Honestly...? A lot of us would probably want this to happen. Grow a six pack instead of having to study?! Yes please! You get to trade exams for big muscles and zero thoughts, with the only downside is becoming a total idiot? WORTH IT! This was a story for professional drawer of dumb idiots,  win21x who makes art full of big, dumb dudes living their best lives. Thank you to them for reminding us that sometimes being huge and clueless looks kinda perfect?

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Confidence had always come easily to Mark, especially when it came to his mind. Sure brilliance, after all, did not shy away from a challenge, and that was precisely what drew him to the “hardest” class course whispered about in the hallways and teachers alike.

Few dared enroll.

Fewer still survived the final exam with their academic pride intact.

The rumors said that the instructor was the “world’s smartest sorcerer”, a title that came with equal parts awe and resentment.

According to every warning plastered on the reviews page, the man’s classes were filled with hulking failures, athletes who somehow knew nothing about spell theory, incantation structure, or even the basic arcane.

Complaints were the same over and over again, the professor had lowered the passing requirements again and again, just to drag those musclebound idiots across the finish line.

The statistics alone were damning. Enrollment numbers dwindled each semester, while the failure rate remained impressively high.

Entire cohorts vanished from the academic rolls after attempting the course, leaving behind only secondhand stories and a noticeable dent in morale. Mark read every warning, but his confidence remained unmoved.

Even if this was an atrocious teacher, even if the lectures were incoherent or the grading merciless, something valuable would emerge. While the others in the class needed their lowered requirements to get through the semester, this was not a courtesy he would ever need.

Idiots, he thought, barely restraining a scoff as he imagined them grunting through half remembered spells, passing only because the professor pitied them.

He could already see it. Top marks, earned cleanly, without any easier adjustments or leniency. Not only would he merely pass… he would excel so thoroughly that the professor would have no choice but to acknowledge real genius for the first time in years.

Pride settled in his chest, as he stood outside the class. He leaned back a little, utterly convinced that this class would become just another win in his academic records, proof that brilliance certainly did not belong to the dull brutes who had failed before him in this class.

Mark stepped inside, the professor already occupied in a seat at the far end of the room, while the rest of the classroom sat almost entirely empty.

Only three students remained. Each one of them was enormous.

They all towered over Mark even while seated, with shoulders that strained the limits of the desk chairs and arms thick with muscle. Fur rippled over their frames whenever they shifted, feline in shape and posture.

Cat people. That alone was unusual, considering the academy rarely saw their kind in advanced sorcery theory.

One of them, the furthest at the back, sat hunched over a book, massive paws clumsily gripping pages far too small for his hands. Glassy eyes stared down at the text without moving, as if hoping the words might eventually arrange themselves into meaning he coild understand.

Another had given up entirely, slumped sideways in his chair, his pecs, huge slabs of muscle lifting and dropping with each snore, stretching the fabric tight around them before letting it relax again. Drool darkened the fur at the corner of his mouth, pooling against his forearm.

At the front sat the third, one with brown fur. He leaned forward eagerly, happiness radiated from him, mouth slightly open, a thin line of drool slipping free as he stared straight ahead, utterly content and utterly vacant.

Standing among them, Mark felt small, not just shorter though, but narrower, lighter, almost like he was the only academic in the room. Muscles like those belonged on arenas and training fields, not in classrooms devoted to spellcraft theory. These must be the athletes he had been warned about…

What were they doing in such a complicated class, and why had the professor not kicked them out? Whatever mistake had placed these brutes here, it would not touch him.

The complexity of the class might have been lowered for them, and made easier but, Mark had no intention of ever needing such a thing.

“How strange, to find a seat in my class,” the teacher turned at last from the chalkboard. “Please,” the professor said calmly, gesturing with an open palm, “do sit.”

Something about the scene, Mark refused to believe. A sorcerer, a professor even, had no business teaching students who could barely keep their eyes open. It just didn’t make sense! Surely someone of such intellect belonged surrounded by peers, not babysitting fools built like dumb statues.

Mark drew a breath, lips parting as he lifted a finger, ready to introduce himself, ready to distinguish himself. A question, perhaps. He would wow the professor and get a headstart in the class straight from the get go.

