Why Did You Summon Me?

After deciding on his team-ups, Baiyi went ahead to gather his Voidwalkers. Soon, however, he realized that a few of them were giving lectures to the students at the moment, so he took a pause and waited for their class to be over. After all, he was not actually in a hurry—maybe he should take a stroll around Da Xue and admired the progress of his own creation.

“Hm-hmph! Look at how serene the surrounding is, how tranquil the atmosphere, how picturesque the sceneries!” Baiyi felt a sense of immense pride welling up within him as he glanced around the academy, to the point that he wanted to just gave the man behind all of this a good pat on his shoulder. “Holy s***, you’ve done it again,  me!” 

He casually strolled around the academy grounds until he found himself just around the corner of the Activities and Events Center. It was a five-story high building with specialized studios and rooms such as a mini theater, a chess room, and other sorts of salons. Of course, these were salons for upright and positive growth and learning, not some “French salons” ¹ or Tribal Chief ² is still pretty, er… useful! Right?”

“Okay, I guess it’s your turn now.”

“Pass. I can sense some foreboding aura from the box today…”

Now that the summoning event was over, the crowd suddenly found the object of their attention gone enough to notice Baiyi standing right among them, which gave them a pretty big fright. Within seconds, however, the students managed to regain composure and stood straight, bowing respectfully before Baiyi as they greeted, “Hello, Sir Principal!”

“It’s alright, relax a little, okay? Oh, and please. Put those boxes down… they are not going anywhere,” Baiyi said loudly.

The two students who had been trying to sneak the boxes away stopped on their tracks and obediently placed them down on a distance, before standing on a side with their heads hanging in shame.

“Be honest. Who started this game?” Baiyi asked as he approached the box. He extended his psychic sense and found, unsurprisingly, a formation hidden within; Not only that, it was an exact replica of the formation baiyi had invented before.

Suddenly, the pool of suspect was narrowed down to just  one person, without the students even needing to answer.

The students answered honestly, “It’s Professor Majesty, Sir.”

Baiyi knew it. There was only one person who would so daringly insist to be called “Professor Majesty”; Only one person who would promote such a gatcha game—and that would be Baiyi’s unreliable teacher!

That fella had not been playing any of his old gatcha games since he had Pseudo-Descended and turned into a professor, yet he had not made much of a fuss in spite of it. Baiyi was even starting to wonder if that old geezer finally learned to control his old passion for these games, going so far that he wondered if the Sage-Emperor of the Magi had hidden depths and self-discipline enough to actually control his old obsession all along.

However, all became clear at this moment today: that old geezer had actually DIY-ed a bootlegged version and used it to con these students’ pocket money! How was the old geezer’s face not dropped at his own shameless antics by now?! Worse, despite making a profit out of the students’ money, that old dotard had the galls to constantly ask for a raise all the dang time! Oh, that’s it! 

“What happened to the money gathered?” Baiyi asked, pointing at the box.

“A part of the profit is used to, um, print out new cards. It’s quite constly to maintain this formation’s operation, and, uh, colors and papes are kinda expensive too. But the rest of the profit is used to aid students with difficult financial problems,” Another student answered with the same frankness.

—Huh? This is weird. That old man did not actually try to claimthis ill-gotten moneyy as his own? Baiyi was quite startled at the answer.

Da Xue was an expensive academy to enroll in, and to many families with average income, it was almost nigh-impossible to even pay for the first semester. However, there would always be parents who would do anything to get their children into the best academy in the world, even if it meant that they had to live by a ridiculously stringent budget. After all, it was a feat to pass the rigorous entrance exam for one hailed from a normal family, so their parents were even less inclined to disappoint their child.

On the other hand, students from these families were often the most mature and understanding of their peers. They themsleves lived thriftily while taking up odd jobs around the academy on their free time to earn some money to pay for their tuition fees. A few Voidwalkers who were notable for their compassion, such as the Alchemist and the Engineer, would always try to create as many jobs as possible for these students to fill up while simultaneously reduced Baiyi’s need to hire external manpower.

