The Good Teacher

"My decision is influenced in large part by what I saw a little while back when you were performing the |Soul Imprint| on Jean," Krish began. "As I've indicated before, through my eyes, your fate appears as murky as the Swamps of Garand. However, at that moment in time, your fate burst with a magnificent spark. In fact, this wasn't the first time such an event transpired, the same phenomenon occurred when you performed your first |Soul Imprint| on Markus."

Guy's mind immediately formed a connection between this phenomenon and the two times he had utilised the powers of the mask. His expression faltered slightly, which wasn't missed by Krish who grabbed on like a pitbull.

"I knew it!" Krish exclaimed. "The events were special. Every other time you utilised your |Soul Imprint|, this did not occur. It got me thinking: What differed between those two instances and every other instance? No matter how hard I pondered over it, I could not come up with an answer, so I chalked it up as it having to do with your inheritance."

"First off," Guy interrupted. "You were spying on me?" There was a faint sense of irritation in Guy's voice.

"It's a force of habit," Krish responded. "I won't apologise for it. I don't like being blindsided. My past experience has proven that vigilance is key to the survival of any mage. Teacher Jeeves here can corroborate this."

Al nodded vehemently in affirmation like a little yes-man.

Guy coughed, in an attempt to expel the disturbing feeling swelling in his stomach. Although he was affected by the breach of privacy, like any normal person, he could also empathise with Krish's point of view. Danger could potentially lurk around every corner in this world, thus precautionary measures were prudent. Besides, it wasn't as though privacy was in ample supply in Guy's past life. Corporations constantly tracked and sold user analytics, and governments - who are supposed to be on the side of the citizens - surveilled their citizens through flimsy protection laws. Certain social networking platforms could even offer tailored advertisements based on recent search history, going as far as to predict one's food preferences through complex statistical analysis. Compared to that, Krish's intermittent intrusions were trivial.

"You are correct," Guy said with a bitter smile. "It does have something to do with my inheritance. Jean and Markus can attest to that."

"That's right!" Markus chimed in. "Compared to the other |Soul Imprints|, the one I experienced when I achieved perfected resonance was far more immersive and vibrant. To top it off, I can perfectly relive that experience anytime I want through meditation."

"Now that Senior Brother brought it up, I too felt the same way," Jean commented. "The experience has been engraved into my mind. To be honest, when I first experienced it I was completely dumbfounded. Everything I saw was unfathomable, totally beyond this world. I thought that the vision was simply gibberish - a figment of a warped imagination. However, after reassessing it multiple times, I realised that the things I saw were thoroughly grounded in rationality. They were too... real to be lies."

"Can you explain what you saw?" Al hummed. His inquisitiveness was urging him to pursue this thread. Jean responded affirmatively and expounded on her virtual experience. As she spoke, Al's eyes started to burst out further and further from his sockets in excitement. Everything was so new to him and magical. Of course, this irony was missed by Al. Living in a world dominated by magic, fathoming one without magic at all was akin to fantasy for him.

"Elaborate on this artefact which measures heartbeat, blood oxygen concentration and so on," Al demanded while straightening his back.

"Teacher Jeeves," Krish interjected. "Let's not deviate from the current conversation."

Al bit his tongue apologetically and regressed into the background. Krish's gaze drilled into Guy once again, egging him to explain himself.

"I-I don't know what else to say really," Guy said with a loud sigh, trying his hardest to suppress the twitch attacking his eyelids. "I just found some knowledge pertaining to what they were struggling with and just... did my thing."

"Nonetheless, there was a difference," Krish emphasised. "I can feel that you're hiding something. Don't worry, I won't be squeezing it out of you - everyone is entitled to their secrets."

After a short pause to discharge the crescendoing tension in the room, Krish continued, "The first time the phenomenon occurred, I was confounded and was unable to make any headway or gain any insights. But this time, I was prepared. I managed to gaze into your fate."

