Surviving the Magic Academy With Just Intelligence Stats-Chapter 81: Someone Is In Trouble

Marcus’s face contorted with bitter recognition as Professor Jonathan approached. This wasn’t their first encounter—in his previous life, Jonathan had been a persistent thorn in his side, working tirelessly behind the scenes to make his academy experience miserable, all because he committed the unforgivable sin of being born a commoner.

Things are getting complicated, Marcus thought, the weight of history pressing down on him. Although the seniors were clearly the aggressors, harassing Adelaide and Meihua, he knew he’d made a tactical error by drawing his weapon. Even in self-defense, such actions on academy grounds were forbidden. And who would listen to his side of the story? The word of a commoner against nobles? In this world of rigid hierarchies, he already knew the verdict.

With reluctance, Marcus lowered his sword, feeling the situation slipping further from his control. Yet despite knowing he’d likely made things worse, he couldn’t bring himself to back down. Some principles transcended consequences.

"They were the ones harassing us first so..." Marcus began, his voice steady despite the rising tension.

Jonathan cut him off with a dismissive wave. "Harassing?" The professor’s voice dripped with mockery, his eyes gleaming with self-righteous indignation. "And you felt that it was appropriate to draw your weapon?"

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the gathering crowd. The professor’s words had struck a chord, particularly among the upperclassmen and nobles who formed the arena’s majority.

"Indeed, even though they were being harassed, it’s just some jokes. Why did he have to pull out his sword?" The whispers grew louder, more confident, as noble after noble voiced their support for Jonathan’s position.

The professor’s thin lips curved into a satisfied smile as he sensed the tide turning in his favor. The crowd was coalescing behind him, reinforcing the natural order of things—commoners being put in their place.

Marcus stared at Jonathan, bitterness crystallizing in his chest. How had he forgotten this fundamental truth? This world operated on a simple principle: those with status could trample those beneath them without consequence. The nobility’s superiority wasn’t just a social construct; it was treated as natural law.

As Marcus felt himself spiraling into familiar despair, a clear voice sliced through the jeers of the crowd like a blade through silk.

"I asked him to do it!"

The voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an unmistakable weight of confidence and authority. Marcus’s head snapped up, searching for the source. His eyes locked with Ambrose’s, who offered him a reassuring smile from the edge of the clearing.

That’s right, Marcus thought, feeling a renewed sense of purpose. I’m not alone this time. There are still people who care.

In Ambrose’s mind, he sighed at the scene unfolding before him. Marcus’s intentions were noble, but his impulsive nature would continue getting him into trouble. His friend needed to learn to think before acting, or he’d easily fall victim to others’ machinations. This tendency toward reckless heroism needed tempering if Marcus was to survive the academy’s political landscape.

Ambrose approached with measured steps, the crowd parting before him like water around a stone. They left a wide berth around him—partly out of recognition of his status, but mostly because of Hualing, who shadowed him with predatory grace. Unlike Marcus, who had sheathed his weapon, Hualing openly brandished her sword as if the previous conversation about weapon regulations held no relevance to her whatsoever.

Professor Jonathan noticed the sudden shift in atmosphere, the enthusiasm of his supporters waning. He turned to identify who commanded such respect from the assembled nobles, only to find himself face-to-face with Ambrose Rothschild, who greeted him with a casual wave and disarming smile.

Jonathan’s eyes widened in shock. As the instructor of Etiquette and Noble Customs, he prided himself on his encyclopedic knowledge of the kingdom’s aristocracy. He instantly recognized the heir to the Rothschild family—perhaps the most powerful noble house in the entire kingdom.

His mind raced. How could the Rothschild heir have ordered this? Then a memory surfaced—when reviewing the enrollment records, he’d noted that Ambrose had associated himself with a party of commoners. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time; commoners were beneath his notice. But now, looking at Marcus, Adelaide, Meihua, and then back to Ambrose and Hualing, the five-person party stood complete before him.

Jonathan gritted his teeth, trapped by his own actions. He had already staked his reputation on this confrontation. Backing down now, even before the Rothschild heir, would destroy his standing among his peers. Worse still, it would mean conceding victory to these commoners.

The lines had been drawn. For Jonathan, retreat was no longer an option.

…

Professor Jonathan’s gaze shifted between the assembled group and Ambrose, his teeth grinding together as his mind raced through possible scenarios. A cold calculation formed behind his eyes. Surely Ambrose Rothschild was cut from the same cloth as himself—a noble playing the game of influence and manipulation. The Rothschild heir couldn’t possibly care about these commoners; he must be orchestrating this intervention merely to curry favor and secure their loyalty.

His attention settled on Liu Meihua. Though lacking noble heritage, her reputation preceded her—the highest-ranked talent in the entire freshman class. The pieces clicked together in Jonathan’s mind. Of course. Ambrose was clearly staging this heroic intervention to win over the prodigy. Such a valuable asset would be worth the momentary inconvenience of defending commoners.

