The Most Arbitrary Wizard

「Half an hour later.」

Ryan, Tony, and the others arrived at the church.

There weren’t many Wizards qualified to be Laelando’s students. Including them, the total number was less than twenty. As a result, they all got to know each other quickly, at least to the point where no one ever got a name wrong. They greeted each other amicably.

Elise and Eleanor had arrived even earlier. The moment they saw Tony and the others walk in, they asked, "Where’s Sean?"

"He didn’t come again?"

Ryan nodded woodenly. "He’s not here."

He had to answer the same question from Elise almost every morning. He was starting to feel a little numb to it all.

"What on earth is that guy doing!" Elise furrowed her pretty brows. "The Table of Truth is only a week away, and he’s still not here. Doesn’t he want the Cultivation resources?"

As long as one performed well at the Table, even if they ultimately chose not to join the Knight Order, they could still win the competition’s own generous rewards. For a "newcomer" like Sean, this was incredibly valuable. Even if he didn’t use the rewards himself, selling them would fetch a huge sum of money—enough for them to live comfortably in False Heaven for several years without any worries.

With only a week left, shouldn’t he at least start cramming at the last minute?

Tony sank lazily into his seat and said, "If you ask me, there are only two possibilities for why Sean isn’t coming to class."

"First, he’s confident he can learn on his own. He thinks he can master the Truth Technique without Mr. Scholar’s instruction."

"The second possibility is that he isn’t missing class, we just *think* he is."

Everyone: "?"

"What do you mean?"

"You guys are so dense."

Tony sighed. "Think about it. Sean was the first person Mr. Scholar took an interest in. Mr. Scholar taught him that very same afternoon. What does that tell you?"

"It means Sean’s classroom isn’t the church."

Tony leaned toward this second possibility. He didn’t think Sean would be stupid enough to pass up the opportunity to learn the Truth Technique from a Grand Mage. The reason he wasn’t attending class was because he had other lessons. Perhaps, without them knowing, Mr. Scholar had already been giving Sean private lessons.

Everyone thought about it carefully...

’That actually seems to make sense?’

"So that’s how it is!"

Elise’s brow smoothed over, and she grew cheerful again. "Then at the Table of Truth, isn’t he going to dazzle everyone?"

Tony: "Wrong!"

Completely and utterly wrong!

"The one who’s truly going to dazzle everyone is me, Teacher Tony!"

Whether Sean was self-studying or getting private lessons from Mr. Scholar, he wasn’t afraid.

A true genius can withstand any test. Everyone said the Truth Technique was difficult, but for him, learning it was smooth as silk. In just over half a month, he could already integrate the Truth Technique into the skills he had previously mastered, like cutting hair.

Just then, a girl walked in.

"Good morning, Teacher Tony," she said with a smile, greeting him.

Tony smiled and nodded in response, then jutted his chin toward Elise and the others. "Check out her hairstyle. That’s my masterpiece."

If he hadn’t said anything, Elise and the others wouldn’t have noticed. But with his reminder, they took a closer look and discovered that the girl’s curly bangs were no ordinary bangs. Each strand of hair seemed to have been meticulously cut and styled, with the tips curled into the shapes of the numbers 1 through 9, the letters a through z, and various mathematical symbols. It exuded an aura of knowledge.

Everyone: "..."

’My god, is that a hairstyle a human could even come up with??’

Tony said smugly, "So? Cool, right?"

Everyone fell silent in unison.

Elise just facepalmed.

She was starting to regret taking Tony to see Mr. Scholar.

Using the Truth Technique to do hair... If Mr. Blake were still alive, he’d probably beat them to death if he found out.

"It seems you’re all in high spirits today?" Before long, Laelando walked into the lecture hall.

The chattering group immediately quieted down, returned to their seats, and sat up perfectly straight.

They’d never been this well-behaved back when they were actually students in school.

Laelando walked to the podium and continued, "Being in high spirits is a good thing. I hope you can maintain this state."

The Technique they were to learn today was very difficult.

It was about constructing a Maze of Truth.

