Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 121

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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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Chapter 121

The Talking Book also seemed to realize what his words meant and belatedly made excuses.

“Of course, I didn’t mean you should keep getting hurt. I just meant you should come visit often.”

“Ah. I see.”

Lee Han shook off his uneasiness and opened the pouch.

Inside were things that looked like hard rock fragments.

“Griffin gallstones.”

“Oh…!”

Lee Han recalled the books he had read in his mind.

According to what he had read in alchemy books, griffin gallstones were definitely…?

“Do they have a powerful effect on mana recovery?”

“That’s right. You know well.”

Lee Han became dejected.

‘Not very useful.’

He had already experienced firsthand in Professor Thunderstep’s class that mana recovery potions had little effect on him.

If it were a mana reduction potion, maybe, but mana recovery effects…

The Talking Book was flustered by Lee Han’s reaction.

It would be one thing if he didn’t know what this was, but having such a reaction while knowing didn’t make sense.

Unless he was directly raising griffins…

“It’s precious, you know? Real griffin gallstones.”

“Thank you. But I’ve rarely been short on mana…”

“Ah.”

The Talking Book finally understood Lee Han’s reaction.

Come to think of it, if a new student had that level of mana, he would never feel mana shortage.

“Hmm… Among the demons I know, there are a few who have the ability to absorb mana. But it’s too dangerous for me to introduce you to them.”

“I’ll just appreciate the thought.”

Lee Han said while subtly stepping backward.

As expected of a demon summoned by the Skeleton Principal, it didn’t seem like there would be any benefit to getting too friendly with him.

“You must come visit often! Let’s talk about Gonadaltes together!”

The Talking Book, unaware of Lee Han’s inner thoughts, fluttered his pages as he saw him off.

Durgyu said with admiration.

“Even though he’s a demon summoned and captured by the Principal, he treats you kindly, Lee Han. Lee Han, he must have recognized your abilities.”

Demons naturally liked talented people too.

So he must be treating Lee Han kindly for that reason.

“I think it’s a bit different from that…”

But from Lee Han’s perspective, the conversation just now was far from that.

That was…

‘Probably because he has no one else to complain about the Skeleton Principal with.’

Who would curse the Skeleton Principal with anyone?

There were fewer people who could do that than he thought.

Thinking about it that way, Lee Han suddenly felt a little sorry for the Talking Book.

How did it end up getting involved with the Skeleton Principal!

* * *

【Basic Imperial Geometry and Arithmetic】.

Just as mathematics was the foundation of all learning, this lecture was also very important.

From mana calculation to magic circle creation and developing new magic, as the level of magic increased, it could no longer be solved by intuition and instinct alone.

As such, students should have known the importance of this lecture and studied hard, but…

‘Did someone cast sleep magic?’

Lee Han looked around.

The students were already completely wiped out. Gainando was even snoring softly while nodding off.

The only survivors were Asan (though Asan was stabbing the back of his hand with a quill pen) and Adenart (she was expressionless, but Lee Han witnessed the Imperial Princess casting sleep dispelling magic on herself), and Yoner.

Lee Han took out coffee.

When Lee Han handed the coffee to Yoner, Yoner received it preciously like a person who had been stranded in the snow mountains for months and was rescued, receiving their first coffee, and sipped it.

“So sleepy…”

Lee Han nodded.

Whether it was his imagination or not, the air in the lecture hall seemed to be getting thinner too.

Yoner, who had finished doodling by drawing a water bottle on a geometric figure, turned his head to change his mood.

Somehow Lee Han seemed even more upright than usual.

‘He must have stayed up all night, right?’

“Aren’t you sleepy?”

“I can’t… sleep during a sacred lecture. Yoner.”

“????”

Yoner was flustered when his friend suddenly said something strange.

What’s wrong with him?

‘I need to make a good impression.’

Lee Han widened his eyes.

Honestly, the professor’s voice made even Lee Han, who had a will of steel, sleepy.

The voice with its unique rhythm made people sleepy as if casting hypnosis.

If he hadn’t known the professor’s identity, he would have suspected the other person of being a master of mental magic.

Alfen Naiton.

He was the professor in charge of 【Basic Imperial Geometry and Arithmetic】, and originally a person who had served as an imperial senior administrator.

An imperial high official who had tried to cut the research budgets of countless mages and earned various grudges!

He had wielded the knife so much that even now the professors at the magic school still held grudges against him.

But Lee Han was different.

‘I need to make a good impression…!’

An imperial senior administrator was one of the few positions among the government positions within the Empire, wasn’t it?

Someone sitting in such a position couldn’t possibly lack connections.

What if he made a good impression on such a professor?

-Wardanaz. A talent like you is exactly what the Empire needs. Come to the Empire after graduation! I’ll recommend you.

-Thank you, Professor!

Rather than the master-disciple relationship where they built love and hate together in the workshop, this kind of master-disciple relationship where one cleanly gave recommendations and never met again afterward was what Lee Han considered a true master-disciple relationship.

To achieve that, he needed to make a good impression on Professor Alpen Naiton.

‘But he really seems to have no interest in students.’

Lee Han pondered.

Professor Alpen Naiton was typically of the ‘I’ll go my own way, so you all figure out how to follow’ type.

Whether students followed the lecture content or not, he did his own work.

He was probably very satisfied with himself, making him an even more difficult type.

‘Similar to Professor Boladi, but difficult in a different way.’

Professor Boladi wasn’t uninterested in students, or rather, in a student.

If anything, he was too interested, which was the problem.

It was also true that he waited for students to catch up.

Though he waited from too far away…

“What are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about how to catch the professor’s eye.”

“…Isn’t it enough already??”

