435: Chapter 421 The Parents' Visiting Trip

What Mr. Gao said was too vague.

Ensuring our safety? Precautionary measures?

The students couldn't understand what life-threatening danger they could encounter within America, in a Magic School endorsed by Mr. Gao.

Even if a hijacked plane dived toward the school from high altitude, Mr. Gao could blast it to ashes with one hand.

Children are lively; on a normal school opening day in the past, someone in the student formation would have likely spoken up to ask.

However, Mr. Gao's recent display of power made them hesitate for a long time before finally choosing to stay quiet and wait.

Mr. Gao raised his right arm, fingers slightly curled; a ball of light appeared in his palm for a moment, and then a magic staff appeared in his hand.

Someone noticed the staff wasn't a Hogwarts-style baton shape, but a wooden staff like the one used by Tevan from Seventeen.

It was about a meter long, with a straight shaft and a base of tangled tree roots at the top, holding a clear crystal.

Mr. Gao held it up and began to murmur. No one could hear the specific content, only feeling syllables like letter pronunciations buzzing in their ears.

This eerie state lasted for about ten minutes before ending; the students looked around blankly, everything was still the same.

Uh, what magic did Mr. Gao actually cast?

The students didn't dare doubt, nor were they willing to believe Mr. Gao's magic had failed; they thought their own talent was insufficient to see the magic's effect.

Some looked disappointed. Their magic learning career hadn't even started, yet they were already lagging behind.

But this bit of frustration was quickly diluted by the joy of "everyone is still at the same starting line" when they saw their Classmates were just as oblivious to the changes.

Neo's tilted head finally dropped back to its original position—he'd been looking up for too long, his neck was sore and he couldn't hold it anymore. He looked around and leaned on his cane to go behind Mr. Gao, whispering to ask when the school-protecting artifact would arrive.

He thought it would take a while, but heard Mr. Gao say calmly: "It's here."

Startled, Neo ignored the pain in his neck and looked back at the sky.

Because the sun was high, he couldn't see if anything had appeared in the sky; moving his gaze toward the sun, his eyes squinted from the sunlight.

After a long time, he finally saw an unusual light amidst the overwhelming sunlight.

The light was milky white, columnar, falling diagonally from high altitude toward the ground, seemingly landing at... the school.

As it got closer, all the teachers and students noticed it, and Neo's prediction of the landing spot became more precise—the school square.

But he didn't care where the beam landed now, because the object wrapped in the light captured all his attention.

At the same time, the teachers and students also noticed the strange object.

Was that... a statue?

Neo was the first to confirm—it was a stone statue of god.

Students and staff had seen stone statues of god in videos circulating on the internet, and they recognized it now.

"It's God!" someone shouted in shock.

The stone statue of god gradually approached the ground; everyone's pupils were filled by its figure, which wasn't massive but radiated a holy aura. Almost instinctively, they raised their hands high, offering reverence to God, except for Mr. Gao and the nine teachers.

The stone statue of god seemed to have been pushed, and its falling speed suddenly increased.

Such an obvious change was naturally noticed by everyone.

"It's... accelerating?" someone said blankly.

Everyone watched with confused expressions; when the statue was less than a thousand meters from the ground and showed no sign of slowing down, terror crawled onto their faces, and they scattered to flee for their lives.

Although the statue was only dozens of centimeters in size, no one dared to assume it wouldn't kill them; this was a god recognized by the supernatural, and they wouldn't be surprised if its impact caused a disaster on the level of a nuclear explosion.

Fortunately, things didn't develop as they expected.

When the statue reached about a hundred meters above the square, it was as if a pause button had been pressed; it stopped abruptly and floated quietly.

Mr. Gao continued to murmur.

The mosquito-like buzzing sounded in everyone's ears again, and the statue of god, like an inflating balloon, expanded until it stopped changing at several meters high.

The magical display wasn't over.

Light emanated from inside the statue's head; a pillar of brilliant white light stabbed straight toward the sky, and after reaching a certain height, it stopped extending and spread out a translucent, curved energy barrier to the sides, completely enveloping the school.

Mr. Gao let out a soft breath and said to Neo: "I've already placed the teaching materials and equipment in the warehouse. Take some people to organize them and distribute them to the students for tomorrow's class.

By the way, arrange the teachers' accommodation as well; they will all stay at the school."

