How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 9

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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How to Survive as the Second Son of a Magic Noble Family (9)

[Lucas Rene Ascanien]

Title: The Empire’s Greatest Fool

Stamina: -4.8 (+0.2)

Mental Power: -9 (+1.0)

Magic Power: ?

Skill: +0.015

Impression: -10

Luck: -8.985 (+1.0)

Traits: Dawn777, Divine Power

‘Mental power went up by a whole point?’

It was definitely -10 before, wasn’t it?

The luck that was -9.985 was the same. Considering it used to rise by 1/1000 at a time, this was tremendous progress.

Stamina also went up by 0.2. Since it increased even when there was no reason for stamina to rise, there seemed to be a connection with mental power.

Did this guy change this much just from making one friend?

Excluding very early childhood, Leo was essentially his first friend, so it was a very plausible theory.

‘…’

It was too pitiful to watch.

‘Wait.’

There’s something else I need to check at this point.

As I shifted my gaze, a window appeared.

[Dawn777]

— Final ending ‘Chapter X. Death’ in 767 days 23 hours 18 minutes 01 seconds

— Possibility of change: 5.3% (+5%p)

5.3%.

To think it went up 5%p just from making one ally—I was satisfied.

That meant Leo would be helpful for my survival going forward.

‘Hmm, I’m curious. Should I take a look at Leo’s too?’

Come to think of it, I’d been so busy quickly checking favorability before my gaze dropped that I hadn’t had time to look at status windows.

I looked into Leo’s eyes and called up his status window.

Leonard Wittelsbach

Favorability 0

Title: ?

Stamina: +7.5

Mental Power: +9

Magic Power: +7

Skill: +8.5

Impression: +10

Luck: +9.5

Traits: ?

‘…This is the first time I’ve seen such insane stats.’

It was surprising that favorability jumped 9 points from -9 to 0 in an instant, but… that wasn’t what was important right now. The status window of a few professors I’d peeked at out of curiosity was comprehensively worse than this.

No matter how I thought about it, if I was going to enter a novel, I should have become this kind of character.

“What are you doing?”

Leo waved his hand in front of my vacant stare.

“No, it’s nothing.”

I shook my head, erasing a bit of reality check.

After that, I answered Leo’s trivial questions, and when the first class was about to end, I left the infirmary with Leo. Looking around, no one was there.

“From here on, don’t act like you know me.”

“What?”

Leo asked with a bewildered expression.

“If you suddenly act friendly toward me, the kids will think it’s strange. If you have something to say, only come find me when there are no students around.”

At those words, Leo stroked his chin and readily nodded.

“That makes sense. Well then, take care. I’ll ask my family to get the medicine you mentioned, so don’t worry.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

It ended more coolly than expected.

Seeing his obsession with magic, I thought he’d be clingy as a person too, but it’s good that he’s being like this.

Let’s keep things normal.

‘Now what I need to do is improve my skills.’

I have to make up for the 10-year gap starting now.

The problem is that magic is difficult to self-study, and I don’t have a personal training ground at school so I have to use the public one… but I’ve already solved that. I agreed to spar with Leo.

The school provides personal training grounds to students who achieve good grades like Leo.

No need to write names in a ledger, no worry about others coming in.

Of course, I didn’t ask to spar just for the location alone.

I asked Leo because his movements were the most textbook-like, so I judged them worth learning from.

In fact, a skill score of 8.5 was similar to the level of professors here.

Common to all categories, ordinary people usually range between -1 and 3, and students here are usually positioned around 3-5 points.

‘I’m curious how much I can raise it.’

Like that, before I knew it, a week had passed since I started training with Leo.

The effect was good. My control became precisely refined so quickly that it was hard to believe I hadn’t properly used magic for the past 10 years.

“Good! At this level, you won’t accidentally threaten civilian lives.”

After finishing the 7th day of training, Leo wiped his sweat and smiled with satisfaction.

Right. The problem with my magic until now was that it was too strong and difficult to control.

Even though it was eerie to say such things while smiling, Leo’s words weren’t metaphor or exaggeration but fact.

I knew how to make magic power very weak like in class, but it was still difficult to continuously output magic at a moderate level for a long time.

Since I never wanted to see myself harm people with my magic, I had responded to Leo’s fanatical calls over the past week.

‘I was a bit flustered at first, but… to face Hyung, I need at least this much magic power.’

For this to be the baseline, it was a satisfying talent.

“Oh, the medicine you mentioned is running a bit late. Wait about four more days and it’ll come. I’ll bring it to you then.”

“Alright, thanks.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Leo waved and disappeared.

‘Things are going smoothly.’

The attention that briefly increased at the beginning of the semester gradually died down as I stopped using magic at all, and there’s been no particular contact from Hyung.

I called up my status window.

Lucas Rene Ascanien

Title: The Empire’s Greatest Fool

Stamina: -3.8 (+1.0)

Mental Power: -8.7 (+0.3)

Magic Power: ?

Skill: +0.515 (+0.5)

Impression: -10

Luck: -7.485 (+1.5)

Traits: Dawn777, Divine Power

For the amount gained from a week of training, it wasn’t bad.

I stayed in the training ground to practice a bit more at the end, then pulled out a pendant from inside my shirt.

It was a location transfer artifact I bought by spending all the cash I had on hand. Since even entering and leaving the training ground would be problematic if spotted by others, I connected it to move directly from the dormitory to here.

