High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1928: Chapter 149: Greatness and Mediocrity (Part 1)

Everyone is born with great ideas, and these ideas often originate from a sudden flash of inspiration. The difference lies in the fact that some people, after a fleeting thought, immediately forget it and start thinking about what to have for lunch again; while others seize the thought, forget to eat, and then think seriously, finally putting it into practice.

The divide between greatness and mediocrity lies here.

As the saying goes, ’Some people eat to live, while others live to eat’. Those who live to eat often lose many things because of eating, such as greatness; while those who eat to live tend to abandon many things, such as mediocrity.

Korma belongs to the type of person who eats to live.

As soon as she opens her eyes every day, her mind is filled with the myriad problems of the Northern District Wizards, such as compensating the injured teams hunting in the Silent Forest; someone being backfired when using a cursed frog to perform magic; or someone mistakenly hitting a sensitive area of a warlock while casting a Soft Leg Curse, causing impotence—honestly, many bizarre magic accidents left this former top student of the First University dumbfounded and in awe.

She never thought that the seemingly simple and easy-to-learn magic would become so difficult in the hands of the Northern District Wizards, which added a lot of difficulty to her efforts to expand the Northern District Wizard Group and to promote the alliance’s recognition of the Northern District Wizards.

To solve this problem, Korma thought of two ways.

The first way is to seek help from the First University, hoping that the First University could admit these frog-using wizards by giving them some enrolment slots.

With the help of some ’anti-discrimination’ and ’equal opportunity’ wizard groups, the work has made some progress, but the progress is incredibly slow. At least in the autumn of 2009, there wasn’t a single slot for the Northern District among the new students in the four colleges of the First University.

The other way is ’tutoring.’ Korma expanded the teaching scale of the ’Bikini cabin’, increasing the original weekly roundtable-style teachings into a night school held every day. Besides personally taking the night school classes as a professor, she also asked some old friends from school to occasionally teach some non-applied magic courses.

For instance, ’Blood Race Emblem Studies.’

It’s a course of little practical use but very popular among mysticism enthusiasts. It can greatly broaden the horizons of Northern District Wizards, letting them see a vast and charming world beyond the Silent Forest and the bloody prey they hunt.

Or ’Commoner Studies.’

In this course, many Northern District Wizards learned for the first time that outside the world, there is a group of people even weaker than tricksters, who can’t even perform tricks. They use flame and current as power and similarly developed a splendid civilization. Of course, in Korma’s view, the bigger role of this course is to boost the confidence of the Northern District Wizards.

Sometimes, seeing people worse off than oneself can indeed make one’s mindset a bit more positive.

Among all these ’temporary courses,’ what the North District Great Wise Person cares about most is ’Philosophy of Magic.’ This course is a mandatory course in the four colleges of the First University, and the teachers teaching the course are experienced wizards at the school.

But for many Northern District Wizards, Philosophy of Magic neither teaches them advanced magic skills nor teaches them how to control magic power to prevent backlash. The course is dull and hard to understand, and the voice of the elder wizard teaching is sleep-inducing—In short, if not for Korma’s strict order that every Northern District Wizard must audit Philosophy of Magic, no one would be willing to sit in a closed classroom and expand their mind.

They would rather squat by the puddle, pairing up the frogs they are raising!

At least, watching those tadpoles swing their tails in the mudwater gives them a kind of feedback that they are accumulating magic power. Instead of feeling sleepy in class with nothing to gain but obscure concepts.

That night, it was another session of Philosophy of Magic.

Having finished her chores, Korma quietly came to the newly built classroom behind the Sakura Pub, stood behind the classroom door, and secretly observed the Northern District Wizards attending the class, just as her professor once did at the First University many years ago.

On the podium, the elder wizard hired by Korma at a high salary was squinting his cloudy eyes, holding the heavy law book in his hands, reciting verbatim the conflict analysis method under Dimension Theory:

”...The worldview of Dimension Theory believes that no complex contradiction can be overcome by itself, and can only be overcome by the next contradiction... The essence of the universe is a chaotic body of alternately moving contradictions of all things.”

”How should this be understood?”

”It means that the next contradiction can be said to be the method to overcome the existing contradiction, but rather than saying overcoming it, it’s because the development process of the temporal line no longer requires overcoming it... In other words, the way to overcome a contradiction is to make it unnecessary to be overcome.”

”How should this be understood?”

”To give a simple analogy, it’s like saying, the problem of the two-dimensional world, we elevate a dimension, solve it in a three-dimensional world; or the problem of the three-dimensional world, we reduce a dimension, simplify it into a two-dimensional, easier-to-understand way to solve... Sound convoluted? Then you’ve got it, the worldview of Dimension Theory is like a tangled ball of yarn, you can’t cut it, and you can’t untangle it~”

The elder wizard on the podium theatrically recited the lecture notes, making the Northern District Wizards sitting below even more befuddled and dazed, their eyes glazed over.

Standing outside the classroom, Korma slightly frowned.

It was the first time she had doubts about the jade coins she spent—not because of the elder wizard’s terrible speech habits—but because, in her impression, the conflict analysis method under Dimension Theory wasn’t a particularly esoteric theory, but the elder wizard’s verbatim repetition of the lecture notes made it even harder to understand.

In her memory, the professor who taught her this magic theory was Old Yao.

At that time, Old Yao gave a very simple example, which helped many people quickly understand the relevant concept—Many years ago, the spell-casting method popular in the wizard world was still the magic wand, and at the time, the two largest magic wand manufacturers in Europa were Britannia’s ’Ollivander’ and Germany’s ’Gregorovich.’ The two ancient magic families competed on all aspects of wand production.

From wand material planting, to wand core material selection; from shop location opening, to their respective market access restrictions; from price to style; and so on, the smokeless war between the two families lasted for centuries, and it seemed to have no end in sight.

So what ultimately ended this war?

A more exquisite magic wand making technique?

No.

A more powerful international magic wand manufacturer?

Also, no.

Korma remembered very clearly, at that time, the professor on the podium, holding up the law book in his hand, smilingly told everyone: ”...Ultimately, what ended the contradiction between Ollivander and Gregorovich was the law book from outside the field of magic wands... This is what’s mentioned in the conflict analysis method under Dimension Theory as a dimensional reduction strike.”