139: 56.
Volunteer Teaching 139: 56.
Volunteer Teaching Over the past few days, Fisher Benavides had been training with Elliog in the laboratory.
He had compiled battle techniques into a thin booklet, and to ensure Fisher understood them, he even illustrated them with figures representing himself to aid in understanding the movents.
After his physical workout, Fisher practiced the moves one by one as described, then demonstrated them to Elliog.
“Hmm, not fast enough, and your use of force is wrong…
Unard combat is the first and last step in learning to fight; a true warrior ets his end fighting unard.
You really lack the will to fight, buddy.
Rationality is necessary, of course, but it’s also essential to let your instincts lead in battle.”
Elliog sure knew how to enjoy herself.
She dragged a laboratory recliner out and positioned it towards Fisher, training so she could lie comfortably, still as a paralyzed patient.
Whenever Fisher did sothing wrong during his training, she’d raise her tail to point and gesture at his movents.
Every morning, Fisher would demonstrate the movents under her watchful eyes, but progress seed elusive.
Disappointed, Elliog would then lie down to sleep, completely ignoring him.
For the first ti in his life, Fisher encountered sothing so difficult to grasp.
Fisher had so doubts about these routine moves; he didn’t quite understand how they could be applied in real combat.
Within a few days, apart from initial silence, Elliog comnted and pointed out faults in everything Fisher practiced.
“You human, let ask you, what do you think is the most important thing in combat?”
It wasn’t until Monday morning that Elliog, seeming unable to sit still any longer, stood up and pointed at Fisher in the courtyard.
He had just demonstrated the bare-knuckle fighting thod she had taught in front of Elliog when she suddenly interrupted his movent and asked,
Fisher thought for a mont and responded,
“Physical build and combat skills?”
“Such a superficial answer, human.”
Elliog sighed and then raised a finger,
“The most, most, most important thing in combat is the will unique to a warrior.
Without a warrior’s spirit, one shows a different combat effectiveness.
Buddy, if you take all my teachings as re formulas and techniques to morize, how can you possibly apply them?”
“Well, you are one of those humans who often use their brains, but since you want to learn to fight, you must change your mindset…
The so-called warrior’s will is what distinguishes any other being from succumbing to pervasive fear.
It grants you the primal courage and strength to turn the tide, like an eternal burning fla.”
“Although initially it might be too much to ask for you to understand, let still show you what it looks like in practice.”
With that, Elliog’s expression grew serious; the fla on her tail burned more intensely with her words, the temperature and color deepening until it was as intense as Earth Marrow’s magma.
She lightly extended her hand toward Fisher, making an initial gesture, targeting him directly in front.
The breeze ceased right there, and in front of her, the atmosphere slowly beca hotter and more oppressive, yet a chilling fear of being watched by a hunter emanated from deep within the soul.
But the next second, Elliog didn’t throw the punch.
Instead, she lazily yawned and lay back down on the courtyard recliner, languidly waving her tail at Fisher as if dismissing him,
“Sothing like that, just figure it out by yourself.
If you can’t learn, there’s nothing I can do.”
Fisher slowly extracted himself from the imposing aura of the demon from monts ago.
He pondered for a couple of seconds as if he had gained so insight, yet also as if he had learned nothing.
If there were a ranking for teachers, Elliog would certainly be at the very bottom, the progenitor of the “laissez-faire teaching” style.
Whether one could learn depended entirely on the student’s own talent.
If Fisher hadn’t been unable to find a suitable combat teacher recently, he definitely wouldn’t have chosen her.
Fisher continued his practice a while longer and gradually identified the problem.
While training, he always pondered the force, each move filled with calculations, considering whether a particular technique would be effective.
Perhaps Elliog didn’t advocate this approach; maybe she favored being guided by montum and instinct?
It was also possible that training for combat differed significantly from ordinary magic practice.
Regardless, by Monday, when it was ti to go to school, Fisher’s combat skills had progressed only sluggishly.
His manual recorded only the basics like “grappling” and “boxing,” with so additional notes on weapon usage, which only added to Fisher’s confusion.
The morning classes were as usual.
Monday’s class was for first-year students, with Moli and Isabella sitting in the first row.
Moli seed to have accepted that Fisher hadn’t detected her true identity that night.
Although her gaze was still sowhat evasive, she dared to sit at the forefront of her own classroom.
But Fisher wondered, if she belonged to the sa race as the Son of the Sea, could she possibly be the Son of the Sea herself?
And as a mber of the Whale-man Species in human society, what was her purpose?
Could it simply be to study in college?
Then why did she climb over the wall that night?
Fisher’s mind was running on dual threads, explaining simple magic knowledge while contemplating the events of that night, and also thinking about how to discreetly investigate the secrets of this Whale-man Species.
