High School of Demon Hunting

Zheng Qing was not unfamiliar with the term ’disaster’.

In his freshman year, due to a recurring headache, Professor Yao helped him confirm that the root of his illness was a ’disaster’, so he used the method of avoiding disaster to treat him, which was the Transformation Technique.

Although Zheng Qing later discovered that his headaches had another cause, the Transformation Technique indeed alleviated the frequency of his headaches to some extent, which could be considered a lucky hit.

The so-called disaster, according to the most widely accepted magical theories, is essentially a kind of information disturbance—understandable as a sudden rise of a reef in the River of Destiny, blocking the flow, creating a vortex, the force of which then acts back on this unsteady reef, either flipping it back into the river lightly, or crushing it by combining other external factors heavily.

Zheng Qing remembered that in Professor Yi’s magic notes on disasters, there was a very clear list of situations that might trigger a disaster, such as the reform of magic skills, the progress of magical knowledge, casting spells with significant impacts on the world, and so on. Although building a new Magic Academy for a particular group was not explicitly listed as a cause of disaster, considering this measure indeed had a significant impact on the world and was progressive to some extent, it became a high-probability event for backlash to occur against the wizard group by the world.

Applying a theory from the Mortal World, risk and reward are proportional.

Thinking about that notebook.

Zheng Qing naturally thought of a conjecture mentioned in the notes—any disaster, when it cannot trace back to the target life form, will gradually collapse in magnitude until it disappears.

"Is it possible for the Edge Academy to become another form of life?"

He tentatively looked at the dean of Jiuyou Academy: "I remember reading in ’Entering First University’ that First University is alive... or living, well, something like that."

"You are quite shrewd." The Shadow Cat tugged at its whiskers.

"Living and alive are not the same concept."

The Little Dragon hanging on Zheng Qing’s ear also flicked its tail: "Just like some people are dead, but it is alive. You can simply understand that the existence logic of carbon-based life forms and silicon-based life forms is different, so the way to avoid disasters is also different... In the end, the Subhuti conjecture is still targeting ’wizards’ as a life form."

In contrast, Professor Yao’s statements were much more tactful.

"Think about the difficulty when you learned the Transformation Technique. Wanting an academy that hasn’t fully established itself to master the Transformation Technique may be a bit too demanding, even if it’s First University..."

At this point, he tapped his pipe and drew a large circle with his hand: "It has worked hard for so many years, usually just moving corridors and shifting fake mountains, but it hasn’t succeeded in turning into a turtle to take a stroll..."

Dong Dong.

A fierce pounding came from behind the wall of the dean’s office, as if someone was hammering the wall.

"Hmm, what a small-minded creature," the Shadow Cat muttered softly.

Zheng Qing subconsciously looked towards the place where the sound came from before realizing that this was the ’First University’ expressing some dissatisfaction with Old Yao’s recent words.

The dean of Jiuyou Academy waved his hand again, scattering the smoke above his head, and looked up at the ceiling: "—just joking, giving a lecture to the students. No other meaning..."

Then he withdrew his gaze, chuckled dryly, and changed the topic: "...Of course, looking at it from another angle, if wizards above the level of Legend were to help, and used a strong Transformation Technique on the concept of ’Edge Academy’, it may not be impossible. However, as long as wizards above the level of Legend have taken action... does the bit of trouble at the school still matter?"

This logic was indeed quite reasonable.

Zheng Qing nodded in agreement.

"Furthermore, hmm—"

The professor took a deep puff of smoke and slowly exhaled, looking at Zheng Qing with meaningful intent: "Although I taught you the Transformation Technique at the beginning, constantly avoiding disaster is not the true purpose of ’disaster’. For wizards, disasters are both challenges and opportunities. For example, the Heavenly Tribulation can help wizards strengthen their physical body, a magic disaster can help wizards strengthen their mind, and a human disaster can help wizards sort out cause and effect... For the Edge Academy, confronting the disaster head-on at its establishment can alleviate the pressure from both within and outside the Alliance towards this new force to the greatest extent, while also uniting the marginal groups within the Alliance to the greatest extent, reducing concerns and increasing their confidence in the new academy. If it keeps avoiding right after its establishment, over time, with entangled causes and accumulating disasters, the academy will eventually crumble under the burden."

"Avoiding is not only shameful but also useless," the Shadow Cat added sarcastically.

Zheng Qing glanced at it.

Always feeling like there was more to its words.

"—Just like the phrase you often hear from Professor Yi in Divination class, ’Harvest and expenditure are equivalent, to gain the truth, one must pay the same price,’ or you might have learned something similar in Alchemy, the theory of equivalent exchange."

Professor Yao’s speech wasn’t affected by Cat Thirteen’s muttering: "The greater the impact of the establishment of the Edge Academy, the greater the difficulties it faces; the deeper the impact of its establishment, the more challenging and rough future roads it will have. Do you remember the ’Mules’ Law’ I told you about?"

"The degree of information disturbance is proportional to the ease of obtaining information." Zheng Qing replied without hesitation—this is a concept from another set of magical theories distinct from dimensional theory, and is also a required topic for registered wizards.

"Very good, it seems I don’t need to worry about your graduation problems anymore."

Old Yao nodded approvingly: "The Edge Academy can be approximately viewed as a block of tangible ’information’, the greater its interference with the world, the more difficult it is to ’obtain’ it."

Zheng Qing finally tasted the persistent ’warning’ from Old Yao.

"Then the project I participated in with the Edge Academy..." he tentatively asked.

The professor gave him a look of approval, lightly coughed: "In theory, the school won’t interfere with any student’s choices, if you’re told to go, you go... But you’re still a student, having your tasks to do, so you don’t have to be overly enthusiastic, if you’re not told to go, you don’t need to meddle, it’s understandable to tactfully shirk from the project group."

"So should I go or not?" Zheng Qing was confused by this pile of nonsense.

Old Yao didn’t answer his question, and continued puffing on his pipe.

"Idiot!"

The Shadow Cat contemptuously looked at its own form: "It means that if you participated in the past, it was fine, the completed part belonged to the ’must’ part; but for the subsequent parts, you can find excuses not to participate..."

Saying this, it turned to look at Old Yao with a bad attitude: "I finally understand why you had me listen to something tonight that obviously doesn’t have much to do with me, turns out you feared he wouldn’t understand ventriloquism, so you wanted to find him a translator?"