The professor spoke first. “You’re late, classmate. Find a seat.”

One precise finger rose, pointing not at Mark, but toward the seat directly beside the brown furred cat at the very front. At the same time, the professor’s other hand lifted, two fingers pressed gently to his lips.

“Shush.”

Reluctantly, Mark walked to the front of the class, the brown cat barely reacting to his arrival. Up close, the size difference became impossible to ignore. The cat’s thigh was as thick as Mark’s torso, muscles resting heavy.

Dull eyes stared ahead without focus, glassy and unfixed, as if thought simply slid off the surface without leaving anything behind. The faint smile was still lingering on the feline’s face, eyes lidded, another line of drool hanging on again at the corner of his mouth.

What kind of students even were these? How did they even get accepted? Mark silently scoffed. Entrance exams alone should have filtered this rabble out. Spell theory at the very least, required memory and discipline. None of that seemed remotely compatible with someone who looked like he might forget where he was halfway through a sentence…

This was the class everyone complained about, but the idiots in the class must be why the reviews were abysmal. Genius professor or not, no meaningful teaching could happen in a room like this. However bad this class was though, he refused to let it waste his time entirely.

One spell.

One technique.

One fragment of worthwhile knowledge would justify his presence. If nothing else, he would just try to endure this terrible class.

The professor turned back to the board and began to speak. Chalk tapped the board, some arcane symbols already sketched out before Mark arrived, before even more runes were added.

Concepts Mark recognized were named outright, not explained from the ground up, as if the instructor assumed anyone still sitting here should already know them. That alone made Mark sit straighter.

Spells he had learned in earlier courses surfaced in his mind without effort. Incantations, structures, the way magic bent when pushed around, everything lined up neatly, each piece clicking into place with another.

Maybe this class actually fit him! Could it be that this was what advanced sorcery was supposed to feel like…

His thoughts raced inside his head, testing applications, adjusting formulas, already improving techniques he had thought were finished. Doubt about the professor wavered.

The cats had not changed though. One still slept. One still stared blankly at a page. The brown one beside him breathed slowly, content and empty, oblivious to everything being said.

Perhaps most students never made it this far. Perhaps they walked in, saw the students, heard the reputation, and left before the first real explanation ever began.

Reviews written by people who never stayed long enough to listen… if that was true, Mark thought, then their loss would be to his advantage.

Connections started to form between spells he had never thought to link. A freezing charm slid neatly into the framework of a movement spell, genius! Maybe he could double a weave as a wall for defence?

Ideas kept coming fast, each one sparking another idea on top of it. He pictured adjustments to his own spells, shortcuts, cleaner methods. Notes filled his page in line after lines.

But, after writing nearly ten pages in the first half hour of the lecture, something slipped a little. He had forgotten one idea before he could finish writing it down. Pausing, he frowned, and tried to recall it.

The space where it had been felt oddly hollow, like reaching for a word that refused to surface. He shrugged it off and kept listening.

Moments later, another connection vanished. His grip tightened around his quill, replaying the professor’s last sentence in his head, but it no longer matched the symbols on the board. A diagram that had made perfect sense now looked crowded and unfamiliar, almost foreign. 

As the lecture went on, tons of different lines crossed where they shouldn’t have, it didn’t feel to him that the professor had changed in pace or tone, yet Mark struggled to follow it. 

Each new point leaned on the last, and the last had slipped from him entirely. He was starting to get frustrated, and his confidence in which he had come into the class with, was beginning to fade. Thoughts that once came easily now dissolved as soon as he reached for them, drawn out of reach one by one, as if pulled through a drain plug he could not see.

He lifted an arm to scratch the back of his head while trying to force the lecture to make sense again. The movement felt heavier than expected. Muscle flexed under his sleeve, fuller than it should have been.

Something brushed his fingers. Confusion flickered as he touched the side of his head again. An ear felt wrong… too high and too pointed.

Fine brown fur sprouted along its edge, twitching once before settling. Mark blinked hard. With the same hand, he scratched his ear, which was now sitting nicely atop his head, something which, for some reason, didn't bother Mark that much.