As teachers of magic, they were naturally supernatural themselves and certainly couldn't live outside; otherwise, they'd be surrounded by enthusiastic citizens wherever they went.

Neo nodded in understanding and led the school staff toward the warehouse. Actually, he didn't need to do it personally; such minor matters could be handled by his subordinates, but for the purpose of "showing off," he always treated Mr. Gao's orders, big or small, as "ultimate missions" that he had to execute himself.

"You all." After Neo left, Mr. Gao looked at the students, "Go to the classroom at 1 PM for a class meeting. Classes officially start tomorrow. For now, free activities."

After speaking, his figure slowly faded and became transparent, like pencil marks being erased by an eraser.

It was the first time the students had witnessed how a supernatural person leaves; they stared in wonder at the spot where Mr. Gao vanished for a while, then remembered the "free activity" instruction and happily dispersed to explore various parts of the school.

The primary target, naturally, was the barrier protecting the school.

Students walked along the smooth asphalt path to the edge of the barrier, observed for a moment, and picked up clumps of dirt from the roadside flower beds to throw at it.

"It seems we can touch it." Seeing the dirt crumble as if hitting a normal hard object, several students felt the barrier wouldn't attack and slowly approached.

Zhang Mu, standing atop the statue of god, saw this and figured the magic light shield wouldn't hurt anyone, so he didn't stop them. He shook his head and summoned "The World" light gate to enter.

Zhang Mu sat cross-legged in the dark void, chin in hand, deep in thought.

Given the current status of the "supernatural" in various countries, there were no longer any obstacles to requesting technological weapons and items; as long as he notified them in the name of the major "supernatural" factions, countries would immediately deliver their most advanced technological products.

However, Zhang Mu didn't need them much right now.

The enemies around Lake had been cleared, and the remaining Kingdom posed no fatal threat to the several new-style legions Zhang Mu had trained.

With the construction of industrialized cities in full swing, and the opening of the Armory, schools, and research departments proceeding simultaneously, the development and demand for weapons were temporarily met. Ordinary people and High-tier Professional legions were no longer a concern.

The highest combat power of the Kingdoms and Principalities—Saint-level—could also be easily handled by the Special Operations Team, whose strength and scale were rapidly increasing.

Thus, the troublesome enemies were those truly detached from the mundane: Gods Blessing, Epic, Legendary, and—Gods.

The former two, the Special Operations Team with its infinite potential should be enough to deal with after some tempering. The trouble lay with the Legendary who mastered the "True Word Spell" and the Gods comparable to the Creator.

If magic-conducting weapons developed to a "sci-fi" level, researching things like "Annihilation Cannons," they might be able to defeat the latter two, but the time required was too long—so long that in the foreseeable future, it was almost hopeless.

Zhang Mu wasn't willing to pin his hopes of defeating enemies on something so ethereal; the only choice left was to become a god.

"I need to speed up the collection of faith. Hmm, speaking of which, the students' parents will visit the school tomorrow... Oh, they should have a holiday too."

Recalling that it was holiday time for Hogwarts and Seventeen, Zhang Mu thought for a moment and, with a slight movement of his mind, went to the Seventeen area.

...

Seventeen.

Farid and the other four hadn't been having a smooth learning life lately.

Besides the obstacles in mastering a foreign language, there was also the reason of the holiday date being delayed.

Let's talk about the former first.

The five from the Mountain Gate benefited from China's unbroken history; they were never troubled by characters while studying secret manuals. Reading and understanding ancient scripts is much harder than modern simplified Chinese, but with some effort, they could eventually understand.

The five from Hogwarts were relatively lucky.

Although they also had to learn foreign characters, three of the five were language geniuses who quickly mastered and used them fluently, then taught the remaining two who learned more slowly.

Farid's group was in a lot of pain.

The five weren't completely without talent. For instance, Farid excelled in combat and quickly picked up offensive magic; the Young Woman seemed mediocre but was actually the fastest among the five to learn entry-level alchemy; the other three each had talents leaning toward different subjects.

Up to this point, everything was smooth. The problem came after.

After completing entry-level studies, they had to advance to Apprentice Level. To learn the "Technique" knowledge of the Apprentice Level, the prerequisite was mastering most of the specialized script.

Yes, it didn't even involve grammar, special phrases, or professional vocabulary—just recognizing the characters. Yet the five were still stuck at this stage.

They tried asking the teachers, who weren't annoyed and explained patiently. However, being able to use a language and teaching it to others are two completely different things.

