Enigma of Sin

Kayn looked at the name with curiosity, if he remembered correctly, both Clara Whiteclaw and Director Vix referred to her daughter at Maria. He assumed that Marianne must be her full name and she went by Maria as her nickname.

Honestly, she was the perfect candidate in his mind and he had no problems with having her as his assistant, but he did want to interview her to ask her about her intentions.

No matter what her father might have done or what her brother had done, that doesn't reflect on the individual herself. He had always been of the mind that the sins of the parent don't belong to the children and vice versa.

Kayn then called Director Vix to set up a time to talk with Marianne, as he decided to call her that until she gave permission for him to use her shortened name. She was the same age as Kayn, but he was supposed to be acting like an aged professor, so talking to students informally didn't sit well with him.

As today was a lecture day, Kayn was told that he could expect Marianne to show up the next day in the morning at his lecture room.

Thus, the next day Kayn arrived at his lecture room to wait just before the first bell of the day went off. To his surprise, there was someone already waiting outside of his room as they couldn't enter in due to the room being locked.

It was a young woman with straight white hair, shimmering blue eyes, and fluffy white cat ears along with a tail. "My apologies if I made you wait long Miss Whiteclaw, let's head inside to talk."

Marianne was slightly astonished at how young Kayn looked even though she had heard from her Mother and Director Vix about it. Nodding her head to Kayn's statement though, she followed him inside and further into the small office attached to the lecture room.

Once they sat down, Kayn introduced himself before beginning his questions. "I'm Professor Ashan, it's nice to meet you, Miss Whiteclaw. To be honest I was a little surprised to see your application among the ones for my assistant position as I'm a new professor and you are a well-established fourth year student, a Prime student at that."

However, before Kayn could continue on to ask his first question, he felt a sudden tug on his mana indicating that someone was trying to contact him, and shortly after he was alerted to it being the headmaster himself.

"I apologize Miss Whiteclaw, but the headmaster is calling me. I'll be back in just a moment."

Marianne hadn't said a word yet, and once again she only nodded as she watched Kayn exit the office and shut the door to take the call in private. Just after Kayn closed the door though, she started to receive a call of her own.

…

"Hello Headmaster Alman, I apologize for not answering sooner, I just sat down to interview a potential student assistant."

"In that case, I apologize for interrupting you Professor Ashan. I just wanted to inform you of the results of our investigation and the resolution thus far." Headmaster Alman's voice echoed out.

"The one who hired the assassins was already discovered? That was faster than expected." Kayn mumbled, but it was still loud enough for the headmaster to hear him.

"Of course! We take threats to our faculty very seriously Professor. Unfortunately, the full resolution and punishment will not be up to us as we don't have full authority over the culprit. As you may have suspected, the culprit was related to the Whiteclaw family.

"Specifically, it was a butler of Whiteclaw family that stated he was hired by his master, Royal Healer Whiteclaw's husband. As her title makes him a Baron, the conclusion of this investigation will be taken over by the disciplinary department of the royal family.

"The contract for your life has been cancelled and as far as the academy is concerned, this matter is dealt with. You'll be allowed to stay in your current home with no changes aside from the security on you being lessened. We're only doing this because of how the Black Hand Society works, they probably took a large sum to cancel the contract and they don't go back on their words.

"As far as seeking out the resolution for Baron Whiteclaw or compensation for your troubles, we can help you get into contact with the Whiteclaw family. If I was in your position though, I would just let the events play out while trying to not draw further attention to myself.

"I know your time is valuable, so that is all I would like to say. Director Vix will be updated about the situation as well, if you have any questions, feel free to contact myself or her."

After finishing his lengthy update, and seeing as how Kayn didn't say anything else, it was time for him to get back to work. "I won't take up anymore of your time Professor Ashan. Once again, I apologize for interrupting your interview."

"Thank you, Headmaster, I appreciate the update and advice. I will keep it in mind." Kayn replied before he hung up and entered back into his office where Marianne was still waiting.

Kayn's brows raised as little as he noticed that her face was pale as a sheet, as if all of the blood had been drained from her.

"I apologize for the interruption Miss Whiteclaw," Kayn said as he took his seat once more. "Now, what I was about to ask was why you had applied to my assistant position?"

Marianne quickly regained her composure and Professor Ashan didn't seem to care or mention anything about what her father had done and didn't seem intent on taking his anger out on her.

"Just Maria is fine please Professor. As for why I applied to become your assistant, I would like to learn from you. I heard a lot about your achievements from my Mother. I also heard that you are capable of using the light element offensively against non-undead as well. I believe that I can provide you with anything you need as your assistant and that I can learn much from you since you also teach healing in regards to every element."

"Is that so? And what makes you think that I will be able to teach you better than the professors that you are already acquainted with?" Kayn asked.

"We have the same elemental affinities and according to Directory Vix, you have a breadth of knowledge regarding different elements and the healing arts. I believe that you'll be able to teach me much about healing using both water and light. I won't lie to you by telling you that I don't have other opportunities, I just have a feeling that I have more to gain by being under your tutelage.

"I will attend your lessons to help with lessons as you require or if you need my help during a demonstration. I can also help to answer questions students may have over the general topics so that you can answer the more in-depth questions students may have after class."

Maria carried a stoic expression while she spoke, almost as if she didn't have emotions. However, Kayn knew that wasn't the case after he saw her pale face when he came back into the office. He was also inwardly impressed that she was able to regain her composure so quickly.

