"Lucia, do you know the young man inside?"

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"He came earlier to bring you lunch!"

"W-wait, who're you talking about?!" Lucia asked in a fl.u.s.ter.

The teachers led her into the faculty room and she soon saw her husband napping on her desk.

"Eh? Cel?"

Hearing her surprised cry, everyone immediately understood that she knew this person. Lucia walked over next to Cecil and began poking his face whilst calling out, "Cel, wake up~!"

Cecil opened his eyes slowly, propped himself up, and looked around in daze while yawning. Once he saw Lucia, he immediately pointed to the wrapped up lunchbox on the desk and said, "Lunch...I brought..."

"Th-thanks, but why did Cel—"

"Mother...told me too..."

"Ohh...ehehe, I'm happy, thanks!"

"Mhm,��� Cecil nodded once before standing up. "I'll get going now..."

"W-wait! Come eat with me before you go! There's no way I can finish all that by myself!" Lucia said as she grabbed onto Cecil and pointed at the stacked lunchbox on the table.

"...Alright."

Once he agreed, Lucia took the box and dragged her husband away from the faculty room.

"E-Excuse me..."

"..."

The other teachers only stared back at her as she left with the handsome young man.

"So she did know him!"

"I bet that's her boyfriend!"

"Cehh, lucky~"

"Let's go eat, we can't waste our lunchtime. We can naturally ask for more info from Lucia after she gets back!"

At the park which just in front of the large academy, Lucia and Cecil were having their lunch underneath a large tree. Cecil had invited Silver and Yuna to have lunch with them when they pa.s.sed by each other earlier in the school building.

"Hey, Yuna, where were you? You're supposed to be my a.s.sistant at school, but you didn't even come to cla.s.s with me!"

"I'm sorry, Master, but Lady Fatima asked me to fill in another cla.s.s earlier."

"Well you should have at least told me!"

"I did, but Master was so busy getting ready for the next cla.s.s that you basically ignored me..."

"I-I did?"

Yuna nodded and Cecil chuckled in response to her.

"I'm glad that you're enjoying yourself, Lulu..."

"T-thanks...I was a little bored lately so Fatima's suggestion of becoming a teacher is good. At least I won't look like a lazy b.u.m idling away at home..."

"Lazy? You and Seri have always been doing the housework during our travels! There's no way you're lazy," Cecil said with a light laugh.

"That's the problem! At your family's house, all the servants do everything and I can't even help out!"

"...That's true..."

"Hmmm... this tastes good... did Mother make this?" Lucia asked.

"Yeah, after you gave her your cooking notes, Mother began experimenting with all kinds of ingredients. Now you can taste all of my mother's cooking from when we were back on Earth!"

"That's great!"

While they were eating, Ren, Angelia, and her friends suddenly popped up.

"Ah, I knew it! You really were here, brother!"

"Teacher, are you taking a break?"

Cecil waved and invited them to join.

"What brings you here, brother?" Angelia asked as she began stuffing herself.

"Mom, told me to bring lunch for Lulu."

"Hmm~ isn't that nice, big sis Lulu, your husband bringing lunch for you~?"

"Y-yeah, but this idiot had to come and wait inside the faculty room and cause a commotion!" Lucia grumbled before turning to Cecil and saying, "You should have told me you were coming!"

"I was afraid you were in cla.s.s. Calling and interrupting would be very rude of me," Cecil replied.

"W-wait! Instructor Lucia is already married?" Marilyn cried out in surprise.

Angelia looked at her friend and grinned, "Yup~ too bad, your idol is already taken~"

"S-stupid! Stop spewing nonsense! I'm just surprised that someone as young as the instructor is already married..."

"Ehehehe, well, I didn't really conceal it," Lucia replied while bringing up her hand and showing the ring on her finger.

"Ah, that's a wedding ring!" Xin exclaimed.

"Hmmm, I thought that was just an accessory because you had a ring on your other hand as well," Robin quipped up.

"I-Instructor, I know this is break time, but I wanna ask the question from before! You said something about deviation, what is that?"

Cecil looked at Lucia and smiled. He saw her getting ready to reply, but he quickly interrupted, "Hey, this is the instructor's break time! Why not leave the questions for later?"