“Alright, that’s it for today’s lesson.
I hope you have already submitted the howork I assigned last week to my office email.
Any submissions after this class will be considered void.
If you have any questions, you can visit my office.
Class dismissed.”
Mr.
Fisher glanced at Moli, who was sitting in the first row, still taking lecture notes and not looking at him, so she didn’t notice he was watching her.
No students raised issues about their howork below, so he picked up his belongings and left the classroom for his office.
Each faculty’s exclusive mailbox is located at the front of the office buildings of each academy, with several rows of mailboxes crowded in front of other academies, but only four in front of the Magic Academy, and Fisher’s was on the far left.
He took out the key and opened the mailbox, stuffed with a large stack of students’ howork.
After confirming no assignnts were missing, he returned to his office holding the large pile.
Inside, Roger and Selena were still flirting.
“Hey, Mr.
Fisher, you’re back…
Oh, did you actually assign howork in the first week?”
“Yeah, mostly just so basic exercises.”
Fortunately, there were no students from Fisher’s class here; otherwise, they would indeed be cursing their mothers, of course, regarding the fact that there was howork in the first week.
The assignnts themselves weren’t very difficult if one pondered them properly.
“What are you guys talking about?”
Fisher had felt the bustling conversation in the office when he walked in, and his entrance had interrupted their talking.
Now that Fisher spoke, he reignited that extinguished topic.
Roger replied with a smile,
“Oh, it’s like this, our school has recently taken up volunteer teaching activities in two city blocks.
We’re hiring professors to go to the Saint Nali block to teach so lively and interesting classes.”
“The professors receive substantial remuneration funded by the Church, you know, the Church does this every year, but it’s always been monopolized by the Royal College.
This ti, our school got two big blocks.”
Selena, always the first source for such news, excitedly added after Roger finished,
“However, it doesn’t concern our Magic Academy; we can’t take magic courses to this elentary type of classroom.
They require the classes to be interesting and practical, such items as ethics, theology, and economics…”
Fisher nodded, as if also recalling so past event.
The Saint Nali Church spent money every year hiring teachers from various schools to teach classes inside the block’s church.
The attendees didn’t have to pay and could even receive biscuits and desserts distributed by the Church.
The attendees of such classes included all sorts of people, as they were free and held in the evening, not taking up their work ti.
Fisher was actually interested in registering to participate in the volunteer teaching if there was an opportunity.
Because he rembered, when he was in the orphanage as a child, the first ti he encountered knowledge was in a block church volunteer session led by Professor Amiser from the Royal College, focused on the sophisticated field of ethics for children.
Fisher still recalled the social contract theory discussed then.
It was the first ti he had ever encountered such a novel viewpoint, which ignited the young Fisher’s desire for knowledge, leading him to earnestly secure a spot in the Church School the following year, and then on to the Municipal College and the Royal College until today.
Thus, Fisher inquired about the volunteer teaching,
“Who is in charge of this?
I’ll ask about it when the ti cos.”
Selena looked at Fisher in surprise, then reflexively replied,
“It’s the Registrar’s Office…
But they probably won’t hold magic classes this year…”
“Hey, Selena, did you forget Mr.
Fisher has three degrees?”
Compared to Selena, Roger clearly knew much more about Fisher.
He chuckled and lifted his coffee as a reminder to Selena, causing her to blush and shoot him a aningful glare, prompting Roger to burst into laughter,
“It’s a good thing, both publicly and privately.
It’s precisely because the Church spends so much money on this every year, that their public image is better than the Council’s.
They really do handle this well.”
Fisher smiled and agreed.
He returned to his office, slightly distressed, placing the large stack of howork on a small table beside him, eventually having to grade them himself.
His desk had about 50 students’ howork, and Fisher, who liked to ticulously read each one, would likely take considerable ti.
However, he didn’t have much else to do anyway, so he decided to stay at the school in the afternoon to handle so work and also call the Registrar’s Office about registering for the volunteer teaching.
The entire afternoon, Fisher was occupied with reading and grading howork.
At his desk, he sternly circled dozens of areas with his pen on one of the assignnts, then graded the student’s first assignnt.
At one point, Fisher’s expression chilled as he recalled sothing, leaving a previous assignnt aside for comparison, then scored a zero on the subsequent assignnt.
Next to the glaring zero, the na “Isabella” stood out prominently.
Without a word, Fisher set down his pen for grading, picked up his phone, and dialed the dormitory,
“Hello, this is Fisher Benavides from the Magic Academy.
Please notify first-year students Moli and Isabella from the Magic Academy to visit my office.
Thank you.”
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