Chapter 1814: Chapter 35: Before the Class Meeting

Today’s class meeting is still scheduled at Room 601 in the East Building of the main church.

The time is also seven thirty in the evening.

The only difference lies in the setup of the classroom. Perhaps because the school year hasn’t officially started, the classroom setup isn’t as serious, a bit informal.

The dark green chalkboard is covered with colorful patterns, seemingly depicting scenes of elves hard at work. The ceiling doesn’t reflect the star map of the zodiac, but instead resembles the wild forests of late summer and early autumn, with maple branches of varying thickness interwoven, dark green, apricot yellow, and light red leaves overlapping, occasionally quivering slightly as if a gentle breeze is indeed brushing past the treetops.

If you look closely, you can see caterpillars slowly crawling between the branches and leaves.

With branches overhead, naturally there’s a lawn beneath your feet.

It’s soft to step on; Zheng Qing took the opportunity of tying his shoelaces to discreetly pull at it, but didn’t manage to pull off even a single blade of grass. Then out of the corner of his eye, he accidentally caught sight of Jiang Yu wearing witch shoes.

The shoes are red, matching the color of her robe. Above the deep V-shaped shoe edge is a fair ankle, tied with a thin red string that seems to have a few beautiful pearls attached, flashing in the darkness.

Zheng Qing quickly withdrew his gaze at this point.

“Do not stare at inappropriate things,” the young wizard quietly muttered to himself, standing up, supported by the adjacent tree trunk. Much like the floor, the desks and chairs in the classroom had changed, with stumps serving as chairs and trunks as desks, the smooth desk surface covered with varying shades of oval patterns, emitting a faint woody fragrance.

Similarly, the laboratory bench on the left side of the classroom is covered by a thick layer of moss, but unlike wild moss, it appears dry and clean. Those large floor-to-ceiling windows on the right side are half-closed, and the windowsill bears some suspicious marks, seemingly the droppings of birds from the academy.

Upon noticing these marks, Zheng Qing subconsciously thought of the sprites he nurtured and sighed softly. Letting the sprites manage the classroom is problematic because they only strictly clean the classroom within its defined boundaries, leaving the inside spotless and the windowsill outside filthy.

This lack of subjective initiative is one reason many wizards refuse to acknowledge sprites as legitimate magical beings.

Of course, Zheng Qing hadn’t debated sprite rights for a long time. The more he understood the wizard world, the humbler he became, and being able to care for his sprites made him very content.

Tap, tap, tap.

At the front, Duan Xiao Jian finally succeeded in handing his assignment to Tang Dun, stretching his robes and walking away from the podium with a self-satisfied stride, looking left and right.

Then Zheng Qing stepped forward.

“Mr. Zha?”

Tang Dun’s expression subtly shifted as he received Zheng Qing’s assignment and greeted him with a smile: “Happy summer vacation, welcome back! If everyone put as much effort into their assignments as you, that would be great.”

While saying this, he shook Zheng Qing’s carefully written life planning book with much sentiment.

Zheng Qing gritted his teeth, holding back the urge to punch the thick-browed and large-eyed face—he had no doubt Tang Dun was purposely using that nickname in front of the witches.

“Not pleasant at all!” The young scholarship student squeezed out a few words through clenched teeth: “I spent the whole summer vacation in the campus hospital, it wasn’t pleasant at all.”

“Oh, that’s really unfortunate.” The monitor of Astronomy Class 08-1 sighed with regret: “At the end of July at the ‘Zeus Cup’ Madrid Open, Dove Langming used a Bear Summoning Spell to turn the tide, arguably the most exciting hunting competition of the year. It’s such a shame you couldn’t see it in person.”

The Zeus Cup is a hunting league within Europa, alongside the transcontinental World Cup and the First University’s Campus Cup, known as the three major hunting competitions in the wizard world. Since its venue is in Europe, even if Zheng Qing wasn’t hospitalized, he had little chance to attend in person, so Tang Dun’s remarks sounded slightly irritating to him.

He was definitely doing it on purpose.

Zheng Qing muttered inwardly, laughed it off, and turned to leave. A conversation without harmony is too much effort; with that time, he’d rather draw another new hat on the stick figure’s head behind the door.

Thinking of the stick figure, Zheng Qing looked up at the back of the door.

On the white drawing paper, the stick figure was jumping and reaching for a maple leaf within reach, the hat drawn by a student last winter holiday now reduced to a faint trace, and Zheng Qing believed that with the new school year starting, it would begin to cry and sell miserably to new students, asking them to draw it a new hat.

History repeats itself year after year.

With this slightly philosophical insight brushing through his mind, Zheng Qing navigated around the thick maple trunks, heading toward the corner of the classroom where his companions gathered, avoiding the thick cushions floating near his side.

Because desks and chairs had turned into rough tree stumps and trunks, sitting on them could pinch your butt, and under the protests of the students, the sprites in gray uniforms called Hehe, brought soft cushions for the girls.

The warlocks didn’t get such preferential treatment.

“I protest!”

Xin Fat Man bit down on a feather pen, forcefully smoothing out the parchment on the desk, saying indignantly: “The School Works Committee is neglecting duty! They’ve made the classroom a mess… absolutely disregarding the students’ mental and physical health!”

“I actually think this is quite healthy.”

Xiao Xiao hugged his notebook, leaning lazily against the stump as if on a field trip, showing a hint of contentment on his face: “Perhaps it’s not the School Works Committee’s responsibility… but rather those sprites, who arranged the room to their liking before the classroom functions were activated before school started.”

“Don’t always blame the sprites when things go wrong.” Fat Man frowned, unsure if his butt got pinched again: “You know perfectly well they can’t be held responsible for anything.”

“Originally nothing should be accountable,” Xiao Xiao snorted.

In comparison, Zhang Ji Xin seemed a bit more serious: “How do you plan to protest? What’s the reason?”

“Publish an article in the campus newspaper! Protest at Professor Yao’s office!”

Xin Fat Man waved the feather pen, looking somewhat excited: “We can’t tolerate their reckless actions! My butt is about to get pinched, yet they don’t provide us cushions! Such arbitrary changes to the teaching environment definitely violate the Campus Management Regulations!”

“I’m sure there’s no such clause in the ‘First University Management Regulations’.”

Zheng Qing patted the Fat Man’s shoulder reassuringly, stopping him from continuing his complaints—as a student who patrolled Lin Zhong Lake at night for a year and violated multiple “First University Campus Management Regulations”, Zheng Qing had studied many clauses carefully and was very confident in this.

Then he turned to Zhang Ji Xin: “Long time no see, Elder, when did you arrive?”