A Talentless Mage Devours a Disaster-Class Future - Chapter 6

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 6

Iskar and Croitz.
In the distant past, the two families were the shield and brothers that upheld the Northern Region of the Labatie Empire.

The Croitz Grand Duke and Iskar Margrave—Aion’s late grandfather—were said to have been comrades-in-arms closer than brothers could be.

But then,

on the day the usurper stole the imperial throne, their fates diverged.

The Croitz Family could not serve a master stained in blood and severed ties with the Empire, departing to establish themselves in the Rustian Federation.

The Iskar Family, by contrast, regarded the duty of guarding the frontier barrier as paramount on account of their geographic position, and so rejected Croitz’s proposal, choosing to remain within the Empire.

Though borders now divided them, the two families held fast to their last thread of connection—promising to betroth their children to one another, clinging to the hope that one day they might reunite.

Aion and Seria. The two were destined to be each other’s companion even before they were born.

But as the long years accumulated with borders drawn between them,
that old promise faded quietly in the silence, and the union that never came to pass remained nothing more than a faded tale of yesterday.

And yet….

‘Meeting again here, of all places?’

Aion had known of Seria for a long time, but he had seen her only once—and that when they were both very young.
It was remarkable that he’d been able to recognize her face at all.

“…A misunderstanding? What on earth do you mean by a misunderstanding?”

Seria flinched at his flat question.
She hesitated for a moment, then answered in a tone stripped of all emotion.

“Even if you risked danger on my behalf… my feelings won’t change. That’s what I’m saying.”
“…I see.”

She spoke with conviction—almost solemnly.
Aion fell momentarily silent at the sight of that earnest face.

“We’re already finished as a couple. Aion, I can’t promise you any other reward for what you’ve done.”

A faint laugh escaped him.

‘So she thinks I recognized her and came to her rescue.’

It was understandable. That explanation was far more plausible than the truth—that he’d confronted a Baikon head-on to save some unknown female student.

Aion shook his head slowly.

“Seria, I didn’t rescue you because I recognized you.”
“…What?”

Seria’s eyes widened with confusion.

“What do you…?”
“At the time, I didn’t have the luxury of figuring out who I was saving.”
“That’s….”

A moment of silence.

Seria’s ears flushed. Slowly at first, then unmistakably.

Her gaze wavered. Eyes that had been fixed on Aion drifted uncertainly through empty space before finding their way back to him.

“That’s… no, I mean, I just….”

Her lips parted, but the words wouldn’t come. Finally, Seria spun around with a sharp flourish of her robe.

“Anyway!!!”

She didn’t look back. The cold, measured stride from moments before had vanished entirely; she nearly ran into the Hazel Forest Path and disappeared from sight.

Aion watched until her silhouette had completely vanished, then slowly withdrew his gaze.

Hazel leaves trembled in the wind.
Moonlight settled quietly upon the empty bench.

‘An extraordinary coincidence.’

He’d first met her in the Northern Region.
He’d thought there would be no reason to meet again after that, yet here he was, encountering his broken engagement in the halls of Exion, the magic academy.

【Aion: Heh… hehehehehehe….】
【Life: Now, now, perhaps we could rein in the laughter… kh….】
【Thunder: Ahahahahaha! She rejected you! Again! Damn it all! You couldn’t even confess, and you’ve been rejected twice now! Ahahahahahahaha!】

Aion muttered under the derision of the Ultimate Points.

“…Be quiet.”

***

The following morning.

The strange reunion of the previous night had faded with the sunrise, and the campus was brimming with the electric anticipation of new students.

2nd Lecture Hall Building, large tiered lecture room.
The moment Aion opened the door and stepped inside, a cacophony of chatter assaulted his ears.

“Hey, which dorm did they assign you to?”
“Me? I heard they put me in that new Annex building.”
“That’s Sirwen’s. Lucky you~.”
“Anyway, they’re canceling all classes for the first week?”
“Yeah. …Except for this one.”

Laughter and gossip erupted from all corners. The newly admitted students’ faces glowed more with excitement and curiosity than with any trace of tension.

And some were already clustering together by faction, raising their voices as if staking claims.

“We’re only going to do theory anyway—why drag us in from the first week?”
“They must resent that we’re relaxing peacefully. Ugh….”

Aion set his bag down in a secluded seat at the back, avoiding the noise, and looked toward the board.

[Basic Magic Circle Design]
– Instructor: Helsen Barkas.

While other professors declared the first week an orientation period and canceled all their classes, this was the only challenging subject that proceeded with normal instruction.

Creak—

The classroom door swung open without a sound, and the noisy lecture hall fell silent in an instant.

“Quiet.”

A sharp voice cut through the room. A gaunt man in stained clothing climbed onto the dais.

Tap—

With hollow shadows beneath his eyes, he scrutinized the students slowly with an irritable gaze. Despite his shabby appearance, his demeanor was cold and severe.

“Did you come all the way to Exion just to gossip?”

The lecture hall froze as though ice water had been poured over it.

Helsen Barkas.
From the very first impression, he was no ordinary professor.

“Just because you’ve been admitted to the continent’s finest—and sole—magical academy doesn’t mean you’ve become something special. Don’t delude yourselves.”

Snap—

Helsen snapped a piece of chalk audibly in half. The lecture hall tensed once more.

