www Misconfiguration
The students froze. Then almost immediately, they exploded.
"What the hell does that mean?!"
"I knew it—he's mad!"
"You think being weird makes us believe you are better than other professors?!"
"Yeah! You're worse, you're shameless! That's all!"
"You want thirty magic crystals from each of us, just because you think you're special? We should report you to the Headmaster! No, to the principal!"
"I bet that the information you told us about the City of Murlacks was not true! You're probably just someone the academy picked up off the streets just to fill the quota!"
"You're worse than the mana vendors in alleyways! At least they give you something for your coins!"
Nolan let out an exaggerated sigh and leaned against the edge of the desk again, resting his cheek in his palm.
"You lot complain too much. It's just thirty crystals. If you're really talented, you can earn it back in less than a week. Or are you saying your talents are shallow and weak?"
That struck a nerve.
More shouting. More accusations.
The noise reached an unbearable pitch.
A few of the students stomped their feet, others raised clenched fists, and some began pacing in rage.
The fury now wasn't just about the crystals—it was about the disrespect, the dismissal, the utter lack of reverence for their self-worth.
They'd never been spoken to like this.
They'd never been challenged like this.
Finally, the shouting began to dwindle.
One by one, the students stopped. Breaths were heavy. Faces were red. Eyes were narrowed and burning.
And then silence.
For the first time in minutes, the room was quiet.
The students looked at each other, breathing hard, as if silently asking the same thing:
What do we do with someone like this?
Nolan rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed. He was just about to speak—maybe deliver one more sardonic jab—when suddenly—
Boom.
A wave of raw, invisible pressure rippled across the room.
Nolan's eyes sharpened instantly.
It wasn't magic.
It was aura.
A primal force that didn't rely on incantations or elements.
It was the raw expression of the will to fight, honed through combat and discipline.
The kind of presence that seasoned warriors unleashed before battle.
The first student—one of the boys in the front—had released it.
Then another.
Then another.
Soon, the entire room of thirteen students, from various paths and families, began to release their aura one after the other like a synchronized storm.
The air around began to thicken, making Nolan feel the room like it was tilting.
Not long, the air changed its current and it was now warping, groaning under the pressure of overlapping wills.
The students didn't say a word.
They didn't have to.
This was their answer.
This was their reply to Nolan's arrogance, to his dismissiveness, to his price. If words wouldn't do, then perhaps presence would.
Nolan straightened slowly. His eyes no longer held boredom. The room had shifted—and now, so had he.
His spine stiffened.
His breathing slowed.
His pupils narrowed slightly as he studied them—not like a teacher looking at students, but like a hunter assessing wild beasts.
He hadn't expected this. Suddenly, a slow grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Well," he muttered under his breath, "this is unexpected."
Suddenly, Nolan stood up.
The wooden chair creaked behind him, nearly tipping over.
He had just begun to gather his aura—Ninth-stage Mana Knight strength swirling at his core—ready to shut this all down, when it happened.
BEEP.
A sharp digital tone buzzed in his ear, shrill and synthetic, utterly not connected in this mana-saturated world.
WONDER WIDE WEB MISCONFIGURATION!!
Nolan blinked.
The voice repeated again.
WONDER WIDE WEB MISCONFIGURATION!!
And again.
WONDER WIDE WEB MISCONFIGURATION!!
The world froze around him.
No one else reacted.
The sound was only in his head—no, not in his head.
It was… the system.
That cursed game-like system that he had yet to fully understand.
Before him, a glowing interface exploded to life.
Analyzing environmental threat…
Threat level: High.
Engaging auto-analysis.
Suddenly, the screen splintered into thirteen panels.
Each showed the profile of a student.
Kera Flametongue: Age 14. Fire Conjurer. Stage 7. Elemental Mana Affinity: High-Grade Inferno Bloom.
Ruvin Drotar: Age 15. Earth Conjurer. Stage 8. Elemental Mana Affinity: Hardened Seismic Core.
Selin Wyra: Age 12. Wind Conjurer. Stage 6. Elemental Mana Affinity: Storm Petal Drift.
Erik Sharn: Age 11. Water Conjurer. Stage 7. Elemental Mana Affinity: Arctic Lotus Stream.
And on and on—through all thirteen students.
But that wasn't what made Nolan freeze.
It was the next screen.
Group Technique Initiated: Elemental Mana Pressure Compression Formation
Objective: Psychological Collapse via Coordinated Elemental Intimidation.
Result: Loss of consciousness and involuntary excretion.
Nolan's lips twitched. What the hell?
They were trying to make him pass out… and crap himself?
"Seriously?" he whispered aloud.
But the system wasn't done.
The screen flickered, glitched.
The profiles twitched and shook, distorting slightly.
Warning: Elemental Synchronization Fault Detected.
Error: Fire Node Overlapping Wind Node. Structural Leak Detected in Earth-Anchor Flow. Wind-Tether Reversal Inversion Unstable.
Recommendation: Execute Counter-Resonance Strike.
Nolan's eyes sharpened.
The system had just mapped out their coordinated attack—and the weaknesses of it.
It was as if he could see everything about their ability that they were using against him, and he could do whatever he wanted with it.
He could change it, evolve it, fix it, or even completely destroy it.
It felt like he was some sort of god!
…
Meanwhile, the students… they were still going.
Their faces gleamed with giddy anticipation.
Kera's fiery red hair danced like embers, her smirk cruel. "He's still not reacting?"
"He's probably trembling on the inside," Ruvin whispered. "Watch, any moment now…"
"He's sweating. Look, he's sweating," Selin giggled, brushing her long silvery bangs aside.
Erik tried to suppress a laugh, "Is this really going to work? The books said adults would pass out if caught off guard."
"I bet he's gonna scream and hit the ground," said another.
"Maybe even cry and crawl! We should take pictures!" someone else added.
Whispers overlapped in excitement, their eyes gleaming with anticipation, their mana pressure converging like a magical noose.
The pressure in the room was now suffocating.
Chairs rattled.
The floor cracked.
The windows warbled as if under the stress of a tornado's breath.
And still, Nolan stood still. Like a bored man waiting in line.
Then he slowly raised his hand.
No grand flourish. No shout. Just the lazy lifting of his wrist… and then one finger.
He pointed.
Suddenly, a gust of mana condensed into a thin strand—a barely visible thread of translucent light.
Swoosh!
Like a bullet, the strand shot forward.
Before anyone could react, it hit Kera square in the chest.
Bang!
She flew backward and landed on her rear. Her flame aura shattered like cracked glass.
"What the—" Ruvin tried to say.
Swoosh! Bang!
He was down next. Then Selin. Erik. One by one, like a puppet master snipping threads, Nolan fired and dropped them.
Three. Four. Five.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
The remaining students had barely enough time to blink before it reached them.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
Each of them, like dominoes, fell on their backsides, their Elemental Mana Pressures collapsing with sharp sonic pops.
The wild hurricane of combined mana that had filled the classroom dissipated in seconds.
It was like someone had switched off a storm mid-roar.
Silence.
Thirteen students stared up at him from the floor, mouths open, faces pale with disbelief.
The confident arrogance was gone. All that remained was stunned humiliation.
Nolan didn't speak at first. He let the silence build.
He adjusted his robes.
Then cracked his neck.
Then walked forward slowly, boots echoing against the cracked stone floor.
Each step was like thunder to the students' ears.
He stopped just a few feet away, casting a long shadow across the floor.
Finally, he looked down at them with an unreadable expression.
"…Don't use those shitty things on me, okay?" His voice was calm. Colder than ice.
Then he smirked, "Or the mana crystals will be forty for each one of you."