Chapter 1653: Bruce Wayne and the Philosopher's Stone (Part 4)

After little Bruce left, the atmosphere in the room fell silent for a moment. Schiller cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention back to him. Suddenly, everyone felt a bit nervous, deeply worried that this professor might vent his anger on them.

"Excessive humility will turn you into a lamb in the eyes of the wicked; this is the first lesson you must learn at the Cat Getan Academy of Magic."

Schiller spoke, his tone calm. He said, "In the magical world, pride is not necessarily a bad thing. Here, excessive obedience to authority might get you killed. If you simply submit to those powerful entities, the consequence will be offering up both your body and soul."

Strange, leaning back in his chair, nodded with great reserve, clearly agreeing with Schiller's point of view, but Schiller soon added.

"However, distinguishing between friend and foe is also a very important lesson. You must be clear about who stands with you, and who you intend to stand with. Only by striking hard at your enemies and respecting and cherishing your own kind will all the effort you put into learning knowledge and mastering skills be of value."

Constantine also nodded. He and Zatanna led the applause, and then applause broke out below.

Schiller shook his head and said, "I know this isn't the right occasion for preaching, but among the precautions I want to mention is that it's best to be a little more polite to your teachers and professors, and do not wantonly attack or insult your classmates. Our academy has a punishment mechanism."

When he said this, all the children pricked up their ears. They were indeed impatient with preaching, but they were certainly afraid of punishment.

"We have different punishment measures for different degrees of errors, ranging from community service-style punishments like cleaning the common room, trimming hedges and shrubs, or getting up early to sweep the stone paths and corridors, to major ones like confinement, notifying parents, and suspension or expulsion. You should have heard of these in other schools as well."

The children below all nodded, and then Schiller continued: "Different houses have different house rules. For details, you can ask the prefect of your grade... By the way, have I mentioned it? This academy has a strong prefect system; the prefect is the leader of the grade."

A burst of noisy discussion broke out below. The prefect system as a school structure has been almost abolished in modern schools; at most, there might be a student council president, and some schools don't even elect class monitors anymore.

But this is not without reason. Excessive decentralization of power can lead to overly distinct student hierarchies, and many children at this age do not know how to use power correctly. Once a child has too much power in their hands, it is easy to form cliques and engage in school bullying. Therefore, many schools in Europe and America, especially in the lower grades, do not elect class officers at all.

But the situation at the Academy of Magic is special. Children must learn how to use power and how to face authority earlier. Simply put, if you can't even handle a prefect, do you still want to deal with angels and demons?

The purpose of ordinary public education is to ensure fairness as much as possible, but the purpose of the Cat Getan Academy of Magic is precisely to let students understand the dangers of the magical world in advance. Therefore, a certain degree of oppression is necessary. Flowers in a greenhouse and living Buddhas without a temper will only hand over the school's cultivation of them to those powerful entities.

Schiller scanned the students below again. This group of children was younger, generally only eight or nine years old, each looking like a frightened quail. Schiller's gaze paused on Barry Allen's face, and then he continued to speak.

"You are younger, so you will act as a separate grade. Next, you can write down the house you choose on paper. After the houses are divided, we will select the prefect for your grade."

"This is why I said it's best for you to hold a certain degree of respect for the deans and professors. There are many things that only we know. We have no intention of oppressing students, so if you don't humbly ask for advice, we have no opinion, but no one will make up for what you missed due to backwardness and ignorance."

After speaking, Schiller smiled, stood up with the other professors, and began to distribute slips of paper to the students.

The younger students took the slips and wrote while whispering to their companions. Most of them were gloating. What little Bruce said just now about "poor ghosts" and the like wasn't just scolding Barry alone; even children from wealthy families looked down on his attitude that he was the only rich person in the world.

Now it was good; he left early, and when the houses were divided and the prefect was selected, he wouldn't have a share. And a major feature of the strong prefect system is that the prefect has power over all other students, almost ruling an entire grade. It seems that the annoying blue-eyed boy will only be able to keep his tail between his legs from now on.

The students thought so and wrote down their slips one after another. Because they enrolled late, they had a certain understanding of the reputation of each house. Even if they hadn't experienced it, they all chose the house that matched their interests and hobbies.

Barry Allen finally chose Rodriguez House. It wasn't that he really followed the advice or couldn't swallow that breath, but that he was really still quite interested in magical theory.

He had liked reading novels with magical themes since he was a child, and had also fantasized about becoming an omnipotent mage in a novel, but the point of magic he liked was the strange and eccentric requirements of magic. As for actually wielding a wand and fighting others, he was not so interested.

After the house sorting was completed, the deans led the students to their respective dean's offices. Schiller's office was located in the highest of the floating spires of Rodriguez House, on the same floor as the student dormitories and the common room. However, because there were too few students in the academy at present, the student dormitories in that spire were still unoccupied, so there was only one dean's office on that entire floor.