“In my eyes, you’re neither mages nor rough stones. You look to me like monkeys who think that putting on a robe and waving a staff makes them mages.”

Scratch-scratch— snap—

He immediately began drawing an enormous magic circle across the entire blackboard.
A complex circuit of interlocking circles and geometric patterns—so intricate that merely looking at it threatened to bring on a headache.

“This is a complex magic circle devised by a Tier 5 mage. By next class, I want you to deduce how many individual magic circles comprise this one.”

An assignment on the very first day—the students’ faces crumpled with dismay.

Regardless, Helsen tapped the blackboard and continued.

“Whoever gives the most useful answer will receive special access privileges to the third floor of the Arcanum Central Library.”

“W-what!?”
“Third floor special access!?”

In that moment, the students’ eyes gleamed with renewed intensity.

The Arcanum Central Library.
The heart of Exion itself—a place where the continent’s vast reserves of knowledge lay dormant.

The third floor in particular was a strictly forbidden zone for ordinary students, a treasure vault where ancient grimoires and rare incantations were warehoused.

“I-is that truly so, Professor Helsen?”
“You’re not merely jesting with us, are you!?”

As questions rained down, the Ultimate Points who had been listening in silence spoke up.

【Flame: These specimens care far more for material gain than learning.】
【Life: Why wouldn’t they? It’s entirely fitting for students their age.】
【Thunder: Kih-hih-hih! Now that I think about it, this little brat hasn’t even a single proper spell to their name!】

It was a rather bitter observation.
Because, as Thunder’s Ultimate Point had said, the only magic Aion could currently wield was Basic Telekinesis.

【Water Flow: You can’t use anything but Basic Telekinesis.】
【Aion: We all started that way. An applicant entering bare-handed like this… no, that’s just spitting in my own face.】
【Earth: When I think back on it, we should have failed the entrance exam. Looking at it that way, justice is definitely dead, I tell you.】

As this mixture of self-deprecation and reflection passed between them, Helsen Barkas dismissed the students’ questions with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“No more questions. Class ends here.”

He turned to leave the lecture hall without even glancing at the attendance register.
Then he stopped in front of the door.

“I’ll gauge these new students’ level in the next class. Ah, and… I suppose I should give them proper guidance, just in case.”

Without turning around, he added quietly,

“I haven’t spoken a single unnecessary word in this class.”

***

Back in his dormitory room, Aion collapsed onto the bed and stretched himself out with a long sigh.

“Phew―.”

He loosened his limbs and sat down at his desk, opening his notebook.
There, copied in crooked but faithful lines, was the magic circle that had been drawn on the lecture hall blackboard.

“…This is going to be a problem.”

The first task assigned to him promised to be difficult.
Not only did he lack even basic knowledge of magic circles, but his competitors were elites who’d already rushed to the library.
And he’d been given only two days.

Aion recalled the sight of students clinging to the blackboard after class, desperately copying down the magic circle.

He stared intently at his notebook, then suddenly looked up.

“By the way, I have a question.”

【Aion: What is it?】

“Didn’t you say there were eight Ultimate Points?”

【Life: That’s right.】

“But some of them haven’t shown up at all.”

The Ultimate Points had been taking turns speaking, but since Yggdrasil was installed, there were some Ultimate Points who had never once been mentioned in the blue window.

At Aion’s question, Aion’s Ultimate Point let out a short laugh.

【Aion: …Ah, those guys. Leave them be for now.】
【Earth: A few old fools spouting off would only make noise anyway. Better that they stay quiet and out of the way.】

“…I see.”

Aion asked nothing more.

He nodded and turned his attention back to the magic circle.
Then he pulled the thick Introduction to Magic Circles toward him from where it lay stacked at one corner of the desk.

A sigh escaped before he even turned the first page.

【Earth: …Why the sigh?】

“I’m not sure I can pull this off in two days.”

By any measure, it was a battle without odds of victory.

Yet Aion still placed his hand on the book.

In that moment,

Ding!

Yggdrasil issued a quest, as if sweeping aside his hesitation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[!] You have received a new quest.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
『Quest: Complex Magic Circle Disassembly Analysis』
― 『Quest Summary: You have been assigned a task by Professor Helsen Barkas to interpret a complex magic circle.』
― 『Objective: Perfect analysis of the complex magic circle.』
― 『Reward: Intelligence +3, Wisdom +3』
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Aion’s eyes widened as he scanned the reward list.

“Impossible…”

Intelligence and Wisdom were stats he had never once received through a quest. And the total reward of six points was exceptionally high.

【Flame: …What? I didn’t catch that.】

“…It’s too soon to judge it impossible.”

Aion opened the book without hesitation.

Rustle!

Watching Aion move like that, the Ultimate Point of Life spoke quietly.

【Life: …What did I tell you. All the students at this age are like this.】

The Ultimate Point of Flame agreed.

【Flame: …True enough. At this age, material gain captures their interest far more than learning itself.】

The Talentless Mage Devours a Catastrophic Future — Episode 6

Author
Ji Eun Lee
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yeon
Cover Page
By Dalri

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260706063.0006

© 2026, Wang Mochi

※ This e-book is a copyrighted work protected under the copyright law of the Republic of Korea.
No part of this work may be reproduced, adapted, or modified in any form without the prior written consent of the author and publisher.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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