IRM Chapter 28

Facing Ji Chi’s slightly cool and mocking gaze, Antoine’s expression became even more pale and gloomy. He realized he had lost his composure. In this world’s context, cursing others was something very disgusting and taboo. His words just now were indeed too extreme, and some disapproving glances had already drifted over.

 

But Antoine felt he was speaking the truth. He questioned Ji Chi, “Haven’t you noticed that ever since you met Joseph, you’ve often been in danger?”

 

Ji Chi looked at him with an expression like “Are you still not weaned?”. “What does this have to do with the Professor? If you lay in a cradle every day, of course you’d be much safer.”

 

“Hahaha!” Brandon, who had come with Ji Chi to submit the mission, laughed without giving any face. He had heard Ji Chi mention Joseph’s matter on the way, and his anger had been burning until now.

 

After laughing, he arrogantly flipped his red hair and looked at Antoine. “The more incompetent people are, the more they like to find excuses in others, don’t you think so, Teacher Antoine?”

 

The young master’s words strangely hit Antoine’s sore spot. His face turned pale and flushed alternately, his teeth clenched tight, his jawbone protruding on his gaunt cheeks. His sinister gaze swept over them and inadvertently fixed on the mission board.

 

He seemed to notice something and snorted coldly. “Incompetent… you should return those words to yourselves, shouldn’t you? If I’m not mistaken, you haven’t returned for three days, so what was your last mission? Oh let me think, it was to subjugate a Night Demon——”

 

As he spoke, he looked mockingly at Joseph again. “A mere Night Demon took three days… so they’re indeed safe enough around you, after all your curse only affects geniuses, and waste isn’t included.”

 

Joseph had been listening with a solemn expression all along. No matter how venomous Antoine’s sword-like words were, he showed no reaction, but seeing him start to mock and attack his students, he immediately roared angrily, “Enough! Antoine!”

 

He raised his eyes toward Antoine, his gaze deep as an eagle’s. “You should know, that was just an accident, Antoine, it’s time for you to let go! Remembering so clearly does no good for anyone!”

 

Antoine began to laugh lowly, heh heh heh. The long bangs drooping over his pale face concealed his expression. He suddenly stopped his poisonous laughter, raised his hand to lift his black eyepatch, pointed at his right eye, and shouted at Joseph. “Let go, you say it so easily… but look carefully! Why should I let go! You harmed me into this state! Why do you still look so untroubled by conscience! Why wasn’t it you who went blind! Why wasn’t it you who died!”

 

Antoine’s madness drew everyone’s gaze to his right eye under the eyepatch. There had once been a bright and lively eye there, but now only a charred hollow remained, where even the hideous tangled scars inside could be seen clearly. It was ugly, yet made people feel pity when they looked at it.

 

Ji Chi saw the gap where his right eye should be and suddenly frowned slightly.

 

Hearing Antoine’s hysterical cursing, even the gentle and mild Madam Emma couldn’t help but become angry, sternly shouting, “Antoine! Vincent already paid for his mistake with his life! Joseph has been regretting it until now! We all pity the injury you suffered! But everyone learned from this accident, what more do you want!”

 

Antoine gradually calmed down from his madness. He raised his hand to fasten the eyepatch back in place and said coldly, “I don’t want anything. I just want to use my remaining eye to watch carefully, to see when you geniuses will die miserably under his curse!”

 

“However… I don’t think it will be far off.” Antoine fixed his gaze on Brandon’s blood-stained boots. “Just a Night Demon mission encountered such danger, with so many missions ahead, can you still return alive?”

 

Ji Chi and Brandon fell silent upon hearing this.

 

They thought this blame shouldn’t be placed on Professor Joseph’s head – it was clearly the achievement of a demon named Saintess Coralie.

 

However, that said, Saintess Coralie’s relentless monster-pulling behavior over these three days had indeed brought everyone substantial gains. Not to mention the magic bags filled to the brim with various mission items, the combat abilities of several little mages had also rapidly improved. At least the young master could now reduce from vomiting 13 times a day to 3 times a day.

 

Ji Chi silently glanced at the mission board before him, recalling Antoine’s words, his eyebrow raised, and a hint of mischief suddenly flashed in his eyes.