"E-Eh?? O-okay...I-I'm sorry..." Marilyn said sadly.

"Cel!"

Cecil held up a hand to her and continued, "It's her break time, so why not I help her answer it?"

"O-oh?"

"Look here, it's better for you to understand if I demonstrate for you."

Cecil stretched out an arm and began channeling his mana. He materialized some of his mana outside and said, "Look, this is mana. I'm sure you all should know this by now, right?"

"W-woah! Y-you materialized so much mana! That's incredible!" Marilyn exclaimed in shock. She was the only one in Angelia's group of friends who was able to effectively materialize outside of her body which was one of the reasons why she was given the role as a mage. Seeing the unthinkable amount of mana that Cecil was materializing out of his body, this naturally shocked her because she could only materialize a small ball of mana.

"You'll be able to do this once you've practiced more. Now, listen up. When we cultivate, we naturally circulate our mana inside our bodies, correct?"

"Yes!"

"Our mana follows a certain pathway inside our bodies. This is known as an Energy Pathway," Cecil said as he began to replicate the energy pathways inside his arm and materialize it just above his arm.

"See, these are the pathways. If you can feel and visualize this pathway inside your body, you'll be able to cultivate much more efficiently. Now, this is what deviation is. Normally, the mana inside your body flows through the path in one direction," Cecil continued as he began to demonstrate the mana's movements inside the pathway.

"See, it flows only in one direction, but when you experience a deviation, the mana inside this pathway flow backwards and collides with the mana flowing forwards!"

He demonstrated what he meant, immediately, Marilyn, Xin, Robin, Angelia, and even Ren crowded closer to him.

The mana inside the pathway continued to collide with one another and slowly build up inside the pathway, when it got too big, Cecil immediately asked, "What do you think happens when too much mana backflows and builds up?"

Seeing the mana continue to swell out of proportions, Marilyn immediately answered, "It explodes?"

"Exactly!" Cecil said while he detonated the mana inside his demo pathway. It caused a small outburst which naturally broke the pathway.

"This is what's called deviation. If you cultivate wrongly, this is what will happen. You'll cause your mana to backflow and damage your inner energy pathway. In worst cases, it might cause you to be fatally wounded because the mana exploded and damaged your organs!"

"Wh-what?!"

"It's that bad?"

"O-oh no..."

Cecil ended his demonstration by giving them a solution and a way out if they happen to suddenly experience a cultivation deviation.

"Look, if you happen to experience one, don't panic. All you have to do is concentrate hard and correct your mana flow," Cecil recreated his demo pathway and corrected his mana flow. The built up mana flow due to the deviation began flowing normally again and the mana flow was corrected. "Of course you need to have a good grasp of mana manipulation. Are you all being taught about it yet?"

"N-No...not yet... is that a high school curriculum or something?" Marilyn asked her friends.

"I'm not sure...I haven't heard any of the older kids talk about it..." Robin said.

The rest only shrugged in response to her question.

Cecil frowned when he saw their responses. This was bad. He was going to give the school all of the mana cultivation manuals that he's recorded from the World Tree's Trials and the Arks Academy's library, but if they didn't teach the students about Mana Manipulation yet, it could spell danger if any of them experience a deviation in their cultivation due to selecting incompatible cultivation techniques and forcibly try to make it work.

"I better talk to Ima about this...anyway, let me show you a trick to help you all with Mana Manipulation!" Cecil said.

The kids turned their attention to him again and he materialized a ball of mana on his palm. He then started to slowly move it around his hand and fingers.

"Do this every day for as long as you can! Start out big and slow, after that make the ball smaller and go faster!"

Cecil said as he made his ball of mana smaller and smaller while slowly increasing his speed until it only left streaks of golden flashes weaving in and out of his fingers. The spectacle looked as if electricity was moving around his hand.

"C-cool!"

"Wow!"

Cecil smiled at them and said, "You'll be able to do this eventually with practice! So remember what I've said and do this every day! You guys will have a head start, but eventually everyone in school will know about this, so don't slack off!"

"Yes sir!" Angelia and her friends said in unison. Only Ren felt a little left out because he wasn't aspiring to be a mage or anything.

"Ren, you should practice a little as well. Although you won't be able to materialize your mana like them, but practicing to better manipulate your mana will be beneficial for you as an artificer!"

