Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 353

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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 353

“What’s wrong?”

Alsicle looked at Yumidifus with a blank stare.

“Alshickel Penguerin. What kind of reagents are these here?”

“Master Yumidifus…”

At his master’s utterly absurd question, Alsicle trailed off as if feeling sorry for him.

“Can’t you recognize what kind of reagents these are…?”

“…”

Yumidifus contemplated whether to beat his disciple who was pitying him like beating a dog, then held back.

“…I’m not asking because I can’t recognize them. They’re frost deer horn, ice mountain crystal, eternal snow, and snow emperor pill.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Your financial situation isn’t that good, so I’m asking if it’s okay to use these. You need to do research too.”

The biggest problem when learning frost elemental magic was the nature of the frost element itself.

Life was fundamentally a being that emitted heat and rejected cold.

No matter how cold and harsh the surrounding environment was made, it wasn’t easy for a living mage to accept frost into their body.

So frost elemental mages often used reagents to transform the properties of frost.

Frost that retained its coldness but wouldn’t harm the mage’s body.

Of course, it wasn’t an easy task and required expensive reagents.

The more expensive and rare the reagents, the better their performance, so Alsicle bringing out such expensive reagents wasn’t a bad choice.

…Except it looked like Alsicle’s entire fortune.

‘Oh no!’

Alsicle seemed to belatedly realize his situation.

Seeing him fidget and read the room, Yumidifus sighed in exasperation.

“Even now…”

“I’m sure Master Penguerin doesn’t really need such reagents.”

“…”

“…”

Yumidifus and Alsicle simultaneously looked at Lee Han.

However, Lee Han continued speaking without any change in expression.

“An excellent mage doesn’t choose their staff, right?”

“That’s true, but what Alsicle is trying to do…”

“Right? Master Penguerin?”

“Of, of course.”

At Lee Han’s question, Alsicle nodded.

“Those reagents are just… like decorations to me. I don’t need such things – I could just go outside and pick up a snowflake and that would be enough…”

“I thought so. Well then. Please proceed.”

“…”

Yumidifus thought he shouldn’t leave Lee Han alone with Alsicle in the future.

At first, he had worried that Alsicle might bully Lee Han, but now it seemed like if left alone together, Lee Han might just devour Alsicle whole.

* * *

Whiiiiiing!

Despite clearly being inside a sealed magic tower, a snowstorm colder than the snow mountains outside began to rage.

What was amazing was that this cold snowstorm had no effect on Lee Han’s body.

Snow that was cold yet not cold.

It was a miraculous phenomenon that only magic could create.

“Originally, frost elements are difficult to use unless in specific environments.”

Alsicle staggered and pointed at the ceiling.

A massive magical core placed on the tower’s ceiling was scattering frost energy.

Frost elements were among the most difficult to maintain naturally, so without specific natural environments or magical devices like this, they were inconvenient to use in reality.

For mages who had reached mastery, such inconveniences were no problem at all, but the issue was with mages just learning.

Alsicle rummaged through a corner and pulled out a staff. His expression was full of pride.

“Look. Look at this. See it?”

“This is…”

“Right. It’s a Frostagon egg.”

The giant insect egg embedded at the tip of the staff emitted blue frost energy while glowing mysteriously.

Such frost-attribute staffs were of great help to mages just learning.

“To show you how precious this staff is, at the northern frost mage auction gathering where this appeared, three people were seriously injured and seven were hurt.”

“…?”

Lee Han, who was listening, thought to himself.

Why were there casualties at an auction gathering?

“I’ll lend you this staff. Wardanaz. Someone more t… someone less than… ugh… I mean, an outstanding talent like you would suit it well.”

Alsicle couldn’t bring himself to say either that Lee Han had higher or lower talent than himself, and ended up expressing it indirectly.

“Thank y…”

“Wardanaz. You should have the stone given by the Frost Giant King.”

“…”

Lee Han cursed himself for not sending Professor Boladi outside.

‘Damn. I was complacent. I shouldn’t have let my guard down.’

Professor Boladi had a talent for disrupting the atmosphere even in other people’s lectures, not just his own.

Alsicle, who hadn’t grasped the situation yet, blinked and asked.

“A stone given by the Frost Giant King?”

“Well… um…”

No matter how skilled Lee Han was with words, he couldn’t come up with appropriate words for the current situation.

Kind Professor Boladi answered for him.

“He has a stone in his staff that he received from battling the Frost Giant King. It’s better than a Frostagon egg.”

“…”

Lee Han could see tears welling up in Alsicle’s eyes.

Alsicle turned his head away for a moment and sniffled, then turned back. His expression was aloof, but his eyes had turned red.

“Then… you won’t need the staff.”

“That’s right.”

“…Can’t you go outside for a bit? Voladi Bagrec?”

Alsicle spoke to Professor Boladi in a thoroughly sulky voice.

However, Professor Boladi answered seriously.

“If there are incorrect parts in the education, I must point them out.”

“Ugh…”

Alsicle couldn’t refute Professor Boladi’s words.

Unlike Voladi Bagrec, who had extensive experience teaching students as a professor at Einroguard, Alsicle had no teaching experience.

Of course, Lee Han was dumbfounded.

‘I knew you had no conscience, but this is truly amazing!’

To so brazenly lie saying there was no one to testify about Einroguard.

“…Call forth the frost first.”

“Freeze.”

With Lee Han’s incantation, frost energy began gathering at the tip of his staff.

The surrounding air became even colder and goosebumps rose on Lee Han’s skin.

