A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 22: My Youth Interview Story Was Sure Enough (Part )
March 3, Cloud Street in the East District of Aiswell.

A man in a top hat stepped down from the carriage.

He exuded a hint of scholarly air in his every move, and his gold-rimmed glasses blocked his sharp eyes, making him look like a young scholar who had just walked out of an ivory tower.

"Our city is so bustling and bustling," he said with emotion.

Directly in front of him was a towering European-style building with an elegant red brick and glass structure beneath a steel roof. Trains spewed steam in and out of the station, with whistles blowing from time to time, accompanied by the creaking sounds of the wheels turning, like a hymn to industrial civilization.

If the airship hub is the heart of Ashwell, then this train station, built in 1230, is the main artery of Ashwell. It connects the West City and the East City. The railway tracks cross the mountains and the plains, transporting the goods brought by the airships to various places in the southern continent.

The man walked into the train station, his eyes swept over the surging crowd, and finally found ticket window No. 9 in the corner.

Unlike other windows with long queues, window No. 9 only sells tickets to remote cities, so there are not many people queuing. The ticket seller is a slightly overweight lady who is idly flipping through a fashion magazine at her post.

"Good morning, ma'am."

He knocked on the window. "I'd like to buy a ticket to Mirror Lake Center."

Mirror Lake, a giant lake on the top of the Ashwell Crater, occupies nearly two-thirds of the top of the mountain and is larger than the entire Eastwell city area.

However, there was nothing at the Mirror Lake Center, and there was no "Mirror Lake" option in the ticket list at window number nine.

The ticket seller asked lazily, "It's vacation time now, what are you doing here?"

"Interviewing a teaching assistant."

"Interview?" the old lady muttered, pulling out a few calendars from under her desk. After flipping through them, she suddenly realized, "Oh, an interview for the divination class? Wow, another unlucky guy."

"What?" He didn't hear clearly.

"Nothing." The ticket seller looked at him with pity. "What's your name?"

"Quinn." The man adjusted his glasses and spoke with a very elegant accent.

"Let me see the documents and invitation."

He handed over an ID card and an envelope with the Grindelwald school emblem printed on it.

The school emblem is a very typical European shield, composed of five animal totems: a golden lion on a red background, a bronze eagle on a blue background, a black badger on a yellow background, and a silver snake on a green background. They surround a black dragon and an "H"-shaped symbol.

After the conductor found the corresponding name in the register, he returned the certificate and envelope to Quinn.

A map was also handed over.

"During spring break, the Mirror Lake train is closed. You can walk to the college on your own. The route is marked on the map." The old lady lowered her head and continued flipping through a magazine. "Don't ask me if you can't find it. I'm just a ticket seller."

"Thank you." Quinn took off his hat and bowed slightly.

"Today is the last day for interviews," the ticket seller said, not even looking at him. "If you want this job, you'd better hurry."

After leaving the train station, Quinn squinted his eyes because of the strong midday sun.

"Damn it, isn't there any cloudy days in this world?"

He swore in stark contrast to his image, and without even looking at the map, he headed straight for his destination after finding the right direction.

It is now 11:30 am, and there are still five and a half hours left until the end of the interview.

Time goes back to three days ago.

"Me? To be Grindelwald's teacher?" Quinn's eyes widened like bells.

"You know what? Forget about magic or arcane techniques. The most successful magic trick I've ever performed is the magic of transforming a living person. I can make a girl disappear just by expressing my love for her—"

Ankuya held his forehead, unable to bear to watch any longer.

".I didn't ask you, a Muggle, to teach the arcane. To be more specific, I asked you to be an assistant teacher."

"Assistant teacher?"

"Help the teacher prepare course materials, assist with classes, and do odd jobs. You don't need to teach or use arcane magic; it's a job any ordinary person can do. With my help, you should be able to handle this job. There's a classroom that's looking for a teaching assistant." Ankuya propped up his chin and poured a glass of wine with one hand. "I'm a specialist in the school affairs department. My job mainly involves handling off-campus matters, so I won't be involved in teaching. If you can become a teaching assistant, you can get in touch with Lin and Celia, who is about to enroll, and observe their daily lives in disguise to determine if they are heroes."

"I know this!" Quinn clapped his hands. "This matter is also recorded in the Azure Files."

"It's not easy to successfully interview for the assistant teaching position. You'll have a lot of competition. After all, this is Grindelwald's job, and arcanists from all over the world are vying for it."

Ankua looked at the map of Eswell hanging on the wall and gently shook his wine glass.

"And the first step in the academy's talent screening is to find the path—"

It’s twelve o’clock noon, and there are still five hours left until the end of the interview.

Quinn walked through the bustling urban area and came to a park in the center of the city.

Unlike West Will where the air is turbid, there is not a trace of smog in East Will. The exhaust gas emitted by the factory seems to be blocked outside the East City District by some kind of barrier. Lush green plants cover every corner of East Will, and the air is as fresh as the suburbs.

In addition to precious flowers and trees from all over the world, the park also hides a cemetery.

The cemetery is a public cemetery in Eastville. It is said that the price of buying a grave here can buy a house with a loft in Westville.

Clean and elegant tombstones are scattered beside the trickling stream, and the wealthy skeletons enjoy the green water and verdant mountains that match their price.

"Pathfinding will screen out half of the applicants. The map provided by the academy is not an ordinary map. You must master a certain level of ancient Terran, Elvish, Giant, and Lothran to decipher it. The route on the map is formed by overlapping the arcane matrix, and the path to the academy is hidden within the matrix, and there is more than one path."

"Even if you find a way, the college will still give you points based on the route you choose. These points will be calculated into the final score to rank the applicants."

Quinn followed the path through the cemetery and came to the river.

He casually threw the map into the trash can without even looking at it, picked up the shovel next to the trash can and started digging the grave.

The tombstone he dug out had no name or surname, but was printed with the emblem of Grindelwald College.

"And the route to get full marks is in a graveyard. You just need to..."

The shovel lifted the soil, and gradually, a pitch-black sarcophagus came into view.

Quinn jumped into the pit he had dug, panting, and pushed hard against the lid of the coffin, slowly pushing it open.

This coffin was not nailed shut and was empty!
Looking at the eerie and dark interior of the coffin, Quinn swallowed hard.

He stood there for a long time before making up his mind. He gritted his teeth, turned over and crawled in.

"Damn it, this is the first time I've been buried in a coffin in my life, Ankuya, don't trick me."

After lying down, without any movement, the coffin suddenly closed.

Quinn closed his eyes. This was getting really weird.

The coffin began to vibrate slightly, and then there was a feeling of weightlessness, but Quinn lying inside did not feel the bumps, just like a small boat crossing a stream.

He heard the sound of flowing water, and the hustle and bustle of the city was isolated outside.

The darkness grew deeper and deeper, as if the sarcophagus had left the sunlight and drifted down the River Styx to the afterlife.

I don’t know how much time passed.

When Quinn was about to close his eyes and wait for death peacefully, there was suddenly a loud "boom".

Like a ship washed ashore, the coffin lid automatically slid open after the sarcophagus came to a stop. A mysterious light, different from the sunlight, shone on Quinn's tightly closed eyelids.

He nervously poked his head out of the sarcophagus, like a thief looking around while breaking into a house.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing? This is the fuck!!!"

The glow of the stars colored the clouds in the sky, and the lake was as smooth as a mirror. He looked up and saw an ancient and majestic castle. It was a magical scene that could only be glimpsed in dreams.

Grindelwald College floats quietly above the stars, like a bright moon.

(End of this chapter)