High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 2964: Chapter 1182: What the Professor Said

There are hundreds of giant columns around the First Hall.

Various fierce magical creatures clung to the columns, from the Giant Dragon to the Behemoth, then to the Taowu, Qiongqi, and even the Drought Demon, and so on, without end.

On ordinary days, these sculptures are never shy about showing their sins and vicious auras to the young wizards. But today, all the sculptures have become kind and gentle, as innocent and cute as little white rabbits.

Compared to a few ancient beings in the hall at the moment, they indeed seemed as innocent and cute as little white rabbits.

Between the giant columns, connected gray stone railings.

Soon, under the guidance of the professors, the young wizards of the First University streamed into the railings of different floors. With the concealment of the corridors and railings, at least they could persist a little longer in the presence of these great beings of the Wizard World.

The dense crowd left.

The First Hall immediately became much more spacious.

But Zheng Qing felt no sense of relief, still finding the hall extremely crowded—even though the seven ancient beings each occupied a separate area, keeping a great distance from each other, their substantial auras spread uncontrollably like boiling water lifting a kettle lid, colliding and blooming into splendid light bands.

Zheng Qing stood in those flowing light bands, holding the Law book.

He tried his best to stand tall with his chest out, not wanting to show any weakness.

In contrast, Leviathan, standing on the other side of the gentleman, had no ’familiar burden’, hunching and lowering its head, unabashedly showing a cowering appearance.

The gentleman stood in the center of the hall.

Unlike the professors at the opening ceremony, he did not face the entire student body from the platform.

Instead, he stood like an ordinary professor at the lectern, giving an ordinary class, without emotional embellishment or foreshadowing, speaking in a gentle tone:

”—There is a type of magic in the Wizard World called time loops, which roughly intercepts a segment of time, trapping a person in this period, making them loop infinitely, unable to escape.

This is a very terrifying matter.

Because once you are caught in this loop, the variables of life immediately converge from infinite possibilities to just one; you can make countless choices in that time period, but the final result is always ’do it again’.

Many wizards, after falling into this magic, are not as rational as they imagine. They gradually progress from calm and composed to anxious and uneasy, then undergo drastic personality changes and go insane—kind people start randomly killing; cowardly ones begin to steal and plunder; brutal ones weep and repent; evil ones start eating vegetarian, chanting Buddha, and praying to gods—it’s a situation many face in despair.

Why the despair?

Because when you open your eyes every day to find that everything you do today and experience is almost the same as yesterday, and you know it all by heart, life loses most of its meaning to you.

This is the great horror of life, leading to despair.

The vast majority of people in the world spend most of their life trapped in similar cycles, eating, sleeping, studying, working, monotonously and tiresomely repeating day after day until death. Terrifying, isn’t it? It sounds terrible, but is it really? Once you get used to it, it’s actually not that scary. Isn’t everyone just muddling through life this way? For a goldfish with memory only lasting seconds, or a forgetful person, living such a muddled, happy life, he could continue forever. But for those with a remarkable will, excellent memory, aspirations, or even wild ambitions, this kind of life is frightening.

In such conditions, gaining immortality would be the cruelest punishment in the world.”

Here, the gentleman paused slightly, seemingly wanting the young wizards beyond the railings to ponder a bit. His gaze swept over the red robe, white robe, yellow robe, and blue robe one by one, then he spoke again:

”—Young wizards who can enter the First University are all elites of the Magical World. You either have excellent memory, or astonishing talents, or exceptional courage, or extraordinary will... Many come to this school intent on achieving great things. So, I hope that during your time at school, you can try to step out of the ’time loops’, to explore unknown worlds and the unknown of the world, because only the unknown can defeat all tedious futures.

Just like me now, also heading into a new unknown, just thinking about it makes me happy.”

He showed a joyful expression, but the expressions of others in the hall varied—the ancient beings maintained their inherent dignity and silence; professors and school staff bore serious and grave expressions; while the majority of students were confused, unclear about what the principal’s last sentence meant.

The high-level wizards did not intend to explain further to the young wizards.

The gentleman changed his tone, warning about risks from another angle: ”—But exploring the unknown does not mean recklessness and rashness. Astrology tells us that everyone’s life is like the movement of stars, following a linear, smooth trajectory, without abrupt undulations. But once the trajectory shows a great deviation, it signifies disaster.

Great Wizard Herli provided an interesting example in his ”A Brief History of Wizards”, about a kind of fairy tale plot involving a genie, fairy, or monster emerging from a copper pot or the bottom of a river, promising to grant three wishes to a passerby. This trope appears in many stories, but typically, these stories do not have happy endings. The protagonists often end up punished for their greed and folly, losing everything.

Why?

Because they veered off their destined path.

Divination includes a method called ’line divination’, which describes this situation very directly—if a wizard’s luck shows great fluctuations in a short period (whether up or down), they will face a significant pullback from their original fate line, the unlucky will hit rock bottom and rise again, while the fortunate will have their joys turn to sorrows—the saying ’virtue does not match the position, there must be disaster’ embodies this principle.

A wizard who knows little about the world’s reality and uses personal fantasies about the world to make wishes will have no good results. Because the world you imagine is far from the world’s reality. Possibly, the object you pray to is pondering how to cook your delicious soul.

Having seen legends, only then will you understand the powers of a legend.

Having seen the starry sky, only then will you comprehend the dangers of the starry sky.

Having seen the ancients, only then will you grasp the ancient power.

Today, I have brought the ancients to you—they visited, and you witnessed, so truth and the unknown are no longer flowers in the mist or moons in the water for you—now, all professors and school staff, please lead students from grades one to four to leave in an orderly fashion. Wizards of Legendary Level and above, please stay behind.

Hmm, Zheng Qing, you stay as well.”