An academy.

Its role was to teach young students and guide them onto the right path.

But an academy like that—

in the end, it had always been the exclusive domain of nobles.

And yet, in Atlas’s earliest days,

an old, faded legend slipped free of its cage and founded an academy.

“I will build an academy where everyone can learn, regardless of status.”

And so Atlas selected roughly three hundred bright, intelligent children.

Ninety-nine percent of them were commoners.

“What kind of person is the academy principal?”

“To be honest, does that really matter? I’m just grateful enough that my child can attend the academy at all.”

“Actually, I feel the same way.”

And at the opening ceremony, the principal said this as well:

“I am Principal Arbel, a man who ended up staying here because he had nowhere else to go.”

Those words came as something of a shock to the parents.

But to the commoner parents, the only thing that mattered was the joy of being able to let their children learn for free.

Commoner children had never gone to academies in the first place.

Most of them, while still young, only learned farm work, did odd jobs,

or prepared to become soldiers.

And Arte’s deliberately unimpressive description of himself—

that was simply to prevent anyone from discovering that Sage Arte was secretly raising more than three hundred prodigies.

At the time, Sage Arte thought this:

He was nothing more than an old legend now, but it would do no good if it became known that the man who knew all the information in the world was personally teaching children.

And Sage Arte was a clever man.

Something like revealing himself just to satisfy his self-esteem no longer mattered to him.

Arte also worked with Kabel to keep information under control.

And so even the children themselves, while receiving his instruction, came to think of Arte as no more than a friendly local school principal.

In a way, that was only natural.

The students at the academy were only children between the ages of eight and fourteen.

To children like that, what did it matter who the principal really was?

Their parents made them attend the academy, that was all.

And when class began—

“...Anyone who didn’t bring a textbook, go stand by the door.”

The children showed proper respect toward Principal Arte.

When Principal Arte saw that not a single one of them stood up, he smiled in satisfaction.

The children thought,

Well, wasn’t that just basic common sense?

Then Arte walked over and stood by the door himself.

“I didn’t bring mine.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Could someone lend me a textbook...?”

Principal Arte taught through example.

And once in a while, Principal Arte would ask,

“Shall I tell you about my first love?”

“We’ve heard it 194 times already.”

“Study, study!”

Arte ignored them all completely.

With lingering emotion in his eyes, he gazed off into the distance and said,

“It was back then... that child had the prettiest smile...”

“...”

“...”

“...”

And then there was physical education class, which happened once a week.

“...Can’t you all just go without me?”

“What kind of principal skips PE?”

“I’m tired.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

The children dragged Principal Arte out by force, made one lap with him, and then there he was, collapsed in exhaustion.

“Geez!”

“Let’s just run by ourselves!”

“WAAAAAAAH!”

The children respectfully laid Principal Arte down on a bench.

And Arte, lying there on the bench and panting for breath—

he liked watching the children run around.

It made him happy.

It gave him a kind of joy completely different from the life he had lived under the name Sage.

And the children never knew.

By default, Sage Arte possessed a special power called genius teaching.

[Teach one, and they will grasp ten.]

[Your teaching raises your students splendidly.]

There was also one deeper truth the children never knew.

[The growth of these children surpasses that of those in any empire or kingdom.]

And more than that, Arte also had the power to increase what users called talent.

[Student Rondo’s talent increases by 15.]

[Student Adara’s talent increases by 18.]

[Student Endere’s talent increases by 13.]

This thing called talent—

even students at the ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) finest academies found it difficult to increase it by 5 over the course of a year.

But the students never knew.

What they were learning was knowledge from Arte, greater than that of any principal alive, and true to the name Sage Arte, much of his power was focused on helping children grow.

By the time he had been teaching the children for nearly two years—

[The talents of the 300 children are exceptional!]

[Once they mature, they will be reborn as Named NPCs.]

Arte felt that his children truly were growing splendidly.

But at the same time, he began to think this:

Children with power also needed the power to protect themselves.

And I, too, need the power to protect these children.

Then, one day—

“I happened to pick this up. I thought it might help with running the academy.”

(Akao’s Spellbook Crafting Manual)

Grade: Unique

Restriction: Level 500+ spellcaster or Wisdom 10,000+

Special Abilities:

·Contains the crafting methods for every spellbook Akao ever made.

·It is not easy to understand, so not just anyone can manufacture them.

·It will be possible to create an astonishing variety of spellbooks.

Description: Akao. The reason he was able to command shadows in the nation of the Western King was because he was an exceptional spellcaster.

Though he never rose to the level of Legend, his spellbook manual had come just short of surpassing it.

Even Sage Arte had never seen such an intricate spellbook manual before.

A spellbook manual.

It could be described as a kind of parchment crafting method.

But parchment was limited in what it could do.

Things like strengthening oneself temporarily.

But Akao’s spellbooks were different.

These spellbooks can be used to attack certain beings, and they can inflict status ailments and perform all kinds of other functions?

In other words, if one mastered these spellbooks,

they were like assassin-style grimoires.

Though spellbooks, of course, vanished after a single use.

“Try teaching the children with this. They should at least have some power to protect themselves.”

Hyunsoo and Arte were of one mind on that point.

At the time, all Hyunsoo had wanted was for the children to be able to “protect themselves,” at least to that degree.

Even if the children learned this, how much could they really grow?

That had been his thought.

And for most people, he would have been right.

But the problem was that the one holding this spellbook manual was Sage Arte.

