Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 376

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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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The Summoning Genius of the Necromancer School 376
In the Arena wreathed in black smoke and roaring flames, two girls clashed.
Whoosh! Boom!
Dark Flare descended from above in a relentless barrage.
As ash rained down and whipped through her faded hair, Merin sprinted across the Arena in desperate evasion.
“Hah!”
She leaped skyward, narrowly dodging the cascade of fireballs, then extended her index finger toward Serne with deadly aim.
Bounce
The recoil sent her fingertip snapping back, and a Curse took shape like smoke, flashing as it streaked away.
“Hmm.”
Serne’s lips curved upward as she extended her own index finger.
The incoming Curse spiraled toward Serne’s fingertip like iron to a magnet, then circled around it.
Humming to herself, Serne flicked her finger left and right, then pivoted it sideways with a sharp “Hup!”
Bang!
In the next instant, the Curse shot in the direction she’d indicated, cratering the Arena wall.
“Your specialty, the Dark Element Aura, doesn’t work on me either. So what could a Curse possibly do?”
“……Ugh!”
“Now it’s my turn again.”
Dark Flare erupted from above in relentless succession. Massive explosions bloomed in Merin’s path, black smoke billowing skyward.
“Kahahaha!”
Serne’s laughter—the cackle of a villain—echoed across the entire Arena.
It was a one-sided display of raw power.
“I… I can’t watch this anymore.”
Tender-hearted Kamibarez had buried her face in her palms. Beside her, a boy clicked his tongue and scratched his head in frustration.
“How are we supposed to… wait. Where’s Simon?”
“Simon?”
The two looked around belatedly. Simon, who’d been sitting beside them in the Spectator Seating, was gone.
Crash!!
Meanwhile, Merin had been driven to the far edge of the Arena, desperately dodging Dark Flare after Dark Flare.
Blood sprayed from her lips. Now the signs of Dark Element backlash were beginning to show.
[Serne Aindarc : 100%]
[Merin Villenne : 4%]
“Hah… hah…”
She’d reached her limit.
Her vision swam and tilted dizzily; even Serne’s form—the one she’d wanted so badly to break—was becoming a blur.
She really was impossibly strong.
There was no closing the distance.
Now Merin understood why the elders had turned away from her. Why they’d changed the Tower’s very laws to appoint Serne as successor.
Even she couldn’t argue with it anymore.
The stubborn pride born of anger crumbled, and Merin’s body slowly lost its strength.
“Merin!!”
That was when it happened.
The voice pierced through her ears like a lance, jolting her back to consciousness.
Simon stood in the Spectator Seating directly above, breathing hard.
“S-Simon! Shouldn’t you be competing…!”
“Forget about that!”
Simon glanced once at Serne—wary, alert—before raising his voice.
“Think about what you’re good at!”
“…What… what do you mean?”
“You’re too fixated on your opponent right now. If you keep going like this, you’ll just keep getting played with! Think about what you’ve learned so far! Think only about the things you do well!”
Merin faltered.
“B-but! Don’t you see this? The entire Arena is a sea of flames—what good is Dark Ice Crystallization Boundary going to do here…!”
If she took this message simply as fire versus ice, Merin would never change.
Simon’s eyes flashed.
“Didn’t you say you’d become stronger than anyone?”
It was the day Merin had first used Dark Ice Crystallization Boundary after enrolling at Kizen.
That had been during Magical Combat class, surprisingly.
A joint session with Class C—a ball game, almost like dodgeball. That was when Merin first deployed Dark Ice Crystallization Boundary, sliding Serne right out from under her, and said:
—I will become stronger than anyone, and before I graduate from Kizen, I’ll break you with my own hands. But there’s no reason to fixate solely on you in the process of growing stronger.
Merin had said those words clearly from her own mouth. And from that day onward, she’d made Dark Ice Crystallization Boundary her main art, and her ability had exploded.
“Remember this. Defeating Serne, winning this match—”
Simon’s voice turned grave.
“it’s all just one step along the way.”
“Oh my~”
Serne cupped her cheek and laughed. Simon and Merin flinched, turning their heads away.
“For Simon to say such things about our Ivory Tower student, I’m just so very happy~”
She raised a finger, and the Dark Flare Magic Circles suspended in the air began to writhe violently.
“But if we keep dragging this out, things might get dangerous, don’t you think?”
Screeeeeeeech!
A dozen Dark Flares came streaking down without a gap between them.
‘…’
Merin lifted her gaze.
She watched the roiling inferno bearing down on her, its gaping maw wide open, for a moment suspended in thought.
‘What I’ve learned.’
Merin staggered, then steadied her stance.
She channeled the last of her Dark Element across her entire body.
‘What I do best.’
Zing! Zing!
Magic Circles bloomed beneath her feet where they touched the Arena floor.
‘Defeating Serne, winning this match—one step along the way.’
Her sapphire eyes, sharp with intellect, gleamed.
One loosened eye corrected itself.
She let her tightly tensed arms go slack, shoulders drooping with a loose sway.
“Alright—”
At last.
A carefree smile curved across her lips.
“Now I’ve got nothing to lose!!”
Kaboooooom!
Craaaaash!
The Dark Flares detonated in rapid succession against the floor and walls. Even Simon, seated in the Spectator Seating, was driven back by the violent shockwave.
Though a protective barrier spread across the Arena, the front rows of seats were melting away from the sheer destructive force.
The crowd rose from their seats, eyes wide.
“Is it… over?”
“No, look there!”
A fair distance from where the fire spheres had struck, Merin was crouched intact and unharmed.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
“Teleportation?!”
“Did she just warp away?”
But Simon and a few other sharp-eyed spectators saw through it. A line of ice stretched across the ground where her movement had traced, now melting and flowing.
Whoosh.
Merin raised her head.