"Gaze into his fate?" Al muttered. He sucked in a long breath through clenched teeth as he narrowed his gaze, "Where have I heard that before...?"

"And in that bright mote growing inside you, I saw an unbelievable vision," Krish evoked with awe in his eyes. "Interestingly, it was a lot similar to what the girl just said before. A world beyond anything I have ever seen before."

"That's right!" Al interjected as he snapped his finger. "Y-You are the Golden-Eyed Seer! That's you, isn't it?"

"It all makes sense now!" Al continued hurriedly. "Exactly 53 years ago, the Sunspot Sect faced multiple calamities one after another. The Sect Leader suffered a cultivation deviation as he attempted to break through into the Tesseract Transformation realm, resulting in him going mad and eradicating every single disciple present in the Sect. The Elders barely managed to stop him, losing more than three-quarters of their strength by the time the Sect Leader was subdued. After the Sect Leader  gained clarity and came face to face with the utter carnage he had wrought, he ended up killing himself in his grief. The Elders departed from the Sect. Some attempted to join other Sects but faced an untimely death due to odd reasons. One Elder accidentally swallowed poison instead of an alchemical potion. Another accidentally swallowed an artefact of mass destruction and imploded. One even fell on her own vitality draining sword while in a deep meditative state and died a shrivelled husk."

Al gulped audibly as a morbid silence took grasp of the ambience, "A Sect which was by no means a minor contender just disappeared off the face of the map in one fell swoop, that too because of a multitude of highly coincidental events that just happened to fall into place at the right time. It was so monumental that even the co-operative of Teachers had to get involved. I happened to sit in during the investigation, which lasted for five whole years. In the end, we managed to narrow it down to one individual: The Golden-Eyed Seer!"

"They stole from me," Krish grunted in exasperation. "And then they had the gall to deny everything. I only did what was fair."

"The entire Sect was burned to the ground after the suicide of a female Thunderbird, whose spouse was killed and harvested near the Sect's mountain," Al continued. "Although the structure was disintegrated, we assumed that the Sect's heritage would remain intact in some form. However, when we finally managed to open up the Sect's treasury, there was nothing in it!"

"A price had to be paid," Krish shrugged.

"The many mistresses the Sect Leader  and the Elders impregnated all had a miscarriage due to the absurdest of causes," Al exclaimed animatedly.

"That wasn't part of my plan," Krish denied immediately while alternating his gaze between Guy and his students. "In a minor fit of anger, I may have made a mistake in the curse. By the way, the 'Golden-Eyed Seer' is a very mild alias. I assumed it would be more bloody given the level of carnage."

"The cooperative of Teachers and the Alliance of Sects wanted to go with the 'Evil-Eyed Demon of Misfortune', but they feared retribution!" Al exhorted. "If a person could eradicate a sizeable entity such as the Sunspot Sect so ruthlessly without having to once show their face, who would want to get on their bad side by affronting them with such an antagonistic alias?"

"Did you really have to go that far?" Guy asked.

"Of course," Krish answered without hesitation. "Although it left a bad taste in my mouth seeing how far my curse travelled, it was necessary to avoid future conflicts. Mages are anything but forgiving individuals - myself included. If I hadn't eliminated the Sect both root and stem, it would have inevitably led to another conflict down the line with a descendent. Now that I have a Disciple, it could have affected Marie as well. This is partly why I avoid mage infested regions nowadays. Everyone is just so sensitive. One slip of the tongue and you can end up with an enemy for life. It is easy to rack up negative social credit which is impossible to clear no matter how hard I try."

Krish exhaled loudly to release his aggression. "Sorry about that rant..."

"I can empathise with Mage Nara on that matter," Al affirmed.

"Now that you've said it," Guy interjected. "If you're so averse to interfering with mage congregations, why are you so eager to support me in my venture? I'm pretty sure that you will have to make an appearance in public and shake a few hands. Aren't you worried about your past catching up to you?"

"Given what I've seen in your fate, all those petty conflicts are trivial!" Krish evoked.