After some guidance, the five's questions about the characters didn't resolve; instead, they had even more.

Driven by necessity, Farid found the Dorm Supervisor and asked if Seventeen had teachers specializing in the "Technique" language.

The Dorm Supervisor looked confused. Wasn't that something supposed to be learned before enrollment?

With the hope of help from Seventeen shattered, the five gave up asking others and spent every bit of their spare time huddled in the self-study room learning the characters.

"Slap—" The Young Woman, with a dark face, slammed her hands heavily on the long table, "This is not the supernatural life I imagined!"

Farid, sitting opposite, looked up briefly and immediately lowered his head to continue reading: "If you have the energy to slam the table, you'd better decipher two more 'Technique' characters."

A Young Girl walked in from the door holding a book: "I haven't seen Mr. Tevan for a long time. I wanted to ask him if he could help us find a 'Technique' language teacher."

The Young Woman slumped on the table, her eyes losing their luster: "Stop dreaming. The Dorm Supervisor said there are none in all of Seventeen."

Sitting next to her, the Young Girl sighed: "It feels like the daily life of a supernatural student is just like the outside world."

"Who says it isn't."

"By the way, the holiday is coming soon. Are you going back to your countries or staying at school?"

The Young Woman sat up, full of resentment: "Instead of considering that, you'd better worry if the holiday will be delayed again."

"Okay, you're right."

"Everyone." The Dorm Supervisor stood outside the door at some point, expressionless as usual, looking at the three, "Mr. Tevan is looking for you."

"Senior Tevan?!" The three jumped up in surprise.

According to the information they'd collected in the past few days, Seventeen didn't have any teachers who taught the "Technique" language at all.

This was normal; Seventeen assumed students had mastered the "Technique" language before enrollment, so naturally, they wouldn't staff useless teachers for that.

But Tevan knew their situation. As transfer students with a weak foundation, it was inevitable they'd struggle to keep up, and perhaps he had prepared a solution for this.

The three said goodbye to the Dorm Supervisor, found the other two in the library, and went together to Tevan's bedroom.

Tevan had a high status as the first-year Class Representative of Seventeen. Farid hadn't been at Seventeen long and didn't know exactly how many privileges a Class Representative had, only knowing they could live alone in a luxury dormitory.

The Dorm Supervisor had told them the location, so the five didn't need a guide; they followed the signs hanging from the corridor ceiling toward their destination.

The corridor was wide enough for the five to walk side-by-side, but their formation was two in front and three behind.

Walking behind were the Middle-aged Man and the Young Girl, whispering something until the Middle-aged Man suddenly raised his voice: "I don't really care about learning the characters. Senior Tevan said we don't follow normal promotion standards."

It doesn't matter if we learn slowly."

"Then what do you care about?" The Young Woman asked curiously, looking back as she walked.

"Er..." He was a bit embarrassed, his eyes darting around as if hesitating to tell the truth. After a long time, he finally chose to be honest, "The holiday."

The Young Woman got excited hearing this and slowed her pace to walk beside him: "Me too!"

The Young Man in front didn't look back, saying helplessly: "Are you guys homesick?"

"Aren't you?" the Middle-aged Man asked.

"I'm okay."

Farid interrupted them, saying to the two behind: "I suggest you'd better worry about your learning progress first. It's safer."

"Senior Tevan did say we won't be expelled even if we fail the final exams, but... he never said forever."

"Is there a limit on the number of times?" The Young Girl looked worried.

"You can guess. How could Seventeen tolerate students who fail every single exam?"

"If Seventeen's patience with us reaches its limit, I suspect they'll re-select students." The Young Man shrugged.

Hearing this, even the Young Woman and the Middle-aged Man, who claimed not to care about grades, looked uneasy.

They said they didn't care about scores, but they definitely didn't want to be expelled from Seventeen because of it.

After all, to get the enrollment spots back then, which of them hadn't gone through life-and-death crises? The Young Man had nearly died; if not for the Big Man's pity, the grass on his grave would probably be three meters high by now.

The Young Woman imagined the miserable scene of being expelled and shivered, hugging her arms: "Let's go find Senior Tevan quickly. I hope he has a way to help us."

They stopped chatting and quickened their pace, arriving at a door half an hour later.

Farid looked up at the doorplate, confirmed he hadn't found the wrong place, and stepped forward to knock.