeling uneasy, suspiciously examining his half-transcribed rune, wondering if he’d written something wrong.

Sitting next to Nicholas, the volunteer was Liu Feifei, who had been focusing solely, her eyes bright and arched, on the old student with the waxy yellow face, diligently transcribing runes. But when Nicholas looked up at Zheng Qing’s expression for the third time, the witch couldn’t hold back any longer. Angrily, she looked at the young teaching assistant, her gaze like two little knives poking at his face.

Zheng Qing, late to realize, chuckled dryly.

Patting his inexplicably full belly, he sighed inwardly and leisurely returned to the podium. Turning his head to look at the front corner, he noticed Jiang Yu concentrating on the Northern District witch named Katherine by her side, appearing not to notice his gaze at all.

...

...

”...Just now, when you were monitoring, you stood by Nicholas for so long, I felt for a moment that Feifei was about to hurl an evil curse at you.”

Jiang Yu, hugging his textbook, cheerfully looked at Zheng Qing, lightly bringing up the recently ended volunteer service: ”I even saw her fingers touch the spine of the magic book!”

On Thursday afternoon’s ’Time Conversion Class’, the two had chosen the same elective ’Art of Body Transformation’, so after the Edge Academy courses finished, they left the classroom together, looking for a suitable room to convert time.

Hearing the witch’s jest, Zheng Qing immediately thought of the chief student’s fierce glare and couldn’t help but laugh.

”Really?” he instinctively replied, ”I thought you weren’t watching me.”

”What?”

”Cough, I meant, I didn’t expect Nicholas really decided to transfer academies again.”

The young teaching assistant looked at the witch’s amused expression, suddenly recalled what he just said, feeling a bit flustered, unconsciously avoiding her gaze: ”...He must be twenty-two now, right? Everyone from his batch is now starting the registered wizard exams. If I were him, I wouldn’t have the courage to do another year.”

”Why?” the witch seemed to talk to herself or asked rhetorically.

Obviously, it’s because it’s not good for his pride.

Although Zheng Qing thought this to himself, what came out of his mouth was a different explanation: ”Of course, because Liu Feifei is still in our class! Nicholas must have something wrong with his head to leave his girlfriend and transfer to another academy. That’s so irresponsible!”

The warlock spoke indignantly.

The girl, her eyes smiling and arched, casually helped flick off a caterpillar that had accidentally landed on the warlock’s shoulder.

”Indeed, it’s irresponsible.”

Jiang Yu nodded in agreement. Changing the topic, he then praised the just-finished Fu Lu class: ”Speaking of which, your lecture was really good, especially the opening remarks... Summarizing the ’First University Campus Management Regulations’ into six words was so concise. If only these textbooks we study could be summarized like that...”