Instructor Luna calmly said, "If we were in the cursed land, all of you would be dead by now."
Everyone looked up at her in fear; none dared to counter her.
She calmly said, "Let me make one thing clear. From this moment until you leave the academy, you will address all your teachers as 'Instructor' or 'Hex Master.' Am I clear?"
Everyone shouted in unison, "Yes, Instructor!"
She looked around the room and asked, "All those who survived the Ancient Curse Land, stand up."
The first to stand were Samuel and Liam, and then one after another, others also stood up.
Zayn also got up. With one glance, he noticed that five were from the human section, three from the elf side, one from the dwarves' side, and the last three were from other species.
Zayn frowned at this.
Xane asked him, [What happened? Did the number not match?]
Instructor Luna waved her hand. "You guys can sit down now."
Xane asked in confusion, [What the hell? Why did she even call them out in the first place?]
Zayn sighed,
At Zayn's mention, Xane noticed that everyone sitting around him was suddenly looking at him like he was some sort of rare creature.
Not caring about the mess, Instructor Luna just smiled and said, "Well, let's start with the basics."
She tapped on the podium and said, "So, all creatures in the living world are born with a certain amount of soul essence. This soul essence is fixed from birth and determines your potential."
"The higher your soul essence, the greater your potential. Any problem understanding this?"
Everyone shook their heads.
Instructor Luna nodded. "To become a Hex Master, the second requirement is to have a cursed mark on your body. On average, about one in ten children is born with these curse marks."
She pointed to the elves. "Though there are exceptions, like the elves, where about three in ten children are born with this cursed mark."
Even though Instructor Luna stated it calmly, Xane noticed that the elves looked kind of agitated.
Not caring about them, Instructor Luna continued, "Before moving forward, let's discuss the curse marks for a moment. Who can tell me how many curse marks there are?"
A dwarf stood up from the front row and said, "Instructor, there are ten curse symbols, each corresponding to the ten cursed lands."
Instructor Luna asked, "What do you mean by ten cursed lands?"
The dwarf thought for some time and said, "Instructor, it's related to different types of Nythra present in each of the cursed lands."
She shook her head and looked at everyone. "And why do you think there are different kinds of Nythra present in the cursed world? If you look at the living world, even though there are different species, everyone has the same soul essence. We never say that someone has human essence or elf essence."
Xane asked, [Didn't the novel explain this?]
Zayn shook his head,
Xane mentally nodded, but then froze. [What the hell? What do you mean by cheat system?]
Zayn sighed,
Xane watched as one after another, everyone shared their thoughts, only for the Instructor to shake her head. He decided to interrogate Zayn later, as the class seemed much more important for their future.
Instructor Luna shook her head at an elf girl and then motioned for her to sit down. "Now that you're all Hex Masters, you should understand the possible origin of your powers. Just for the sake of explanation, think of the world of Vareth as some ancient battleground."
Everyone nodded their heads. "Okay, Instructor."
Instructor Luna said, "Each cursed land corresponds to a different world-ending battle that happened at different times on the same battlefield, which is the cursed world of Verath."
"In each of those battles, the obsession of all the creatures before their deaths transformed into cursed energy known as Nythra. Not only that, the type of power they used in those wars gives different properties to that Nythra."
One elf girl asked, "Instructor, what do you mean by different kinds of power? Don't they use hex arts like us?"
Instructor Luna shook her head. "Nope. We don't fully understand how their power worked, but we are sure they used some kind of different energy source."
"There was a war in the distant past between creatures who controlled fire and earth. The aftermath of that war formed the Cursed Land of Explosive Volcanoes."
"Then, at another time in a different part of the cursed world, another war took place—this time between creatures who controlled frost and ice. That war formed the Cursed Land of Icy Deserts, and so on."
Zayn nodded.
Xane mentally nodded. [Yeah.]
At this point, someone from the Zenair family stood up and asked, "Instructor, do we know why these wars happened?"
Instructor Luna shook her head. "There's no definite answer. Some Hex Masters are researching this, but each of them has their own theories. You can purchase books about these topics using reward points through your ID for more information."
At the mention of reward points, Zayn noticed different reactions. While the people around him groaned, those sitting in the first three rows nodded like they had a good use for their leftover points.
Instructor Luna clapped her hands and said, "Now, back to curse marks and the ten cursed lands. Like I explained, all these cursed lands are the leftovers of the ancient battles that took place between foreign creatures."
"When we say 'ten cursed lands,' we specifically mean the core points where each of those ten wars took place."
"The cursed world is massive, larger than the living world. In that world, there are ten areas where you'll find only one type of Nythra.
"For some reason, every creature with a curse mark gets teleported to only one of these ten zones. Now I told you all this so you can understand why Hex master could only use one type of Nythra to form their hex core."
Xane snapped, [F*ck, this is too much.]
Zayn nodded to Xane, as he shared the same feeling.