As a precaution for any unforeseen circumstances, I even had it delivered under Leo’s name as the purchaser.

‘It’s good to be thorough with preparations.’

I blew magic power into the pendant with a whoosh.

When I closed and opened my eyes, the usual dormitory room scenery spread out before me.

Thump―

“…!”

The state of my core was somehow not normal.

The core has a structure that surrounds the heart, and usually the two are tightly connected.

But now, for some reason, the core was floating and rattling around.

‘Could this have happened because of the drugs?’

The novel’s Luca grew weaker as he aged, so it made sense.

I thought the core’s condition wouldn’t be good, but I didn’t expect a reaction to come this quickly in just a week….

‘I guess I need to think about this too.’

I spread out the calendar.

First, even though I obtained the medicinal ingredients, the current Leo isn’t the future Leo, so he can’t convert them into core strengthening agents.

Therefore, I need a process to adjust the mixing ratios and other conditions based on my knowledge from the novel.

And even if I consistently drink the strengthening agent, a body that’s been suppressed for 10 years can’t dramatically improve all at once.

I can’t leisurely wait around not knowing when Hyung might notice, so I need to create a more stable state using auxiliary tools.

I looked at the red glowing pendant and fell into thought.

‘It would be good to get one more auxiliary tool like this.’

After strengthening my core, I should look at other items too.

Though expensive, there are also tools that allow you to freely use magic without knowledge of specific spells.

Such magical tools are supposed to be registered with the Imperial Court for use, and there are limits on the maximum quantity each person can possess, but fortunately this doesn’t apply to students under the age of majority.

It would be useful when Hyung moves faster than expected, so I needed to research items in preparation for that possibility.

I took out the school bank transaction statement from the drawer.

“Hmm.”

The withdrawable amount column had numbers that were hard to count at a glance.

Father tended to provide things that didn’t require much effort, even for a discarded child.

But….

Naturally, I can’t use this.

The money in my room’s safe would be one thing, but money in the bank vault, absolutely not.

In his first year, Luca spent less than 1 million won in our currency value, excluding meal and tuition costs.

‘Natural since he only stayed in his room.’

Useful tools start at least at 5 million, and to find something quite satisfactory, I’d need to prepare at least 10 million.

The moment I withdraw that much money, Hyung flying here immediately would be inevitable.

I considered withdrawing daily to prepare, but a person who spent less than 1 million in a year withdrawing 10 million in a short period, whether divided or all at once, couldn’t help but be suspicious.

Then there’s only one thing I can do.

I earn it myself.

I spread the newspaper on the desk.

‘It’s not yet time for the protagonist to be active, but at this point, stories should gradually be emerging in the world.’

I flipped through newspapers for a while, from last month’s daily bundle to today’s daily, then stopped my hand.

‘Here it is.’

[Monthly average 6 cases → 15 cases… ‘Magical Beast Damage’ cases in outskirts of the capital increased 150%]

An article about recent increases in magical beast damage.

In the original work, the protagonist once went around killing magical beasts directly while hiding his identity as an imperial family member.

Since magical beast damage cases surged this year, the Imperial Magic Law Enforcement Bureau began putting bounties on magical beasts and granting individual mages subjugation qualifications.

Looking at just that, it seems like a feasible response….

It’s not yet a situation where they can’t handle the numbers enough to outsource to civilians.

Nevertheless, the reason the Magic Law Enforcement Bureau delegated magical beast ‘cleaner’ qualifications to individuals was because they judged they couldn’t use the bureau’s high-level personnel for such miscellaneous work.

‘That’s why the protagonist stepped up.’

Anyway, there are two things to note here.

‘Putting bounties on magical beasts and granting individual mages subjugation qualifications’, ‘the protagonist who forged his identity’.

It’s an optimal situation.

But openly operating when most imperial citizens know my name would be insane. This would also be tantamount to suicide.

What needs attention again here is that the bureau is quite rotten.

The bureau put decent amounts on each magical beast, but set seriously insufficient budgets for operating regional management offices.

After deducting facility maintenance costs, at best only activity support fees came out.

‘The bureau never intended to properly hire people in the first place.’

The bureau had the ridiculous idea that since it’s village business, villagers would step up and operate it without spending money.

How things proceeded is obvious given that.

In the story, the protagonist presented a forged identification and passed in just 10 seconds. There was no process of keeping the certificate or cross-checking names recorded in the mage registration roster.

It’s vividly remembered because the protagonist was so dumbfounded.

When I was a reader, not only the protagonist’s but also my own disbelief flew away at that work processing, but for now….

‘It’s a decent situation.’

* * *

“Right, definitely borrowing the power of tools is good. What kind of budget did you set?”

When I arrived at the training ground and explained my future plans, Leo nodded and stroked his chin.

Leo seemed to be thinking of making a list himself as he took out paper and pen from his bag and sat on the training ground floor.

“I haven’t fixed it, I’m thinking flexibly according to earnings.”

“Flexible… huh?”

“All my money is in the bank right now so it’s difficult to withdraw. So I have something in mind.”

“What don’t you have?”

“I didn’t say I don’t have any. Anyway, in short, I don’t have cash…. How long do I have to say this with my own mouth?”

I smiled as I looked at Leo.

Leo was also smiling soullessly with a face that didn’t understand what was going on.

‘I understand, but I haven’t even properly brought up the topic yet.’

I took out a thick bundle of papers from my bag and opened my mouth seriously.

“Listen to what people say until the end. Of course I have a plan.”

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