Can't do it

05:12

04:58

05:31

Almost every timer blinked somewhere over five minutes.

Silence returned.

Nolan's chuckle split the air.

"Hah!" he barked. "Failed."

The word hit like a slap.

"No way," someone whispered.

"I—what? No, we were fast!"

"We didn't even die this time!"

"That can't be right!"

Desperation filled their faces. "Let us try again!"

"Please, Professor Nolan!"

"I swear I'll do it in three!"

"You said we just needed practice!"

"Come on, one more round!"

But then—

"W-Wait…" Kera stammered, eyes wide and staring down at her hands. "What's happening to me?"

A soft, ethereal glow emanated from her skin, like sunlight streaming through crystal. Her fingers sparked gently, threads of mana curling along her wrists.

"What… the…?"

Selin gasped. "I'm glowing too!"

Heads turned. In seconds, all the students were shining faintly, their bodies warm, humming with arcane rhythm. A soft, resonant pulse throbbed in the air, like a distant heartbeat. Eyes widened. Breaths quickened.

"It's happening," a student whispered.

"I… I'm breaking through."

A beat.

And then cheers erupted.

"I broke through to Stage Three!" Selin shouted, spinning with arms raised.

"Me too!" shouted another.

"Peak Stage Two… almost Stage Three! This is insane!"

"I felt it! Midway through the second floor, my body—it just clicked!"

"I thought it was just the game. But it was real! It worked!"

Their joy exploded in waves. Students clapped each other's backs, high-fived, cried, and even fell to their knees, overwhelmed by the arcane energy still humming through their bodies.

"Third Stage Mana Knight," one muttered, stunned. "I thought I'd need another year for this…"

"And I was stuck for three months at peak Stage One!"

Nolan leaned back, watching the chaos.

His arms were crossed, eyes narrowed—but not entirely cold.

There was… something in his chest.

A tug. A ripple.

Was that… pride?

He scoffed aloud, trying to shake it.

"Heh," he muttered under his breath. "You're all still at a low level."

But his voice was less biting than before.

The students slowly turned to him.

Then, would look at each other, without a word between them, they all nodded and stood.

Nolan blinked.

They straightened their backs, some even still glowing faintly from the breakthrough, and then, in one unified voice, they shouted:

"TEACHER!"

The word cracked through the room like thunder.

And then—

They bowed.

Deep, synchronized, and sincere.

"Thank you, Teacher! Thank you!"

Nolan froze.

His brain lagged.

What?! he thought, stunned.

He had mocked them. Demanded crystals. Thrown insults and told them they were weak. Now they were thanking him?

His throat tightened slightly. Something warm crawled into his chest, uninvited.

I… I feel proud? These little bastards… really benefited from that Internet ability that was supposed to be only his?

He tried to wave it off.

"Alright, alright!" Nolan barked, feeling something dangerously close to guilt crawl into his voice. "No need to thank me! It's nothing!"

But they saw it. The faint pink crawling onto his ears. The way his arms crossed tighter than before, like he was hiding.

And then—they laughed.

Hard. But Heartfelt.

"Hahaha! Professor, you're blushing!"

"Teacher's embarrassed!"

"Quick, someone get a photo!"

"Don't run away from your feelings, Professor!"

"You're actually proud of us, aren't you?"

"I've never seen him so human!"

"Sir, you love us, admit it!"

"I'm keeping this memory forever!"

"Professor Nolan's secret weakness—emotion!"

Nolan turned his back, fuming. "YOU ALL— I WILL BEAT YOU ALL—! PAY ME NOW! I WANT THOSE TEN CRYSTALS!"

But the students, still laughing and glowing with mana, cheerfully pulled out their crystal pouches.

"Gladly!"

"This was worth a hundred!"

"I'm giving you a bonus!"

"That Arcane Realm of yours teacher was priceless!"

The room was buzzing with laughter, warmth, and excitement.

Then, just as Nolan was about to retreat back to his chair and hide his embarrassment behind paperwork—

A voice rang from among the students.

"Teacher."

Nolan ignored the voice.

He reached for the side of his desk, lazily flicking through some floating windows, pretending to busy himself with data logs and idle spell configurations.

He was halfway through adjusting the interface brightness when the same voice rang out again—louder, more persistent.

"Teacher."

His fingers stopped mid-motion.

The word cut through the buzzing noise of laughter and chatter like a thin blade.

With a slow, exaggerated sigh, Nolan turned toward the source. His eyes were already narrowed before he fully faced them.

"What," he muttered, his voice dry as sandpaper.

There she was.

The same girl who, just hours ago, had nearly torn open her uniform to make them teach them.

