"Are you sure the Dean and Master Soron want to see me? Like, *the* Master Soron?" Lori felt like he wasn’t fully awake yet. Was he hearing things?

"Who else? Is there any other master in Twin Tower City called Master Soron?" his roommate replied.

"Uh, well, there’s actually an Armor Master who makes fan-made Mechanical Warrior armor sets. His name is also Soron, and we all call him..."

"Always with the smart mouth, huh? Hurry up and get ready. Change into a Mage Robe, this one of yours is a wrinkled mess."

His roommate tossed him a Mage Robe and, while he was at it, flicked a Cleaning Technique at his face, which woke him up a bit.

Lori was moved. What a great Repin roommate.

Everyone said the Dean and Master Soron were approachable, but that didn’t mean you could actually show up looking like a slob.

The certain Red Dragon that had bulldozed its way through all the Protective Magic on one of the towers was, of course, an exception.

Lori was shoved out of the dorm in a daze. He still couldn’t figure out why the Dean and Master Soron wanted to see him. Was it just because he’d posted a tutorial on the forum?

’Could it be that my tutorial was too good? Do they want to use my suggestions to revise the textbooks?’

’How inappropriate.’

’A humble third-year student like me, writing textbooks for so many people.’

’Oh, my.’

’So how much should I ask for to write the textbook? Maybe I’ll just ask for a symbolic 1 Gold Coin to show my noble character.’

’Then, to recognize my contribution, the Dean would offer me a teaching position, and it would become a celebrated tale.’

On the way to the Dean’s office, Lori had already planned out his wonderful future.

This kind of wildly optimistic daydreaming about the future is a common phenomenon among students.

It’s usually cured by two months of actual work.

He made his way to the Dean’s office.

The Dean’s assistant had him wait in the reception room, explaining that the Dean was discussing important matters with Master Soron.

Hearing this, Lori sat down awkwardly on the sofa. He’d never sat on such an expensive-looking sofa before.

’If I get the fabric dirty, will they make me pay for it?’

He gingerly lowered his rear onto the cushion, maintaining a relatively proper posture. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The assistant hadn’t said when the Dean would arrive, so with nothing better to do, Lori opened the forum to check the comments on his tutorial post.

He opened his personal page and saw that nearly five thousand people were now following him.

’That’s a lot, right?’

Lori didn’t know what counted as a high number of followers, but Repin Academy’s freshman class was less than two thousand students. His follower count had grown by two and a half years’ worth of freshmen in a single day. ’I really do have a talent for teaching.’

He opened his post. When he’d looked earlier, it had just over two thousand replies, but in this short time, another hundred or so had been added.

Lori found this metaphor of using "floors" for the number of replies quite interesting.

The first few "floors" were pretty normal.

"Good post."

"Bookmarking this."

"There are even little stories in the tutorial. This looks really interesting."

"I tried making an introductory tutorial for the Plastic Energy School, too. Everyone’s welcome to come take a look."

"Your understanding of Casting postures isn’t wrong, but it’s a bit one-sided. Regarding movements without hands..."

This reply was a long one, at least a thousand words, and it contained many concepts Lori didn’t quite understand. It must have been written by a very powerful Mage.

"Muscle Casting." Lori committed the strange username to memory.

Further down, however, the tone of the thread got a little weird, though it was still barely acceptable.

"You can actually learn Magic on this forum! This is amazing! I’m going to recommend it to everyone."

"I think what you wrote is way better than the textbook they use at Kakalov Academy. That thing is absolute crap."

Lori was happy that someone was praising him, but dissing Kakalov Academy at the same time felt a little inappropriate.

It was a well-known academy on the Continent, and because Repin had been one-upping them for years, they were already holding a bit of a grudge.

’I’m not going to be hated by the people from Kakalov Academy now, am I?’

He kept scrolling down.

"Fuck those nobles who give birth to babies without buttholes! An introductory Magic Book sells for 5 Gold Coins, and you can’t even understand it without taking their classes."