He needed to focus on the lecture, to finally understand it again!

Forearms thickened as he held them up to keep scratching his ear, veins standing out, sleeves tightening, then straining. Muscle swelled, biceps rounding, shoulders widening until fabric pulled uncomfortably at the seams.

His thoughts slowed even more.

Chest pressure built as his torso expanded. Pectorals pushed outward, filling his shirt until buttons groaned and popped. Breathing deepened, each inhale slower, more content, less concerned with detail.

The chair he was sitting on creaked beneath him as his weight increased, wood flexing while his legs lengthened inch by inch. His knees bumped the underside of the desk, forcing him to spread them wider. The room felt lower now, closer, like the ceiling had dipped when he was not looking.

Arms kept growing. Mass packed onto his shoulders, deltoids bulging outward until his sleeves tore with a dull rip. Fabric hung uselessly from his upper arms, no longer able to contain the thickness there.

Hands followed, fingers thickening, knuckles rounding, nails flattening into blunt, curved claws.

“Mhhnnuuuh… need idea…”

Attention slipped again. Whatever the professor was saying no longer sounded urgent. The voice still reached him sure, but the meaning slid past without sticking. Listening felt pleasant enough. Trying to understand felt tiring.

A line of drool slipped from the corner of his mouth, warm against his chin. Awareness flickered, then faded. Wiping it away never occurred to him.

A thought tried to surface. This isn’t right. Memory stirred behind it. Intelligence. Studying.

Taking pride in being smarter than everyone else in this room. A flicker of alarm followed close behind. Something is being taken from you.

The idea formed just long enough to scare him. Then it was pulled away. Not fading. Not forgotten.

It was sucked out cleanly, leaving a hollow feeling where concern had been. His eyes unfocused as the effort of thinking became uncomfortable, almost annoying.

His body wanted to think instead. Another surge rolled through him, stronger than before, and his spine stretched with a slow, heavy pull, allowing him to grow even taller.

The desk dropped lower relative to his chest. His head rose above the brown cat beside him, shoulders lifting higher, wider, thicker. Muscle piled on in dense layers, chest swelling outward until it eclipsed the edge of the desk.

Pectorals pressed together, heavy and solid, fur stretching tight across them. His back broadened enough that he now filled more than his seat.

The brown cat beside him was smaller now. Not by much, but enough. Mark noticed it dimly, felt a quiet satisfaction at being bigger, heavier, more solid.

The thought did not go any further than that. Another memory tried to rise.

Books.

Exams.

Grades?

It slipped away before finishing.

Head tilted slightly as he listened again, though listening meant something different now. The professor’s voice was comforting background noise, meaning did not matter.

Thinking felt slow. Thinking felt unnecessary.

Awareness shrank to simple things. Sitting here. Being big. Feeling strong.

The chair barely held him now, but it did not matter. He belonged in this seat. He belonged in this room.

That faint idea of intelligence theft tried one last time to exist. It vanished beneath the weight of his body as he shifted, muscles flexing, posture settling into an easy sprawl.

The bell rang.

Mark startled, then stood with a heavy scrape of chair against stone. He rolled his shoulders once, muscles shifting thickly beneath his fur, then followed the others without question.

Any thoughts you’d expect someone to have, did not accompany him. He lumbered out with the rest of them, towering, broad, simple, one of many hulking bodies filling the hallway.

Words passed around him. Someone clapped him on the back and he nearly knocked them forward without meaning to by returning the favor. By the time he reached the corridor, whatever faint spark of who he had been was gone entirely.

He was big. He was strong. That was enough.

Inside the classroom, the professor remained at the podium for a moment, watching the door close. Then he reached up and adjusted his glasses, expression thoughtful. “That student’s ideas were really just brilliant…” he muttered to himself.

Chalk tapped once against the board as he erased a small section, careful not to disturb the rest. Every curved rune had been placed there so subtly that even a trained eye would mistake them for simple spells.

He gathered his notes and turned out the lights. There would be more ideas tomorrow. And plenty of minds left to take them from. After all, there were never any smart students in his class.