Devourer Of Destiny - Chapter 133

It wasn’t until two days later that Dirge had another individual visit his new office. It wasn’t a student with an issue or an administrative flunky looking to check in on him.

It was another teacher.

The teacher was there when Dirge arrived at his office in the morning, waiting in front of the office door. Her appearance was that of a woman at that cusp right before middle age, and she was dressed modestly, her blonde hair done up in a standard bun. As a late-stage Foundation Building cultivator, she had to be clearly aware of the limitations of cosmetics in maintaining her youthfulness, and yet the touch of some foundation to even out aging skin and sooty darkening agents in her eyelashes were right there.

Dirge could already guess the woman’s purpose here, seeing that. Yet still, there was a wonderful dance to step along to.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” Dirge asked the woman.

The woman gave a muffled grunt as though struck. “Are you Miss Sable?” she asked in a high pitched and somewhat nasal tone.

Dirge quirked the corners of his lips in a small smile. “That I am. You’re a bit old to be a student, so I imagine you’re here on other business. Can I get to my door, please? We can have a chat inside.”

There was a flash of something in the woman’s eyes for a moment, but it seemed she was quick enough on the draw to understand that making a scene in the hallway wasn’t an optimal condition. She stepped back with a small nod ever as a disapproving frown twisted her lips.

Dirge swiped his token and unlocked the door and entered first, only letting go of the door once his visitor had laid a hand on it. It wasn’t precisely cordial, but it wasn’t enough of an openly hostile gesture to justify anything in itself. The interior of the office was much the same as it had been the prior two days, with only the office chair and desk as furniture. The spiderweb cracks on the wall had already been mended, however; the groundskeepers were apparently quite diligent and close-mouthed, as it had been repaired when he had entered the day before.

Not showing any signs of rushing, Dirge took his seat while the woman closed the office door behind her and then scowled at him in silence.

“So,” Dirge began, “what can I help you with today, Missus–?”

“Miss Maple,” the woman replied with a great emphasis on the first word. “Your lack of common courtesy and decency is an affront to the profession. Not even having a chair for visitors, hmph!”

Dirge smirked. “I’m currently having new furnishings seen to, Miss Maple. There was a slight mishap with the old chair. Although I might stick with not having another chair at all; having to keep standing can keep people more alert and attentive, I’ve found. But I don’t think you’re here to discuss my manners, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” Miss Maple agreed. “You’re going to allow me to take young Theo on as a student. I’ll be able to provide a much better environment for him than this.” She sniffed loudly, her nose decidedly pointed in the air.

Dirge broke into a gale of laughter. It was as he suspected, but it was still entirely too precious!

Miss Maple’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “There’s nothing funny about this, Miss Sable. You’re the greenest of green rookies here and I outrank you. You will hand the boy over to me.”

Dirge’s laughter finally tapered off after a moment more, still long enough to really sharpen his guest’s edge. “Ah, yes, I admit I am quite new at this school. As a junior, I will have to ask my senior for assistance with finding the section of the rules that supports your right to make such a claim.”

“It’s not a matter of the rules, my dear, it’s about the Celestial Ascendance Academy’s customs and hierarchy,” Miss Maple replied, sneering.

Dirge shook his head and sighed. “You are perfectly capable of asking Theo to take you as his teacher, Miss Maple. If he decides to make a switch, there’s nothing I can or would do about it.”

“I already asked him, you cheap slut!” Miss Maple replied, finally exploding. “As you seem to be abundantly aware, he’s enthralled with how you show off your pair of–”

“Eyes,” Dirge cut in. “Yes, I’m told they’re quite striking in the right lighting. You know, I wasn’t expecting this kind of shaming from a woman who, despite knowing better, still cakes on concealer to hide the inevitable wrinkles that are cropping up. You know, if you put more effort into your cultivation instead of, oh, sniping students who catch your fancy, you wouldn’t have that problem.”

Eyes bulging, Miss Maple pointed a pink-lacquered finger at Dirge. “You! You! You!” She could only manage a barely coherent sputtering as he struck her right in the bullseye.

“Ah,” Dirge continued, “of course it’s probably tough to get the resources to make your advancement when your merits aren’t high enough, am I right Miss Maple? Having to resort to the honey trap when your caliber as a teacher isn’t up to snuff, eh?”

Miss Maple huffed for a moment and took a few deep breaths to restore her calm. “I will not be lectured about decorum by a woman who wears dresses that threaten to let everything fall out at an errant breath,” she almost growled as she still worked to contain her indignance.

“What, you mean there’s a dress code I’m violating here?” Dirge replied with mock outrage. “That’s certainly news to me. Why, that’s another section of the rules you should point out to me so I can make sure to make the necessary corrections.”

“Listen, wench,” Miss Maple snarled as her control slipped a bit more. “I’ve been here for forty years, and–”

“You haven’t gotten any farther than you are?” Dirge interjected facetiously. “No wonder you are having the problems you do, Miss Maple. That’s not to mention your almost complete lack of self-control, either. That you ever made it out of the Remedial Institute is, frankly, a miracle.”