She was seated near the center of the room, back straight, hands clasped on her lap, face surprisingly calm.

"If it's really possible to clear the three floors in three minutes…" she said carefully, "can you… show us, teacher?"

There was an odd hush. Like something sacred had been asked.

Nolan blinked.

He stared at her for a beat longer than necessary. Then his face twisted slightly as he replied, flat and absolute:

"No."

Dead silence.

She blinked. "No?"

"No," Nolan repeated with more force, dragging out the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. "A hard no. Forget it. Not happening."

There was a soft rustle among the chairs.

Students looked at each other, eyebrows raised, mouths twitching with barely-contained curiosity.

A few leaned sideways to whisper behind cupped hands.

One student even turned his head in exaggerated slow motion to make sure Nolan wasn't watching before mouthing something at his friend.

The whispers began.

"Maybe he can't actually do it."

"I mean, come on—three minutes?"

"He's been bluffing since day one."

"What if all the insults were just him compensating?"

"He just wants the mana crystals."

"That's gotta be it. There's no way anyone can clear that in three."

"Do you think he even cleared it at all?"

Nolan's eyes twitched.

"I can hear you," he growled without looking up.

The students flinched—but not for long. A few giggled. A few doubled down on whispering even more.

One brave soul raised a hand, half-serious. "Teacher, if you really did it in three minutes… how?"

Nolan looked at them like someone had asked if breathing required permission. He leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded in exhaustion, then gestured vaguely toward the air in front of him.

"...It's easy," he muttered, voice sluggish and tired, "You just… I dunno. You get in, bait the hallway mobs, then shove a broken pipe into the chest of the screamer on the left, use that to cause the cascading room-door aggro, then you dodge twice into the corner, there's a gap in the collision boxes where the infecteds bug out for like 0.3 seconds, and then you loop behind the second spawn trigger, activate the hidden route by breaking the water valve, and then time your sword input with the fourth heartbeat of the background music."

The room was frozen.

He kept going.

"Then you jump off the third-floor balcony, roll through the fire, stab the two infected in midair—which, by the way, resets their falling animation—and land on the sofa that breaks your fall damage. Done. Clear. Three minutes? That's rookie time."

Dead silence again.

Then whispering. Again.

But this time, louder. More incredulous.

"...That's totally made up."

"The fourth heartbeat of the music? Is he drunk?"

"Resetting fall damage midair? What even is that?"

"He's full of crap. That's just nonsense."

"It sounds like he was just inventing stuff."

"He's just making up random information that doesn't exist."

"I swear, he's bluffing harder than anyone I've ever seen."

Nolan's jaw clenched.

The vein on his forehead throbbed slightly, twitching like it wanted to leap off his face.

Inside, he was very aware that those explanations were complete garbage. He had literally just strung together random things from memory. But the reality was… he had cleared it in under three minutes.

In fact, he remembered tearing through that beginner-level dungeon so effortlessly that he had been bored before the third floor even started.

Twenty-seven seconds. That was his best time. But now?

Now he was being mocked?

A slow, bitter laugh bubbled up from his throat.

"Oh, you wanna see it now?" he said, rising from his seat. "Alright then, pay me."

The room blinked.

"Huh?"

"If you want to see how I do it," Nolan said, his smirk sharp, "pay me more mana crystals. An exclusive performance, just for you."

A chorus of groans followed.

"Teacher!"

"We gave you all our mana crystals!"

"We're bankrupt!"

"I sold my last five to buy bread yesterday!"

"I've been on ration mode for weeks!"

"My dog is starving!"

Nolan blinked. "You have a dog?"

"No, but if I did, he'd be starving!"

The complaints exploded.

"Can't you just show us for once without charging us?"

"Please, teacher!"

"Don't make us beg!"

But Nolan raised a hand, firm. "No crystals, no show. That's business."

The room deflated again. Murmurs passed like ripples in a pond. Eyes darted toward friends. Shoulders shrugged. A few students leaned close together in hushed circles.

And again…

The whispers returned.

"He's just stalling now."

"He knows we don't have any mana left."

"He's scared."

"He can't do it."

"No wonder he's so obsessed with making us pay. He was never gonna show it."

"Bet he never even finished the game."

Nolan's eyes twitched.

Each time he heard his name, the vein on his forehead pulsed harder.

"Nolan's probably stalling so he doesn't get exposed."

"Nolan this, Nolan that, Nolan's full of it—"

BOOM.

His hand slammed onto his desk. The room jumped.

His eyes burned. "ALRIGHT, you shitty son of your mothers and fathers! I will SHOW you!"