For a mont, Zheng Qing couldn’t fathom what that subtle emotion ant.
But the ergency gathering order from the Assistant Team was no joke.
He didn’t have ti to think it through. He put on his hood, hung four Armor Horse Charms, took the hot cocoa handed by the chubby guy, and amidst sighs, transford into a wisp of smoke and vanished from Dorm 403.
The Assistant Team’s main eting room was at the end of the third floor of the office building.
The last ti Zheng Qing was at this office was two weeks ago on a Sunday, March 14th in the morning, when he attended a eting regarding the ’Little Hand Task.’ Taking reference from the slightly awkward experience last ti, he didn’t wear the Red Gown of Jiuyou Academy this ti, instead, he changed into a black robe.
But reality seed to be playing tricks on him.
This ti, when he pushed the door open and entered, he indeed didn’t stand out because of the color of his robe. The packed room of teaching assistants were all in black robes like him, but unlike the last ti, today all the assistants wore masks, making the young assistant once again the focus of everyone’s attention.
The mont he saw these masks, Zheng Qing almost pulled out the Seven Sins mask from his grey cloth bag to put on his own face. Because the masks used by the assistants were very similar to those of the Sin Bearer, both were identical, eye-less smooth masks, resembling a boiled and peeled egg. The only difference was that the Sin Bearer’s mask had a small septagram symbol seared at the corner, while the assistants’ masks had different words marked in red cinnabar at the center.
For example: Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Jia, Yi, Bing, Heaven, Thunder, Earth, Fire, and so on.
Zheng Qing hadn’t been at First University for a short ti, and he had worn or seen quite a few masks, including Halloween’s ghost masks, Black Wizards’ raven masks, the Seven Sins’ septagram masks, and cat masks during the Trident Sword task, among others. The functions of all these masks were more or less the sa, generally for ’concealing identity,’ ’blocking breath,’ ’hindering divination,’ ’supplenting Guardian Spells,’ ’preventing post-event retaliation,’ and so on.
For wizards, knowing another wizard’s appearance or breath made it extrely easy to track their movents through divination or influence their actions using a curse. Especially when facing Black Wizards or unknown magical risks, you could never be too careful.
High-level wizards or those proficient in Transformation naturally did not fall into this category, as wearing a mask was rely following the greatest common divisor among all suitable options.
"This is your mask, take good care of it."
On the podium, a wizard wearing a mask labeled ’Alpha’ waved at the young wizard who just entered, signaling him to take the mask in his hand and reminding him, "For your safety, when the Assistant Team executes special tasks, you must wear this mask. You’ve participated in the Trident Sword hunt, you should understand this principle."
Zheng Qing nodded quickly and went to take the mask.
In the center of the smooth surface of the mask, the word ’Universe’ was written in bright red cinnabar. In all four directions lies ’Universe,’ and from this angle, this word seed to have a kind of subtle similarity to his ’World’ title in the Great Arcana Sequence.
Because all his attention was on that word ’Universe,’ so he
"Hmm?"
Even through the mask, Zheng Qing seed to see the frown under the ’Alpha’ mask.
Only then did he belatedly realize that the hand he extended was holding that cup of hot cocoa he hadn’t finished drinking.
"Sorry!"
The young assistant imdiately lifted the cup, drank the remaining half cup of the beverage—sounds of soft laughter echoed faintly from the floor below, bringing a rare sense of warmth to his face—then he put away the empty cup and took the mask with both hands, slapping it onto his face imdiately.
Whoosh!
Although it looked airtight, it felt as light and imperceptible as nothing when placed on the face. Even through the mask, he could clearly see his surroundings. The mask felt sowhat soft, unknown what kind of leather it was made of. It felt warm to the touch, and while breathing, he could vaguely perceive the intricate and complex magic loops interwoven under the surface layer of the leather.
The ’Alpha’ wizard nodded slightly at him.
Zheng Qing gave a slight bow, then silently slipped to the back of the eting room along the wall—the amazing thing was, the seat he had sat in last ti happened to be empty.
"Good evening, Assistant Zheng Qing!"
A familiar voice sounded in his ear, causing Zheng Qing to turn his head, only then noticing that the wizard sitting next to him greeting him had a mask labeled ’Yi’ on his face.
In written language, the position of ’Alpha’ and ’Yi’ are quite close. According to Zheng Qing’s simple logical reasoning, the person beside him should be similar in status to the person on the podium.
"Good evening," the young assistant replied softly, quickly sorting through the assistants he knew in his mind, locking onto the one he suspected most: "...Teacher Hilda?"
He was surprised by his own conclusion.
"Don’t call teacher, call ’colleague’!"
The practical course’s teacher wagged a finger seriously in correction: "In this eting room, we are all colleagues... Aren’t you finding it a bit odd that we’re desk mates again this ti?"
As he spoke, he shook his head, and Zheng Qing vaguely heard a faint tallic clash.
He hesitated and nodded.
In fact, compared to the seat, he was more curious about how Hilda obtained the ’Yi’ label because in his impression, there were many people in the Assistant Team whose abilities surpassed those of his practical course teacher.
"It’s because you were late the last ti you ca too." Hilda seed very pleased to finally have soone to talk to, instantly becoming loquacious: "In fact, in nurous independent repeat experints, everyone’s choices are almost identical. In mysticism theory, this phenonon is called the ’Helix Theorem’..."
Zheng Qing let Hilda’s analysis filled with fatalism pass in one ear and out the other—compared to this nonsense ’Helix Theorem,’ he believed more in his choices being heavily influenced by the ’Seed of Order.’
"Ahem!"
On the podium, the ’Alpha’ wizard lightly coughed, glanced around, and the eting room instantly quieted down. He wasted no ti, concisely explaining the reason for tonight’s ergency eting:
"A hunting team of Northern District Wizards encountered a mishap in the Silent Forest, resulting in the death of five hunters. Since they were organized privately without reporting to Gini Cottage, Gini Cottage only received related information after their deaths and then applied for assistance from the school..."
Hearing the words ’Northern District Wizards’ and ’Gini Cottage,’ the first thing that ca to Zheng Qing’s mind was the faint sakura fragrance he had slled in the dormitory, and the first intuition he had at that ti.
As expected, tonight’s affair was related to the Northern District Wizards.
Just like when he saw the Blue CrapeMyrtle tree, his heart conjured up the opposing and contradictory feelings of ’Mist’ and ’Fire.’ Thereafter, he encountered that Yin and Yang person from the Rainbow Wizards Group.
He sharply realized that such vague intuition on his part seed to be tinged with an essence of divination or what could be described as a ’Moody’ sensation, though he was not sure to what extent this feeling could be wielded.
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