The Good Teacher

Guy burst into frantic sweats when confronted with Krish's almost on-the-nose prediction.

'D-Does he know?' Guy repeated internally.

Surprisingly, his rhetorical question was answered by Mast's familiar, monotone voice, (It's only a hypothesis. To him, it is still uncertain.)

'Now you show up?!' Guy interrogated.

(I was busy.)

'Doing what?!'

(Managing a world...) Mast retorted with a hint of sarcasm.

But Guy didn't have time to contend with Mast's sass, he was quite literally being burned by Krish's unwavering and incisive gaze.

Almost by reflex, Guy revealed a strained chuckle and said, "That doesn't seem possible. How can I be dead? I'm very much alive, as you can see."

"That's the thing! These physical eyes of mine can very well observe that you are hale and hearty. But it is what my Heavenly Eyes perceive that concern me. They haven't failed me to date, nor have they failed my Master, or his Master. In fact, since the inception of this school of magic, that hasn't been a single case where The Heavenly Eye has made a mistake," Krish declared with furrowed brows.

He then drastically raised the pressure focussed on Guy and inquired with a forceful tone, "Tell me the truth! Are you a practitioner of Necromantic arts? Are you a Lich?"

Guy shook his head with great difficulty, "N-No."

"Are you a product of or a summon of someone practising Necromantic arts?" Krish inquired.

Guy wasn't sure about how to go about answering that one. Through a pure technicality, Guy was, for all intents and purposes, a foreign soul inhabiting a soulless container. Was it not Necromancy by definition?

"N-No," Guy denied once again. As the last syllable escaped Guy's lips, the pressure amplified significantly.

"Lies!" Krish bellowed. His voice reverberated within Guy's mind and threatened to burst through the orifices along with a mush of his internal organs.

'Does he have some kind of a polygraph machine inside his head?' Guy cursed to himself.

To an extent, Guy's guess was correct. Krish used his highly sensitive mana sense to gauge various indicators across Guy's body all at once. Rhythmic changes in heartbeats, variations in sweat gland secretions, dilution or constriction of the pupils, microexpressions flashing across Guy's face, and many more. Krish had lived long enough, and interacted with a sufficiently large pool of people, to efficiently determine if someone was speaking the truth or not. Even the most proficient and emotionally detached sociopaths or psychopaths couldn't hide from him.

"I am not a product of or summon of a mage practising Necromantic arts!" Guy forced out through gritted teeth.

"Tch!" Krish clicked his tongue in annoyance and dissipated the pressure looming over Guy. "Don't think that I didn't catch your shenanigans with semantics. Nonetheless, I know enough..."

As Guy breathed heavily to recollect himself, he inquired, "What DO you know?"

"I know that you have died once, or at least this body has. BUT, after passing, either the soul was forcefully returned into the body or something similar took place-"

"I did commit suicide!" Guy quickly interjected. "I hung myself due to some... trying circumstances. But I was told that possibly my passing triggered the activation of my inheritance- Right! I forgot to tell you about that! You see-"

"I know about your inheritance," Krish interrupted and nodded solemnly. "Although that does make sense, it still doesn't justify the drastic change in the flow of fate!"

"Why are you so sure that it is me who caused this shift?"

"If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not centaurs," Krish enunciated.

"Occam's Razor!"

"Who's Occam?"

"Nevermind..."

"Don't interrupt me!" Krish growled in annoyance. "As I was saying, I don't believe in coincidences. Now that I think about it, it is a trait I share with that girl. Your arrival here was preceded by this shift in tide and I have a strong suspicion that it is you who caused it!"

Guy sighed in exasperation. He didn't know what to do to placate the emotionally charged man.

'Hold up! Why am I the one being interrogated here?' Guy exclaimed internally. He expressly remembered coming down here to evaluate Krish as a prospective Master for Marie.

"Why are you so concerned about all this? Why does it even matter to you?" Guy nudged.

To which Krish simply responded with a shrug, "I have to ensure that my Disciple's environment is safe."

"Let's not jump the gun here."

"Again. It is a foregone conclusion, Guy," Krish commented while scratching his forehead. "Let's get back to the issue at hand. Don't keep changing the topic!"

At this point, Guy was tempted to retreat into the RoK and put on that forsaken metal mask resting on the table at the centre. He just wanted to sick the "other guy" on Krish and let him handle it. BUT, Guy still remembered Mast's warning. The Church was an aberrant creation that was completely out of Mast's calculation. And although it brought quite a few advantages, it was an unknown that could threaten Guy's life. Somehow, it even infiltrated into Guy's cultivation. Guy didn't know if it was a byproduct of his repeated and haphazard use of the metal mask, nor did he have any idea if he would incur additional damages because of it.

In fact, Guy didn't feel it necessary to shift faces to handle his current predicament. It wasn't life-threatening. If Krish wanted to kill him, he would have done so immediately. After all, he was definitely at a realm much higher than his own, and possibly even Teacher Jeeves' (but that was only a guess based on intuition). The man was simply suffering from excess curiosity after facing an inexplicable phenomenon. And, his curiosity hadn't yet reached a point where it overpowered his sense of morality. Otherwise, Guy would have been a vegetable by now after suffering a crushing spiritual invasion and thorough dissection by the man before him.

"Honestly, Krish, I don't know what to tell you..." Guy uttered in exhaustion. And that was the truth. He wasn't sure if the shift that Krish referred to was caused by him or if it was a result of something else. Guy didn't even know what Krish saw to properly justify anything.

