Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 375

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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 375

“Cough. How strange.”

While the upperclassmen struggled to maintain their dignity, Professor Mortum was examining the inner passages of the ruins.

Guardian golems had appeared to block their path, but in truth, they weren’t particularly formidable obstacles.

Considering the ruins they had encountered so far, it wouldn’t have been surprising at all to find much more dangerous traps.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing particularly noteworthy inside.”

Diret nodded at the professor’s words.

Indeed, for ruins in such good condition, the resistance was weak. Apart from the guardian golems stationed at the entrance, no other enemies were visible.

“Darkness, spread forth and resonate… Nothing here either. Cough. Truly strange.”

Professor Mortum cast various detection spells toward the inner passages of the ruins, staring into the darkness as he fell into thought.

“Perhaps… no.”

“What were you thinking?”

“I was wondering if these ruins might have an owner. Cough. After all, if ruins have an owner, they wouldn’t bother setting up unnecessary traps.”

Most ruins that Imperial mages could discover had long since lost their owners in the distant past.

However, occasionally there were ruins where the owner still remained.

In such cases, mages found themselves in quite a predicament.

It was tantamount to trespassing on someone else’s property…

“If there were an owner, we wouldn’t have been able to enter so easily, would we?”

Diret tilted his head in confusion.

If ruins were properly maintained with a living owner, there should have been several signs before entering.

Not only warnings to keep outsiders away, but also minions patrolling the surroundings to prevent approach.

Places like this, where the outer area of the ruins was completely empty and the entrance was quiet without any signs of life, were unlikely to have an owner.

“Cough. Right. You’re correct. If there were an owner, it wouldn’t be so poorly maintained. Unless the owner is trapped somewhere or severely injured and recovering…”

Ripple!

“!”

Professor Mortum and Lee Han were the first to sense the change in mana flow within the palace ruins.

Lee Han looked around. The walls, floor, and ceiling around the palace entrance began to ripple like slime.

While transformation magic could change the properties and form of matter, he never expected to witness magic of this scale firsthand.

“Everyone, don’t move!”

Sensing something ominous in the current situation, Professor Mortum immediately took action.

Gone was his usual sickly appearance with constant coughing, as Professor Mortum’s eyes gleamed with intensity while he wielded his staff.

“I command thee, let the path of yin open! Let the ropes of darkness bind!”

Instantly, a door connected to the negative dimension opened behind the students, and ropes made of dark elements shot out from within.

Originally a spell that used dark elements to open a door to the negative dimension and temporarily drag enemies inside, Professor Mortum applied this magic as a spatial movement spell.

With proper application, it became a powerful defensive magic that could temporarily protect the students.

The students who passed through the negative dimension emerged beside Professor Mortum. They felt dizzy from the sudden contact with dark elements, looking as if they might vomit at any moment.

Rumble!

However, it quickly became apparent that Professor Mortum’s judgment was correct.

The floors that had been perfectly fine moments ago began rippling and sinking down below, while the walls moved close enough to collide with each other, erasing and reshaping the space.

If he had tried to bring them by moving directly, several would have fallen along the way.

“P-Professor!”

Creak!

Professor Mortum extended his palm to calm the frightened student and began bringing the surrounding bones under his control.

A massive bone platform appeared in the dark void where solid ground had existed just moments before. The remaining bones surrounded it like walls.

Only then could the students breathe a sigh of relief.

“Professor!”

“Calm down. A disappearing floor isn’t even a particularly dangerous trap. Seeing it react this way, these ruins aren’t that dangerous either…”

“No, our junior has disappeared!”

“!!!”

* * *

When the upperclassmen teleported to the negative dimension without him at first, Lee Han thought he had done something wrong to Professor Mortum.

‘What did I do wrong?’

However, seeing the dark elements that tried to envelop his body get repelled and the dimensional rift, he could understand what had happened.

‘Professor…! You can’t just apply attack magic anywhere…!’

Just as poisons and other curses had been repelled, Professor Mortum’s magic was also repelled, leaving him feeling more absurd than terrified.

Feeling the floor disappear and the sensation of falling downward, Lee Han immediately levitated his iron ball.

“Move!”

Though it wasn’t originally magic meant for enduring falls, nor was it magic capable of supporting Lee Han’s weight, his overwhelming mana fixed the iron ball in mid-air as if nailed there.

A strong impact traveled up to his shoulder.

Lee Han endured it by pouring mana throughout his body.

“Feet, command the earth… Space, be perceived!”

Preparing for any possible situation, he cast enhancement magic and spatial perception magic. Though everything around was still rippling, the magic restored his sense of distance.

‘There’s a floor!’

Lee Han conjured a sphere of light. Then he began descending by changing the position of his iron ball.

He vowed to learn slow fall magic first thing when he returned to magic school.

‘I should have learned it right after catching the Rock Drake… This is what I get for not studying.’

Lee Han lamented.

The professors weren’t wrong when they said ‘Who are you studying for? It’s all for your own good.’

He would study more diligently in the second semester.

Thud!

“?!”

While safely descending, something suddenly fell beside him, causing Lee Han to turn his gaze in panic.

“What the…”

“My arm, my arm…”

“Senior!”

A second-year senior, Ogoldos, was writhing beside him with pained groans.

Unlike Lee Han, Ogoldos hadn’t been bold enough to cast spells while falling through the air.

