Heaven's Eyes

Classroom Connections

Meanwhile, just a bit earlier across campus, Zara Vale opened her eyes with determination.

“I should be able to fix my body today.” Jack, reputedly the worst teacher in the academy, had claimed he could help her. She’d spent the night tossing in bed, unsure if she was hopeful or foolish.

Now, she would find out.

As a top-ranking student and the daughter of Baiyu City’s lord, she had her own private residence. Her personal guardian, Harmon Yorn, stayed in a room nearby.

“Uncle Harmon, I’m heading to class!” she called out.

Silence.

Then the door creaked open.

“Wait… young mistress. I’ll go with you.”

Zara turned and gasped.

“Uncle Harmon! What happened to your face?!”

His face was a swollen, mottled mess blackened bruises, purple welts, one eye half-shut. If he hadn’t spoken, she wouldn’t have recognized him.

“I… uh… had a little accident during training last night,” he muttered, avoiding eye contact.

“…Training?” Zara raised an eyebrow. “Who injures themselves like that training?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it,” Harmon said quickly. “But I want to see that teacher of yours. If he’s as useless as everyone says, I’ll personally report him to the city lord. There’s no way we’re letting you stay under him.”

Zara sighed. “Fine.”

As they walked toward Jack’s classroom, she noticed Harmon flinching with every step. Cold sweat soaked his back. It was clear he was in pain.

“You should rest, Uncle. I can handle class on my own…”

“No,” he cut her off. “I need to confirm it with my own eyes. That Jack Reed couldn’t possibly have recruited even a second student. When you see that empty classroom yourself, you’ll understand.”

The moment he finished that sentence…

Click.

The classroom door opened.

Inside, Jack Reed stood before six students.

Harmon froze.

His jaw dropped.

Zara blinked in surprise. Then her face flushed.

“Teacher…” she mumbled. For some reason, it felt like she had just been publicly embarrassed.

Harmon, who had marched in ready to mock, looked like a spiritual palm had slapped him.

“You’re… perfectly fine?” he said slowly, squinting at Jack.

He couldn’t believe it.

He’d been beaten to near pulp just last night by the masked attacker. He had assumed Jack was also bloodied, crippled, or at least bedridden.

Instead, Jack was standing upright, healthy, and teaching a full classroom.

Harmon had come expecting victory.

He was met with confusion.

Jack turned and looked at him plainly.

“This injured man is…?”

“Injured…?!” Zara twitched, but before she could answer…

“You’re the injured one!” Harmon snapped, unable to control himself. “I am Harmon Yorn, butler to the Lord of Baiyu City!”

Jack blinked.

“Oh.”

He looked Harmon up and down. “In that case, you really shouldn’t be wandering around looking like that. If you drop dead in my classroom, that’s a lot of paperwork.”

He gestured casually toward the door.

“Someone show our guest out. And close the door behind him.”

“You…!” Harmon’s face turned red with fury.

But he didn’t take another step forward.

He was a Warrior 6 Gate Breaker Realm cultivator, respected across the kingdom. Even the officials at Astoria Academy’s Education Bureau treated him with deference. And yet, here he was... being called disabled by a nobody of a teacher and practically shoved out like an unwanted alley cat.

“I’ll stay and observe your lesson,” Harmon said stiffly, forcing himself to stand straighter despite the pain.

“Oh, good. You’re leaving,” Jack replied without missing a beat. “We try to keep the classroom free of stray cats and barking dogs.”

“You…! Who are you calling a dog?!”

Harmon’s voice cracked with outrage. His swollen face flushed with fresh color as fury surged through him, making his already aching body tremble.

“If you’re going to act like this, wait outside,” Jack said, turning calmly toward Zara. “Let’s get started on solving your condition.”

Zara’s eyes lit up with anticipation.

“Uncle Harmon, please, just let me take the class. I’ll be fine,” she said softly, gently nudging him toward the door.

“I’m not going anywhere until he explains who he’s calling a….”

BANG!

The door slammed shut in his face.

“…Young mistress…”

Outside, Harmon stood frozen. His lip quivered.

If it had been Jack who’d slammed that door, he would have kicked it down and crushed him on the spot. But Zara?

He couldn’t even raise his voice against her, let alone his hand.

And so he stood there in silence, his entire body aching, his pride bleeding.

Everything inside him screamed with frustration, but all of it was aimed at one person:

Jack Reed.

How could he, a nobody, a reject, a bottom-ranked teacher, have possibly won over the young mistress?

“I’ll be right out here. If anything happens, call me immediately!” he bellowed through the door, the last scrap of authority he could cling to.

Back inside, Jack calmly surveyed his classroom.

His seven new students sat quietly, eyes watching him, some with interest, others with uncertainty.

For a man expected to recruit zero, this was already a miracle.

“Alright, now that everyone is here we can leave. We’re starting the day with a walk,” Jack announced.

That got everyone’s attention.

“When we reach the destination, I want each of you to open your mind to learning the unexpected. Observe your surroundings for something that looks… unexpected. Pick something that catches your interest and bring it back. That will be today’s lesson foundation. After that, I’ll guide each of you one-on-one.”

He turned with a theatrical air, hands behind his back like some ancient cultivation master.

“Follow me.”

The students exchanged confused glances but followed.

