The second public lecture for "Logic and Magic Models" had just ended, and the "New Student Exchange" section of the academy's internal forum was a wasteland of despair.
Beneath a pinned help thread, the replies had already piled up into the hundreds.
"I'm going crazy! This 'Pointing' Rune is impossible for a human to learn! My Spiritual Power model has already imploded seventeen times!"
"What the hell is this 'Vector Convergence' the instructor was talking about? I can't even get a steady grip on my Spiritual Power, how am I supposed to converge it?"
"The upperclassmen's notes say to 'push' it forcefully with your will, but every time I push, my head feels like it's been hit with a hammer. It's still ringing."
The feeling of hopelessness was everywhere.
Just then, amidst the wailing masses, one apprentice posted a timid reply.
"Um... have you guys tried the post called 'A Thought on the Pointing Component of the Wizard's Hand'? I... I think I just succeeded..."
The reply was instantly buried, but a few minutes later, he posted again, his tone infinitely more excited this time.
"HOLY SHIT! It's not 'I think'! I actually did it! It formed on the first try! Brothers, go look now! The poster is User_322345, signed Allen Wesren!"
Those two words, "HOLY SHIT," seemed to carry a magic of their own, exploding through the bleak atmosphere of misery.
Resorting to desperate measures is a cornerstone of human progress.
Three minutes later, in a public hallway of Academic Building A, an apprentice stood facing a wall, eyes closed, his fingers trembling slightly.
He was surrounded by seven or eight other new students, all with the same look of despair.
"...The post says not to 'push,' but to 'guide'..." he muttered, gently extending his Spiritual Power in the unbelievable way described in the post.
Before, his Spiritual Power had been like an untamable wild bull, rampaging uncontrollably. But now, it was as if it had become a gentle stream, flowing, converging, and taking shape naturally along an invisible riverbed.
A "Pointing" Rune, structurally perfect and with a stable glow, silently formed in his Sea of Consciousness.
The entire process was so smooth it made him want to cry.
"I did it!" He snapped his eyes open and roared with excitement, his eyes turning red. "It didn't collapse! It really didn't collapse!"
His irrepressible cry of joy was like a spark landing in sizzling oil.
"For real?!" A skeptical apprentice watching from the side immediately tried it himself.
Five seconds later.
"I did it too! Oh my god! It really works! My Spiritual Power... it's moving on its own!"
THUD. An apprentice, whose Spiritual Power had destabilized from the sheer excitement, fell flat on his butt. But there wasn't a trace of pain on his face—only a manic joy. "It worked! I did it too!"
The ripples rapidly swelled into a tidal wave.
"'Guide,' not 'shove'... damn it, that's the key! Why don't the textbooks say this? Are the people who wrote them morons?!"
"This idea is insane! It's completely revolutionary! Who's the poster? Allen? Allen Wesren? Who is that?"
"I hereby declare that from this day forward, Allen is my sworn brother!"
The number of replies to the post exploded at a visible rate.
The initial skepticism and wails of despair were completely drowned out by a flood of "It works!", "Thank you!", "A god!", and "Please start a class, I'll kneel and listen!"
In less than two hours after the lecture, the name Allen had earned a reputation among the entire freshman class as a "genius," a "savior," and a "technical authority."
...
At dinnertime, the academy cafeteria was buzzing with activity.
At many of the junior apprentices' tables, the topic of conversation was Allen and his divine post.
"Did you get it to work? It only took me three tries. I can hardly believe it!"
"Tell me about it. I feel like my last two weeks of practice were a complete waste of time."
Meanwhile, in the liveliest corner of the cafeteria, Lester Green was surrounded by his two friends, gesturing wildly with his hands, his face glowing with an almost fanatical zeal.
"Watch closely." Lester lowered his voice, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.
He extended a finger toward a green pea on his friend's plate, two meters away.
The next second, under everyone's watchful eyes, the pea gently—in defiance of the laws of physics—hopped into the air!
It traced a small parabola through the air and landed precisely in his other friend's soup bowl, sending up a tiny splash.
Dead silence.
Of Lester's two friends, one's mouth was hanging open wide enough to fit an egg, while the other's fork fell onto his plate with a CLANG.
"Les... Lester..." one of the friends stammered, his voice trembling. "Didn't you say... you couldn't even blow out a candle flame? It's... it's only been a few days!"