As an emperor, helping the destitute in society had always been one of his responsibilities, so he ended up creating the perfect game to satisfy his and some students’ craving, while also generate funds to help the poor with the help of the richer students.

Well, if that was the case, Baiyi conceded that his teacher had a method in his childlike whims, after all.

“Surely these cards are used for some other games, right? I don’t think anyone would be too excited if the only thing in it is to try to draw out desired cards, right?” Baiyi said, drawing a random card from the box.

The card he was holding showed an image of a beautiful, cute elfen girl, drawn not in the normal realistic oil painting format so popular in this world but in the moe magical girl anime-art style from Earth. In fact, it even resembled the art style of Takeuchi Sensei ³ ?

If Baiyi was not mistaken, this should be the work of Kashi the Painter, who had always found no problem copying someone else’s art style and character design. Besides, he  was a painter before he was an intellectual thief, so it was only natural that he ended up stealing the art style from Baiyi’s memories.

Written below the beautiful elven girl’s fair thighs was the large heading “Elf Archer”, with three stars trailing behind the title, likely referring to the rarity of the card. On the left bottom corner and right corner were two numbers, and lastly a text in the middle that said, Deal s 100% critical damage towards creatures of the Church. 

Which gamemaster would even look at a fairy and say, ‘Gosh, must be effective against “creatures of the Church”‘? Is this straight our of my whimsical teacher’s nonsensical mind? Baiyi mused quietly while outwardly said, “Can I see a round of game?”

“Sure thing. Now, let us present the best gamers of our group, Wallace and Chazz, for an epic demo for our most respected Principal! They have the best decks among us, really,” A student declared, immediately taking up the job as the announcer.

The first student the Announcer had mentioned was hailed from the famous Wallace family, whom were all respectable, quality journalists way more superior than those who called themselves journalists just because they knew where to swarm when a story broke out. It was inevitable that with such skills, the Wallaces rose and became the top newspaper outlet of the Empire, which also explained why children from this family had the financial backing to play an expensive gatcha game like this one.

Chazz, on the other hand, boasted a pretty well-off family, not the least inferior to the aforementioned Wallace as well. His family had the largest farm for toad rearing and had been offering a wide variety of toads for purposes ranging from medicinal use to alchemical use.

The two students stood in the middle of the area, each of their wrists fashioned with some sort of leather holster where their decks were apparently stuffed in. After they greeted each other, Wallace started the round with a hearty holler, “I shall begin now… Behold, The Alchemy Faculty Principal! for the next few rounds, my mana crystal growth has multiplied by twofold!”

With that, he held the card between his two fingers in the most handsome way he could assume, and then toss it to the middle of the floor. Instantly, an apparition of the Alchemist surfaced from the card, his body scintillating in a pale blue light to show that this character was already reaping the aforementioned buff.

Seeing his opponent going for a heavy attack right from the beginning, Chazz responded with a cold smirk before annoucing loudly, “Hmph. This is a game of true skills, not some game you could win just by spamming whatever golden card you have! In fact, let me teach you a lesson today! Activating  trap card—’Experiment Error’! Your experiment has failed… Your Alchemy Faculty Principal is no more!”

“Aaahhh!” Wallace let out a bloodcurdling scream as the apparition of the Alchemist disappeared. He himself had undergone several degrees of biteback damage, too.

“Hmph! Now it’s my turn… Summoning Engineering Faculty Principal, activating the effect, ‘Magical Marionette Legion’! Let it  rip!” Chazz shouted with glee as he watched his opponent’s HP falling in a drastic rate, sure that he was going to come out the victor.

“Tsch! I admit that I had underestimated your penchant for traps, but don’t you think that’s enough to scare me! My turn. I summon Professor Nydore! Recover my lost health and annihilate these ragtag band of machines!” Wallace cried, tossing out another card, and released a lifelike apparition of Nydore.