A smug satisfaction bloomed within Jonathan as he formulated his strategy. He would punish Marcus for his transgression while releasing the girls, citing Ambrose’s interference as justification. This approach would allow him to maintain his reputation while simultaneously positioning himself as doing a favor for the Rothschild heir. The girls would be grateful to him, and he’d forge a potentially valuable connection with the kingdom’s most powerful family. A perfect resolution—elegant, practical, and beneficial to all parties that mattered.

"Young master," Jonathan began, his voice adopting the deferential tone reserved for those of superior rank, "although your family is influential, in the academy, everyone is equal, so I can’t make exceptions just for you."

Ambrose stared back at him with an expression of profound disbelief, as if Jonathan had just declared the sky to be green. The professor’s invocation of equality was perhaps the most transparently false statement uttered within the academy walls that day. Everyone present knew the truth: Crono Academy was a battleground of politics and schemes. Even without formal social hierarchy, new power structures inevitably formed—senior classes, talent rankings, combat tiers, family connections. The supposed equality was nothing more than a convenient fiction maintained to give the appearance of meritocracy.

"But," Jonathan continued, his smile widening with the self-satisfaction of a salesman about to close a favorable deal, "since the young master has requested, I can let off the two girls since they weren’t the ones who drew the weapon."

Ambrose’s face went completely blank, as if his mind were struggling to process the sheer absurdity of what he was hearing.

Beside him, Meihua couldn’t contain herself any longer. A small chuckle escaped her lips as she observed the spectacular misjudgment unfolding before her. She could clearly tell what Jonathan was thinking, but in the brief time she had spent with Ambrose, she had come to understand his character well enough to recognize that Jonathan’s assessment couldn’t be further from the truth. Adelaide joined her, both girls’ laughter building until they were openly amused at the professor’s profound misreading of the situation.

Jonathan stared at them in confusion. Why were they laughing? He was offering them clemency. Their reaction made no sense within his narrowly conceived worldview.

"Let off?" Ambrose’s voice cut through the laughter like a blade through paper. The playful demeanor he had maintained earlier had vanished entirely, replaced by something harder and colder. "Is this what Crono Academy’s professors are like?"

His words fell like stones in still water, sending ripples of silence through the crowd. By now, several hundred students had gathered to witness the confrontation, their collective breath held as Ambrose continued.

"How can you use the word ’let off’ when you’re talking about the victims?" he demanded, his tone causing Jonathan’s plastered smile to falter and then collapse entirely. "I’m an observer," Ambrose stated with quiet authority, "so I heard and saw everything that happened between my party members and the seniors who were harassing them."

He gestured toward Marcus. "And I sent Marcus to help them," he continued, the deliberate fabrication serving to protect his friend.

Marcus’s eyes widened at Ambrose’s words, a sparkle of admiration illuminating them. Though he had chosen to intervene on his own initiative, the young master was covering for him, shouldering the responsibility that might otherwise fall upon him alone.

"But now he’s being treated as the one in the wrong?" Ambrose asked, his voice carrying just the right note of incredulity to make everyone question their assumptions.

The murmurs began immediately, sweeping through the crowd like wildfire. Public opinion, that most fickle of forces, shifted with dizzying rapidity away from Jonathan.

"Yeah, I also saw it," one student called out from the anonymity of the crowd.

"This professor has always oppressed others," another added, emboldened by the collective turn of sentiment.

"I knew he wasn’t a nice person from the start," a third voice chimed in.

Like dominoes falling in sequence, the crowd’s allegiance collapsed and reformed around Ambrose. The very same people who had supported Jonathan minutes before now regarded him with expressions of disgust and moral superiority, as if they had always stood against him. The irony was palpable—just as they had turned against those weaker than themselves to curry Jonathan’s favor, they now turned against Jonathan himself in service to someone of even greater status.

The 𝘮ost uptodat𝑒 novels are pub𝙡ished on freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.

Jonathan stared around him in mounting horror. Where once he had seen allies and supporters, he now faced a sea of hostile faces, each looking at him as if he were the embodiment of everything wrong with the academy system. The speed with which they had abandoned him was breathtaking, a stark reminder of the fragility of reputation in this world of power and privilege.

In the midst of this public unraveling, a voice resonated through the arena, carried by some subtle magic that ensured it reached every ear with perfect clarity.

"Jonathan Brightfield, please come to my office."

The collected students recognized the voice immediately—Principal Cassandra Blackvale. The command carried an unmistakable gravity that silenced even the whispers of the crowd. All eyes turned toward Jonathan, watching for his reaction to this final, damning development.

For Jonathan, in that moment, the arena might as well have been a scaffold, and those hundreds of eyes the witnesses to his professional execution.

A/N - Marcus is the embodiment of the cliché main character. I’m trying to write some scenes of him doing some face slapping but sometimes, like this scene, it doesn’t work. Unless it’s a matter of pure combat ability, the world doesn’t seem to favor him lol.