The Good Teacher

Guy couldn't help but frown as he exited The Church and returned to the "real world". While he'd learned quite a bit about his special "cheat-system", especially about its connection with his cultivation, he had also discerned a huge stumbling block that may turn out to be problematic for him in the future.

'It's really impossible for me to recreate a scene purely from my imagination. I have to have personally experienced it.'

In trying to teach the kids about cellular division, Guy had inevitably reverted to a few frames from his past memory as a crutch. The first scene on human skin was taken directly from his observations through a high-precision microscope in his school lab. At that time, he and his lab partner had taken turns peering at each other's skin specimen. Guy had simply pulled that experience and built upon it to produce a near-realistic FIVR-type visual.

Evidently, the result was acceptable barring the infrequent issues pointed out by Markus that sometimes pulled him out of the immersion.

It was when Guy tried to present the second scene that everything started to fall apart. Guy wanted to see if he could mould the reality inside the |Soul Imprint| to his will, just like the "other guy". After all, that plagiarising hack had essentially copied segments from Neil Degrasse Tyson's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey frame for frame and packaged it as some sort of an enlightening experience for Markus. Why couldn't Guy do the same?

'I don't wanna pull the typical transmigrator card... But the usual transmigrator MCs have a field day appropriating inventions, discoveries and literature from their original world and publicising it in the new world as their own. Why can't I do that as well?'

Maybe it was some kind of misplaced arrogance after experiencing successive breakthroughs that had crept into Guy's idle mind, but he was feeling extremely adventurous. So, Guy decided to pull out one of his memories from middle school when he had seen a video in his biology class about the miracle of childbirth. At that time, it was a vomit-inducing watch for himself and his fellow immature peers. Guy wanted to experience the schadenfreude of putting his own students through it.

However, Guy was immediately faced with multiple issues when he tried to materialise the scene down to the sensory inputs. He had to tailor the experience individually by frame, stacking up the precise data the observer's senses must experience at all points in space. After a point, Guy found himself extremely exhausted. Thus, he gave up and restricted the sensory range to inside the school bus which was within his manageable range.

The next problem turned out to be the visual itself. While in the beginning, Guy intended to tailor it based on the informational video he'd seen before, things started to go wrong almost immediately when rogue thoughts invaded his mind, causing the visual to destabilise. It should have been an innocent scene where they were shown how sperm cells were produced leading up to the fertilisation of the egg cell and then finally ending with the cell division of the zygote to form a foetus.

But the human mind is a fickle thing. Through connections based on sheer idiocy, Guy's mind started to swim through a plethora of depraved thoughts based on a few adult videos he'd viewed in his past life. It wasn't even a complete distraction, a mere afterthought. The scene barely flashed through his brains for a millisecond, yet it happened to have strength far greater than the educational scene Guy had been so tirelessly trying to recreate.

The damn thing nearly took over. Thank goodness that Guy had the presence of mind to gain control over the reins in the last second and trimmed away the R-18 portions that had unwittingly invaded his mind. Otherwise, he'd have to answer to Grace, and explain to her why the children had been shown pornographic content.

Guy shuddered just thinking about it.

Regardless of all that, the trip had been fruitful. Guy realised that his cultivation truly was tied to the hitherto unknown "cheat-system" offshoot that had materialised within his mana core. Every time Guy utilised The Church to provide insights to his students to push their cultivation forward, he would receive feedback from his students in the form of his own cultivation. This feedback wasn't taxed from his student, it appeared to have formed from within his own body.

The nature of this feedback was close to an energising, nutrient-rich, infusion of arcane insights and knowledge directly into Guy's core that urged his mana to circulate in a particular fashion. What was this insight about? It was primarily packets of information about his own students, their preferences, approach to learning, the way they think, the depth and breadth of their understanding, and so on. It was like an abstract spreadsheet that was constantly updated in Guy's mind.

Guy found that The Church was doing most of the heavy-lifting and back-end work such as circulating the mana as though cultivating, and so on. As long as Guy could farm a steady stream of such feedback, The Church could potentially boost him all the way to immortality!