Shhhhwooooosh!
Her feet barely left the ground as she ascended, pouring ice beneath her as she shot forward at tremendous velocity.
Serne fired flame spheres immediately, but Merin tore across the ground with overwhelming speed. She scaled the walls, burst toward the ceiling, and weaved freely through three dimensions, dodging every single projectile that came her way.
Roooaaaaar!
The crowd erupted in cheers at the sudden reversal.
Within this Arena that Serne commanded, Dark Ice Crystallization Boundary crumbles in mere seconds. It cannot serve as a projectile, and as cover it is worthless.
But.
‘With this Ice Road, continuously manifesting ice to move—it doesn’t matter!’
Shhhhwooosh!
The way Merin evaded the endless shower of flame spheres with graceful S-turns and Z-turns was a sight that drew gasps from everyone watching—her skill was that breathtaking.
Swift.
And precise control.
The gray ash that had clung to her hair scattered on the wind, and her sky-blue locks, restored to brilliance, streamed freely behind her.
Her gaze locked onto Serne.
‘Don’t be bound! Think freely!’
Merin spread a Magic Circle across her palm.
‘Just like this Ice Road—with my specialty, Dark Ice Crystallization Boundary, I’ll find a way to stand against the flames!’
And then she began reshaping the formulas and circuits on her own terms.
Magic Circle Modification.
It was perilous work she’d never dared attempt before, yet she had no choice but to succeed.
‘Remember! Everything I learned at Kizen!’
Her mind flooded with countless formulas and Rune Language patterns from her textbooks.
“Our Merin dodges so nimbly, doesn’t she?”
Whoosh!
Serne predicted Merin’s trajectory and drew a Dark Flare directly onto her palm, firing it forward.
But Merin had been waiting. She thrust her open palm straight toward the approaching fireball.