“The miracle will be if you’ll make it out once I’m finished with you, Sable!” Miss Maple retorted.

It wasn’t wholly fair to blame Miss Maple for her lack of self-control, of course; Dirge’s spiritual sense was mostly sealed, but the subtle manipulation of mortals was still comfortably within his capability. He had been able to inflame a Divine Realm expert like the warden of the Lighteater Abyssal Crevice; a little Foundation Building expert was nothing. Still, the woman was perhaps the easiest subject he’d had since River. The more inclined to such outbursts a person was, the less work he had to do to make it explode.

Dirge again shook his head at the woman, though. “Finished with me?” he asked coolly. “If you had the kind of connections you’re implying, my dear,” and he emphasized those last two words heavily, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. You’re a bag of bluster, ma’am. You can’t touch me, you can only blow wind in my face.”

“Blow wind? I’ll show you some wind blowing!” Miss Maple’s cultivation base began to rotate as she tried to exert its pressure on her opponent.

Dirge crushed that attempt with a quick flaring of his own cultivation base. “Care to try again?”

“You’re… peak Foundation Building? I-in the Remedial Institute?” The gap in their cultivation wasn’t large, and yet it was a gulf that Miss Maple hadn’t been able to bridge yet in her lifetime, that final consolidation of the Foundation such that a stable Palace could be formed atop it. “Miss Sable” was clearly much younger than her, and yet her cultivation base was already so advanced!

“If you’ll kindly drop the matter of Theo, I won’t bring up what you just tried, Miss Maple.” Dirge didn’t bother answering the other teacher directly; she clearly knew of the gap between them now.

The import of what she had just attempted came crashing down on Miss Maple. Teachers were supposed to persuade, to lead, to guide; they weren’t supposed to use brute force, and certainly not on another member of the faculty. She stood there numbly, trapped knowing that she was at her opponent’s mercy. Her standing would count for nothing if Dirge decided to press the matter with the administration and supplied testimony under oath.

“I think what you need to do right now, Miss Maple, is go home and wash your face, put on something that feels nice, and think long and hard about your priorities,” Dirge continued, offering some candid advice. “Clawing for resources at your age and level of development isn’t going to get you the advancement you desire. That final step is about you, not about clawing for every drop of medicine.”

Miss Maple’s face didn’t twitch or respond to the age comment this time, as she instead just stood there listlessly. “I’ll be going now, Sable,” she announced in an unspirited monotone.

“Suit yourself,” Dirge replied. “We can both pretend this never happened, then.”

Miss Maple nodded at that before she turned and exited the office without another word.

Meanwhile, Dirge had a spark of an idea light up following that conversation. Miss Maple highlighted a serious concern he had with the entire system here in the school: the teachers themselves were often barely more competent than their students, and they only handled the job to try and milk the Academy for more resources and for access to their library.

As Miss Maple had said, she had been teaching for forty years and was still an instructor at the bottom tier of the Academy’s Spire; Dirge didn’t want to spend more than a fraction of that much time reaching the top of the entire school. And for that, he needed an unconventional strategy.

Dirge had absolutely no intention of helping out Miss Maple herself any further; whether she took his words to heart or not was her own problem. However, what if he started teaching the teachers as well?

There were two primary metrics of merit inside the Academy for its faculty: enrollment and feats. The former was the collection of students that called a teacher theirs. The latter was specific keystone accomplishments the teacher and student together achieved.

Right now, after picking up Theo, Dirge’s enrollment was limited to Theo, who had yet to officially step into Meridian Circulation, and his feat was in breaking that Earth Realm bottleneck. That was extremely minor in the big picture, although continuing to develop someone in Theo’s state was apparently attractive enough that Miss Maple came along and attempted to poach him.

Based on the enrollment and the reported and verified feats, merit points would be assigned to the teacher. These points could be exchanged for cultivation resources and manuals, and a sufficient number was required to outright “purchase” advancement to the next tier of the Spire.

Dirge’s unconventional idea, then, wasn’t to try and directly take on the other teachers himself; there was no provision for that and he couldn’t enroll them or report any feats for them. However, what he could do is accept merit points in transactions.

It would take some careful planning and building of his reputation, but if Dirge could farm the other teachers effectively, he might hit a gold mine of merit points that would skyrocket him upwards. As he climbed higher he could increase the rate of his ascent and avoid a stall; his broad knowledge base and personal experience of cultivation were, after all, unsurpassed inside the school. It would be a rare individual here that he couldn’t help with something.

He would still carry up some “gold star” students like Theo, of course. The requirements for the higher tiers required a certain enrollment quantity and quality in addition to the merit points, and the teachers couldn’t trade him that.

Uninterrupted by any further visits, Dirge spent the rest of his office time formulating a revised plan for his development as a legendary teacher. Some details would require ironing out, but it showed a lot of promise.