Its usage restriction said this:

‘Wisdom 10,000 or higher.’

That was only the minimum requirement.

And it meant that Akao’s Wisdom had exceeded ten thousand.

But Sage Arte’s Wisdom was on a level that shattered common sense.

Hyunsoo could not accurately inspect the stat values of NPCs, but the Wisdom value the system recognized for Arte—

[Arte’s Wisdom stat: 56,310.]

It was at that level.

And more than that—

‘Contains the crafting methods for every spellbook Akao ever made.’

‘It is not easy to understand, so not just anyone can manufacture them.’

The assassin Akao had merely left behind ingredients that were somewhat excellent.

But the chef who received those ingredients was the ultimate chef, one no other chef had ever reached.

[You perceive the crafting methods of every spellbook Akao ever made.]

[All spellbooks once created by Akao are recreated anew through genius-level knowledge.]

[The grade of Akao’s spellbooks, which never managed to surpass Legend, is upgraded to Legendary, and their name is changed.]

[Legendary Grade. Changed to Arte’s Spellbook Crafting Manual.]

What had once been nothing more than spellbooks for killing people were reconstructed with Arte’s genius knowledge infused into them.

It took dozens of days to complete.

And then he made them easier for the children to learn.

[You have created Arte’s Spellbook Textbook.]

[Not just anyone can master it.]

[The talents of the children you taught are special.]

[The children you taught understand it with astonishing ease.]

Arte taught the children the things he had newly created.

The children delighted in it and mastered the manual.

Their talent was truly unbelievable.

[Student Endere succeeds in creating an Epic grade spellbook.]

[Student Benjamin succeeds in creating a Rare grade spellbook.]

[Student Balao succeeds in creating a Unique grade spellbook.]

The children concentrated, drew, crafted, immersed themselves in their spellbooks, and rejoiced.

And then Arte assigned homework.

“Each of you will possess five spellbooks.”

“Boooo!”

“Homework again?”

The children grumbled at the sudden assignment, but over the course of several months, each of them came to possess five personal spellbook formulas.

And Arte, while mastering these spellbooks himself, devoted himself to something else as well.

That something was telekinesis, which Hyunsoo had used in the past.

His physical capabilities were not extraordinary, nor could he use magic.

But just as it had been for Hyunsoo, he possessed the power to create and shape a single force.

He researched telekinesis without end.

And that had begun even before the academy was founded.

Then, after endless study, Arte completed it.

[You have reached the Transcendent realm of telekinesis.]

A single power given the name Transcendence.

And then one day,

Hyunsoo issued a war order across all of Atlas.

And when Hyunsoo visited Arte’s academy, he said with no small amount of bewilderment,

“I told you to raise their power so they could protect themselves. Why did you turn them into human weapons?”

At the time, Arte had only smiled.

*****

THRUST—! THRUST-THRUST-THRUST—!

“KRAAAH!”

“A-aaaagh!”

“Block them!!”

Within Atlas—

as soon as the war broke out, all NPCs were ordered to evacuate.

Musashi and the other ninjas raced all across Atlas.

Musashi had now reached level 496, and the other ninjas were level 470.

The Atlas users protected by Territory Quest: Atlas could not stop them.

Because they were Japan’s finest elite.

TAP—!

Musashi arrived in front of the academy in an instant together with dozens of ninjas who wore crossed blades on their backs.

He looked at the darkened building.

“War is cruel by nature.”

Musashi, too, was the kind of man who regarded NPCs as nothing more than artificial intelligence.

The massacre of the academy children would do immense damage to the enemy leadership’s mental state.

After slaughtering all the children, they intended to immediately report the result to Fond.

Musashi.

Suppressing his presence, he pointed a finger toward the academy.

SHHHHHH—!

Forty-eight ninjas moved like flashes of light and shattered the windows as they entered all at once.

At that moment—

KRAAAAAASH—!

“KYAAAAAAH!”

“A-aaaagh!”

“What is this?!”

“Hhk!!!”

Children’s screams echoed from inside.

Musashi was delighted.

How devastated would Hyun be when he learned this?

By now, the children inside were surely being pierced through and dying without even understanding what was happening.

“Hm?”

But then something strange happened.

The academy had suddenly become deathly quiet.

In that instant—

[Telekinesis controls you.]

[You cannot resist.]

“...!?”

A massive pressure crushed down on Musashi’s body, and a chat message arrived.

[Yaran: I think something’s gone wrong. The moment the one we think is the principal tore a spellbook, we...]

Then the doors opened on their own, and a man appeared, leading more than three hundred children behind him in a wave.

Each child held a spellbook of unknown nature in their hand.

[Yaran: We have become wooden dolls.]

“...”

Musashi thought, What kind of bullshit is that?

But then he saw around forty-eight floating ninja dolls rise gently into the air, and he was struck speechless.

The power of the spellbook Arte had torn applied to him as well.

[Legendary Spellbook. Create the Form You Desire.]

[You attempt to resist.]

[You cannot resist.]

[Your form changes into a ninja captain wooden doll.]

“Hehe, that startled me.”

“Principal, a surprise event like this?”

What the children now faced were nothing more than forty-nine ninja dolls.

And Musashi, turned into a wooden doll and rendered unable even to speak, fixed his attention on the figure before him—the principal.

“Heh heh. Today, for the first time, we will be doing practical training.”

Practical training?

Arte looked around at the children and said,

“It is anatomy.”