Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 213

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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 213

The carriage flew like an arrow. It didn’t seem like much time had passed, but the main gate of the magic school could be seen in the distance.

Lee Han momentarily felt a warm, familiar feeling as if returning home.

And he got goosebumps.

‘Did I get hit by mental magic?’

The snow has melted quite a bit.

The Skeleton Principal’s voice contained quiet regret. Lee Han cursed inwardly.

“It melted faster than expected.”

Yes. I thought it would last a bit longer. There was no need to solve it so quickly, was there?

“I’ll be more careful in the future.”

Lee Han answered halfheartedly and got off the carriage.

There were still places where snow was piled up, but the bitter cold from a few days ago couldn’t be felt at all.

It was warm spring weather.

‘At least I’m glad I didn’t waste the entire weekend.’

Priests could be seen here and there. Lee Han made a pleased expression.

To be able to meet the priests without wasting the remaining Sunday.

This alone was quite lucky.

If the cold had lasted just a little longer, we could have stopped the priests…

The Skeleton Principal’s voice full of regret could be heard from behind. Lee Han pretended not to hear and walked away.

* * *

“You must have really suffered a lot.”

The priests of the Fire Order, the Afha Order, spoke with expressions full of sympathy.

To think that the students nearly froze to death while they were away.

Their hearts couldn’t help but ache.

“Still, it wasn’t all bad. Thanks to the cold, training with the fire element became easier.”

The priests laughed at Lee Han’s words. They thought it was a joke.

“Lee Han of the Wardanaz Family always finds the positive aspects of things, doesn’t he?”

“With such a mindset, you’ll be fine no matter what trials come your way.”

Lee Han, who was putting on flame absorption rings, bracelets, and necklaces, paused at that reaction.

“Did you perhaps think I was joking…?”

“Now. Then let’s get into flame training once more.”

Inside the tent, paper birds began flying around.

Once you learned to control the movement of flames to some extent, the next step was training to hit moving targets.

Actually, hitting targets itself wasn’t very difficult training for Lee Han.

He had already controlled other elements in much more complex and detailed ways.

What was difficult for Lee Han was maintaining consistent firepower while moving flames to hit targets.

If his concentration broke even slightly, the flames would grow in size and spread in all directions.

Other mages who handled fire elements would pour mana into maintaining flames after summoning them, but Lee Han had to learn to restrain his mana as precariously as possible to prevent the flames from going out of control after summoning them.

…It was a bit unfair, but it couldn’t be helped.

Whoosh!

The flames circling around Lee Han accurately hit the paper birds.

The priests’ faces brightened.

The firepower of the flames had noticeably stabilized compared to last time.

Of course, he was wearing ten flame absorption rings, four bracelets, and two necklaces, but even considering that, it was excellent progress.

“Excellent! Your skills have improved greatly.”

“Is that so?”

Nevertheless, Lee Han seemed slightly disappointed.

The experienced priests didn’t miss the disappointment in the voice of the boy from the Wardanaz Family.

“Do you have any problems or concerns? Please speak freely. The ears of priests are always open.”

“Well, the thing is…”

Lee Han slowly opened his mouth.

Actually, the fire element had narrower versatility compared to other elements and was specialized in a few directions.

Water or earth could be used in various ways – attack for attack, defense for defense – due to their inherent flexibility, but…

Fire was quite ambiguous in its applications.

As such, when handling the fire element, one had no choice but to obsess over destructive power.

“When I focus on controlling flames, the power seems to weaken even when I succeed. A few days ago, I encountered a monster…”

The priests of the Afha Order weren’t surprised by Lee Han’s words.

This was a concern that anyone who handled fire element magic would have at least once.

While the characteristics of fire were certainly destructive, when actually experiencing combat, one could realize that applying fire elements to battle was surprisingly difficult.

No matter how destructive it was, it only had meaning if it reached the enemy first.

Water or earth were easy to shape and relatively easy to move and gain speed in that state.

Lightning was difficult to control, but it was an element that condensed tremendous speed in itself.

But fire was not only difficult to shape, but also several times harder than other elements to move and gain speed in that state.

To solve this problem, one had to deliberately create proper ‘arrow’ or ‘spear’ forms, maintain them, and even add ‘launch’ properties to perfectly overcome the weaknesses, but this dramatically increased the circle difficulty.

It wasn’t a method that someone just starting to learn fire elements could attempt.

In the end, novice fire mages would slowly move flames to attack enemies, or summon flames widely to suppress enemies, or handle them with enchantment magic instead.

“Everyone has this concern, Lee Han of the Wardanaz Family. It could be called a transitional period before the level of magic rises. Fire magic is especially easy to block when opponents are prepared, so it can be very frustrating. But if you don’t give up and continue training, your magic level will rise, and the concerns you have now will be easily resolved. What monster did you face that made you feel the lack of power?”

The priests asked for the name of the monster Lee Han had faced.

It was to hear about weaknesses and give advice.

Rather than being impatient to increase the power of fire magic right away, it would be better to know how to tackle monsters.

“I heard it was called the Frost Giant King.”

“…The Frost Giant King, you say?”

“Yes.”

“…That’s not a problem with fire magic, but rather the opponent was too strong, Lee Han of the Wardanaz Family.”