 

He sighed with feigned worry. “Sigh, indeed, so many missions, just thinking about it is troublesome…”

 

Antoine sneered. “Do you think the Dark Night Forest is some kind of place? These missions are all strictly selected from each session, the most challenging ones. Even senior students might not be able to complete them safely, let alone you following Jose…”

 

Ji Chi interrupted his endless cuing of Joseph. He leisurely came before Madam Emma, took out a black broken piece of armor from his magic bag, and placed it on the mission slip as he handed it to her. “This is the broken nail from the Night Demon’s left thumb.”

 

Madam Emma took it, glanced at it lightly and nodded – when submitting subjugation missions, you only needed to bring back characteristic remains from the magical beast.

 

Ji Chi turned to look at the mission board and asked her, “Do S-rank missions have mission hints? If we need to search for nightingale traces in such a large forest, perhaps the remaining twelve days won’t be nearly enough.”

 

Emma didn’t know why he would say this, and answered his question with some confusion. “As long as a team can accept this mission, I’ll be responsible for giving you clues.”

 

Ji Chi nodded. It seemed the production team (academy) had a very mature process to prevent malicious mission farming!

 

Antoine, who had been paying attention here, seemed to hear something incredible and sneered: “It seems Joseph didn’t teach you much about survival skills, but his bragging abilities…”

 

Ji Chi interrupted him again, casually took down a slip from the mission board, and handed it to Emma: “This is the nameplate of an Undead Knight.”

 

Emma was stunned for a moment, then took the slip again, along with a rusty iron plate that had somehow been attached to it. She lowered her eyes. “So you went to do the next mission first. Next time remember to inform the Professor so he can be at ease.”

 

Ji Chi smiled. “We’ll pay attention next year.”

 

As he spoke, he glanced carelessly at Antoine. “This year we lacked experience and accidentally provoked too many magical creatures, so it took a bit longer.”

 

He stood before the mission board and began taking down mission slips one by one, not even looking at the mission content, until he gently plucked off the paper slip directly below the S-rank mission.

 

Seeing this, Madam Emma gently reminded, “Have you forgotten the rules for accepting missions?”

 

Ji Chi raised the corner of his mouth: “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten, it’s just… I’ll have to trouble you.”

 

He stepped back, held his magic bag open with both hands, and tipped it downward—

 

Dragon bones, Dark Shaman totems, Abyssal Beast eyes… a small mountain of monster remains piled up in front of the bulletin board. The residual dark elements scattered the moment they appeared, and the entire mission reception hall was filled with the same pitch-black mist as the Dark Night Forest.

 

“What happened, what happened, am I blind?”

 

“Why would there be dark elements here?”

 

“Did magical beasts run in?”

 

Panicked and noisy voices filled the entire hall. After the mages receiving missions in the distance panicked for a while, they hurriedly began chanting, wanting to expel these ominous auras.

 

Antoine looked in disbelief at the magical creature remains covering the floor. Those were all high-level magical creatures from the outer areas of Dark Night Forest. Honestly speaking, even if he personally went to subjugate them, it would be impossible to kill so many magical creatures in just three days!

 

He breathed heavily in the dark mist, his empty right eye socket throbbing with pain.

 

Ji Chi glanced at him and smiled lightly, “Sorry, I accidentally poured out half of them without noticing we had subjugated quite a lot these past few days.”

 

He slowly extended his right hand, suspending it above the magical creature remains.

 

It was clearly a mage’s hand, slender and pale, with purple-blue vein traces clearly visible under the skin, but due to its owner being from the East, the back of the hand had a light flesh tone, making it appear more delicate.

 

Antoine’s left eye couldn’t help but fix on it.

 

Ji Chi lowered his eyes. He could now very skillfully command those elements, softly instructing, “Come here.”

 

A trace of sweet and fragrant magic power escaped from his palm. The dark elements wandering throughout the hall were instantly attracted, roaring like a tide toward Ji Chi’s direction, stirring up a huge black whirlpool in the hall! Even the dark elements that were about to be expelled by the mages forcibly turned around and flew toward that pale palm!

 

“Oh oh oh! How can there be such fragrant magic power!”

 

“Don’t grab it – leave some for those behind, ah ah ah!”

 

“Wuu wuu, why are there only these!”