“The basics are solid. Let’s start with form transformation. Cone shape.”

“Frost, into a cone!”

“Arrow shape.”

“Frost, into an arrow!”

“…In shield form.”

“Cold, become a shield!”

“…”

When Alsicle suddenly fell silent, Lee Han thought he had made some mistake.

“…This is your first time learning frost magic, right?”

“Huh? No. I’ve learned it from Professor Boladi before.”

“What!”

Alsicle exclaimed with a brightened face.

“Then you should have said so from the beginning! You startled me!”

Alsicle had been shocked thinking Lee Han had mastered it in one go.

Hearing that wasn’t the case, his heart suddenly felt warm.

Professor Boladi, who had been watching from the side, opened his mouth.

“That kind of diverse form transformation wasn’t something I taught…”

“Now. What’s the next lesson?”

“Projectile.”

Alsicle swung his staff.

The ice fragment floating in the air flew rapidly with an ear-splitting sound.

Clang!

“This is probably why Lord Yumidifus had you learn cold element magic. Water isn’t an element suitable for projectiles.”

“But wouldn’t it be fine if used for manipulation?”

Lee Han asked as if puzzled.

‘Projectile’ and ‘manipulation’ looked similar but their principles were different.

What Alsicle had just shown was shooting an ice fragment after completing precise trajectory calculations and applying powerful force all at once.

In contrast, the water orbs and iron balls Lee Han frequently used were a method where the mage directly targeted and controlled them individually.

Detailed control was possible, but tremendous effort was needed to become skilled enough to use it effectively.

“Why go that far? Just learn other elements and master projectile magic instead.”

“…To respond quickly in emergency situations?”

At his disciple’s words, Professor Boladi nodded.

However, Alsicle didn’t understand Lee Han’s reasoning.

“There aren’t many situations like that, are there? You should just act to avoid getting into such situations in the first place. If you try to prepare for everything like that, you’d have to prepare for absolutely everything. Most importantly, it would take way too long to achieve useful power through manipulation.”

“…”

Lee Han unconsciously looked at Professor Boladi. Professor Boladi seemed puzzled as if wondering why he was doing that.

“For combat, it’s better to learn attributes suited for combat. Let’s take a short break and practice projectiles.”

“Ah. I’m fine though.”

“No. Even if you seem fine now, there’s definitely mana consumption.”

Alsicle pulled the cork from a mana recovery potion and took a sip. Then he threw a potion to Lee Han as well.

“Drink this and recover your mana. Cold element consumes more mana than you’d think. If you think of it like other elements, you could get seriously hurt. Hehe. You didn’t know this much, did you?”

Alsicle looked very excited to be able to teach Lee Han something.

“Pointle…”

“Thank you. I’ll drink it gratefully.”

Before Professor Boladi could lower the room’s temperature further with pointless words, Lee Han cut him off and drank the potion.

Of course, it had no effect whatsoever.

* * *

Projectile was a concept used in countless elemental magics.

Fire arrows, frost arrows, rock arrows – to form something and shoot it, one had to master this projectile attribute.

Of course, learning this wasn’t simple.

Basically, one needed distance sense and directional sense, and had to learn how much mana to invest to achieve appropriate power…

Clang!

“Is this correct?”

The ice fragment Lee Han shot accurately penetrated the target.

While the projectile attribute wasn’t easy, for someone who had mastered the much more difficult manipulation, it was relatively easier.

Alsicle’s mouth hung open.

Form transformation he had already practiced, but surely not the projectile attribute…

“Or, ordinary. Just average.”

“Is that so?”

Lee Han was puzzled.

He didn’t seem to have made any particular mistakes, yet it was just average.

“What aspects should I improve?”

“…Water element and cold element have quite a close relationship, right? One of those connections is exactly this.”

Alsicle couldn’t take back what he’d said, so he pressed forward.

Crack!

When he swung his staff, the ice fragment embedded in the wall evaporated while strongly absorbing surrounding heat.

The cold around the ice fragment then explosively expanded.

“You need to combine it with the evaporation attribute to use something like explosive ice arrows to get high marks.”

While speaking, Alsicle glanced at Voladi Bagrec.

Even he knew what he was saying was complete nonsense.

Ice arrow projectile magic was already 3rd Circle, and adding the evaporation attribute on top of that…

Considering the difficulty of the evaporation attribute, it would be among the most challenging 4th Circle magics…

Crack!

When Lee Han cast the magic, the flying ice fragment hit the wall and then evaporated, dealing damage.

Succeeding on the first try, Lee Han was very pleased.

He had learned the evaporation attribute with water element, but who knew it would apply so smoothly to cold element as well.

“I succeeded!”

“Ah… ah… it’s still a bit, bit lacking?”

“Is that so?”

Lee Han was starting to feel somewhat suspicious.

This seemed above average…

‘Aren’t the standards for cold element mages too high?’

“Professor. Is frost magic originally this stri… ah, never mind.”

“?”

Lee Han, who was about to ask Professor Boladi, quickly gave up.

There was no point asking him anyway.

“I understand. What should I fix this time?”

“You need to compress each process and cast it all at once!”

Alsicle exclaimed with a bright face.

He had come up with a fairly reasonable condition.

Certainly, to prove proficiency, one shouldn’t cast magic by dividing each process step by step, but should be able to cast it all at once.

“That would definitely take some time.”

“Right? Right?! Right??!”

Alsicle nodded repeatedly with great joy.

‘Is this really something to be so happy about?’

Professor Boladi opened his mouth from the side.

“I’ll help.”

“Haha. That’s alright.”

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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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