Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 135

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

Chapter 135

Though it was a rude remark, Professor Garcia found it hard to refute.

If the Skeleton Principal and Professor Boladi were to compete over who had fewer close students, it would be an extremely fierce battle.

“Well. Why are you asking about that?”

Professor Bagrek will probably be assigned something for this festival too, but seeing him pass by like that makes me worried.

“He’ll manage well on his own.”

No. You’re misunderstanding what I’m saying, Professor Garcia.

The Skeleton Principal spoke firmly.

Professor Bagrek has no close students, so there’s a high chance he’ll call the Wardanaz family boy.

“…Ah.”

Professor Garcia understood what he meant.

Just like the Skeleton Principal, who had no close students other than Lee Han, Professor Boladi had a very high chance of being in the same situation.

It was truly an unfortunate situation for student Lee Han.

“How about you yield, Principal?”

Did I mishear?

“How about you yie…”

I still can’t hear it even after listening again. What did you say?

“…Right. There’s no way you’d yield.”

Professor Bagrek! Professor Bagrek!

The Skeleton Principal called over Professor Boladi, who was trying to pass by in the distance. The pale vampire mage approached without any change in expression.

…So this is the situation. Do you understand?

“Wouldn’t it be fine if the Principal just yielded?”

Hahaha… Don’t talk nonsense.

“I was not talking nonsense.”

Professor Garcia already felt a headache coming on from the conversation between these two mages who were far from the concept of compromise.

However, contrary to her worries, the two didn’t fight.

Then how about we compromise? Split the time in half?

“Fine.”

“…”

Predators respect each other’s territory.

The Principal and Professor Boladi quickly reached an agreement.

Only the herbivore that would be bitten by those predators ended up being pitiful.

Wait. Professor Thunderstep is also passing by over there…

“Professor Thunderstep has many close students, so just exclude him!”

Professor Garcia desperately tried to stop them.

Even so, wouldn’t splitting it three ways be too cruel!

* * *

Without even dreaming that a schedule had been added without his knowledge, Lee Han was deep in thought with Asan.

Professor Alpen had called it a ‘simple’ magic circle, but that was naturally by professor standards, and it wasn’t particularly simple for Lee Han and Asan.

“So when completed, it floats Light Orbs at regular intervals on both sides of the corridor, and shows a statue made of illusions in the center?”

“That seems to be it.”

Asan, who had read the book the professor gave them, spoke with a confident voice.

“Wardanaz. Knighton Professor is 100% insane.”

‘His language seems to have gotten rougher since entering the school.’

But Lee Han could understand why Asan was speaking like that.

It was a magic circle with difficulty far too high for two new students to handle.

Lee Han wondered if he could just substitute the Light Orbs with his own mana and bring an actual statue instead of the illusory one.

【Empire Banquet Simple Magic Circle Installation Production Specifications】

For mages who are poor at eloquence, flashy magic is a way to compensate for their lacking social skills at banquets.

Some foolish mages take lightly the matter of attending banquets and building connections, but this is truly short-sighted thinking, as extracting sponsorship money from nobles is an important ability for mages.

Here is an anecdote to illustrate that importance…

‘For something with so much unnecessary talk, it’s quite fascinating.’

Mages’ books never simply wrote just the key points, even for simple content.

They would write some personal anecdotes, write about what they ate yesterday, write about how the weather was today, write some insults about other competitors, and only then get to the main point.

The book Professor Alpen gave them was like that too, but the content was quite relatable.

‘Methods for extracting money from nobles…’

Magical research required enormous amounts of money. Magic was the most expensive field of study in the Empire.

The prices of rare reagents skyrocketed astronomically, and rare artifacts were so expensive that even having money wasn’t enough to buy them.

Who could provide such money? It was wealthy nobles and rich people.

While Lee Han didn’t have serious intentions about research, he was quite serious about extracting money.

‘Impress them with Illusion Magic and dancing… music… literature… art… hmm… isn’t there an easier way?’

“Wardanaz?”

“Ah. Sorry. I was concentrating.”

Lee Han snapped back to attention.

Asan was scribbling with his quill pen, lost in thought. Reading the specifications didn’t mean the problem was over.

…Draw the following diagram and channel mana equivalent to two musk rats. Then it will operate smoothly. Place mana stones with light elemental properties, but their mana must not be too high. Sometimes the mana flow gets cut off depending on the surrounding environment, which can be solved by adding just a little bit of the following reagents…

With all sorts of metaphors and explanations only the author understood, most of it had to be tried hands-on even after reading everything.

Unlike Asan, who was muttering curses at the professor and cursing the world, Lee Han silently began preparations.

For Lee Han, such unreasonableness was already like fate.

“Let’s prepare.”

“…I’m really glad you’re helping me. Wardanaz.”

Asan also pulled himself together and began preparing busily.

They drew white lines on the floor with light spirit ink, which had high mana conductivity for light properties, and began slowly infusing mana.

If mana was insufficient, it would flow along the lines and then stop, and if there was too much mana, the lines themselves would be destroyed, so concentration was essential.

And most importantly…

“…Cough.”

Asan collapsed to the side with his face turned pale blue. Trembling, Asan pulled out a potion bottle from inside his coat.

It was a Low-Grade Mana Recovery Potion made during Professor Thunderstep’s class.

“War… Wardanaz. If I collapse… please avenge me against Professor Knighton in my place…”

“Just rest.”

Lee Han laid Asan down beside him and proceeded with the test alone.

Having abundant mana wasn’t necessarily all disadvantages.