"That was before I met Master Allen." Lester's tone was filled with a sense of sanctity and superiority. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper, yet it carried an unparalleled, incendiary quality. "In just one hour, he made me understand the true essence of Witchcraft!"
He glanced at the surrounding apprentices who were still cheering about succeeding with the "Pointing" Rune, a pitying smile touching his lips.
"Are you all still feeling smug about that little 'guiding' trick from the forum?" His voice seemed to hold a magical allure. "That's nothing more than a tiny splash from the ocean of Master Allen's knowledge. He taught me a complete, systematic method! While you're all still learning to walk, he's already taught me how to fly!"
Those words, combined with the "leaping pea" from moments ago, had an impact a thousand times more shocking than the cold text on the forum!
A living, breathing example—a failure just two days ago, now capable of what seemed like a miracle—was standing right before them!
The name Allen, spread through the forum and Lester's mouth, followed two tracks—online and offline. Like two intertwining dragons, they rapidly fermented, pushing his reputation to an unprecedented height.
At that moment, at the center of the storm, Allen was eating quietly with Vera and Colin.
He paid no mind to the looks of awe, curiosity, or inquiry from those around him, simply cutting the roasted meat on his plate with calm focus.
'A commercial marketing campaign—from generating traffic and exposure to cultivating word-of-mouth and filtering for potential customers—has been perfectly executed.'
Just then, two apprentices holding trays shuffled hesitantly over to their table, step by step.
The surrounding clamor seemed to fall silent as countless gazes focused on them.
One of them was the very same apprentice who had first succeeded in the hallway. He took a deep breath, mustering all the courage he had, his voice strained with nervousness. "Excuse me... are you Master Allen Wesren? The one who... posted that divine thread on the forum?"
Allen looked up, his deep blue eyes as calm and unrippled as the vast night sky, impossible to read.
Before Allen could answer, another figure squeezed past them, his gaze even more urgent, carrying a hint of pleading.
It was one of the friends who had been stunned by Lester's "pea miracle" just moments before.
"Lester said... he said you... offer... paid tutoring?" he stammered, his hands gripping the edge of his tray so tightly his knuckles were white.
One was an apprentice saved by a free post; the other was a client, spurred on by Lester's example and eager for a shortcut to the top.
For different reasons, they had both ended up here.
But their eyes shone with the same light—the hope of a drowning man spotting a lone piece of driftwood, the longing of a desert traveler seeing an oasis.
Allen set down his knife and fork and wiped his mouth deliberately with a napkin.
He looked at the two clients who had taken the bait, and beyond them, at the many more potential clients who were pretending to eat but were actually all ears, their gazes furtive.
'The first piece of the puzzle is in place. Now, it's time to add the second.'
He pushed his plate forward slightly and leaned back in his chair. The simple movement instantly created a subtle distance between him and the eager apprentices.
It wasn't a social distance, but a division of status—he was the giver, and they were the seekers.
"This is not the place to talk."
His voice was steady, clear, and devoid of emotion, like a top-tier consultant stating an established fact.
"Tomorrow night at seven. Public practice room in Zone A-7."
He gave a time and place that allowed for no argument, then added one more thing.
"If your problems still haven't been resolved by then, you can come find me."
With that, he retracted his gaze, picked up his knife and fork again, and cut another small piece of roasted meat, as if the highly anticipated conversation had been nothing more than an insignificant interlude.
The conversation was over.
The apprentices stood frozen, stunned into confusion by his indifferent attitude.
They had expected to be rejected, to be treated with arrogance, even to be immediately quoted a high price. What they had not expected was this.
They exchanged glances, and then, in unison, they bowed and quietly withdrew.
Only after they had moved away did Colin lean in close, his voice low and his face a mask of disbelief. "Allen, are you really going to... teach them? That could be dozens of people, maybe even a hundred! Where are you going to find the time?"
Vera also looked at him with concern, adding softly, "And what if you can't teach them well, or some people can't learn? Your reputation that you've built up..."
"I'm not going to teach 'dozens of people'."
Allen put the small piece of meat in his mouth and chewed slowly, a shrewd glint flashing in his deep blue eyes.
'My plan was never to be some cheap babysitter who grants every request. Too many people would also cut into my own study time.'
'Unrestrained goodwill is the most worthless thing of all.'
'What I want is a replicable, scalable, high-profit... paid knowledge system.'