"To the poster above, 5 Gold Coins is a bargain. In the Loman Empire, all knowledge of Magic is controlled by the Elder Council. If you want to learn, you have no choice but to climb their ladder step by step."

"Don’t be so ungrateful. The Elder Council allowing you to learn Magic is a blessing. If you don’t like it, then leave the country!"

"It’s precisely because Magic is tied to noble status that generation after generation of Mages are motivated to achieve glorious results!"

"What do their glorious results have to do with my monthly salary of 3 Silver Coins?"

"Break the knowledge monopoly!"

"Let those nobles eat shit!"

Almost all of the following replies were just arguments. Mages from humble origins and those from families with a scholarly lineage quickly split into two factions and began passionately flinging insults at each other.

It eventually escalated to the point where Lori’s tutorial was being hailed as the first shot fired in the rebellion against noble oppression.

He broke into a cold sweat.

The more Lori read, the colder his heart grew.

’While I do want to break the knowledge monopoly, that’s completely different from overthrowing the nobility!’

’Even if I do have a lot of complaints about the noble class, I can’t just say it out loud like that!’

’I’m not going to suddenly get "disappeared" while walking down the street one day, am I?’

’Is it too late to delete the post?’

He had to admit that last night’s grand ideals were partly born from a moment of impulse.

But as he backed out of his post and looked around for the delete button, he discovered many new posts on the forum with "From Scratch" in their titles.

Opening them, he found they were mostly tutorials on various topics related to Magic.

They were no longer limited to introductory knowledge; clearly, more advanced Mages had joined the movement.

The contents of many rare Spellbooks were even being uploaded to the forum. Lori had heard of some of the titles; they were in Repin’s library.

But borrowing from the library wasn’t unrestricted. Different collections were opened up based on a student’s year and grades.

There were also books that weren’t open to students at all, books that even professors had to apply to read.

They weren’t dangerous Forbidden Techniques, but rather a way of providing superior resources to more "valuable" people.

All of these posts paid tribute to Lori before the main content and shared a unified slogan.

"Bring Magic to the mortal world."

Lori knew this myth. In ancient times, mortals could only use Divine Arts by praying and offering sacrifices to the Deities.

Then, a certain Deity stole a Magic Book and delivered it to the mortal world, giving people the chance to learn Magic. For this act, however, that Deity suffered endless torment.

Lori, who had just found the delete button, hesitated.

If so many people who shared his dream were sharing their knowledge, what reason did he have to back down?

He was tired of being a nobody, of living a life so predictable he could see its end from the very beginning.

He closed the deletion confirmation window.

Just then, the door to the reception room opened, and two people walked in.

The dignified woman in the ornate Mage Robe was easy to recognize: the Dean of Repin Academy.

A genius Enchanting Mage who had reached the threshold of the Legendary level in her early forties.

He’d seen her at the opening ceremony and the annual New Year’s celebration.

The other person, who was wearing a tank top, seemed to be Master Soron by the look of his face.

But his build was completely different from the portraits; it would have made more sense to call him a Warrior.

"Hello, little educator. I’m Soron Ambrosius."

Lori nervously extended both hands to shake Master Soron’s. Meeting a Legendary Figure straight out of a textbook for the first time, he was naturally a little tense.

"Don’t be scared. Oh, right, this is for you."

Soron pulled a stack of Gold Coins from his pocket, which Lori estimated to be a dozen or so.

"What’s this?"

Lori didn’t understand. He’d heard that some rich people would show off their wealth by throwing money in the streets. Did Master Soron have this hobby too?

"It’s money for you, what else could it be? Eat something nice. Spend more time with your family."

’What does that mean?’

’Am I going to die?’

Hearing Master Soron’s words, Lori suddenly felt dizzy. The massive ups and downs of the past day made it hard to breathe, and losing his balance, he collapsed onto the sofa.