Internet Mage Professor-Chapter 68: Just like the game

The students leaned forward in unison, their eyes wide and glittering with expectation as the movie unfolded in Nolan’s watchroom.

The tension was razor-thin, slicing through the silence with every heartbeat as the characters on-screen prepared the Pathogen Knife for its first true field test.

Inside the darkened mall-turned-research-fortress, the group of exhausted survivors hovered around a caged infected that snarled and slammed its body against reinforced bars.

A soldier gripped the new blade—sleek, humming faintly with energy—and adjusted his stance.

The infected’s body twisted with unnatural jerks, milky eyes fixed on its prey. Everyone in the room held their breath.

And so did the students.

"Alright," murmured the lead scientist, voice tight. "Strike at the major arteries. Hit the center of mass—quick penetration, full withdrawal. Theoretically, it should disrupt the necrotic flow and—"

"Just stab the damn thing already!" Selin blurted at the screen.

The soldier lunged, slashing downward with precision across the infected’s chest and abdomen.

The blade carved through the rotting tissue with a wet squelch, drawing viscous black blood that sizzled against the floor.

The infected roared.

It didn’t stop.

Another slash—this time horizontal, deeper. Still nothing.

"Are you kidding me?!" Ruvin bellowed, standing up. "Why not go for the head?! Go for the HEAD!"

"They’re slicing it like they’re peeling a fruit," Erik muttered furiously, shaking his head. "What is this, a culinary horror?!"

"I told you it wouldn’t work if you didn’t aim at the head," Calien hissed. "What part of these bastards in their survival situation do these people not understand?!"

On screen, the soldier staggered back, breath ragged, as the infected lunged forward, cracking part of the cage in its frenzy.

The medics rushed forward to restrain it again while the test team argued in the background.

"That was a vital strike!" one of them shouted.

"No neural disruption!"

"Try again! Go for the lungs!"

"The LUNGS?!" Selin shrieked, hands flying up. "What good are lungs in a corpse?!"

"This is hopeless," Erik grunted. "They’re just poking it like it’s a science project."

"Use. The. Knife. On. The. HEAD," Ruvin growled, each word a thunderclap of frustration.

But the characters didn’t listen. They kept jabbing at the torso—spleen, liver, kidneys, ribcage—until the infected collapsed from blood loss, not viral disruption. The scene dimmed as silence fell across the lab. The old woman stared at the motionless body.

"It didn’t work," she said quietly, her voice shaking. "The pathogen’s core remains intact."

Her shoulders slumped.

She walked slowly to her desk and sat down, removing her gloves with trembling hands. Her eyes glistened with disappointment as she stared at the schematics pinned to the wall.

"...It should’ve worked."

In the classroom, the students were livid. Calien slammed his hand against the desk so hard that his screen wobbled.

"You didn’t aim at the head, you glorified med-school dropout!"

"It’s basic! Just go for the FUCKING.HEAD!" Ruvin shouted.

"She designed the damn knife!" Erik snapped. "She should know the brain is the control hub! Not the freaking gallbladder!"

Selin, pacing like a general in wartime, muttered, "I swear if I were in that world, I’d have cleaned house in ten minutes with that pathogen knife and some duct tape."

Nolan, meanwhile, sat watching—smirking faintly.

Then came the shift.

The husband, still disheveled but now seemingly more confident, approached the old woman. He rubbed his hands awkwardly.

"Do you still have one of those knives?" he asked.

She looked up, surprised.

"It doesn’t work," she said, her voice faint. "You saw what happened."

"I know," he replied. "I’m not trying to cure anything. I just need something short—something I can use. In close quarters."

There was a beat.

Then, quietly, she handed him the prototype.

And that—that—was when the classroom exploded.

"YES!" Selin roared. "YES! FINALLY! FINALLY SOMEONE GETS IT!"

"I take back everything I said about you!" Ruvin cried at the screen. "You are the only one with a BRAIN!"

"Let the man cook!" Erik howled, throwing his hands in the air.

"Dude’s about to do some real damage!" Calien added, nearly falling off his chair.

They clapped, they whooped, they cheered like the Arcane Tournament had just been won. Ruvin stood on his desk. Selin grabbed a chair and spun it. Erik high-fived Calien mid-air with a jump.

The noise was... deafening.

And Nolan—brows lifted, an eyebrow raised—turned slowly in his chair and said, "Hoooooo?"

The students froze, like deer caught in divine headlights.

"What are you all cheering for?" he asked with a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You finally killed the bloater?"

There was a pause.

Then Selin, cool as ice, said, "Yep! We found a strategy."

"The ultimate strategy," Ruvin added, nodding seriously.

"To kill the bloater," Erik echoed. "For real this time."

"With no outside help," Calien concluded, arms crossed.

Nolan narrowed his eyes, lips pressed into a firm line.

He paused the movie.

"Let me see."

Panic.

Real, wide-eyed, electrifying panic rippled through the group. Calien’s breath hitched. Selin whispered a curse. Erik looked at Ruvin. Ruvin was already grabbing his controls.

"Uh—yes! Sure, yeah, just—gimme a sec—"

"Loading now!" Selin chirped nervously.

"I’m re-entering the dungeon interface!" Erik said too loudly.

"I—I think we disconnected for a bit!" Calien added, frantically navigating back to their group room.

They exited Nolan’s watchroom in a blur, faces tight with fake smiles as they pretended to stretch, yawn, and roll their necks like they hadn’t just watched thirty minutes of horror cinema with the intensity of championship spectators.

Nolan, still watching with a knowing squint, slowly stood up and walked behind their desks, arms folded.

"Alright. Impress me."

The room went silent but for the mechanical whir of the simulation restarting. One by one, the students entered the fourth-floor challenge again, facing the bloater.

Ruvin was first.

He charged forward, unleashing his signature dual-sword technique and got slammed into a wall by the bloater’s fist like a fly swatted by a giant.

Selin followed. She darted with graceful footwork, dropped explosives behind her—and miscalculated the bloater’s timing. She got caught in the splash of her own blast.

Erik attempted to blind it with his spell runes, but he tripped over a vine and got trampled.

Calien? He tried to sneak behind it. The bloater turned around and sat on him.

Nolan shook his head, arms still folded.

"You really think you can beat this thing without my help?"

He paused.

"You either need me to show you how, or you’re wasting mana cores pretending you’re competent."

The students, dazed from the crushing defeat, turned to him.

Ruvin muttered under his breath, "You just want more Mana Crystals."

"Say again?" Nolan asked.

"Nothing, sir," Erik said quickly.

With a theatrical sigh, Nolan returned to his seat at the front, plopping down and resuming the movie with a flick of his fingers.

The students stared at their dripping avatars—covered in simulated muck and damage.

Then, slowly, they leaned back in their chairs, breathing hard.

Selin wiped imaginary sweat from her brow. "Phew."

Ruvin ran a hand through his hair. "That was too close."

Erik rubbed his temples. "He almost caught us."

Calien gave a small grin. "Next time, we mute our reactions."

And then, they all looked at each other.

A silent nod.

A secret understanding.

Teacher Nolan almost got them.