Chapter 9: The White Phoenix!

Chapter 9: The White Phoenix!

Ocris closed her eyes and trembled all over—the one being fooled on stage was her student. The laughter from below felt like a public slap to her face, making her lose all dignity. After today’s event, she felt she had no face left to stay at the academy.

There simply wasn’t anyone in this world who could save her. It was all her own fantasy. Her fate was to go to Dragon Nest City and live among dragons.

It seemed the time was about right. The examiner finally spoke.

“Alright, Mr. Stuart.” The examiner looked at the mirror, smiled, and said to Ocris, “If we make a fool of Mr. Lufield any longer, Miss Ocris might start feeling distressed.”

The figure in the mirror gave a slight bow, glanced with a smirk at the pale-faced Ocris. Then, with some interest, he looked towards Helen and Louis, waiting for the last two lambs to take the stage.

Meanwhile, Lufield had already stumbled off the stage amidst the roaring laughter. Tyrus was also holding his stomach and laughing loudly. Clearly, the spell on this idiot hadn’t been lifted yet, and he didn’t realize what Lufield’s failure would mean.

“What a wonderful dance!” Tyrus held his stomach and laughed. “Louis, did you learn it? Hurry up and go dance with our Calamity Evil Spirit.”

As soon as these words were spoken, Lufield’s face turned ashen, and he shot a venomous glare at Tyrus. The people in the hall also remembered Lufield’s earlier performance and couldn’t help but laugh even harder.

Tyrus was under a spell, so Ocris didn’t blame him. But her face also turned deathly pale.

The last hope had been shattered.

Helen couldn’t possibly deal with that thing. She would be publicly humiliated, lose all face, and forfeit her entire future. She herself was already finished; she couldn’t drag her little sister down with her.

She pressed her lips together and looked at Louis, her eyes already filled with despair. “Louis…”

This call of “Louis” made the spectators in the hall laugh even more uproariously.

[In that despair, Ocris actually turned for help to a ‘Kong Yiji’ who only talked but never acted? This scene was far too dramatic.]

[But perhaps, in Ocris’s subconscious, when in despair, turning to someone for help was only natural—even if she hadn’t realized this herself.]

[Hundreds of pairs of eyes were now fixed on the clown on stage, mockingly called ‘Louis VI.’ As the Witch Queen Delphinia had said, today’s performance would be absolutely spectacular.]

Amid the uproar in the hall, hundreds of gazes focused on the clown who had been standing with his arms crossed, coldly watching from the sidelines.

Under this intense scrutiny, Louis slowly walked onto the stage. Amidst the jeering laughter, he very properly faced each room below, placing a hand on his chest and nodding respectfully one by one.

Then, he cleared his throat softly and, to Ocris’s despair, pulled a small note from his sleeve. He waved his wand randomly and, against the backdrop of everyone’s wild laughter, read out a long incantation from the note to the stunned ‘Mr. Stuart’ in the mirror.

Another wave of laughter surged through the hall. Even a crystal ball secretly held by a certain minister emitted a very pleasant female laugh.

At this moment, Lufield, watching from the side, felt a mix of relief and distress.

He felt relief because, although everyone had been humiliated today, at least Louis was there to be the bottom of the barrel!

He had never found Louis so endearing before.

What distressed him was that he had bet everything against this Calamity Evil Spirit today and still lost.

Mr. Stuart was just too powerful. Even sealed, he felt utterly powerless facing him.

There was simply no way to win.

Everything was over. After today, none of the five of them would have a good outcome.

Ocris’s face was also pale. Watching Louis perform on stage, she felt dizzy and nearly fainted—she had actually believed in Louis.

Now it was over. Everything was over. Louis was actually cheating in front of everyone! Her teaching career was finished.

But before long, Ocris suddenly widened her eyes. She realized the magic spell Louis was reciting wasn’t the one she had given him at all!

Had this fool even copied the incantation text wrong?!

Oh my goodness!

Unlike everyone else, the Mr. Stuart in the mirror looked extremely strange. He had just tried to extend his shadow through the mirror into that person’s mind. Using mind reading, he searched for that person’s fears, so his ‘nightmare seed’ could grow strong within that person’s heart.

