BXBX NOVEL Chapter 200: Feeling Unsafe
Facing the unexpected punishment, Lucien was quite unhappy and frustrated, as he thought that he was maintaining quite a low profile and trying to avoid any possible conflicts with other teachers who did not like him. Still, now he was in trouble.
However, Lucien never gave up easily, "Sir, I’ve been receiving quite a few positive comments from my students from both Thorn Three and Blood Bird, and that proves that my way of teaching’s efficient. As you can see, my students’ scores have improved as well."
"I know," answered Donald directly, and his answer surprised Lucien.
"But you’ve still broken the rules, Lucien." Donald continued and changed his tone, "In Douglas, teachers should be authorities and should always be respected. Telling students that they don’t have to listen has severely violated our tradition. Regardless how effective your teaching method might be, the tradition of the school can never be breached. I hope you can realize your mistake, Lucien."
Lucien was speechless. He knew that the improvement of his students’ academic performance could not help him, since the headmaster valued the rules of the school more than anything else in this world, where the sense of order and class was highly respected.
Seeing that Lucien did not respond, Donald smiled to comfort him a bit, "Lucien, I know young people are always full of ideas, and among those ideas, some are good and some not. Say, I like the part where you increased the amount of exercise and homework that students should do, and now we’re promoting this part in your teaching practice all over the campus."
Lucien rubbed his head a bit but still did not say anything. He felt that students in this school would hate him for sure.
...
"Yes?" Rock patted on Lucien’s shoulder to comfort him, "What happened?"
"Suspending my teaching for a month. Salary cut by half. Can still use the labs, libraries and buy experiment materials for lower prices. Next time I violate the rules, I’m fired," said Lucien expressionlessly.
Rock swore a bit in low voice, "Must be those bastards from Electromagnetism... you know, the guy named Beate...he must be the leading one! They also teach Thorn Three and Blood Bird, and the students prefer you way more than them!"
"I see... That is the reason, then." Lucien finally understood where did all of these come from. In Lucien’s mind, Beate looked like a quiet person, and he never expected something like this from him.
Beate had black hair and black eyes, and was an ordinary-looking man. He was pretty good at Electromagnetism, and currently, he was a level one arcanist, second circle sorcerer.
Walking downstairs, Rock said to Lucien half joking and half serious, "Lucien, although you always give the students quite a bit of homework, you’re the coolest and the most popular teacher in their mind. However, I gotta remind you that there’s something in this school that cannot be violated. You can have your ideas, and you can also do what you want to do, but you’re never supposed to speak it out."
"Now I understand." Lucien nodded, "Thank you, Rock."
Rock grinned, "Actually, orders and traditions are all created by those big men. If you were a grand arcanist, Lucien, I bet no one would accuse you of breaking the rules, but speak highly of you that you’re creative and bold, and we should all follow your practice."
"I think you’re right, Rock." Lucien smiled.
...
During lunchtime, in order to comfort Lucien, Jerome, K, Vilnia, and some other teachers came to Lucien’s place and had lunch with him.
After lunch, hearing the bad news, Annick, Layria and Heidi also came to visit Lucien. Surprisingly, Sprint, Katrina, Grant, and another green-haired girl were also there. The girl with dark green-hair was strange to Lucien, being around seventeen or eighteen.
"We’re always on your side, Mr. Evans!" Having no idea what was proper to say at that moment, after a while, Annick, Heidi and Layria finally came up with one sentence together.
Sprint still did not say anything, but he was slightly nodding to show his support. Katrina and Grant also waved their fists and said, "Your teaching’s great, Mr. Evans!"
And then Grant mumbled a bit, "Could be better without homework."
"I’ll be coming back soon. Thank you all." Lucien did not encourage the students to fight against the school for him, since he did not want the students to be in trouble.
After a bit casual chatting, Heidi said to Lucien, "Mr. Evans, as students coming from the other side of the strait, we’ve been feeling quite challenged in basic magic and arcana. So we wonder... whether you would be willing to spend some time on tutoring us this month, Mr. Evans?"
"We can pay!" added Layria hurriedly. "Some of our experiment products were bought by the school, and we made some money from it!"
"Arcana tutoring?" Lucien was surprised, and felt this a bit strange.
However, the apprentices were pretty serious.
K decided to help the students, "They’re hard-working and brave young men and ladies, Lucien. If you have time, maybe you can help them a bit, and when I’m free, I can join you."
"I see... then what about every Saturday afternoon?" After receiving K’s help, Lucien also wanted to be nice to other people, "And there’s no way that I’m gonna charge you students. The tutoring is free. So... who’s in?"
"Me, me!" Heidi hurriedly raised her hand, followed by Layria and Annick.
Katrina’s face blushed, but she was being quite decisive, "I’m in, Mr. Evans."
Sprint’s face also went red, including his ears, "Me... too..."
As one of the leading students in the class, Grant smiled and said shyly, "Mr. Evans, I think I’m fine so far."
The strange young girl was looking at Heidi, signalling to him.
Heidi hurriedly nodded and said to Lucien, "Mr. Evans, this’s Chely, our roommate, from Sea Gull. She can’t follow most of our courses, and she wants to join us as well."
"Chely...?" Lucien repeated the name a bit, as the name sounded very familiar to him, and the colour of the girl’s hair was also very unique. If the girl was the same Chely that Lucien encountered on the ship, then the relationship between Viscount Wright and the congress would be very complicated.
It seemed that Chely understood why Lucien was a bit surprised, so she slightly nodded, "Yes."
Chely was a quiet girl, so she did not say much.
Another example of a knight falling in love with a sorcerer, and although it was going to be very difficult, Lucien sincerely hoped that they would not copy Natasha and Silvia.
When Lucien agreed that Chely could also join them, Rock came back and said to him excitedly, "Lucien! Your paper has been cited by Mr. Brastar! Fernando Brastar! The grand arcanist! The first paper on Magic!"
Although Rock’s expression was quite messy, all the teachers in the living room stood up out of great surprise, including Grant, who understood the importance of Magic and how influential Fernando was.
Even Lucien was very surprised, as his paper was published only a few days ago.
"This one!" Rock handed the journal to Lucien, "Take a look yourself!"
The first thing came into Lucien’s eyes was the title - Discussion over the Application of Electromagnetic Wave, followed by the author’s name and his rank - Fernando Brastar, grand arcanist, legendary class: level three, Lord of Storm.
The beginning of the paper did not comply with the standard format at all:
"My student Thompson is the member of Affairs Committee, and he found an interesting paper during his reviewing work, which conducted a series of simple experiments to study how bats use high frequency sound wave to sense things in darkness. When I read the paper, I was inspired, hence I developed this paper investigating some possible applications of electromagnetic wave from a broader perspective, and the differences in application between high and low frequency electromagnetic waves. Moreover, if sound wave can carry information, what about electromagnetic wave?"
Lucien was very impressed by the grand arcanist’s great imagination. The grand arcanist got ahead of Lucien in investigating the field of application, and Lucien was about to use this to earn more credits later.
Lucien could already see the prosperous future of the application of electromagnetic wave.
After feeling impressed, Lucien suddenly felt unsafe with being directly mentioned by a grand arcanist in his paper. Without doubt, lots of unnecessary attention would come to him.