Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 199

Chapter 199: Second Class’ Mood
“Okay then… I’m looking forward to your breakthrough in the next few days, you can go now”

Claire also left the room, and only two students now stood in front of Hans.

“Then… Colton”

“Yes teach?”

“Good work, your progress is the fastest, to such a level where in just a few years, no, maybe even months, you might be eligible to take my seat”

Hans said, praising the boy, who instead just sighed, replying humbly:

“You praise me too much, just today I have seen my shortcomings first-hand, and I’m not only talking about my advancement and my level but also about my mentality and battle experience”

“Don’t drag yourself down with words, striving for something better is always good, but it must not become an obsession, sometimes, it is also right to be proud of what you’ve achieved”

Hans said those words even though he himself had never once looked back on what he had done, but he wasn’t doing it just because he wanted to, he was doing it with an objective in mind.

‘Maybe… I too should sometimes be proud of what I achieved…’

Hans thought.

‘Hah… to think I’m learning by teaching others…’

He then scoffed in his mind.

“But that’s not all I’ve kept you here for”

Hans continued…

“I can see you are close to the bottleneck leading to the fourth rank, when the time seems ripe, you can come to me, and I will keep an eye on you while you breakthrough”

“Thank you”

The other bowed his head, happy to hear he could receive some help.

“It will be your first time advancing not only tiers but also ranks.

Once you step into the fourth tier, you will have officially entered the realm of medium-rank mages, and you’ll be categorized as a C-rank awakened if you can cast a spell of the fourth tier.

It’s beginning to get pretty high, isn’t it? C-rank is nothing to scoff at, it took Elijah almost a year to reach it”

‘Even though he was holding back’

Hans thought.

“Mh… it certainly does”

Colton Agreed.

“You could potentially start a guild of your own once you do that, you know, even though you will be categorized as C-rank, once you stabilize your fourth circle and learn a couple of spells, you will almost be on par with B-ranks, and your value will equal theirs, so it wouldn’t be difficult for you to put together a pretty strong group”

“Mh… I, don’t really plan on doing that, but I guess you’re right Teach.

I have a problem though… I don’t know any spells above the third tier, and while normal mages could either raid gates to get tomes or spend a lot of time improving their current spells, I am still attending the Academy, and am not sure I’ll be able to do that.

I have seen the video of you fighting against Logan in Chicago… you used ice spells, right? Could you teach one of them to me? for the right price obviously.”

“Sure, I’ll see what I can do”

“Thank you… really”

Colton bowed again.

“It’s nothing”

Hans bid him goodbye as the student left the room.

And lastly… Marisol Hinton stood in front of Hans, a girl attending his class who had only reached the peak of the first rank:

“Marisol”

Hans called out since the girl seemed to be distracted.

“Y-yes”

She immediately replied, taken by surprise by the sudden call.

“What’s wrong? I remember you had already reached the average level of a tier-1 mage before the summer break, how come you still haven’t managed to break through the seconds circle?”

“Th-this… I heard… that when a mage creates their second circle they will have to play through and feel once again the worst moment of their lives”

“Mh”

Hans nodded in agreement.

“It’s a process all mages have to go through, I’ve done so myself”

“T-teacher I… Don’t want to advance”

The girl seemed to be on the verge of crying, her words filled with sadness and fear.

“What? But-”

“I don’t care if it means that I won’t ever get to advance, I just don’t want to advance, I won’t ever… feel those things once again”

The student’s eyes, filled with fear, forced Hans to take a step back in the conversation, leaving the girl to her thoughts.

“That’s… also an option.

If you really feel like you won’t be able to do it, and are okay with staying at the first tier… there’s no one who can force you to advance”

“B-but… I want to stay here, please teach! Can I stay here even if I don’t advance?!”

“This…

“My friends are here, if I go back now I won’t get the chance to stay with them again…

I beg you Teach… at least till the end of this school year, could you find a way to let me stay here?”

Hans wasn’t sure if the academy would’ve accepted a student who refused to grow, but if it was only for the rest of the school year, then it wasn’t that much of a problem.

“Sigh… alright, but try and think it over once again before making your final choice”

Hans left just after the girl, and the classroom was emptied.

There was a short break before the start of the following lesson, and the young man took that chance to visit the cafeteria.

He met with some of the other teachers like Caleb and also had the chance to meet the newcomers for the first time.

Since there had been some people leaving the job after what had happened with the Crimson Tyranny, the dean had done extra work and brought back some new teachers.

A few minutes later, Hans returned to his class, where he found all the students from class two patiently waiting seated beyond their desks.

However, something immediately caught Hans’ gaze.

Some students were missing, and not just a couple of them, about a dozen of his students were not in the classroom.

Since the class was usually made up of thirty people, that almost meant half of them were missing.

‘I heard about this from the dean, but to think it was this much…’

Contrary to the first-class students, who were almost adults, the second class was made up of younger people.

Their ages varied between fourteen and fifteen years old, and many of their decisions were still strongly influenced by their parents.

Exactly because of that, many of the students had been forced to drop out of the Academy after their parents deemed it as dangerous.

‘Fortunately… the two I’ve had my eye on since the start of the year haven’t dropped out’

Hans thought.

He was referring to the two most talented kids in the second class:

Evelyn Reed, a girl whose face was as cold as the color of her hair, and Mia Sanders, a timid but gentle girl who had distinguished herself when Hans analyzed their elemental affinity.

Respectively the holders of the {wintercaster} and {elementalist} classes, those two, both second-ranking mages, made up the strongest force of the second class.

Apart from them, two of the guys had also advanced to the second tier, but their talents paled in comparison.

‘Look at that… they’ve done a wonderful work’

Hans commented while using his perception skill to observe the status window of the students.

‘And he… is also still here’

Hans exchanged a glance with a student who was always seated at the back, Ryan Moore, an arrogant prick who had immediately stood out for being a douchebag…

He was one of the four people in the class to have advanced to the second tier, but his level seemed to be boosted by someone else, seeing as the description of the system degraded his power by a lot.

“Good evening”

Hans greeted, and all the students replied the same way.

Just like class one, class two also seemed to have quietened down a bit after the long summer.

“Come on, what’s with the long faces?”

Hans asked, and after exchanging a few phrases with them, he understood the class mood was that way because of the ones who had left.

Not only the magic class, but even some of their friends who attended other classes had dropped out.

“There must be something good right? Come on, does anyone want to tell me something about the summer break?”

No one replied, it was really like a class of dead people.

Mia, the only one who wasn’t particularly saddened, didn’t dare to raise her hand, afraid of standing out.

“Sigh…

Hey!”

Hans’s tone changed, and that was enough to get back the attention of most of the students.

“If this is your resolve to learn magic, or to become an awakened, or whatever you want to do in life, things won’t work, your friends aren’t here, but you can meet them anytime you want after the Academy.

It’s not the end of the world, try to live this moment even for those who can’t.

Come on…. Follow me out, I hope by showing you this I will help you regain a bit of the enthusiasm needed to go down the path of a mage.”