Though they were gentle priests of the Afha Order, they couldn’t help but become serious at such words.

To feel the power of fire magic against a powerful being like the Frost Giant King, just how many circles of magic would need to be cast…

“Wait. But why did you end up clashing with the Frost Giant King?”

One of the priests noticed something strange and spoke.

Come to think of it, that was right.

The name Frost Giant King was so intimidating that they almost missed it…

Lee Han was still a first year.

There was no reason for him to clash with the Frost Giant King.

“While helping with the upperclassmen’s work, I happened to encounter it.”

“What year students were they?”

“Excuse me?”

“What year students were they?”

“Fourth year… students.”

The priests murmured among themselves. Lee Han thought he heard words like ‘trash’ and ‘scoundrels’.

“But thanks to that, my fire magic improved like this.”

Still, since they were upperclassmen he’d have to see regularly, Lee Han came to their defense.

Of course, the experienced priests of the order weren’t fooled by such words.

“Lee Han of the Wardanaz Family. While you gain a lot from entering a dragon’s lair and surviving, no one would recommend entering a dragon’s lair. From now on, you’d better never associate with such upperclassmen. They’re very bad people.”

“I understand.”

Since the priests were so serious, Lee Han nodded.

If he defended them here, the upperclassmen would only seem more like trash.

“Increase the speed of the birds.”

“Yes.”

The priests began to increase the speed of the paper birds. Lee Han concentrated and controlled the flames.

A flame the size of an index finger moved quickly, chasing after the birds.

At that rapid growth, the priests forgot their serious expressions from moments ago and showed pleased looks.

They couldn’t forgive letting a new student meet the Ice Giant King, but…

Seeing this kind of growth, it seemed that intense experience had properly helped after all.

Swoosh! Swish swoosh!

“…?”

The priests who had been increasing the number and speed of paper birds each time Lee Han succeeded felt something was off.

Since paper birds had to be faster than flames when compared, from a certain point Lee Han should have been cleverly targeting them one by one rather than shooting down all the paper birds.

But right now, the Wardanaz Family boy was simply moving flames and making them explode.

No matter how they compared, it was faster than the paper birds.

“Try increasing the speed more.”

The priest controlling the paper birds nodded. The paper birds flew as if determined to have a speed contest.

Lee Han was so concentrated he couldn’t hear the priests’ conversation. As the paper birds swiftly cut through the air, flames chased after them, picking up speed.

Just looking at the movement speed, it was no different from other elements.

‘Fast!’

The Afha Order priests had seen all kinds of flames, but they couldn’t help being surprised at this flame’s speed.

To achieve this kind of speed with just control, without any additional magic?

‘I see. The mana…!’

Having too much mana to control wasn’t only a disadvantage.

The priests had never seen flames moving this fast.

…Of course, they had never seen a novice mage unable to control fire because they had too much mana either…

“Meeting the Ice Giant King really seems to have helped a lot.”

“Even if that’s true, it’s not something to say out loud. Be careful.”

“I’m sorry. I was being thoughtless.”

“…”

Lee Han, who had knocked down the paper birds and released his concentration, paused at the conversation he heard nearby.

‘I’ll have to leave out the upperclassmen when I talk about this in the future.’

It seemed to sound much stranger than Lee Han had thought.

* * *

Monday morning.

Professor Garcia’s face was very bright as she entered the lecture hall.

Lee Han also felt a slight sense of anticipation from that positive energy.

‘What good thing happened?’

Usually Mondays that came after weekends were always painful, but at magic school it was a bit more painful.

Every Monday, summoned monsters would be released, or the Skeleton Principal would dig traps, or early winter would arrive, or the Skeleton Principal would launch attacks…

But seeing Professor Garcia’s face, maybe this week could be looked forward to.

Would a truly peaceful and warm week really come?

“Did something good happen, Professor?”

“Good question.”

Professor Garcia said in an excited voice.

“Last night we finally caught the monster that had settled in the deeper levels of the library. It was summoned by mistake and had been bothering students for months. Now it won’t interfere with students’ studying.”

“I… I see?”

The 1st year students in the lecture hall couldn’t relate to Professor Garcia’s happiness.

In the first place, none of the 1st year students had ever set foot in the deep parts of the library.

Einroguard was already complicated enough, but even among that, the library was a top-tier labyrinth.

There was naturally no systematic book classification, and it was a chaotic maze where the archive you went to today would be changed to somewhere else tomorrow!

Since the 1st year students had brains, they only looked for books near the relatively safe entrance and didn’t go deeper inside.

“Congrat… ulations?”

“Congratulations?”

Still, since it was something Professor Garcia said, the students forced themselves to congratulate her. Professor Garcia nodded and was happy.

“The professors giving other lectures will now be able to take out books without hesitation.”

“…?”

Lee Han, who had been listening blankly, paused.

He felt an ominous sense of unease.

“Uh, Professor?”

“What is it, Lee Han?”

“By any chance, have the lectures so far used relatively fewer books? Out of consideration for us?”

“There probably was quite a bit of that aspect.”

“Then from now on, there’s a high possibility that lectures will increasingly use books from the library?”

“That would be the case, wouldn’t it?”

“…”

The students who belatedly realized began to change color.

Gainando whispered.

“If we set fire to the library, wouldn’t it be closed for a while?”

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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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