"Yes, Teacher!"

The group stopped their impromptu lesson and quickly finished up their lunch. The bell was soon going to ring and Lucia and everyone else had to quickly get back to prepare for their next cla.s.s. Cecil cleaned up for them and went to find his sister afterward.

Once he locked onto her location, he quickly hurried over using Blink. His sister was currently getting ready for an outdoor cla.s.s and his sudden appearance greatly startled her.

"Cecil! Stop doing that!" Fatima roared after her shock.

"Hahaha, I'm sorry about that, sis!"

"Sheesh... well, what brings you here? I thought you were going to hole up in your workshop today?"

"Well, mom dragged me out of there and told me to deliver lunch for Lulu..."

"Hm? Well isn't that romantic~ but you didn't have any thoughts of bringing your big sis anything?"

"Ah, no worries, we saved some for you!" Cecil said as he handed Fatima a wrapped up lunchbox.

"You sure came in late, my break is almost over!" Fatima said as she checked the time on her watch.

"Oh! You have a watch! Do they sell that in the city?"

"Yeah, after we figured out that the time for a day on this planet is roughly the same as on Earth, we quickly had people make clocks and watches."

"I'll go buy one for me and my wives later~"

"Mhm. Now back to my question, why did you come and find me?" Fatima said but soon enough, the bell rang and she had to quickly finish up her preparations. "Ahh, shoot, let's continue this later! I'll—"

"Let me help then you can hear me out while we wait for your students to come!"

Cecil said and he immediately began flas.h.i.+ng around the field and setting up the equipment according to his sister's instructions. It didn't take long before everything was set up and he flashed back next to Fatima's side.

"...you really are useful at times..."

"Hey! Are you implying I've been useless?!"

"Well, yeah...you stay cooped up in that workshop all day long and back on Earth, you only trained every hour of every day!"

"..."

"Anyways, what did you want to tell me?"

"Mana Manipulation, you have to add this to the curriculum!"

"Mana Manipulation?"

"Yeah! If you want me to hand over all the cultivation manuals that I have stored in my tome, the students need to learn the basics of Mana Manipulation first! If something wrong happens in their cultivation because they recklessly pick out a manual that isn't suitable for them, it might cause a deviation and it could potentially cripple or even kill the student!"

"What?!"

"Don't worry. I'll include a manual that'll help you teach the students about Mana Manipulation. The teachers should also learn about it themselves to make teaching more effective."

"Alright, but why didn't you mention this earlier—Oh yeah, I almost forgot, you were holing yourself up until recently!"

"Y-You don't have to bash me that much sis..."

"Prepare the materials tomorrow okay? The faster I distribute this, the better!"

Cecil nodded in reply. He then noticed that some students were already making their way over to the field. He reckoned that they were going to be practicing combat considering the field's set up.

He was just about to use Blink, but his sister quickly grabbed his arm and smiled at him, "Hehehehe~ Cecil, since you're here, mind being my a.s.sistant for the day?"

"Huh? But I—"

"Perfect, you'll be helping your sis out for the day, now stay put!"

"But—"

"But what? Got something better to do other than holing yourself up at home like a useless idiot?"

"I'm properly doing something, alright?!"

"Tsk, just do your sis a favor and help out. Besides, my next cla.s.s is a practical combat cla.s.s, isn't combat your forte?"

"..."

"If you run away, I'll make sure to tell Lulu and Seri all about your brat-like days!"

"Hah! That's not gonna work! They already know all about my days on Earth!"

"Tsk..." Fatima clicked her tongue and began pondering on what to say.

While Cecil was acting triumphant, a girl's voice immediately broke the silence between him and his sister.

"Instructor, is cla.s.s going to start now?"

"Eh?"

Fatima looked up and saw that everyone had already gathered and were only waiting for her to address them. It appears that they had witnessed the exchange the brother and sister duo had earlier.

"Yes, we're going to begin! Today, I've brought a special guest to act as my a.s.sistant!"

"Hey, who's your a.s.sis—"

Fatima glared at him and her eyes were saying 'If you dare embarra.s.s me in front of my students, you're dead.'

"..."

"Now, Mr. a.s.sistant, please introduce yourself," Fatima said delightfully after seeing that Cecil was staying.