I stared at the boring gray ceiling standing above me, listening carefully to every creak in the distance. I was already used to taking in every single detail within every single second, and by now, this was normal routine.

Of course, it was still boring. With nothing else to do, I raised my head from my bed and stretched my back out of habit, then jumped off my bed.

Oh man. Another sleepless night.

Probably because I didn’t need sleep, since I am an Archlich, the strongest undead to ever (un)live! Then again, I could pretend that I was sleeping if I wanted to.

I did a bit more stretching, then went straight for the door. Opening it, I was greeted with the sight of a little girl draped in a white dress carrying a pile of books right outside of my room. Inez, a priestess of a religion which revered a goddess I had inadvertently created, was made a college assistant since she wasn’t allowed to become a student of magic.

Assistant to who?

Assistant to ME, of course! Professor Boss, Advanced Magic Lecturer. A sorcerer by the name of Yomi had brought me to this sorcerer city-state called Cahalot to have me teach students magic and in exchange, she would show me necromancy.

Obviously I didn’t need to learn necromancy from her, but I was interested in the field of necromancy after a thousand years of being stuck under a rock. What sort of new thingymajigs have my fellow necromancers made and how disappointed should I be?

Ooooh, so exciting!

“Good morning, Boss! Here are the books you asked for,” Inez greeted as she passed the books to me. I took a quick glance, then passed it back to her. The books were heavy so I decided to let my slave… I mean… assistant do the heavy burden.

A hooded lady standing by the doorway clicked her tongue then took the books off the priestess. “Boss, at least think of the poor girl.”

“No, no. This is fine, Miss Maven. Thank you for your concern, though,” Inez exclaimed as she tried to take the books back. In the end, Inez couldn’t take them back since Maven was too strong for her.

“Maven, you have foolishly forgot your place,” I declared.

“What are you talking about, Boss?” Maven sighed.

“You… should call me PROFESSOR Boss!” I asserted, pushing my chest forward while keeping one hand behind my back. I tried raise my head as much as I could, so that I could have a condescending look on this foolish woman.

“Really? Then, no dinner for you,” Maven huffed.

“N-no, I mean… aha! You look lovely today, Maven! Please don’t take my food away!” I begged as I threw my whole body down onto the floor to latch onto Maven’s leg, fearing that she would run away if I let her go.

“That’s what I thought. Come, Little Inez. Let’s head for the classroom,” Maven said as she started walking after kicking me off.

I followed behind the two as I grumbled under my breathe. Despite her defiance, Maven was actually my longest time companion. In other words, she was also an undead. She was one of the many hundreds of undead that decided to lock themselves with me after I resolved myself into seclusion under a rock. After a thousand years of being together, this was normal.

But still! My dinner… how dare she threatened my food! I need food!

No, wait, I don’t. I’m an undead…

Before I realized it, I reached my classroom. Maven shoved the books back to me which I promptly dumped back to Inez.

I jumped into the classroom before Maven could reprimand me since my companions were only guests, but not teachers in Cahalot, thus they were not allowed inside classrooms. The classroom itself looked like a typical lecture hall - an indoor amphitheatre, with students sitting on the raised seat forming a semi-circle around the lecturer’s platform. Inez was the first to enter, being the one with all the books, followed by me, the important VIP professor.

The students in the class quieted down when I entered the classroom. As I walked to the teacher’s board, I snapped my finger. Five different chalks levitated then began scribbling on the blackboard in front of the class. The eyes staring at me not so long ago now had their sights on the floating chalks.

As I finally reached the teacher’s table, I slapped my hands against the table and the chalks stopped whatever they were doing, falling limp against chalk holder.

“Welcome to Advanced Magic Class, maggots. This class would have all notes written in Ancient Commons.” I pointed behind me and revealed the word ‘Boss’ written on the board. “Obviously, Ancient Commons would be important in my lessons, so learn it well.”

A student raised his hand and called out, “Teacher!”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Ancient Commons is considered inert by many scholars. Even those sorcerers who take up names of Ancient Commons origin usually only do it for vanity! If anything, we should be learning magic through the modern Cahalotian scripts developed to compete with musclemancy!” the student argued.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“I am Ibram Uk Venn. My family had a long tradition of serving under the Vallen Empire military, and to further my potential, I was sent here to learn magic! My talents include speaking in six different languages, learning three schools of magic, and mastering fire spells at the mere age of eight! It is no exaggeration to say that I am the strongest mage in this class!” the student proudly proclaimed.

“I see. I know who to fail this semester…” I nodded.

“W...what? Y-you can’t do that! My father-…”

I snapped my finger once more and his entire body stiffened. It looked like he was frozen in time, but his twitching eyes showed otherwise.

“Ugh… teacher. Can we get a move on?” a familiar short girl called out from the front. With her short brown hair, green eyes, and a tired look on her face, it was hard to miss this shortie. Kendra was Yomi’s apprentice until she joined the so-called heroes’ party and became my apprentice instead.

Of course, the rest of the heroes party were also students in my class.

I coughed, then went back to my introduction, “You all may call me Sir, Professor, Master, Professor Boss, or even Supreme High-Over-Boss.”

As if! Who in their right mind would actually call me that?

“Supreme High-Over-Boss!” A student cheerily called out my ‘name’ as she raised her hand.