But that person’s heart seemed to contain only excitement and curiosity?

Well, excitement and curiosity could work too. As long as there were intense emotional fluctuations, the seed could slowly sprout. Whether it was arrogance, greed, fear, jealousy, anger, or sadness, any could be used.

But before long, Stuart found that the person’s mind had suddenly become like a stagnant pool. He could no longer read any emotions or thoughts with mind reading.

For a moment, Stuart suddenly thought of a remarkable technique. This wasn’t a magic spell, but a mental skill for closing off oneself—Occlumency.

Occlumency?!

That’s impossible!

Stuart began to panic. He tried to make his nightmare seed erupt, to disturb that person’s mind, but found he could no longer control the nightmare seed!

Suddenly, Stuart looked at the person in front of the mirror seriously reciting the little note, and cold sweat broke out all over his body.

Some bookworm who only knew how to read?

This was a real wizard!

What frightened Stuart even more was that the nightmare seed he had planted earlier had grown just right—it couldn’t erupt, but it allowed that person to continuously grab onto him through this seed, cast the Demon-Banishing Charm, and prevent him from escaping!

It was as if that person had intentionally let the seed spread and grow in his heart, and only then closed off his mind.

Stuart wondered if this was a coincidence, but there was no time to think. He quickly hid the nightmare seed to avoid being discovered by that person. But just then, he suddenly saw the wizard outside the mirror give him a strange smile.

‘He caught me?’ Stuart widened his eyes in disbelief. “He caught me?!”

“Damn it!!!” He suddenly rushed to the front of the mirror and started pounding on the glass surface. “The test is over! Over! Make that guy stop!”

But to Stuart’s despair, the crowd in the hall actually responded with another round of roaring laughter!

He felt like a poor prisoner with his hands locked and trapped in a cell. Someone had coaxed him to the bars, then grabbed him by the collar and started beating him fiercely. And the examiner, who was supposed to help him, was still standing there grinning foolishly!

‘Mr. Stuart. No one can help you now…’

A voice suddenly echoed in Stuart’s mind, making his scalp crawl.

His nightmare seed had been completely taken over!

Then Stuart saw a blinding light. In that light, an uncontrollable fear spread through his heart. He let out a heart-wrenching scream and, in his confusion, began running wildly around inside the mirror.

Just like Lufield had done earlier.

This scene made Ocris and Lufield both widen their eyes in shock. The laughter in the hall grew louder and louder. Many noblewomen who had come to watch the spectacle were still wiping away tears of laughter with their handkerchiefs, thinking this was another prank by the Mr. Stuart in the mirror.

Clearly, no one could help the now desperate Mr. Stuart.

Only when the intense light appeared a second time did the academy professors rub their eyes hard—a white phoenix was shining from the wand in that young man’s hand.

This was the effect of the Demon-Banishing Charm.

‘A sealed nightmare… This kind of chance is truly hard to come by, even with a lantern.’

Louis shook his slightly sore arm, glanced at the [+1 Demon-Banishing Charm mastery] in the side nar r ation, and continued waving his wand, reciting the Demon-Banishing Charm for the third time.

He was going to practice this Demon-Banishing Charm to Lv2 today.

As this magic spell was recited once again, Ocris and Lufield looked at Louis in a daze. Then they saw with their own eyes the magical brilliance once again shining from the wand in Louis’s hand.

When the white phoenix’s radiance once again enveloped the mirror, the Mirror Man, whose steps were about to stop, began running wildly once more. Just like how Tyrus had been running wildly below the stage earlier.

By now, the laughter in the hall had become intermittent. Even Helen stopped crying, staring dumbfounded at the mirror.

Only some noblewomen who didn’t understand magic were still giggling.

Not until flash after flash of light began to shine continuously from the wand did the hall gradually become so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

At this moment, there was silence both on and off the stage. Only the sound of the ‘clown’s’ magic incantation from the stage remained.

And the desperate, wretched cries and pleas of the evil spirit in the mirror.