A massive shard of ice erupted with a sharp crack, but the moment it touched the flames, it melted away with a sizzle.
“Why resort to ice? That’s forcing things unnecessarily.”
Serne’s eyes widened. The water that had pooled on the ground, melted from the Dark Flame Arts, suddenly rippled and stirred of its own accord.
Splash! Splash!
The melted water shot forward like a water gun, grazing Serne’s arm and thigh as it passed.
Red warning lights lit on her Barrier Gauge for the first time.
Roaaaar!
The crowd erupted at Merin’s first counterattack.
“She landed a hit! What? How did that happen!”
Dik spoke excitedly.
“She modified the formula of the frost spell!”
Kamibarez trembled with emotion in her voice.
Normally, the Dark Ice Crystallization Boundary formula reinforces temperature, durability, and projectile velocity, but Merin had minimized every parameter.
She’d lowered the melting point until it could no longer function as ice, and in exchange, she’d engineered the ejection functionality of transformed water into the formula.
Dik let out a hollow laugh.
“You’re saying such a modification is possible in this short time? Without a magical explosion?”
“Yes! Merin truly is a genius!”
Kamibarez cried out.
“Transforming Dark Ice Crystallization Boundary into Dark Water Element! Wouldn’t that actually reverse the elemental compatibility in her favor?”
“No, it wouldn’t.”
Simon, who had returned to his seat moments ago, spoke breathlessly.
“Simon!”
“Preparing and using Dark Water Element from the start is completely different from mimicking Dark Water Element with melted ice.”
Simon knew this better than anyone because he’d witnessed Panthasus, the student council president, a true monster among monsters who wielded Dark Water Element.
Dik nodded in agreement.
“So Merin’s situation is still dire.”
“Yeah. But the fact that she created an opening to counterattack against Serne is incredible in itself!”
Merin, having found her rhythm, was now attacking aggressively. She deliberately collided ice with the incoming flames, then used the melted water to strike Serne with unpredictable angles.
“Are we playing water guns like neighborhood kids? All this splash-splash pew-pew feels kinda childish~”
Serne spoke with casual ease.
“Don’t you have any more serious attacks? Merin.”
“Shut your mouth!!”
Merin pressed the attack with breathless intensity. She evaded using Ice Road while hurling melted water endlessly.
“I won’t play along with you anymore!”
She thrust both arms overhead with force. At that moment, all the melted ice water across the arena surged skyward at once, shooting up like a geyser.
And suspended in the air was a Magic Circle that Merin had positioned in advance.
The moment the mass of water passed through that circle.
Crack-crack-crack!
It transformed into dense, frozen ice spikes. The largest ice Merin had unleashed in this entire match.

“She froze the water again!!”
“Bring it down!”
The entire crowd, now fully absorbed in the battle, screamed in extreme excitement.
Serne furrowed her brow and extended her arm.

Whoosh!
The Dark Flare erupting from Serne’s palm engulfed the glacier in an instant.
“I am not a successor candidate! I am not Ivory Tower’s second! I am not Serne’s underling!”
Merin brought both arms down with all her remaining strength.
“I am Merin Billenne!!”
Crash!
The flames split left and right as Merin’s Glacia pierced through the inferno and descended.
With Serne’s expression shifting to shock, the ice struck her barrier hard.
“……!”
“Match over!”
In that instant, the referee watching the Barrier Gauge on the screen thrust out his arm and called out powerfully.
[Serne Aindark : 71%]
[Merin Billenne : 0%]
“The winner! Serne Aindark!”
From the extreme heat that had engulfed the Arena, Merin’s Barrier Gauge had finally reached zero.
Yet the atmosphere in the Arena was anything but one of Merin’s defeat.
Crack!
Merin clenched both fists tight and let out a cry of exhilaration with all her strength.
“Yeaaaaaah!”
Zing-zing—
Everyone who heard that shout felt a thrill run through them.
The spectators followed suit, closing their fists and responding with a tremendous roar of cheers.
Waaaaaaaaah!
Before so many upperclassmen and peers.
It was a match that had etched the name Merin Billenne firmly into memory—a name that had dwelt in the shadow of the great title that was Serne of the Ivory Tower.

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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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