Before Frederick's thinning patience could finally snap, he kept his eyes fixed on Ashok's twitching lips, watching for any hint that the boy would speak.
Then, at last, Ashok opened his mouth and delivered his answer with the calmness of soone comnting on the weather.
"The reason I picked this class is not sothing very great," he said smoothly, his tone casual to the point of insolence.
"It was simply to fill the Academy's course quota."
The words hung in the air for a long, empty mont. Frederick's eyes blinked once.
Then twice.
Althea and Isolde exchanged a blank look, both at a complete loss for words. The silence felt almost heavy, as though the air itself was trying to process what had just been said.
'Quota?'
The single word echoed through everyone's mind simultaneously. Was that it?
That was his reason?
After all the buildup, the silent standoff - this was the grand revelation?
Frederick's expression froze sowhere between disbelief and irritation. His thoughts spun wildly as he tried to make sense of it, searching for any hidden aning in the boy's casual words.
'Did he actually an it? Or is he mocking ?' his jaw tightening. But the more he thought, the clearer it beca that there was no deeper aning at all.
No matter how hard he tried to rationalize it, the answer remained as hollow and ridiculous as it sounded.
It didn't even qualify as an explanation—it was a jest, pure and simple. And yet, that made it worse.
'Is he trying to make a fool of himself on purpose, or is he actually serious?' thought Althea, her brow furrowing as she studied his face. His expression was unreadable, that sa flat, indifferent stare that revealed nothing.
No hint of sarcasm, no flicker of amusent—just that calm, poker-faced look that made it impossible to tell what he truly ant.
A faint crackling filled the air as the snake coiled around Ashok's neck began to spark, thin veins of lightning rippling across its scales as it kept increasing.
The soft hum of energy built rapidly, flickering like a storm about to break loose.
Frederick's voice ca low and deliberate, each word drawn out with quiet, dangerous control. "I will give you just one chance," he said, eyes narrowing to sharp slits. "Speak clearly. Tell exactly what you're trying to say. And trust —if you think this is a joke, you're about to receive the biggest shock of your life."
The pressure in the room grew heavier. Althea and Isolde instinctively flinched under Frederick's glare, their shoulders tensing as the snake's sparks danced across the air.
Even the faintest movent seed loud in the silence that followed—Isolde's small intake of breath, Althea's fingers tightening over her knee.
The electric light from the snake flashed across his face, tracing the faint curve of a smirk. Ashok wasn't afraid.
"I don't understand—just what exactly was not clear?"
That single question from Ashok was enough to make both Althea and Isolde whip their heads toward him, their eyes wide in disbelief.
His voice carried no trace of nervousness or sarcasm—just plain confusion, as though he were the one struggling to make sense of Frederick's reaction.
For a mont, the room seed to stop breathing.
"Do you expect every single student to have so kind of big, grand reason for picking a class?" Ashok continued, tilting his head slightly as if genuinely puzzled.
"On the Course Selection Sheet, it was clearly written that we had to choose at least five additional subjects besides the compulsory ones. So I did exactly that."
He spoke so matter-of-factly that it only deepened the shock settling over the room. Althea blinked once, unsure if she had misheard him.
Ashok carried on, completely unbothered by the disbelief surrounding him. "Among all those extra courses, this one had the simplest conditions. This course also doesn't have written exam at the end of the sester which makes it easier than other course. A purely learning-based course that provides direct help in learning about control."
He paused for a second, glancing toward Frederick with that sa blank expression, as if he had just presented the most reasonable explanation in the world. "So really," he added calmly, "I don't see what's so confusing about it."
Althea and Isolde exchanged glances again, their minds caught sowhere between laughter and disbelief, while Frederick's expression hardened into sothing unreadable.
If Elara had been present to hear that answer, she would have been utterly stunned.
After all, she clearly rembered how, during the course selection day, Ashok hadn't even opened the course manual. He hadn't so much as flipped a single page—he'd just stared at the list, made a few random marks.