But Guy was most grateful that his cultivation wasn't parasitic. Guy verified this by inspecting Jean after he had exited The Church. For one, there wasn't any visible flow of mana or transfer of any sort between her and him. Although, there was a strand of bright ethereal string connecting them. Guy had seen a much thicker rope doing the same between him and Markus - he had used it to access Markus' core space before. Its purpose apart from that was still a mystery that Guy was looking forward to investigating as soon as an opportunity presented itself.

It was interesting that Jean and Markus managed to learn something out of this rather disturbing trip. Of course, the feedback Guy had received from Jean was markedly greater than that from Markus when both of them had only seen this for the first time.

'Although the test variables are totally uncontrolled, I can hypothesise that the student's perceptivity to certain knowledge and insight also play a key role in how much they can absorb and send over to me as feedback. This could be both advantageous and disadvantageous.' That is, while this strategy reduces the possibility of corruption and biases leaking through from Guy's own perspective into theirs, there is a greater burden on the students themselves to absorb and internalise the insights to the best of their abilities. This is in contrast to the standard |Soul Imprint| in which the knowledge is directly transplanted into the receiver's brain.

Anyways, Guy wasn't in any mood to dwell further on those theories for the time being. Because right now, he was trying his hardest to hide in embarrassment and avoid his student's gazes.

In fact, both of his students had the same idea as each of them were sliding down their chairs and shrinking their crimson-tinged faces into their clothes. What had started as a very educational tour had somehow taken a drastic left turn, and none of them were really prepared to experience it...

Like that, the room maintained a charged silence,

Guy was wracking his mind on ideas to break through the metaphorically metre-thick barrier of ice, when Marie's voice resounded through, saving him as an angel descended from the heavens.

"What's going on? Why's everyone so quiet? Did I miss something?" She rattled off as she cautiously walked in. Her critical gaze scanned the room and quickly grasped on to the flustered atmosphere lingering around. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she folded her arms over her chest and scratched her chin.

"Something shady took place here and it's got you two kids all red. And Teacher Larks looks completely ashamed of himself..." The girl started to mutter out loud her hypothesis, causing the kids and Guy to shrivel up further and further.

"No way!" She finally exclaimed, slapping her hand onto her agape mouth in surprise.

"Teacher Larks! You didn't!" She accused in shock.

"I-I didn't what?" Guy stuttered.

"D-Did your trousers fall loose by accident?" The girl shrieked with an undertone of humour in her voice.

"*cough* What?" Guy nearly choked on his saliva as he retorted incredulously. He waved his hands in front of him while wheezing his lungs out, "*cough* Nothing of that sort *cough* happened!"

But Marie wasn't one to believe others so easily. "You two! Tell me everything!" She demanded and squeezed close to Jean.

"B-Big Sis. You shouldn't disrespect Master like that," Markus reminded as he shifted in his seat.

"Pshhht! Teacher Larks doesn't mind that, right?" Marie threw out with a sly grin on her face.

Guy finally caught his breath and retorted with a slightly hoarse throat, "Why are you so late today, Marie?"

Marie's grin was smothered in the cradle upon hearing that question. She wore a bitter expression and answered, "I... *sigh* I think I have a goal towards learning magic-"

Guy raised his eyebrows in surprise, "Really? That's great! So what is it?"

"Before I tell you that... I have a presumptuous request, Teacher Larks."

"As long as it is within my power, and isn't too outrageous, no request is too presumptuous," Guy replied with a lighthearted smile and slight rhythm in his voice.

"I've seen the kind of magic Markus and Jean are practising. It is a lot different from what I've seen other mages their age use. I like it because it makes sense, and I am very much interested in learning it myself. However... I... wish to accept someone else as my Master!"

"Marie!" Markus blurted out with a forceful tone and anger flaring in his eyes. "I've tolerated enough of your nonsense! Apologise to Master, now!"