During such simple repetitive work, while other mages were forced to take breaks due to mana shortage, Lee Han didn’t need to do so.

‘…Why do I feel lonely? How strange.’

Shaking off the unnecessary thoughts, Lee Han repeatedly injected mana and gradually completed the magic circle bit by bit.

Click-

“?”

Lee Han and Asan raised their heads. Someone had opened the lecture hall door and entered.

“Is it the Professor?”

The one who opened the lecture hall door and entered was Imperial Princess Adenart.

The imperial bloodline with long silver hair had opened the door to study with her followers, but was surprised to see the situation inside the lecture hall.

“Lord Wardanaz!”

“Good to see you.”

“What are you doing on the weekend… Ah!”

One of the followers nodded as if understanding.

“You’re studying without rest even on weekends. I’m impressed.”

“…”

“…No! Don’t you have eyes!”

Asan flared up.

Of course, Lee Han was among the Blue Dragon Tower students who studied the most, but this wasn’t that.

Who would be doing this willingly?

“The Professor made us do this!”

“The Professor did? Why?”

“A friend of his is coming…”

The Imperial Princess’s followers listened carefully and attentively to Asan’s explanation.

And then they were impressed again.

“Amazing!”

“…Hmm. It is amazing, I suppose.”

Asan made an irritated expression but couldn’t argue further.

It was indeed amazing. Not just anyone could do this.

But when you’re doing this during a precious weekend, amazing or not, you’d want to fire a Magic Missile at Professor Knighton’s face.

“Ah. Wardanaz. I thought of a good method, would you listen to it?”

“Tell me.”

“We could mobilize that Imperial Princess and her friends over there. Wouldn’t that be much more helpful? I think there’s a 96% chance it would help.”

“Oh… But that won’t work.”

Lee Han flatly refused.

Asan was flustered.

“Why?”

“Well…”

The reason Lee Han was helping Asan instead of finding a way to escape school this weekend was simple.

Wasn’t it to get in good with the Professor and the Professor’s friend?

But if the Imperial Princess participated together…

-Oh my, isn’t that person the Imperial Princess? What an honor to meet you like this. You truly possess abilities worthy of your reputation. To complete such an intricate magic circle while still being a new student!

…such a situation was highly likely to occur.

Among the numerous Imperial Family members, Adenart was quite renowned, so there was no way the Imperial Bureaucrats wouldn’t know her.

‘Sorry. For the sake of my advancement, the Imperial Princess cannot participate in this troublesome and tedious work.’

“…Because the Professor entrusted this work to just the two of us.”

“Ugh. I see. If you say so, then there’s nothing I can do.”

Asan respected Lee Han’s wishes.

If he didn’t listen to a friend who came to help by sacrificing his weekend, whose words would he listen to?

However, things didn’t go as expected.

“Excuse me. Mr. Wardanaz.”

“?”

“The Imperial Princess says she wants to help. Would it be alright if we helped together?”

“…”

Lee Han was bewildered.

Why would she want to help with this?

‘Does this look fun to her?’

If it were Gainando, being from the same Imperial Family, he would have run away just from looking at the magic circle, not wanting to do errands. But she was approaching because she wanted to do this.

It was unbelievable.

Fortunately, Asan stepped forward.

“Sorry, but that’s not possible. This is work that was entrusted to just the two of us.”

“Mr. Dalcard. Mr. Wardanaz might think differently.”

“Wardanaz’s opinion will be similar to mine.”

The Imperial Princess looked at Asan coldly. It didn’t seem to contain any good intentions.

The Imperial Princess, who had been cursing with her eyes, whispered to her follower. After hearing everything, the follower approached.

“Mr. Wardanaz.”

“What is it?”

“Well… Her Imperial Highness said she would provide snacks if she could participate in the work.”

“Wh-what!”

Asan was even more shocked.

She would provide snacks!

It was a level of determination he couldn’t have imagined.

“Wardanaz. I didn’t expect you to say something like that…!”

‘Has this guy not fully recovered his mana yet?’

Lee Han was dumbfounded as he watched Asan speak so solemnly.

It seemed like his intelligence had dropped slightly due to lack of mana.

‘Hmm.’

Lee Han fell into deep thought.

‘If I refuse here, the Imperial Princess will hold a grudge.’

Originally, the higher one’s birth status, the more narrow-minded they tended to be. You could tell just by looking at Gainando.

And unlike Gainando, the Imperial Princess had many people around her.

People who could specifically make Lee Han’s life complicated…

‘Cowardly Imperial Family members.’

“What are you doing here?”

Professor Alpen, who was passing by, looked puzzled at the students gathered in the lecture hall.

“The other friends were saying they would help.”

Lee Han spoke while harboring slight hope.

With Professor Alpen’s stubborn personality, there was no way he would just let this slide.

Please chase them away!

“Excellent.”

Professor Alpen looked at Lee Han, relaxed his stern expression, and smiled slightly.

“Excuse me?”

“Other friends stepping forward to help. You have good friends. Accepting help from others is also an ability. Since it’s come to this, try commanding the other students and making it once. Leading multiple people is also an ability.”

Professor Alpen said that and left. Asan looked at Lee Han and said.

“From what he’s saying, it seems like it’ll be fine? Wardanaz. It’ll be okay, right? To let them participate?”

“Asan.”

“??”

“We need to go to the dormitory and bring more guys who are resting.”

“That… that much??”

Asan was surprised.

This much should be enough…!

‘He’s really thorough. I should learn from him.’

‘Since he said that, I’ll increase the numbers to get an even higher evaluation.’

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