Jack, of course, had a secondary motive: herb hunting. He had recently developed a passion for cooking, something he never had time for in his old life. And if he could gather ingredients while teaching a lesson? All the better.

In his former world of Varethra, chefs were respected professionals. But here, cooking was primitive, barely acknowledged. Still, Jack enjoyed it. He would adapt.

The students humored his bizarre class structure and returned twenty minutes later, each carrying herbs and odd plants. They laid their findings on Jack’s desk.

“Since you’ve all chosen me as your teacher,” Jack said, “you are now fellow disciples. Support each other. Don’t embarrass yourselves or me.”

There was a long pause.

Then a few of the students glanced at one another, expressions blank.

Prestige?

They all shared the same thought.

“What prestige?”

Teacher, you’re ranked dead last…”

“But Jack either didn’t hear the whispered skepticism or he didn’t care.

“My teaching style is… unconventional,” he continued. “I don’t believe in treating everyone the same. You all have different strengths, different weaknesses. So your training will be individualized.”

He pointed toward the adjoining room.

“I’ll be calling you in one at a time for assessment. Don’t compare yourselves. That kind of thinking stunts growth.”

His tone was steady, confident completely unfazed by their doubt.

Despite themselves, the students leaned in a little closer.

The classroom wasn’t large, maybe a hundred square meters, but it had a partitioned side room for one-on-one instruction.

“All right. Emily Wright, you’re my first student. Come in.”

Emily nodded quietly and followed Jack into the side room.

Though she could walk without visible issue, the injury in her hip was a constant, agonizing hindrance. It felt like something toxic had soaked into her bones, gnawing at her strength, her focus, her confidence. For half a year, not a single day had passed without pain, not just physical, but emotional.

The toll had turned her into someone quiet, withdrawn, hesitant to speak unless spoken to.

She’d long since accepted that this injury would haunt her for the rest of her life.

That’s why, when Jack Reed, the man branded the worst teacher in Astoria Academy, had casually said, “It’s a small matter,” she could barely believe it.

If it had been anyone else, she would’ve dismissed it as hollow bravado.

But then he’d identified the precise location and nature of her injury, without her saying a word.

And a fragile spark of hope had flared to life.

“The reason I had you come in alone is so I can treat you,” Jack said calmly. “Now relax.”

He opened a jade box from a cabinet beside the wall. Inside were rows of fine silver acupuncture needles, each of varying lengths.

Astoria Academy stocked such kits in every classroom, for emergency injury treatment or Hayki circulation recovery after intense training.

“Yes,” Emily murmured, trying to still her nerves.

There was something about the way Jack spoke, steady, direct, and free of arrogance, that made her want to believe him.

Against all reason, she placed her trust in the teacher everyone else had written off.

Her shoulders relaxed. Her breathing slowed.

Sou!

Without even standing, Jack flicked a silver needle with perfect accuracy.

Chak!

The needle flashed through the air, shimmering with condensed Hayki, and embedded itself cleanly into a pressure point at her hip.

“Th-this is… Zephyr Acupuncture?” Emily’s eyes widened in shock.

Zephyr Acupuncture, an advanced technique that allows long-range acupuncture by manipulating strength, precision, and internal energy. It was developed to preserve modesty and avoid direct contact, particularly between male practitioners and female patients.

Though seemingly simple in appearance, it was notoriously difficult to master. Even renowned Master Craine once stated that only cultivators at the Warrior 5 Will-Forged Realm or above could perform it reliably.

But Jack was… supposedly still Warrior 3 Essence Fist.

Sou! Sou! Sou! Sou!

Before she could process her thoughts, four more needles flew out in rapid succession, all embedding themselves around the first, each at identical depth.

The precision stunned her.

Emily had seen her share of healers before, dozens of them, some elite.

None had ever treated her like this.

Then Jack moved.

His fingers brushed past the first needle, and with a subtle flick, he activated the Hayki inside.

“Ah…!”

A jolt rippled through her frame.

The previously locked acupoint, sealed tight for over six months, burst open like a gate blown wide.

A warm rush surged into her hip, flowing like sunlight through her veins.

This is… superior Hayki?

So pure. So luminous. No impurities. No heaviness. It felt nothing like the muddled energy she had tried to manipulate for months.

Such Hayki could only be cultivated through saint-tier or even god-tier techniques, impossibly rare and rarely witnessed.

And yet… Jack wielded it as if it were nothing.

The “worst teacher in the academy” had just performed a feat most elite cultivators wouldn’t dare attempt.

“Done.” Jack retrieved the needles in one clean motion, all five sliding free with a faint hum.

Emily didn’t move.

The cold pressure that had haunted her hip, gone.

The stiffness, the dull ache, the tight resistance, gone.

In its place was lightness. Agility. Freedom.

“My hip…”

Her voice broke. Realization hit like a wave.

She’d been healed.

“Teacher, thank…”

Her knees buckled, and she dropped to the floor in tears.

She had spent months living in quiet agony, countless healers, countless failures. And now, with a few words and a flick of his fingers, a man she nearly dismissed as a joke had given her back everything she’d lost.

Jack Reed… wasn’t trash at all.

He was a genius in hiding.

He could have easily shown off, built fame, demanded wealth, and status.

But he didn’t.

And now, Emily knew one thing for certain: he was her teacher, and she would never doubt him again.