I shaved off a few precious seconds off my immortal life trying to figure out a new life puzzle - who in this earthly continent would actually call me that?

“Y-yes?” I asked.

“Is it true that once we finish this class, we’ll be able to cast magic without chanting or making preparations beforehand, Supreme High-Over-Boss?” the girl innocently asked while attaching my made-up title in the end.

“Ah… yes? I mean… I can just have my own apprentice show you how it’s done instead of wasting effort on telling you,” I answered as I turned my head to Kendra. I got off the lecturer’s platform and stood in front of her.

Kendra coughed nervously then muttered, “Do I have to? Why can’t you do it?”

“Just do it or I’ll fail you,” I threatened nonchalantly.

The shortie made a short grumble before snapping her finger. In an instant, a fireball the size of a fist erupted into existence right in front of her face. Students near her jumped off their chairs in surprise, while the others students expressed admiration. Kendra snapped her fingers once more, and the fireball disappeared without a trace.

“Sir?” Another student raised his hand. This time it was a tall blond kid who looked a bit too serious for his own good. The magic academy had a simple uniform code which simply involved wearing clean bright-colored robes with a cloak proudly displaying the school’s insignia. The thing is...This kid had a badge of this school and Cahalot in every corner of his robes. He also looked like the type to iron his robes every day. It was optional to wear a tie because it was hilariously dumb to wear tie on top of robes with cloaks, but this kid probably never saw the ‘optional’ part.

“Yes? What is it?” I raised my head

“This student is your apprentice? Wouldn’t there be some kind of bias?” the blond student asked.

“Until the end of the course, she isn’t my apprentice. Not only that, students would also be evaluated by the Master Council including my employer, uh… that woman with the black hair… I forgot her name… Something to do with toilet, I think.” My answer dwindled into muttering as I struggled to remember her name.

“Master Yomi. Her name is Master Yomi…” Kendra sighed as she covered my back. Though, the class started to get rowdy when they heard who was my employer.

“M-Master Yomi?! The one and only?!”

“I heard that she goes to the other city states to wreak havoc in the name of Cahalot…”

“We’re being examined by the legend?!”

The entire class whispered excitedly amongst themselves as I stood there dumbfounded. I leaned and whispered to Kendra, “Is Yomi a big deal?”

“I told you, she’s a Master - as in the official Sorcerer City States rank, not one bestowed by just Cahalot,” Kendra told me.

“What does that mean?” I scratched my chin, trying to understand how that clumsy mess of a woman was a big deal not only in Cahalot, but also in the Sorcerer City States.

“You know how she’s free to enter the other Sorcerer City States’ master evaluations? Any other Cahalotians would immediately be beaten up on the spot, but not Yomi. That was because she actually participated in those master evaluations,” Kendra explained.

“What?! She… uh… lifted some barbells and impressed the musclemen?” I continued to ask.

“N-not exactly. She did something which impressed the musclemancers. She never told me what, though,” Kendra answered.

The Sorcerer City States - A vast land of oversized men filled with muscles and nothing else. Their love for muscles was so strong that they managed to form a magic system which revolved around using muscles. Cahalot was the last city to stand fast and remained true to the traditional magic, being a city of scholars… that is to say, nerds.

It is truly impressive that she managed to win over the muscleheads…

I coughed loudly to catch the attention of the class. “Anyway, I’d like to move on. We’ll immediately begin our class.”

“What about introductions?” the cheery girl from earlier interrupted.

“I don’t care about that. Even if you tell me your name, I’ll probably forget it. It’s probably some long complicated name revolving around ancient magic or something.” I waved her interruption off. “As I was saying, let’s begin with why you’re here in my Advanced Magic Class. Can anyone tell us why you’re here to learn Advanced Magic?”

The stern blond raised his hand and answered, “Is it to learn the secrets of what is supposedly everywhere in our life and to harness those secrets for the greater good?”

I would’ve knitted my brows together if I had brows, so I instead opted to simply scratch my chin in confusion. I got back on the platform, took out a piece of parchment from my robes, and scanned through it.

“Er… it doesn’t say any of that in my contract, so I guess you’re wrong,” I replied.

“Eh?” The stern kid was taken aback.

“The correct answer is to get you all into the ‘Interstate Sorcery Academia Games’ and beat every single muscleman you encounter in your way!” I raised my fist with resolve, then turned to the corner where Inez was quietly sitting in the corner like a good little priestess.

“Inez, hand me my roadmap!” I called out. Inez grabbed a huge piece of paper from the pile of books she carried and held it in front of the class. The entire class stared at what was presented to them while Kendra facepalmed and muttered ‘By the Abyss…’

Drawn on the paper was a beautiful artistic render of how I was going to train the entire class to beat the musclemen. It included all the topics, the practical sessions, the needed tools, and how we were going to do it. Of course, this was all drawn by me, the greatest undead artist to ever exist.

“Now, class. Stick with me and I will explain to you my brilliant plan. As you can see here,” I pointed at a corner of the paper, “this long-haired bearded fellow with the scar across the eye is me. And this is me punching an evil monster which is also a crazy bitch that wants to marry me. How did I do this? With magic, of course! MY magic! In this section...”

Thus, the day went on with enlightenment.