In class, eyeing beautiful 20-year-old girl, chestnut hair/eyes. Adult makeup/mature clothes add couple-three years.
Girl all boys ogled: Tang Yue. Above-average talent, magic court chairman niece, venomous snake totem guardian, trainee judge. Kind, slightly trusting—above all, I know I can trust her. Won't reveal all secrets, but flash totem pendant, casually mention deliberately dug sewer tunnels.
So I'll gain more trust and show myself as a good hunter, which will let me first go on a mission with her to catch a criminal after the disaster in Bo City, which isn't very interesting. But what's interesting is the subsequent mission to protect the totem serpent, where I can earn a few votes to make the national team for the World University Games.
Over five months of diligent cultivation with periodic raids into the sewers and rare trips for resources to the kind Mu Yuans from parallel realities, I broke through to the second tier in the elements of light, spirit, and time, with space in progress.
I wasn't afraid of being exposed with a large number of elements. Mages can only sense the power level of a person's strongest element, and the level itself, not the tier, so until I break through to the intermediate tier in the other elements before ice, they won't expose me.
While the whole class stared at the new teacher, I channeled magic into the pendant and mentally conveyed what I needed. The pendant released a small wave of magic toward the girl, which reacted with Tang Yue's earrings. Contact established.
She looked at me with a slightly shocked gaze but quickly composed herself. Slightly changing her plans, Tang Yue spoke.
"Class, now we'll all go to the training grounds, and I'll show you the application of real magic. Everyone, follow me."
Tang Yue led our class like a mother duck to the training grounds, where she demonstrated the second tier of the beginner-level fire—bone burning—leaving only ash from the training dummy.
"Who controls how many stars?" In response to Tang Yue's question, everyone got excited and started bragging about their achievements to her. The maximum was controlled by Zhou Min—5 stars. Mo Fan distinguished himself here too, saying he controlled zero. Though he should have already finished controlling the lightning stars.
"And why are you silent, um?" she faltered, addressing me, since she didn't know my name.
"Mu Bai, I control seven stars," I replied with a light smile. This was exactly why I drew her attention; otherwise, I'd have been ignored.
Her eyes widened in shock for a moment, as did the whole class's, but quickly suppressing her surprise, she asked:
"Then, maybe you can demonstrate some magic? Don't worry if it doesn't work on the first try; it happens," she threw me an ambiguous phrase.
Hmphing, I cast the first-tier beginner-level spell—Freeze—freezing the target next to the one she destroyed. I released the spell in 2 seconds, which is a good level for a beginner mage, but far from the peak; experienced beginner-level mages can cast such magic in just under a second.
The whole class erupted in exclamations. Tang Yue, suppressing her shock again, said what I'd planned all this for:
"Kids, as you see, I'm a fire mage, so I'll only teach practice to fire mages." With the gigatons of despair emanating from the boys with other elements, you could create a black beast.
"Mu Bai, as the best student in the class, I'll give you some advice, and the rest can go."
Waiting until only we remained on the training grounds, Tang Yue approached me closer and began studying me intently.
We stood, silent, her eye starting to twitch. And me? Nothing, seven months had passed since my arrival, and I'd mostly come to terms with my losses, so I could return to my old habit—annoying people.
"So, what totem's guardian are you?" she finally couldn't hold back.
"The White Tiger, but I'm still too weak to go where it dwells. And what is the Keeper of the Totem, the poisonous Hangzhou Serpent, doing in a small city like Bo City?" I countered with a question.
"I'm looking for something here," she evaded the answer.
"I even roughly know what," I showed a smile that begged for a brick, but this was the moment I'd started the conversation for.
"And what am I looking for?" Miss trainee judge decided to bait me for interesting, and most importantly free, information.
"Two million."
"What two million?" she didn't understand right away.
"Pay two million, or I won't tell you anything. This info cost me a lot of effort." Of course it did; the sewers smell awful.
After a bit of haggling, I showed my hunter badge, which I'd gotten to turn in rat guts. I chose the hunter alias from my past life, Su Yutao. Seeing the badge, she finally believed the info might be worth money and made the transfer.
After that, I told her about the abnormally large number of tunnels dug by rats and speculated on a planned rat tribe attack on the city. Well, not throwing suspicions at a smart but schoolkid Black Church. And with that, we parted ways.