CHAPTER 37: HISTORY... AND MAYBE GEOGRAPHY

"Good morning. I am Professor Derp Scanfrost, the one who will be taking you History and Geography throughout your stay in the academy." Professor Derp, a young man with short sand coloured hair and eyes, dressed in a suit two sizes to big, started.

"A lot of things have changed this year." Derp muttered. "Why don’t we start with introductions before we go into the lesson. I have introduced myself, you should do likewise. Why don’t we start with you." He pointed to one of the students seated towards the back of the class.

"I am Jacquez Pascal." The 9th on the rankings, Jaquez, stood up after the professor pointed at him, his hands tucked in his pants pocket.

"Ah, Jacquez... Jacquez, the number 9 right?" Derp asked and Jacquez nodded.

The professor squinted for a few seconds, looked at every student all around the class, then sighed.

"I had forgotten houses are being paired up for classes.... Take your seat Mr. Pascal." Derp searched through the class as Jacquez took his seat. "And you must be Xenon Prasedymum, Aoi Mitsugo and Jason Rogers." Professor Derp said, motioning to the three who were on a sit by the right in the middle of the classroom.

Xenon, Jason and Aoi nodded with a slight smile. "This is why I told you guys to cover your hair." Jason whispered furiously as the professor’s gaze lingered upon them.

"Nice... nice to have four of the top ten in my first class today – and a peculiar selection you lot are this year." Derp muttered before looking away from the trio to address the rest of the class. "Let’s continue the introductions shall we!"

The introductions continued, students rising up one after the other to state their names. After some minutes everyone except one had introduced themselves.

"Miss Bestiarum, would you please introduce yourself, no one is exempted from this. I understand you might be shy, but there is no reason to. This is a class where we shall learn of the circumstances that brought our world to the state it is and there shall be no discrimination between pupils here, especially one whose race played no small part in our history. So please..." Professor Derp stated after he realised Regina was hesitant to speak.

"I... I am Regina Bestiarum." Regina, who had a red scarf wrapped around her neck, stood up and said, trying to avoid the eyes of everyone who turned to stare at her.

"And..." Derp said.

"And? And wha... I don’t think that it necessary sir... I am sure everyone knows by now, and I don’t..." Regina sat down abruptly before she could finish. Her eyes had been glowing brighter as she spoke and now she pulled up a part of the scarf she had on her over her mouth.

"Okay... That’s a wrap on introductions. Face forward everyone!" Professor Derp barked the last sentence, and once everyone’s attention were back on him, he continued.

"Now would anyone like to guess what this subject I am to teach you will entail. You, tell us." He pointed to a random student from Erythros.

"Er... History... and Geo-oography?"

"Yes, we all know that, that’s the name of the subject smartass." Derp remarked and the classroom burst into short laughter. "To not waste time let me get into it."

"First thing you should know, this subject was known plainly as just History, before a week ago when our lovable proprietor decided to add ’Geography’ to it. So I am going to tell you plainly now, I will not by any means be teaching you how rain clouds are formed or why the sea is blue or any other shenanigans associated with ’Geography’.

"I did not sign up to teach you those and you will learn them eventually, though indirectly in both my and some other subjects you will be taking, in their branches, though most of that won’t happen till second year.

"Throughout your three years within this academy, and perhaps during your fourth year assignment, my sole responsibility is to drive in our worlds history into your heads... the little ones that seem insignificant, the grand ones that you know bits of already and even the ones that were told to be myths or read to you as a bedtime story, ALL!

"All... that I have determined important to your education. Every year, a lot of you students drop my class - yes, you are allowed to drop and/or take on new classes every year – because they disagree or find silly some things they are taught. But this year, the proprietor asked me to dial it down, so I am sorry to inform you that you will mostly learn the boring stuff this year." Derp stopped here and smiled as a majority of the class subtly protested to learning ’the boring stuff’.

"That enough." The class quietened. "Now who can tell me how many continents we have?" Professor Derp asked.

A girl from Hwita stood up to answer. "We have four continents ..., Ruach, ... and ..., of which islands Askesis and Vasileia although are large enough to stand alone are affiliated with Ruach and ... respectively."

"Thank you, have your seat." Derp waited for her to seat before he continued. "Now although you are right according to common widespread information, you are wrong. Can anyone tell me why?"

Professor Derp, ignoring the majority of the class – including the girl – who were confused, and searching the faces of a few who were not reacting caught Xenon’s lips move.

"Prasedymum, Mr. Prasedymum?" Derp called.

"Yeah?" Xenon replied.

"You wanted to say something... yes you were, what were you saying." Xenon tried to deny saying anything but stood up eventually after the professor pressed on. "So why is it that she is wrong?" Derp asked.

"That... that’s because some parts of this planet – sorry – world, has not been explored yet." Xenon replied.

"And how do you know this?"

"I read it, somewhere... in a book." Xenon replied and he wasn’t lying because something from former Xenon’s memory popped into his head when the professor asked the question earlier.

"Well, you are not exactly correct, let me say you are half right." Derp said, and the whole class looked expectantly at him for the correct answer. "The right answer? That is your assignment for this week." The whole class groaned I protest.

"Yes, yes. You don’t have to give me the answer in tomorrow’s lesson, you have the whole week to figure this out. There is one condition though, you cannot ask other professors, staff, or your seniors, you have to consult the library, each of you, and find it out yourselves. I will project the section in the library you are most likely to find the answer to my question, and keep in mind, the answer is ten percent of your end of year examination grades." The class groaned once more, loudly this time.

Professor Derp went behind his desk stretched out his right arm over the desk. The light in the classroom dimmed, the space above his desk became distorted before forming into lines of text highlighting the section of the library he wanted his students to consult.

"Write that down, it will vanish in two minutes." Derp picked up his bag, slung it over his neck and walked towards the classroom door. "Class dismissed!". He walked out.

Everyone copied the projected text and left the classroom one after the other, most heading to their various houses. Halfway to Erythros’ tower, Xenon stopped Aoi and Jason.

"Why go back to the tower? We can just hand around the grounds, find somewhere to buy ourselves lunch and then go to our last class for today. Go to the tower and coming back outside is kinda stressful." Xenon said.

"Yeah, we could even check out the library while we wait for it to be time for our last class." Aoi added.

"Okay, let’s grab something to eat first." Jason said.

They walked around the academy grounds in search of a place that sell anything edible, and no sooner had they found one that a loud ’dong!’ rang through the grounds and their wristbands vibrated loudly for five seconds, signifying it was break time – they had left history class before the period was over.

They bought some things to eat and headed to the library, presenting the text they copied in class to the library attendant who showed them the way. Unsurprisingly, there were some of their classmates there already, most of them from house Hwita.

They grabbed a seat, picked they rest of the books – and the largest – that were left on the shelves and Xenon looked through three of the fifteen left – within twelve minutes – to save time.

By the time the ’dong!’ and their wristbands informed them it was time for their next class, they had finished their lunch, gone through twenty three different books, and were trying to coerce Xenon into carry 7, very heavy books to his room and meet them at the next class – because if his ability.

Xenon conceded in the end, took the books to his room and waited for them at the door of the TSEUCAEE classroom.

They met up with him, choose their seat and waited. A few minutes later, the classroom was packed with students and they were all wondering were their teacher was.

"Good afternoon, students!" The classroom echoed.