Chapter 749: Whoa!

"Professor. If a Suspended Edge faces three enemies on the battlefield at the same time, he knocks down one, then another, then another—how many enemies does he have left?"

Silence.

Ke Xia's branch froze in midair.

Heimu's left eyelid twitched.

At first glance this question sounds like elementary arithmetic, but on closer thought its trap is deeply buried: if three have already been knocked down, then the enemies are obviously zero, but if "facing three enemies simultaneously" is the premise, and "knocking down another one" is repeated three times, that means the enemy count changes after each knockout, and after the final knockout—wrong.

The Suspended Edge's dictionary has no word "retreat," but lacking "retreat" does not mean enemies won't be reinforced; if three enemies fall and new ones emerge behind them—wrong, wrong.

Heimu realized she had already begun unconsciously analyzing this logical trap.

She quickly cut off the deduction process in her mind.

Ke Xia's reaction was more intense than Heimu had expected.

His upper body snapped backward dramatically, the angle absurdly extreme, his spine bending backward as if its bones had been pulled out, the hem of his dark coat sweeping to the edge of the blackboard, and his light‑green long hair tied in a low ponytail nearly touching the floor.

He performed a textbook‑level backbend.

Then he sprang back at the same speed, a blaze of scholarly Flame burning in the red‑blue pupil of his right eye.

"Whoa!"

His voice rose to a new pitch, the branch cutting a whistling slash through the air, "Good question! Good question! Student, your question hits the core of Weng Fa Luo Si's ontology! Three enemies, knock down three, how many remain? What's the answer? The answer is Earth Beast!"

He started dancing again, this time only for three seconds, then abruptly stopped and nudged his Eye Mask.

"Why Earth Beast?"

Wan Di's voice remained steady, his expression unchanged.

"Because the Earth Beast has four legs!"

Ke Xia frantically sketched a four‑legged stick‑figure creature on the blackboard, its legs drawn with varying thickness and a twisted posture, looking more like a flattened crab. "Four legs! Subtract three enemies! Equals one leg! Is a one‑legged Earth Beast still an Earth Beast? No! It becomes a one‑legged Earth Beast! And the one‑legged Earth Beast, in Weng Fa Luo Si's taxonomy—"

At that moment, he suddenly stopped.

His whole body froze in front of the blackboard as if a pause button had been pressed, his hands still holding the looping gesture he had just made.

After about two seconds, he tossed the chalk casually over his shoulder and began dancing.

Each limb acted on its own, the upper and lower body executing separate commands, as if every muscle in his body were performing an independent dance.

His waist swayed left and right with incredible flexibility, the light‑green ponytail tracing a chaotic figure‑eight in the air, the two long dark‑cloak ribbons fluttering with the spin and wrapping around his arms; he didn't care at all and kept dancing.

After dancing for roughly a dozen seconds he stopped, expressionless, nudged the Eye Mask over his left eye, bent down to pick up the chalk that had fallen, returned to the podium and cleared his throat.

Then he slammed the blackboard hard, "—belongs to the unclassifiable! Because the Suspended Edge's dictionary has no word 'classification'!"

Heimu's mouth twitched, then she glanced with the corner of her eye at XiaDie's pen, which paused.

The girl lifted her head slightly, her pale‑violet pupils flicking toward the blackboard, then she lowered her head again and kept writing.

The rustle of the pen tip across the paper kept its rhythm unchanged.

Wan Di did not sit down.

He crossed his arms over his chest, the red gem on his arm band flashing in the light.

The red battle markings subtly shifted shape with the rise and fall of his pectorals.

"The Suspended Edge's dictionary has no 'classification',"

He repeated Ke Xia's words, his tone still solemn, "But does the Suspended Edge's dictionary have a 'dictionary'?"

Ke Xia's branch hung in midair.

He tilted his head, the pupil of his right eye slowly dilating from a constricted state, his mouth twitching several times—not because he was stumped, but as a physiological surge of adrenaline after hearing a brilliant question.

He hurled the branch onto the floor; it bounced, spinning three times in the air, and when it landed in his hand it was already in a reverse grip.

"Good! Good! Good!"

He uttered three "good"s in a row, each louder than the last, "Student—what's your name!"

Fine, seems he doesn't even recognize people.

"Maide Mos. Crown Prince of Suspended Edge City." Wan Di's voice was resolute.

"Maide Mos!"

Ke Xia tossed the chalk tip into the air; it traced a parabola and landed precisely in his other hand. "You've posed a question that touches the essence of language! Whether the Suspended Edge's dictionary contains a 'dictionary' is equivalent to asking whether Ao He Ma's bath contains water! The answer is no, because the bath holds the sacred water of the Nereid Spring, not water! Likewise, the Suspended Edge's dictionary has no 'dictionary'! Because the Suspended Edge doesn't use a dictionary at all! The Suspended Edge uses—"

He slammed the chalk tip onto the blackboard, sending up a white cloud of chalk dust, then spun his whole body once, the two long ribbons whipping in the air like propellers.

"The Suspended Edge uses experience! Experience is the Suspended Edge's dictionary! Each battle is a page! Each enemy is an entry! Your three enemies, knocked down three times, give you three entries! Those three entries together form a complete sentence! That sentence is—"

He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding to the limit, then roared, "'I—still—have—how—many—enemies—'—the answer is zero! Because a corpse isn't an enemy! Yet a corpse can count as feed for the Earth Beast!"

Wan Di's eyebrows finally moved.

A flash of warning that could be read as "this line of reasoning is flawed" flickered in his golden eyes, but his expression remained as solemn as a priest in a ritual.

"But the Earth Beast doesn't eat corpses. The Earth Beast eats grass."

"The Earth Beast of Suspended Edge City eats grass! Ao He Ma's Earth Beast also eats grass!"

Ke Xia's right eye bulged, a faint azure glow beneath the Eye Mask flashing, "But—Nika Doli's Earth Beast doesn't eat grass! Nika Doli's Earth Beast eats—eats—eats concrete!"

Heimu buried her face in her hands.

She held that pose for about a dozen seconds.

The icy sensation on her face traveled through the glove into her palm, temporarily suppressing the barrage of thoughts flooding her mind—'Should I leave now or wait for those two unknown entries?'

What nonsense!!!