I'm A Great Villain So The Author Hates Me

Chapter 17 - First Day of Class (2)

George Woodson watched in amusement as the students in his class glared at him after he issued the challenge for them to cross the mana barrier.

He was currently taking a break from being an active hero work to spend more time with his wife and newborn child so he had taken the position of a Professor at First High Magic Academy. Since he was a hero of relatively high rank, he was assigned to the first years. Specifically Class 1A, a class full of potential ticking time bombs and volatile personalities.

The school board of First High Magic Academy wanted to try an experiment to increase the number of quality graduates who became heroes. The number of dungeons was increasing rapidly and if they could not produce more high-ranking heroes to battle them, humanity could eventually be overrun like some parts of the world.

Previously, classes had strictly been separated by ranks grouping strong students with each other while dumping the weaker students in other classes. While the extremely strong students continued to excel, middle-ranked students and lower-ranked ones tended to fail out due to the hopeless nature of trying and failing to rise in rank. There was also a lack of camaraderie and when students graduated, they looked down and could not get along with those who they perceived was below them. To make it worse, a severe divide formed between white-rank students and black-ranked students which had brought on the toxic culture of today where white-ranked students expected black-ranked ones to lower their heads as soon as they saw them.

To help balance things out, the board had decided to mix the ranks in class this year. They were hoping that the lower-ranked students would motivate the middle and higher-ranked students to do better and strive harder when they could directly compare themselves to 'weaklings'. This was the recommendation of Helen Lionheart, the dean of the school.

Although he agreed, that the graduation rate and quality of students needed to be raised, he didn't agree with using the lesser ranked students as whetstones and comparisons for the upper ranked ones to feel better about themselves. Unfortunately, even if he disagreed, he was not the dean so there was nothing he could do. He was given his orders, and he had to follow instructions.

As a result, he became the instructor for Class 1A, which ended up with the top 3 ranked students with impressive backgrounds and some other children from the 10 families. Lionel Lionheart. Solomon Nova. Evelynn Isolde. Lina Meraki. Cassandra Mirage. Five children from the 10 great clans were placed in his class and the biggest troublemaker of them all, Evelynn Isolde was here. Thankfully, the other equally big troublemaker was in another class, so he only had to deal with one volatile student. Surprisingly, he also ended up with the student with the lowest rank as well, a shameful 1000 place entry.

He couldn't help but curiously examine the boy. He was of average height and had a slight build. Black hair messily hung over a handsome but young-looking face and his most unique quality, the two golden eyes looked over everyone in the class with boredom. His co-professor, Professor Rebecca Lee had warned him ahead of time not to take the student at face value but had provided no details and he wondered what was so special about him. From the glance he had taken at his files, there was nothing particularly special about him apart from the fact that he could confidently talk to Evelynn Isolde and even mock her openly.

Thud!

As George watched another student slam head-first into the mana barrier, he decided to give the class a little incentive.

"How about I give you guys a little bonus? Whoever crosses the barrier first will get to collect an extra weapon of their choice. To make it fair, we'll start from the lowest-ranked student and work our way up. Student with the gold eyes, why don't you start us off?" George pointed looked at the student who looked as if he were about to fall asleep.