Heaven's Greatest Professor

"What princess status?" June fluttered her dark, silvery eyebrows.

"Aren't you a princess who ran away from home?" He gave his good-hearted smile.

"There's no royalty among us elves," she said.

"Perhaps not in your upbringing," Gale grinned. "But you're a princess in the spirit of all that matters."

June glared at him.

"Look at it this way," he continued. "Your father was a transcendent ranker, while your mum is one of the elders, who are practically like dukes."

June sighed. "My father is dead," she said. "And I hate my mother."

Gale cursed inwardly and apologised immediately. "I didn't mean it like that," he said, clasping her palm. "I'm sorry."

"I know," she whispered and turned to the others. "Sorry to dampen the mood. Jenni, Kiara tells me you want to ask me something?"

"Y-yes," the adept went to her immediately. "I want to learn spellcasting from you."

June raised an eyebrow.

"Before you ask anything," Jenni continued before the elf could open her mouth, "I am not trying to be a battle mage or anything. I love runesmithing and wanted it to be what I am known for, but the recent events have left me... I guess I'd say rattled, but I'm truly horrified just thinking of being alone, fighting against demonic creatures. Honestly, I cannot sleep some nights..."

June exchanged a look with him and transferred telepathically,

You knew she was like this?

I didn't,

he sighed. With Jenni's personality, it was hard to guess what was going on inside her head.

"I can teach you spellcasting," June said slowly.

"Thank you," Jenni said; however, the elf wasn't finished yet.

"However, I do not know how I can make time for you. As you know, I work at the academy, which is a totally different world from this place. Unless you join the academy or I stay on the frontlines, I don't see how I can teach you more of the complex stuff."

"How long does it take for one to learn them?" Jenni asked, fluttering her eyebrows. "You might not know, but I'm sort of a genius—maybe I can get the essence of it during your stay here?"

June could only smile at that. "I have been practising spells for over a decade, and there's still so much I do not know," she said. "But you're already a Tier-III runesmith—"

"Tier-IV," Jenni corrected. "Getting to Silver rank made it easy for me to advance to Tier-IV."

"The point is, qualified runesmiths tend to have better control than a common mage," June said. "Perhaps you can learn all the basics within a few weeks."

"Weeks?" Jenni opened her mouth wide.

"Silly girl, you thought June would show you the spell formula and you'd be able to cast them after observing once?" Gale laughed.

To her audacity, Jenni nodded. "Isn't that how it happens?"

All the people in the room stared at her in incredulity.

"Did I say something wrong?" Jenni cocked her head. "I mean, I just need to observe a script design once to forge it, and spell models tend to be far less complicated than a script design. No offence."

"You're not wrong," June said. "But it's not all about complexity. I'm sure it has its place the higher you go in spellcasting, but in the beginning, it is more about cultivating a mind and spirit that can withstand the toll spellcasting tends to take."

"Good, my mind and spirit are pretty strong," Jenni said. "Father has forced me through rigorous mental exercise since I was five."

"Well," June considered for a moment, "let's not waste time talking and let me examine your talent."

With that, she brought Jenni to the couch and handed her a magic cube puzzle, which needed high essence control to solve. It not only measured one's control but also trained novices to have better control.

"A puzzle? I loved those when I was a kid," Jenni said, taking the puzzle. She immediately pushed her essence into the puzzle as different colours of runic marks shimmered on the surface of the cube. The trick was to separate the essence of different wavelengths, and the only way one could do this was to match those wavelengths with their essence control.

There were thirty-six different wavelengths in the essence within the cube. For an elite academy graduate mage, it tends to take a quarter of an hour to half an hour to solve it. However, Jenni separated her first line of wavelengths in a matter of seconds.

A different colour of light shimmered in the cube, flashing over her space as she completed one side of the cube. And not even half a minute passed.

"Wow," Kiara muttered.

Jenni was wholly concentrated on the cube. She closed her eyes midway through completing the puzzle, her Silver rank awareness providing all the sensing capacity she needed for the task.

A couple of minutes passed, and she handed the cube to June. "How did I do?" she asked, smiling brightly. It used to take a few minutes before she ranked up to Silver, but her awareness made it a lot easier.

"This is brilliant," Kiara said. "The fastest it took me was thirty-seven minutes, and I'm completely spent by then."

"Silver rankers have it easier," Jenni said.

Kiara shook her head. "Some Silver rankers can't even solve it."

"Well, I'm not some Silver ranker," Jenni grinned.

June observed the cube before making a statement. "You certainly have an advantage with your awareness," she said. "But this is still great. I think you can solve it in half the time after a little refinement in your technique."

"Really?" Jenni asked. "How long does it usually take you?"

June smiled at him.

Yeah, show the kids how it's done,

Gale told her telepathically.

"Maybe I should show you instead," she said. Under everyone's gaze, she infused her awareness and essence into the cube.

She didn't finish the first line of runes as fast as Jenni, causing the adept runesmith to frown, but soon her eyes widened in disbelief as all the thirty-six lines of runes separated into their designated wavelengths simultaneously.

"I guess I do have a few tricks I can teach you after all," June smiled.