Krish gazed meaningfully at Guy's unflinching expression and pulled the edge of his lips flatly into his cheeks in acceptance. "I believe you..." He muttered and lowered his imposing stance.

"It's just that seeing as my Disciple will be interacting with you more in the future, I wanted to make sure that she would be safe. You don't realise just how hard it is to come across someone fated to The Heavenly Eye. To tell you the truth, she's the only one I've found during the last 1000 years!" Krish explained.

"Is it really that rare?" Guy retorted impulsively. But then he doubled back, reassessed everything Krish said before and exclaimed, "1000 years?! W-Wait, you're-"

"Your guess is correct. I am in the Tesseract Transformation realm," Krish confessed with a smug expression.

Guy's body collapsed completely upon hearing those words. 'What the hell was I thinking? Throwing my weight around with someone I didn't know anything about! I'm getting too arrogant for my own good.'

Krish observed Guy's strained expression and chuckled mirthfully. Whenever he revealed his realm to someone, he would often receive two kinds of reactions. The first and most common, as well as the one Guy was currently embodying, was sheer horror and self-directed reproachfulness. The second, and the one Krish enjoyed the most, was disbelief and disdain through excess arrogance. He just loved it when others started to question his claims and challenged him as a show of dominance. Idiots, they were, but it was their idiocy that offered the greatest entertainment.

"Since my Disciple will be studying under you occasionally, I felt it prudent to evaluate your background," Krish explained with a feigned warm smile oozing with sarcasm. Guy recognised the irony as well, but he didn't have the guts to make any witty retorts. Heck, he was already on the brink of holding his breath lest he angers this man somehow!

"Great master," Guy began with an increasingly respectful tone. "Y-You are comfortable with letting her study under me?"

Guy was more than ready to hand over Marie to Krish completely. Besides the fact that it would be a great opportunity for her, who was he to argue with the whims of an unreachable powerhouse in the Tesseract Transformation realm?

"It will do her good. I've seen what and how you teach. You are a good- no- a great teacher. Your personality and bearing, as well as the way you approach your students, are highly commendable and something that I myself yearn to achieve," Krish answered.

"You flatter me!" Guy replied waving his hands.

"And besides that," Krish interrupted. "I have a selfish motive as well."

Krish leaned closer and whispered to Guy with a wry smile, "The girl is too combative! I don't think I can handle her in her entirety all by myself."

Guy snorted gaily and immediately covered his mouth. "She is very inquisitive," Guy added. "But I prefer it when they are like that. A quiet classroom can often mislead you into thinking that everyone is paying attention."

____

Krish and Guy continued their conversation, focusing more on lighter topics. Knowing that he was facing a mage at the peak, Guy was a lot less restricted in his words and opened up more. After all, he had personally experienced the consequence of deceiving the man.

A few minutes into their conversation, the student's slumped behind him slowly started to gain clarity and awoke from their unconscious states.

"W-What happened?" Markus muttered as he was the first to rise.

Following him, Marie and Jean opened their eyes and observed their surroundings with raised suspicion.

"Good. You're all awake!" Krish declared with an amiable smile. He then looked towards Guy and jerked his head as a sort of gesture.

"R-Right! So Marie," Guy started. "After conversing with great master Nara here, I've determined that it would be a good opportunity for you to accept him as you Master," he encouraged.

Marie's eyes widened in surprise and then mellowed out with gratefulness. She remembered that there were proper rituals that needed to be followed in order to officiate the Master-Disciple relationship, and rose with a sudden leap. She rushed forward, stood in front of Krish, and got down on her knees.

"I, Marie Reva, gratefully accept-" She began. However, Krish waved his hand, causing Marie's body to straighten into a standing posture with a sudden yank.

"We can skip the formalities," he interjected. "As I've said before, you and I are fated as Master and Disciple. I've already accepted you as my Disciple, now that you've accepted me as your Master, there is no need for unnecessary and frivolous shows."

Krish turned towards Guy once again and transmitted a few quick instructions through Mana Transmission.

"Right! Great master Nara and I have discussed your schedule. You will join Markus and Jean for the general lessons in the morning. Following that, you will join them for the lessons on magic every other day starting from tomorrow. For the remainder of the days, you shall pursue your training under your Master."

"Wait! So you allow for my attendance in Teacher Larks' lessons?" Marie asked Krish with an incredulous expression.

"I didn't want to, but then your Teacher here was adamant that I allow you to pursue something you enjoyed," Krish falsely admitted with a convincing defeated expression.

"It was a hard fight, but I managed to convince him," Guy added in good-hearted fun. "You've got yourself a very strong Master, Marie. Much stronger and more capable than I," he then admitted.

"Him?" Marie snorted in disbelief.

"Marie," Markus hissed from the side. "Show some respect. He's your Master now!" He reminded her.

Krish wore a strained expression and looked towards Guy with a gaze that said, 'See what I'll have to deal with?!'

"*sigh* It's all well and good to be sceptical and critical about stuff. It's how you become a more learned person. But if the same scepticism turns you into someone incapable of accepting anything new, you are never going to grow, Marie. You must channel that curiosity towards more constructive prospects," Guy explained.

Surprisingly, Marie wore an extremely serious expression and nodded immediately in understanding. Krish's mouth dropped agape before his face warped with a bitter smile.

'How long will it take for her to listen to me like that?' He lamented.

When Guy received Marie's undivided and genuine gaze of recognition, the Krish started to feel jealous of Guy. For that man had managed to get through to his Disciple before even he did.