When he led the students to the front of the academy, Kane took the initiative to step forward and began to introduce the facilities in the academy to the freshmen. Kane was a senior prefect, and being able to win the election among a group of children from big families showed that he had certain abilities, so the introduction was detailed and interesting.

"You must look carefully at the steps under your feet, but not because you will step on air. These floating steps look dangerous, but in fact, wind and levitation runes are carved under each step. Even if you fall, you will be blown back up. It's just a bit scary."

"I believe you have already seen that there are runes on the front of the steps. These runes change every day. The runes displayed every day are the runes taught in the professor's classroom of this academy, but they will record some interesting little stories and short sentences that the professor won't talk about in class."

"If you look down at it while walking, you can both review knowledge and focus on your feet, instead of messing around on the stairs and falling off."

The students began to nod, and Kane smiled and said: "I have no intention of speaking ill of people behind their backs, but Miss Harley Quinzell, the senior who took that blue-eyed student away earlier, has fallen off once before. The funny thing is, she falls off three times a week on average, as if she can never remember to look down at the road."

The children all laughed, and Kane shook his head and said: "So don't expect her to introduce these things like I do. I just hope that the gentleman from the Wayne family can rely on his intelligence and wealth to avoid disaster and not really take a tumble."

"Lei Fa." Schiller called Kane's name, turned his head to look at him, and said: "You have a lot to say today. I hope you can be just as fluent when we review assignments later."

Kane smiled embarrassedly, ran quickly behind Schiller, and then waved to the people behind him, saying: "Hurry up, gentlemen and ladies, we have to have dinner after finishing the precautions."

Schiller led them to the dean's office on the top floor. It was also spacious and bright, overall semicircular, with an arc-shaped floor-to-ceiling window as large as half a spire. The floor was a bright and clean marble floor. The second floor was open, and the walls above the second floor were all densely packed with bookshelves.

On the first floor, there was a reception area with soft carpets and sofas, a desk and office chair also with bookshelves, stairs leading to the second floor, and some sculptures shimmering with magical luster.

"This astral sculpture is a gift from Constantine to our dean, and this moving painting is a congratulatory gift from Master of the Dark Night Jim... Look at that shredder, that's a gift from Professor Schiller's excellent graduate to him."

"Don't underestimate that shredder. Besides shredding your papers, it can also shred you yourself, so you'd better hand in some papers that aren't so unsightly, otherwise..."

Kane deliberately made a face to scare the lower-grade students. Miss Spencer rolled her eyes, smoothed her hair, and said: "Don't listen to him. Although Professor Schiller looks serious and has strict requirements for academics, he is very good to students."

"For example, we can knock on his office door at any time, and just ask if we have any questions. He also occasionally comes to the common room to visit us, and almost doesn't care about the small mistakes we make in life, but the premise is that you hand in your homework on time."

"Do we have a lot of homework?" one student asked.

"I won't leave a lot of homework." Schiller walked to the desk, turned back to look at the students, and said: "I value the quality of the homework more, so you can complete it according to the specified word count. Even if you put in the greatest energy, including searching for information, the time to complete the homework will not exceed two hours."

"Alright, come over, children. Next, I want to explain the precautions of this academy to you. If you don't listen carefully, your seniors won't repeat them to you again, because these are all very basic rules."

The students walked to the reception area. Under Schiller's signal, they sat down in twos and threes on the sofas and the carpet nearby. The seniors very consciously gave up their seats to the freshmen, mostly standing behind the sofas or leaning against the bookshelves.

Kane went to light the fireplace nearby, and then brought some tea and biscuits. Barry felt a little hungry, but he didn't dare to take them. Miss Spencer took the initiative to pick up the plate of biscuits and distribute them to the freshmen.

"Don't be so restrained. We often hold afternoon tea parties and book clubs in the common room like this at two or three in the afternoon. You can also come to participate when the time comes, and you can learn a lot." Miss Spencer handed a cup of tea to Barry Allen, and then went to greet the students behind him.

Holding the cup that was emitting a slight heat, Barry felt a little better, and the tension in his heart dissipated. He took a bite of the biscuit and found that it should have just been baked in the fireplace, exceptionally crispy, filled with the fragrance of butter and cheese.

With food in his stomach, he was not panicked. After eating and drinking for a while, the students obviously relaxed, gathering in twos and threes to communicate. But everyone had just met and had no past to share, so most people were talking about the arrogant blue-eyed boy from before.

After a while, Schiller walked down from the second floor, holding some school uniforms in his hand. Kane hurried up to take them.

At this time, the students found that Schiller had put on a rather formal mage robe. Although it was still black, it was a bit more gorgeous and elegant than a serious and formal black suit. ===== CHAPTER 1654 =====