While some may say that she is shameless for still asking for Kayn's knowledge when her father tried to kill him, or that Kayn is a pushover for entertaining the idea of having her as his assistant, he didn't care. What mattered to him was the individual and their dedication to learning and improving the field of medicine and healing.

Kayn had remained silent in his thoughts for a little too long as he could see that Maria was about to say something else, but he interrupted her with his hand.

"I understand. If I'm honest with you as well Miss Maria, I was already planning on hiring you as my assistant. Your accomplishments speak for themselves and speak volumes of your character. I also know what you might be worried about, but rest assured that there is no need to worry.

"As for the assistant position, you will be provided with contribution points in accordance with the normal Prime student contract as well as any additional I deem fit to assign you in accord with any effort I see from you that goes above and beyond.

"Will you accept? If so, we can discuss what your role will be and when you have time to meet with me to receive your personal lessons."

Maria sighed in relief hearing Kayn say that she didn't need to worry about her father's matter, albeit somewhat indirectly. She was also ecstatic that he thought so highly of her before even meeting her.

"I would be honored to accept your student assistant position Professor Ashan. Also, please, just Maria is fine. As far as the contribution points go, I also agree with the standard contract terms as I'm mostly interested in learning from you.

"As for when I'm able to meet, my classes are in the afternoon every day. Which means I will be able to attend your lessons to help you, and we could meet on the opposite days depending on how often you are willing to instruct me."

Kayn held out his hand for her to shake, seemingly wanting to solidify their partnership. After they finished a quick handshake, Kayn smiled brightly. "Great! How about little test of your knowledge then to see where I need to start?"

Kayn's smile looked a bit deceptive in Maria's mind, but she still agreed as she was curious what Kayn was going to ask her about.

"Is a higher tiered spell always better?" Kayn asked and Maria couldn't help but think it was a trick question. Of course it wasn't always better, but surely in a situation where one could use several lower tier spells or a higher tier spell to solve the same problem, the high tier spell would be better.

"I guess that depends on the situation Professor. If someone has a simple laceration, a lower tier 1 light spell would suit the situation just fine, even if a high tier spell could perform the process faster.

"On the other hand, I don't see a reason why a higher tier spell shouldn't be used on a more serious matter if multiple lower tier spells would be required as the efficiency of mana and time use would be poor." Maria answered as she was quite confident in her answer, and she wasn't wrong if one thought with singular elements in mind.

"While what you said is correct, it's also not entirely accurate. What if I tell you that with a quarter of the mana use and the same amount of time, I can use two tier 1 spells one after the other to heal someone just as well if not better than using a single tier 3 spell?"

"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand how that is possible Professor." Maria replied with a frown, finally showing a bit of emotion as she didn't think her knowledge base was that shallow and was determined to study more.

"That's okay, Maria, I didn't expect you to. This is the reason why I allowed mages of any element to attend my class. Every element is good at something and when combined properly, they can achieve remarkable results. In my example, I used our elements as a base. If I cast a tier 1 light spell to heal a tissue, and then right after a tier 1 water healing spell, what do you think would happen?"

After sitting in silent thought for a couple of moments, Kayn watched as a light bulb seemed to light up in Maria's eyes.

"You would be using the water element to push blood and nutrients towards the injured tissue to help enhance the healing effect of the light spell, thus boosting the power by combining the effects of the two elements! Why did I never think of that? Why don't professors teach this already?

"This could allow rural villages with only a stage 1 or stage 2 healer to expand their services by several fold if they are dual elemental or if they have an assistant of another element!"

Kayn chuckled a bit as he watched her begin to rattle off her thoughts after she came to the right conclusion. Kayn wasn't exactly surprised that she had figured it out, and in fact he was happy to have found an assistant that was able to think outside the box.

"You see Maria, the problem with today's healers is that they don't strive to think outside the box and improve the process. They would rather take knowledge in one ear and spit it out the other rather than pioneering a new field, no offense to the other professors here or Royal Healer Whiteclaw.

"I just haven't seen many within the field that try to pioneer their own path and would rather walk one already tread. Knowing my thoughts on this now, do you still wish to become my assistant?"

Kayn was curious whether she would feel insulted by his words or not, but astonishingly she immediately lit up with a bright smile as if she wanted to dig through Kayn's head.

"Of course I do, Professor. Just your one simple example has shown me how shallow my practical knowledge of healing is. I wish to know more about how to best utilize my combination of elements to enhance my spells.

"I don't believe my Mother would be disappointed in my choice either, as she always told me to explore beyond what I think is possible. She would also probably agree with you about the current state of the field of healing or medicine as you called it. She has always complained that everyone sticks to the same old processes and lamented that she only has a light affinity to work with."

Kayn realized he had a slip of the tongue when he talked about the field of medicine, as medicine in this world most commonly referred to pills and potions created by alchemists.

"In that case, how about we take this morning as your first lesson and also talk about the lesson plans for this semester and what role you will play?" Kayn spoke as he had today free anyway.

Maria quickly agreed, and she spent the rest of the morning before the lunch hour being questioned and taught simultaneously. They discussed how she would help during lessons and how he could better utilize her during his lessons so that she didn't feel like she was wasting her time during the standard parts of Kayn's lessons.

After finishing their discussion and agreeing that she would start the next day, Kayn saw her off before deciding to eat lunch and feed Lara. Now that his movements weren't going to be restricted as he wasn't going to be followed everywhere, he could finally explore campus more in depth.