My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode-210

Chapter: 419

“Very well, Professor Ferrum,” Valerius had said, his voice a low, amused rumble. “Your credentials, it would seem, are… more than adequate.” He had then turned to Master Elmsworth, who had been standing silently throughout the exchange, looking increasingly bewildered by the silent, high-level power dynamics unfolding before him. “Master Elmsworth, if you would be so kind as to escort our new colleague to his assigned classroom. I believe the bursar has already seen to its preparation, as per the King’s direct decree.”

“Of… of course, Headmaster,” Elmsworth had stammered, bowing deeply.

They left the ancient Headmaster’s study, the weight of Valerius’s knowing gaze feeling like a physical presence at their backs. As they descended the sweeping marble staircase, Master Elmsworth kept shooting furtive, almost fearful, glances at Lloyd, as if seeing him for the first time. The man he had thought a clever, if eccentric, student of economics was clearly something… more. Something the ancient, powerful Headmaster himself regarded with a new, profound respect. Elmsworth’s own world, a world of neat ledgers and predictable economic models, was becoming increasingly, and terrifyingly, complicated.

“This way, my lord… er… Professor,” Elmsworth said, his voice a little shaky as he guided Lloyd away from the main administrative tower and towards a different, more secluded wing of the Academy. “Your classroom is… not in the standard faculty buildings.”

They walked down a quiet, sun-dappled colonnade, past classrooms where the drone of lectures on magical history and alchemical theory could be heard. The students they passed now stared at Lloyd with a mixture of awe, confusion, and undisguised, frantic curiosity. The news of his confrontation with Victor, and his new, impossible title, was clearly spreading through the Academy’s hyper-efficient gossip network like a wildfire.

They arrived at a small, handsome building set slightly apart from the main campus, nestled in a grove of ancient, shady oak trees. It was an older building, its stone walls covered in ivy, but it was well-maintained, its leaded glass windows gleaming in the afternoon sun. It felt less like a lecture hall and more like a private villa, a place of quiet, focused study.

“The King himself established this course, Professor Ferrum,” Elmsworth explained, his voice a hushed, reverent whisper as he pushed open the heavy wooden door. “He called it a… ‘Special Category’ class. An experimental initiative.”

He led Lloyd inside, into a room that was unlike any classroom Lloyd had ever seen.

It was not a formal lecture hall with rows of tiered benches facing a single podium. Instead, it was a vast, open, workshop-like space, filled with an eclectic, almost chaotic, collection of furniture and equipment. A few large, circular tables with comfortable-looking chairs were scattered around the room, suggesting a collaborative, discussion-based environment. One corner was dominated by what looked like a small, fully equipped alchemical laboratory, complete with beakers, retorts, and a small, magically contained forge that glowed with a low, steady heat. Another corner was set up as a miniature armory, with weapons racks holding a variety of strange, unconventional practice weapons, and several articulated practice dummies of different shapes and sizes. A third wall was covered in massive, floor-to-ceiling slate boards, currently blank, waiting to be filled with new, radical ideas. The fourth wall was almost entirely glass, looking out onto a private, walled garden, filling the room with a bright, natural light.

The entire space felt less like a classroom and more like… a think tank. A laboratory for innovation. A sandbox for brilliant, unconventional minds.

“The King’s decree was specific,” Elmsworth continued, his own eyes wide with a kind of academic awe as he surveyed the room. “This class is not bound by the standard Academy curriculum. It is for… a different kind of student.”

He gestured around the room, where a small, eclectic group of students were already gathered, their chatter ceasing the moment Lloyd and Elmsworth entered. They turned as one to look at their strange, young, new teacher, their expressions a mixture of intense curiosity, wary assessment, and a hint of the rebellious, anti-establishment attitude that often characterized the truly brilliant and the profoundly problematic.

“These are the students of the Special Category, Professor,” Elmsworth murmured. “A… mixed group. Hand-picked by the faculty, and in some cases, by the King himself. They are students whose unique talents, or perhaps… unconventional abilities, do not fit neatly into the rigid structure of the main Academy. They are the geniuses, the eccentrics, the troublemakers. The ones who are either destined for greatness, or for a spectacular, discipline-tribunal-worthy flameout.”