Yoner asked in a bewildered voice. Lee Han asked back in confusion.

“What’s enough?”

“While there’s nothing wrong with getting attention from professors, if you get too much, it seems like you’ll have a hard time…”

Yoner cautiously advised.

Before entering this school, he never would have dreamed he’d be giving such advice to a friend.

Don’t get too much attention from professors. What kind of advice was that?

But looking at this Wardanaz family boy now, he couldn’t help but give such advice.

He was seriously worried!

“It’s fine, Yoner. This much is nothing. And Professor Alpen Naiton is different from other professors.”

“Hmm… If you say you’re fine, I won’t stop you, but…”

Yoner felt ominous for some reason.

Why did he feel like his friend was digging his own grave?

“…That’s all for today. Remember this equation. You’ll definitely need it when calculating mana.”

Meanwhile, Professor Alpen finished his lecture.

Gainando, who heard “that’s all” in his drowsy state, lifted his head with perfect timing.

“Is it over? Is it over??”

“Now we’ll have a simple test.”

“…It’s over…”

Gainando realized it was over in a different sense and clutched his head.

Looking around, all the students who had been collapsed until just moments ago had come to their senses and were in despair.

“How lucky.”

“What do you mean lucky?!”

Gainando was shocked by Lee Han’s muttering.

Had his friend gone crazy while he wasn’t looking?

Lee Han ignored Gainando and thought to himself.

‘I’ll definitely catch Professor Nighaten’s attention in this quiz.’

Whatever else happened, he couldn’t lose to the new students in this lecture hall when it came to mathematics.

He would definitely show them something!

Flutterflap-!

Distance was created between the students who had been sitting close together, and test papers began appearing in front of the students.

Lee Han lightly tapped to his side.

A transparent barrier summoned by Professor Alpen was blocking the space. When he cast his gaze, his vision became blurry.

‘Cheating would be difficult without magic skills.’

Ever since entering the magic school, it seemed like whenever he witnessed magic, he would first think of ways to break through it.

As Lee Han was thinking, the professor’s voice reached his ears.

“If you finish everything first, you may submit and leave.”

‘That makes sense.’

“If you don’t finish everything, you can’t leave.”

“…?”

The words were added so naturally at the end that Lee Han almost missed them for a moment.

But when he heard it properly, something seemed strange.

‘Can’t leave if you don’t finish everything?’

It felt somewhat odd that he would say such an obvious thing separately like that.

Lee Han wasn’t the only student who thought this way, as someone raised their hand and asked.

“Professor. You mean we can’t leave until we fill in all the blanks, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Phew.”

The students felt relieved. Until the professor’s next words fell.

“…With correct answers.”

“Uh… what happens if the answers aren’t correct?”

“You’ll have to keep solving until you fill them with correct answers.”

Professor Alpen looked at the student bluntly, as if asking what kind of trivial question that was.

Only then did the students realize the situation, and their faces turned pale.

‘Can’t leave until we get everything right??’

‘Right now… uh…’

The students instinctively turned their heads to look out the window.

They had been planning to enjoy the remaining afternoon and dinner once this lecture ended, but suddenly the story had changed.

They couldn’t know exactly how many hours Professor Alpen would confine them…

‘Surely he wouldn’t lock us up until night?’

‘Don’t you still know this school?’

‘He wouldn’t lock us up until tomorrow…?’

Scratch scratch!

Lee Han began frantically moving his quill pen.

It was no longer a matter of whether he could get into the professor’s good graces or not.

It was a matter of whether he could escape the lecture hall or not.

* * *

‘I’ve roughly solved everything…’

Lee Han fell into thought as he looked at the circle marks carved on his test paper.

Since it was a magically enchanted test paper, a circle mark was carved each time he got an answer correct.

However, the last problem was holding Lee Han back.

One day, Gonadaltes received 3,892 Imperial Gold Coins from the Emperor to support the construction of the Imperial Bilteron Ballroom. At this time, the magic used in the Bilteron Ballroom was as follows…

(omitted)

…When such magic and reagents were used, how many Imperial Gold Coins remained with Gonadaltes?

‘No matter how I think about it, 720 is correct.’

Lee Han couldn’t understand.

He checked the magic circles several times, confirmed the amount of reagents needed for the magic circles, and even verified the labor costs for construction…

Even after double-checking like that, the answer didn’t change.

Why?

Looking around, he saw that several friends had also caught up to Lee Han belatedly, as they had put down their quill pens and were intently staring at only the last problem.

They were all stuck on the last problem together.

‘Was there something I originally needed to know rather than solving it with the information given in the problem? Is this a problem that requires a different approach?’

Lee Han thought about it.

Gonadaltes was the Skeleton Principal’s surname.

If the Skeleton Principal had received gold coins, would he have saved them to return to the Emperor?

‘That doesn’t seem likely.’

Lost in thought, Lee Han absentmindedly wrote ‘0’ on his answer sheet.

Since there was no penalty for wrong answers, he thought he’d just take a guess.

Swoosh-

However, a circle mark appeared on the test paper. Lee Han was shocked.

‘What the…??’

Professor Alpen also seemed to realize that Lee Han had finished everything, as he turned his gaze toward him.

“Faster than I thought. Well done. It’s a perfect score, Mr. Wardanaz.”

Though he received the praise he had so wanted, Lee Han wasn’t happy. Rather, he was confused.

“Pro… Professor.”

“What is it?”

“May I ask about the last problem?”

“Ah.”

Professor Alpen spoke with a slight smile crossing his stern face.

“It must have been entertaining. I wanted to give some laughter to students tired from exams.”

“…Oh…”

Lee Han wondered if he should revise his plan to get into the other person’s good graces.

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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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