 

The dark elements gathered in Ji Chi’s palm, frolicking and boiling like a spinning jet-black orb, lingering there unwilling to disperse, eagerly waiting to see if any more magic power would be released.

 

The hall’s atmosphere immediately became fresh and clean, with bright lights shining on Antoine’s extremely ugly expression and the shocked, puzzled faces of the mages in the hall.

 

“He’s a dark mage?”

 

“No way! How many years has it been since the Magic Academy had a dark mage!”

 

“Oh I remember! Isn’t he that… Eastern all-element mage!”

 

“That just now, what kind of magic was that? Did you hear him chanting?”

 

“No… but I heard Professor Joseph teaches his students to cast magic without chanting. I thought it wasn’t very reliable before, but seeing it today… it’s so convenient! I want to learn too!”

 

Joseph and Brandon upon hearing this: “…”

 

You’re overthinking it. That guy never learned magic techniques – he’s just purely using magic power to seduce elements. Who knows how he manages to enslave those elements so obediently!

 

Madam Emma breathed a sigh of relief after the dark elements receded, circulating gentle water magic to soothe everyone’s emotions. After the hall’s commotion subsided, she bent down to pick up the magical beast remains from the ground, but a flash of shock passed through her eyes.

 

So pure! These remains didn’t have a trace of dark element residue – they could already be considered high-grade forging materials! You should know that every time craftsmen tried to extract excess elements from materials, they had to expend great effort and still couldn’t guarantee they’d remain intact.

 

This student really was… Madam Emma’s heart was filled with complexity. A natural-born mage, yet so obsessed with other professions. She only hoped this wouldn’t be another tragedy…

 

Ji Chi, the center of attention, touched the well-behaved dark element orb in his hand, his eyes thoughtful.

 

Joseph, disrupted by his mischief, felt his thoughts turn into deep helplessness. He rubbed his forehead and said, “Handle it quickly, don’t let them scatter again.”

 

“Mm.” Ji Chi answered hesitantly, “But such dense dark elements – if we release them directly outside, might we accidentally hurt someone?”

 

Joseph, exhausted by this group of people, waved his hand. “Can’t you also summon light elements? Just dissolve them.”

 

Ji Chi looked at him seriously for a while and said, “Professor, please help me see if this is the situation.”

 

Joseph looked at Ji Chi alertly. He felt that every time this guy asked him questions, nothing good came of it. He touched his face that had once been slapped repeatedly, saying with grievance mixed in his mumbling, “What’s the use of me watching, every time you still…”

 

As he spoke, he suddenly froze, staring at Ji Chi’s actions in a daze, a trace of shock floating in his eyes.

 

He saw Ji Chi condense a brilliant orb of light in his other palm, slowly bringing it close to the dark elements. When the two pure, dense elemental orbs touched, they produced an extremely violent reaction!

 

Light and darkness rapidly conflicted and dissolved, with large amounts of hot air steaming up. If Ji Chi’s movement speed was even slightly faster, the two orbs would continuously tremble and crack, accompanied by faint firelight, as if they would explode on the spot.

 

Joseph stared at those two orbs without blinking, tears flowing from the dazzling light without him noticing. He murmured, “Before the accident that day, Vincent came to find me. He looked very proud then, saying he was simply an alchemist genius, already able to refine excellent quality light potions…”

 

“He said he had discovered a huge secret… there were no limitations between professions, every profession was connected, they were complementary. Just like mages sensitive to elements could extract purer elements, thereby improving potion quality.”

 

“That was the last way I could remember him. When I rushed to the activity room, there was only a great fire left, nothing remained, nothing remained…”

 

Joseph slowly covered his eyes as he spoke. The usually upright and stern professor now seemed like just an ordinary sad old man. “I investigated for many, many years. I also suspected whether it was some kind of elemental reaction… but I couldn’t find it. I didn’t know where such pure dark elements would come from, and they couldn’t possibly appear in the academy…”

 

“Thank you, Ji Chi.” Joseph suddenly raised his face, his expression suddenly becoming determined as he said to Ji Chi, “This is the situation. I’ve found the direction. I won’t give up searching for the truth. Vincent wasn’t wrong!”

 

Ji Chi slowly dissolved the elemental orbs in his hands clean. He turned sideways, looking straight at Antoine whose face was deathly pale. “Then why not directly ask him what exactly he concealed back then?”