Constructing a maze was a massive undertaking. Besides requiring the Caster to have an extremely high and continuous output of Magic Power, one also had to learn to multitask, uniformly inscribing a sufficient number and variety of problems onto every brick and tile. Then, one had to imbue them with answers the enemy would never expect—though this step could be modified as needed. After all, for some of the harder problems, many people couldn’t find the solution even if it was just the normal, correct answer.

And because the topic was relatively special, Laelando’s teaching method today was also different.

He scanned the crowd and asked, "Are you all ready?"

"Ready!"

Then, with a wave of his sleeve, the ceiling of the lecture hall burst with a blinding light. Like pieces of a golden jigsaw puzzle, sections of the ceiling detached one by one, fell to the ground, and reassembled into walls, separating and enclosing every Wizard in the room. Only a few barely perceptible gaps were left behind as passageways.

In less than three seconds, the vast lecture hall had transformed into a magnificent, golden maze saturated with mathematical principles.

"Your task for today is... to go home."

To learn a Technique, one must first understand it, and personal experience was the best way.

If they wanted to leave class and eat, they had to find their way out of the maze first. If they couldn’t get out, they wouldn’t be eating.

The Wizards: "???"

’Is this some kind of corporal punishment?’

"Wait, Mr. Scholar, these problems are too hard!" someone cried out, begging for mercy. They were already getting dizzy just from glancing at the Techniques on the maze walls.

However, Laelando paid them no mind at all.

He had arrived with a book in hand, and he left with that same book, not saying another word.

Laelando didn’t think this maze was that difficult.

’Could it be any harder than the maze Sean constructed in my mind?’

’If they can’t even keep up with this level of intensity, what makes them think they can participate in the Table of Truth?’

’A bunch of arrogant brats. Let them take their sweet time solving it. Hmph.’

「After leaving the church.」

Laelando didn’t return directly to the bookstore, but went to the Wizard Dormitory instead.

The Table of Truth was in one week, and he had something to discuss with Sean.

"What?"

"Propose questions?"

Sean, who had been surfing the intranet to keep an eye on the Saintess’s activities, was surprised that Laelando had come to find him personally, and even more surprised by Laelando’s request for him to propose questions.

’Aren’t I just supposed to be a Judge?’

’Why do I have to come up with questions too?’

Laelando explained, "Every year at the Table of Truth, we Judges each have to propose one to three questions to form a test. You can think of it as an assessment of the participating Wizards’ basic skill level, and at the same time, it’s an assessment of us by the Saintess."

If the questions proposed were no good, then replacements would be made.

The Table of Truth is the most important and solemn event in all of False Heaven, so naturally, it has the most rigid institutional rules.

Sean shook his head, amused. "One test for two different groups of people. That certainly sounds like Her Highness the Saintess’s style."

’Just like using one assassination mission to test everyone’s loyalty. This generation’s Saintess is a deep one.’

Laelando wasn’t worried that Sean wouldn’t pass muster.

After all, even he, the chief Judge, could only learn from Sean.

What he worried about was that Sean’s questions would be too difficult and would make the other Wizards completely shut down.

The "question proposal" itself could be done on the spot. The so-called "test" wasn’t a real paper exam; they would use Magic Power to condense characters and form the questions in mid-air. Laelando was afraid that because Sean was young, he wouldn’t know how to hold back, so he came specifically to give him a heads-up.

"Don’t make the difficulty too high."

"Otherwise, it won’t just be the participating Wizards who shut down; we ’proctors’ might just shut down along with them."

If the students couldn’t solve a problem and asked them, and then it turned out they couldn’t solve it either, well...

"Wouldn’t that be even better?" Sean interrupted, eager to give it a try.

’It’s guaranteed to get the Saintess’s attention!’

Laelando: "..."

He suddenly felt like maybe he shouldn’t have come.

Sean laughed. "I’m just kidding. Don’t be so nervous."

"How about this... Under pressure from the Saintess, you guys will definitely aim for difficult questions, probably ones specific to a certain Technique. I’ll take a different approach with the core concept and come up with an easier one."

Sean thought for a moment, then traced his finger through the air, writing out a few simple words and symbols.

"Prove: 3=8"

Laelando: "?"

...

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