He had used his pre-summoned undead summon as a cushion, otherwise his entire body would have been shattered, not just his arm.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m, I’m fine. It’s okay.”

Ogoldos waved his hand dismissively with a pale face, breaking out in cold sweat.

As a senior by one year, he didn’t want to show weakness in front of a junior.

Moreover, hadn’t Ogoldos suspected that juniors from other towers like Lee Han and Gainando weren’t serious about dark magic?

He couldn’t accept help from a junior after saying such things.

“But your arm is broken.”

“I said I’m fine. A splint…”

By their second year at Einroguard, students became capable of emergency treatment for most injuries short of instant death.

Ogoldos tried to cast a spell with his staff. However, the pain made it difficult. The spell missed several times and his mana scattered.

“Senior. Just let me do it.”

“No…”

Getting somewhat annoyed, Lee Han hesitated briefly before grabbing Ogoldos’s shoulder and subduing him with force.

While getting on the Skeleton Principal’s bad side would make the next few years at magic school miserable, how bad could it be to get on the bad side of a second-year senior from another tower?

“What are you doing right now… Aaaaah!”

“Mend!”

Surprisingly, instead of applying a splint for emergency treatment, his junior wielded his staff and cast magic.

Ogoldos screamed at the sudden healing magic.

“Stop! What are you doing! Don’t!”

Ogoldos desperately tried to stop him, remembering when a fellow second-year priest had failed a healing spell and rotated his friend’s slightly sprained finger 360 degrees.

If a sprained finger was dangerous, then a broken wound would be even more…

“Please try moving it.”

“…???”

Ogoldos was dumbfounded as he moved his arm.

Surprisingly, there was no pain.

Lee Han silently nodded and said.

“It was an urgent situation, so I had no choice but to cast it first.”

“…”

Ogoldos pondered and pondered before trying to open his mouth.

“Th… Th…”

-Grrrung.

“Sharkan. There’s a path over there? Thanks. Senior. He says there’s a path over… What were you trying to say?”

“Th… This hurts.”

“Oh my. Your injury must have been severe.”

-Grung.

“Sharkan. You shouldn’t treat him like that. Senior didn’t get hurt because he wanted to.”

“…”

* * *

Ogoldos had never sat on a bed of thorns.

One third-year senior had claimed to have sat on a bed of thorns in the upperclassmen’s room in the punishment room basement (Ogoldos was still confused whether that was bragging or not), but fortunately Ogoldos had never experienced such a thing.

But right now, Ogoldos felt like he was sitting on a bed of thorns.

“…Dam, dammit. The magic…”

Mages were delicate creatures.

Not only the shock of failing magic, but also the shock of walls dancing around and falling as the floor disappeared could shake their mana, making them unable to use magic for a certain period.

No matter how desperately Ogoldos tried to concentrate, the flow of mana inside his body was tangled and wouldn’t move.

“Senior. It’s okay. I can cast the magic.”

“…I said I’ll do it. Just wait… Ugh.”

“Gonadaltes. Help support Senior.”

“I’m fine… What? What did you say?”

“Huh? What about?”

“No… That… Never mind. Forget it.”

Ogoldos was about to say something about the Skeleton Warrior’s name but stopped.

Whatever a mage named their summoned creature was the mage’s freedom, but…

…wasn’t that a bit too freely free?!

-■ ■■■■■.

“…”

Lee Han walked forward.

All the other skeletons except Sharkan and Gonadaltes had been dismissed. They were apparently too slow and got in the way when moving.

Of course, from Ogoldos’s perspective, it was received a bit differently.

‘Because of me…!’

Thinking that his junior had even canceled other undead to support him made his face burn with embarrassment.

“That’s…”

Lee Han stopped walking.

An eerie scene came into view from the other side of the underground passage.

Ogoldos, who still had his dark vision spell active, blinked and said.

“Prison…”

“Punishment room… Ah, it’s a prison. Out of habit.”

“…”

Surprisingly, the place connected to the end of the passage was an underground prison. Lee Han was amazed that such a place existed beneath the ruins.

‘I thought ruins only had broken and ruined places.’

Walking all the way through the passage, they arrived at a circular arrangement of prison cells all around.

One peculiar thing was that there were no iron bars at all. There were no walls visible that should have blocked prisoners from coming out.

Lee Han momentarily wondered if someone had come first and torn off the bars.

-Who goes there? What fearless intruder dares to wander around the king’s prison?

“!”

Lee Han was startled by the fact that he hadn’t noticed the other party being so close.

Unless the opponent was a mage superior to Lee Han, he would always detect the opponent’s mana first.

-You’d better hide quickly. If you’re caught, you won’t be safe.

The one who spoke was an undead mage inside a nearby prison cell. Lee Han realized why he hadn’t noticed the other party. Only when the opponent removed the cloak they were wearing could he finally sense their mana.

Since there was no monster-specific hostility visible, Lee Han cautiously asked.

“Who are you?”

-Who am I, you ask. I’m a sinner who failed to obey the king’s command.

“So who is this king?”

-…What are you saying… You, how did you get in here? Did you enter without even knowing this is the palace where the King of Ghouls reigns? What about the soldiers outside??

“…?!”

Lee Han froze at the somehow familiar name.

It couldn’t be, could it?

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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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