Lloyd’s gaze swept over his new charges, and he instantly saw what Elmsworth meant. They were a motley crew indeed.

Chapter: 420

There was a hulking boy with the broad shoulders and massive, calloused hands of a blacksmith’s son, who was absently sketching a complex gear mechanism on a piece of scrap parchment. There was a slender, elven-looking girl with pointed ears and eyes that seemed to shimmer with a faint, silvery light, who was quietly levitating a series of small, polished stones in a complex, orbital pattern above her hand. There was a boy with a shock of bright red hair and a manic grin, who was tinkering with a small, clockwork device that was emitting a series of alarming, high-pitched clicks and occasional puffs of purple smoke. And there, near the back, looking bored and utterly unimpressed with the entire proceeding, was a young woman with a sharp, intelligent face and the unmistakable, slightly predatory stillness of a trained assassin.

This was not a class of dutiful, note-taking scholars. This was a roomful of wild cards. Of anomalies. Of fellow disruptors.

They stared back at him, their expressions a mixture of skepticism and challenge. They were used to being outliers, to being misunderstood by their more traditional tutors. And now, their new professor was a boy barely older than themselves, a disgraced former student with a strange, sudden reputation for soap-making and public emotional breakdowns. Their collective assessment was palpable: Prove yourself. Show us why you belong here. Show us you are not just another fool the establishment doesn't know what to do with.

Lloyd felt a slow smile spread across his face. It was not the calm, polite smile of a teacher. It was the sharp, predatory grin of a wolf who has just been put in charge of a den of other, younger, but equally hungry, wolves.

He had been dreading this. The lectures, the curriculum, the tedious repetition of established dogma. But this… this was different. This was not a classroom. This was a laboratory. And these were not just students. They were potential assets. Potential allies. Potential co-conspirators in his quiet, fragrant, and increasingly interesting, revolution.

He stepped to the front of the room, his earlier apprehension gone, replaced by a surge of pure, exhilarating, intellectual excitement. He looked at the curious, challenging faces before him.

“Good afternoon,” he began, his voice calm, confident, carrying easily through the suddenly silent, expectant room. “My name is Lloyd Ferrum. And for the foreseeable future, I will be your professor.” He paused, letting his gaze sweep over each of them in turn, a silent acknowledgment, a shared understanding of their collective status as… different.

“Forget everything you think you know about how a class is supposed to work,” he continued, a mischievous, revolutionary glint in his eyes. “We are not here to memorize facts. We are not here to study the past. We are here,” he declared, his voice ringing with a new, strange, and utterly compelling, authority, “to break it. Now… who wants to start by discussing the fundamental design flaws in the standard, single-shot, torsion-powered ballista?”

A flicker of genuine, surprised interest appeared on the face of the hulking blacksmith’s son. The elven girl’s levitating stones paused in their orbit. The red-headed boy’s clockwork device let out a final, pathetic puff of smoke as he looked up, his expression one of dawning, manic glee.

The class had begun. And it was going to be anything but traditional.

________________________________________

His opening gambit had landed with the satisfying thud of a well-placed stone in a still, stagnant pond. The question about the ballista, so unexpected, so utterly practical and yet so theoretically complex, had shattered the students’ initial skepticism, replacing it with a charged, palpable curiosity. This was not going to be another lecture on the ancient history of magical treaties. This was going to be… different.

A lively, almost chaotic, debate had erupted instantly. The hulking blacksmith’s son, whose name was Borin (a different, younger, but no less boisterous Borin than his own alchemist), had launched into a passionate critique of the material stress limitations of standard ironwood arms. The red-headed tinkerer, a gnome named Pip, had countered with a complex, almost incomprehensible, theory about using a system of counter-rotating flywheels to store and release kinetic energy more efficiently. The silent, assassin-like young woman had offered a single, chillingly practical observation: “The firing mechanism is too loud. It alerts the target.”

Lloyd had simply let them argue, a faint, satisfied smile on his lips. He was not here to lecture. He was here to provoke, to facilitate, to guide their brilliant, undisciplined minds towards a new way of thinking: the way of the engineer. The way of the problem-solver.