So hearing him now, confidently describing course conditions as though he had morized the entire manual, would've been nothing short of a miracle.
"Teacher, If you want it in more clearer words," Ashok continued, voice calm and steady despite the faint crackle of electricity building around his neck, "then my answer is simple—I picked this class because it seed easy. And since the rules said we must take at least five additional courses, this just happened to be the last one on my list."
He ended his explanation as casually as one might discuss the weather, his expression completely unbothered while a collar of lightning hissed faintly around his throat.
Frederick: …
Althea: …
Isolde: …
Silence fell once again over the Class. The three in the class simply stared at Ashok without saying anything just simply staring, but none more so than Althea and Isolde, whose faces hovered sowhere between disbelief and resignation.
Neither of them could decide what was more shocking—the absurd simplicity of his answer or the unshakable composure with which he had delivered it.
Ashok's answer left them stunned once again. It wasn't just unexpected—it was the kind of response that left the entire class questioning whether he was fearless, foolish, or simply beyond understanding.
Under normal circumstances, a situation like this would have driven any other student to the brink of panic.
After all, two students had already been sent to the infirmary earlier that day, and not because of injuries from magic practice—but because their answers had failed to please Frederick.
The sheer tension that followed those incidents still lingered in the room like a faint trace of smoke.
For anyone else, standing before that thunder-eyed teacher would've been a nightmare. The pressure alone was enough to make one's throat dry and palms tremble.
The Urge to perform better than the last student should be in everyone's mind by now.
Most would have done everything possible to deliver the "perfect" response—the kind that would earn even the smallest nod of approval from the old mage.
And after Althea's breathtaking display of mana control, the difficulty for whoever ca next had doubled. Anyone in their right mind would have been crushed by the thought of matching, let alone surpassing, her performance.
And then soone answers, calm and utterly unconcerned, breaking that pressure like a stone tossed into still water.
"I picked this class because it seed simple."
That's it.
For a long second, no one moved. No one even breathed. It was an answer so absurdly honest that it felt like an insult to every anxious thought swirling in the room.
If that alone wasn't surprising enough, then what followed certainly was. Ashok had first claid he chose this class rely to fill the quota—but now, by his own words, it was clear that this class had been his last pick.
That ant he had only selected five additional classes in total.
For a mont, both Althea and Isolde just stared at him, unable to process what they had heard. The second half of his answer struck them harder than the first—it sounded absurd, almost laughable, yet Ashok had said it with complete honesty.
This was the best institute in the entire world, a place where only a hundred students were admitted every year after rigorous testing and magical evaluation.
To even stand within these walls was considered a lifelong achievent.
Most students treated their years here as a sacred opportunity—four short years to absorb as much knowledge, skill, and wisdom as possible before being thrust into the wider world.
And yet, in this very place, where competition was fierce and ti was precious, one student casually announced that he had chosen his class simply to fill a quota.
Isolde felt her jaw tighten at the thought. She herself had selected ten additional courses beyond the compulsory ones, bringing her total to thirteen.
It wasn't easy managing that workload, but she had taken pride in it—it showed her determination to make the most of her ti here.
Even then, she had occasionally looked at Althea and wondered how her friend managed that monstrous schedule.
Althea, after all, had taken things to another level entirely.
She had chosen every single course under the Academy's Magic Section, along with several others outside her primary field just for the sake of expanding her knowledge.
Altogether, her total reached twenty courses, including the compulsory ones.
She had even wanted to take more but had been forced to stop—there simply weren't enough hours in the day to fit another lecture or another practice.
And now here stood Ashok, who, by his own admission, had only eight courses in total—five additional and three compulsory.
The difference was staggering. More than double. Yet sohow, he still had the audacity to say it as though he were the one being inconvenienced, as though the Academy itself had forced him to pick classes against his will.
It was the kind of casual arrogance—or perhaps sheer indifference—that left both girls speechless.
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