High School of Demon Hunting

"Don’t look at me like that."

"It’s Old Yao who called you here today, not me. I’m just the messenger... Why send Katherine? Hasn’t she dealt with you a few times already? It’d be so inconvenient with a newbie."

Korma sat lazily in the spacious sofa of Jiuyou Academy Dean’s Office, occasionally opening her mouth to catch a peeled grape offered by the sprites.

So pleasant.

Zheng Qing watched this scene with a sense of helplessness.

"So, what’s the matter that can’t wait until after class?"

As he spoke, he pointed to the empty desk not far away: "Hasn’t Old Yao arrived yet? Why did they have to pull me out in the middle of class, in front of everyone?"

"Is Katherine pretty?" Korma gave him a sidelong glance.

The boy was taken aback for a moment.

"What does it have to do with being pretty?" he replied, a bit puzzled and unwilling to answer—that Northern District Witch, truth be told, was quite attractive.

"Because when I was at school, I always dreamed of a handsome wizard standing at the door during class, loudly saying ’I’m looking for Korma’!" The witch propped her chin with one hand, reminiscing with a dreamy expression: "...that scene, just thinking about it gives me butterflies!"

Zheng Qing rolled his eyes dramatically.

"I’m not you!"

He interrupted impatiently, "I don’t need some witch calling my name at the door... You know? Now, when I hear an unfamiliar witch call my name, I get so flustered, it’s like I’m about to have a heart attack!"

The North District Grand-Wizard sat up, snorted: "...That’s because you’ve messed with too many people; evil begets evil."

And it’s because she was a Grand-Wizard.

Otherwise, Zheng Qing would have argued with her about what ’messing with too many people’ meant! He hadn’t messed around, no, he hadn’t known many witches at all! What did ’evil begets evil’ mean? What evil had he done?

Holding back his irritation,

Zheng Qing pointed again at Old Yao’s desk: "Whether it’s evil or not is another matter... So, what’s the situation? Old Yao called me here, but he’s not here; why did you bring me here?"

"Because I was bored in the office alone."

Korma gave him an irrefutable reason. Perhaps because she was no longer bound by No. 33 Gu Diao Street, the North District Great Sage appeared exceptionally relaxed at this moment, almost exuding an air of freedom.

Hehe!

A sprite floated in front of the boy holding a plate of washed fruit, looking at him expectantly. Zheng Qing used a two-pronged fork to pick up a piece of watermelon and shoved it into his mouth, chewing fiercely.

As if this could vent his frustration.

Fortunately, it was Friday today, and Zheng Qing didn’t have a Time Conversion class in the afternoon, so he didn’t have to worry about not having enough time.

Old Yao returned to the office after the practice class ended.

To be precise, only his head and an arm came back.

At that moment, Zheng Qing had just stuffed a piece of apple into his mouth when suddenly a spinning, glowing circle emitting Spell Light appeared, initially only the size of a fist, but it rapidly expanded, from a bowl size, to a basin, until it reached a diameter spanning several feet, nearly touching the office ceiling.

The pale blue glow inside the circle gradually dissipated, revealing a busy office with many black-robed wizards bustling about, seemingly oblivious to the circle.

"Everyone’s here, right?"

The Dean of Jiuyou Academy’s head protruded abruptly from the circle, glanced around, nodded slightly, and then waved: "—Come over here, quickly. You have quite a few tasks today."

And then he snapped back inside.

Zheng Qing hesitated for a moment, while Korma casually got up and leisurely stepped through the circle; the boy took a small breath and followed suit.

There was no unusual feeling at all.

It was just like stepping over a perfectly ordinary threshold.

Only, on the other side of the circle was an entirely different world—yes, Zheng Qing was very sure that he was no longer on Buji Island, not even in the original world, because when he looked up, two enormous ’moons’ almost covering half the sky, one light blue, one light red, caught his gaze, making him inexplicably think of the small green dragon hanging from his ear.

He couldn’t help but raise his hand and pinch it.

The apparition of R’lyeh showed no reaction, whether feigning ignorance or genuinely uninterested was unknown.

Zheng Qing’s gaze shifted down.

Professor Yao was sitting behind not far away, at a circular desk, with three heads on his shoulders, eight arms working like a production line, surrounded by three black-robed wizards with materials, reporting to him simultaneously from three directions.

Zheng Qing was amazed.

"This magic could definitely save a lot of time on homework!" he couldn’t help but exclaim.

Immediately, a slightly surprised voice came to his ears: "With my three-headed eight-armed skill, all you can think about is homework? Can’t you have a bit more ambition?"

Zheng Qing turned around in astonishment.

Only then did he notice, at some point, a ’Professor Yao’ was also standing beside him. However, this ’Professor Yao’ had one head and two arms, with a pipe in his mouth, in the familiar appearance he often saw.

Not far away, there was also a ’Professor Yao’ standing beside Korma.

Righteous Body? Projection? Clone?

A series of thoughts flashed through Zheng Qing’s mind, but he couldn’t help but retort, "—Your three-headed eight-armed skill is also for handling official business, not much more advanced than doing homework! Maybe, the wizard who invented this magic initially intended it for working more efficiently."

Old Yao was momentarily stumped.

The pipe in his mouth tilted slightly, but he ended up just shaking his head.

"Sometimes you’re so timid, and other times, you’re outrageously bold."

He exhaled a thick plume of smoke, his tone carrying a bit of emotion, seemingly marveling at the boy’s ability to joke around in front of a Legend, then paused and changed the subject: "—I called you two today because there’s been a bit of a situation. Something that was expected to happen in about a month will likely happen earlier, hmm, a few weeks earlier... Of course, this doesn’t count as a change in the timeline, and this possibility was originally anticipated, in fact, a highly probable path—don’t know what a path is? It’s the possibility of some future occurrence. Like when you learned the concept of ’Time Conversion’ before, if the past is a converging timeline, then the future is countless divergent timelines. Some of these timelines have no outcome, but more timelines, after passing through different ’paths’, eventually arrive at some inevitable result. This is the most important concept for maintaining the unity of the past and future in the river of time."