Chapter Eighty-Five: The Rise of the Church of Scientific Divinity

News of Ruby’s lack of magical power quickly spread throughout Rhine Magic Academy. The students, unable to comprehend how he managed it, questioned why the academy would hire such a person as a teacher. In the end, Vice Principal Shudor stepped forward to offer an explanation. Even now, he remained in the dark about the truth, stubbornly believing Ruby to be the eldest son of the Starry Night family. So he spoke.

"Rhine Magic Academy’s mission is to gather talented individuals from all over the world. Is there anyone else who possesses the attribute of 'no magical power'? While he cannot instruct you in magic, he excels in other fields—do you understand?"

The vice principal was highly respected, and under Shudor’s words, the students refrained from further suspicion. The intelligence department’s seniors then moved into action, quickly uncovering every detail of Ruby’s background—even the color of his underwear that day—yet found nothing particularly remarkable.

Shudor himself was deeply concerned, fearing the principal would interrogate him about admitting Ruby as a teacher. He prepared himself for another escape, but strangely, the principal seemed to accept his explanation as if nothing had happened, making Shudor suspect the Starry Night family’s influence had grown so vast that even the principal had to compromise.

In truth, Principal Harvey, upon learning of this matter, desperately wished to dissect Ruby for several days of research. But the Mage Goddess had long warned him: if he dared to lay a finger on Ruby without his consent, he could expect to rebuild the academy from scratch. For the sake of the campus and its students, the old principal could only glare helplessly.

Time spent immersed in study always passes swiftly. Monday through Thursday went by in a flash, and Ruby was not idle. He visited the teachers of every subject to observe their lessons, posing strange questions that often left the instructors at a loss, earning him the reputation as the most troublesome teacher in the academy—though he himself remained utterly oblivious.

The so-called self-study class was, in fact, a platform for all students to exchange knowledge and enrich themselves. The special classroom was more than ten times larger than the ordinary ones. When Ruby entered, he found the place bustling; at least five hundred students were present—half the academy, explaining why a teacher was needed to supervise.

“Hello, I’m Ruby, your self-study instructor. Don’t mind me, just go about your own business.”

After this brief greeting, Ruby set up all sorts of strange items on the spacious podium. Having no intention of idling, he considered wasted time a waste of life. He had obtained some interesting things and decided to study them for a while.

The students, left unattended, were curious about Ruby’s actions. Many had come to witness, up close, the academy’s first teacher without magical power, only to find that apart from the twig stuck in his hair, he looked no different than anyone else. His current activities were also puzzling.

Their real astonishment began when Ruby used a lighter to ignite a flame. For his experiment, Ruby lit an alcohol lamp on the table. To the students, this was distinctly un-magical; they sensed no magical energy flowing when the fire appeared. Those with keen perception confirmed that not only did the air’s fire elements not diminish—they actually increased.

“Teacher Ruby, what are you doing?”

Curiosity for the unknown is a basic human instinct. A crew-cut student couldn’t resist and stood up to ask.

“I’m studying an insect called the light bug,” Ruby replied without looking up, his tweezers gripping the tail of a specimen. He had found the insect near the academy’s artificial lake; it resembled a firefly but emitted a much more intense glow. This sparked an idea—he happened to lack modern weaponry, and the insect’s properties inspired him to consider crafting a flashbang.

The light bug was a specialty of the Rhine lakeside. At night, they emitted warm hues, making the lakeshore a famous rendezvous spot; countless students had given their first kiss there.

When the Mage Goddess heard Ruby ask her to meet him there, her heart fluttered slightly—after all, the lakeside’s reputation as a lovers’ haven was well known in the academy. Yet when Ruby handed her a bug-catching net and asked her to help, Mayona smiled enchantingly and promptly slipped the net over his head.

“No, how did you use fire?”

The crew-cut student had no interest in the insect. Everyone knew Ruby had no magical power; now they simply wanted to understand how he conjured flame magic.

“You mean the lighter? You can take a look.”

Ruby tossed the lighter he had made. It traced a peculiar arc through the air and landed squarely in the student’s hand.

Mimicking Ruby, the student slid his thumb across the steel wheel, producing a spark that ignited the flame. The magic students exclaimed, “This isn’t magic!” “There’s no magical energy at all!” “Am I in the wrong academy?” and similar cries of disbelief.

As the students seemed to open the door to a new world, Ruby had already connected wires to a homemade battery, inserting the other end into the luminous organ he had removed from the light bug’s tail. As he increased the electrical output, the organ—no larger than a thumb joint—began to emit an ever-brighter glow, soon becoming dazzlingly intense.

“Because they’re electric insects, can they use electrical energy to emit light... What do you think?”

With the experiment a success, Ruby shut off the power, causing the glowing organ to go dark. He already had a preliminary plan forming in his mind for the next step, but his thoughts were interrupted as the students left their seats, crowding around the podium and enclosing him tightly.

“Teacher Ruby, how did you do that?”
“Can you produce fire? Lightning too?”

The students were completely captivated by Ruby’s actions. Their eyes sparkled with eagerness to learn, which Ruby hadn’t anticipated.

“Rather than creating it... it’s more about harnessing the materials nature already provides. In my homeland, there are no mages. People, in order to survive, developed along a different path. What you see here is collectively known as science—or you might call it physics.”

Ruby patiently explained the principles behind the lighter and the battery. Naturally, those who considered themselves the most gifted students in the Holy Empire were deeply shaken; they realized they didn’t understand a word of Ruby’s explanations, each wearing an expression of bewilderment and falling into a negative intelligence buff of -1, -1.

“If you’re interested, I can explain a little more.”

It was perfectly normal that they didn’t understand—anyone who did would be a miracle. To help them grasp it, Ruby decided to take responsibility. Perhaps he should start from the first technological revolution and lay out the history of human scientific development in detail?