Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 405

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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 405

At Lee Han’s protest, Professor Milay pondered for a moment before accepting his objection.

“Very well. Give it a try.”

“…”

Despite receiving the professor’s permission, Lee Han felt uneasy.

Professor Milay was watching Lee Han’s every move intently without any change in expression.

Being such an upright and strict professor, he couldn’t help but feel nervous.

‘Didn’t she never pressure other students like this during practice?’

Complaining about the unfair treatment, Lee Han unfolded the paper inscribed with magic.

While archmages who had reached mastery could easily create summoned creatures on the spot without such auxiliary tools, advance preparation was a more important process than most mages realized.

Reagents, scrolls, artifacts, and so on.

【Paper Bird Summoning】 also belonged to magic that required advance preparation.

Without a scroll engraved with a magic circle, the mage would have to fill in every detail of the summoned creature’s structure, so in a way, inscribing this magic circle could be said to be the most important process in the magic.

Swish swish swish-

The quill pen glided gracefully across the paper. 【Paper Bird Summoning】 was a very famous magic in the Empire and its magic circle was fairly well known, but reproducing it was a matter of the mage’s ability.

If magic could be used simply by drawing along magic circles, why would so many aspiring mages shed tears hitting walls?

The magic circle of 【Paper Bird Summoning】 was by no means simple. It was normal for even Einroguard students to make mistakes several times.

‘…The suffering under Professor Verdus helps in this way?’

And Lee Han was surprised.

Even to his own eyes, the magic circle had turned out remarkably clean.

He had drawn it during the first semester and hadn’t drawn it during vacation, so he hadn’t noticed…

When did his skills improve this much?

Seeing this, Professor Milay slowly spoke as if she had expected it.

“Let’s add voice.”

Lee Han began weaving in the characters with even more care than before.

Modifying an already completed magic circle didn’t end with simply adding lines and characters.

One had to understand the principles of the magic circle and be able to anticipate the changes accordingly.

If forcibly changed, the paper bird might stab the mage himself instead of producing a voice.

‘Inscribe it here… need to add more ink. Is the circuit flowing properly? A short circuit will occur here, so separate this…’

Concentrating with all his heart, Lee Han didn’t even notice he had completed it. Professor Milay spoke first.

“You’ve finished.”

“Ah. Yes. But I need to check if this works properly…”

“No need. It would be better to increase the difficulty.”

Professor Milay turned around as if there was no need to say more.

Simultaneously with that movement, the makeshift scroll Lee Han had created bloomed into a paper bird.

The blooming paper bird rushed toward the White Tiger Tower students and shouted loudly.

-Focus on the lecture!!!

“Aaaaah!”

“I, I was focusing!! What is it! What is it!”

The White Tiger Tower students who were suddenly ambushed were startled and looked around frantically.

It was a perfect modification.

The Blue Dragon Tower friends nearby looked at Lee Han and said.

“It would be good to increase the difficulty.”

“Increasing the difficulty seems right. Wardanaz.”

“…You guys get no dinner.”

“!??!”

* * *

Professor Mortum still seemed a bit awkward, as when Lee Han came, he blushed slightly as if embarrassed.

“Ahem. Did you control the golem well?”

“Yes. Professor. Is Senior Ogoldos alright?”

“He’s fine… but normally Ogoldos should be worrying about you, not the other way around.”

Though the senior was receiving concern from his junior, Professor Mortum didn’t blame Ogoldos.

It wasn’t because his already few disciples might become even fewer.

It was because he understood Ogoldos’s circumstances.

Honestly, even if there had been another student, it wouldn’t have made much difference!

“Today’s lecture is on darkness elements, right? What should I prepare?”

Despite the strange situation where a student who came two weeks late understood the lecture content better than other students and was even trying to prepare in advance, Professor Mortum wasn’t surprised.

What was there to be surprised about at this point? Professor Mortum answered with a peaceful mind.

“The other students will continue with darkness elements… Ahem. You’ll be doing bone element magic.”

“??”

Lee Han was flustered.

“Uh. Is it because I missed some progress?”

“No. You already know how to use darkness elements.”

“But there are still many lacking parts…”

Professor Mortum dismissed Lee Han’s response.

It was nonsense too bothersome to answer.

“Ahem. Rather, I heard from Ogoldos… it was so hard to believe that I waited to check it myself.”

“Ah. You mean the King of Ghouls?”

Lee Han answered as if he had been waiting.

“Surprisingly, he really was the owner of that palace. Despite his behavior, he really was…”

“…Cough, cough! Who was curious about that?”

Professor Mortum retorted as if incredulous.

He naturally knew that the King of Ghouls was the owner of that undead palace.

If not him, then who would be the owner?

“Then what’s hard to believe?”

“I heard you summoned over ten undead and were struggling to control them, then when you reduced it to one, you were surprised that it became controllable…”

“…”

Lee Han felt embarrassed for the first time in a while.

“That was just a habit during practice…”

“Ahem. How could that be a habit?”

No matter if it was for practice purposes, from the moment he summoned over ten, the mage should have felt the precarious crisis of his mana being on the verge of depletion.

He should have been gasping to reduce the undead just from breathing, so how comfortable must he have been to forget the simple truth that ‘reducing them makes it easier’?

“Anyway, I learned that reducing to one makes it somewhat easier.”

“That’s… not something you learn… it’s something any human naturally knows… Ahem. Fine. Let’s get back to the main point anyway.”

Professor Mortum gently covered for his disciple who had missed a truth that even the Empire’s greatest fool would know.

“As the Principal also agreed, giving you the 【Ancient Basic Necromancy】 book was because we thought you had the ability to continue the progress of ancient necromancy.”

“Is that…? I see.”

Lee Han almost said ‘Wasn’t it to torment me?’ but stopped himself.

While other friends summoned contracted undead from the undead realm, Lee Han was being forced by the Skeleton Principal and Professor Mortum to summon undead the old way.

The method of ancient necromancy meant weaving undead through the mage’s own abilities alone.

Naturally, it was several times more difficult. There were reasons why old methods were old methods.

“Ahem. Since you’ve become somewhat familiar with control and know how to attempt various enhancements…”

“There are still many lacking parts…”

He could only control smoothly when combined into one, and even that summoned creature’s enhancement was only possible through simple methods like combining other bones for amplification.

He was still far from being an excellent dark mage.

Of course, Professor Mortum ignored this again like before.

“…It’s time to progress a bit further. Ahem.”

Originally, this year’s goal was to control about one undead summon, but since he had already succeeded, there was no reason to stay idle.

Instead of explaining what the original goal had been, Professor Mortum brought Lee Han the next objective.

The reason other enemies feared dark mages skilled in bone elemental magic was because of the unique persistence of bone elemental magic.

Unlike other summoning magic, it allowed for rapid recovery after destruction, and even when broken, the shattered remains themselves became the mage’s tools again – a perpetual motion system.

Getting caught by a mage skilled in such techniques was like being dragged into a swamp.

“Conversely, this means bone elemental mages can’t just stay idle after summoning – they must continue casting magic constantly.”

“I understand.”

“Cough. What bone elemental magic can you use now?”

The bone elemental magic Lee Han could use included shard shooting, summoning armor, shields, or restraints.

For a 1st year student who attended classes from all schools of magic, these 1st-2nd circle bone elemental spells were quite impressive, but for a mage who could summon skeleton warriors with ancient necromancy, they lacked a bit of flair.

“You’ll need to learn bone explosion magic.”

Bone explosion magic, which ignited gas within bones with mana to detonate them, was an essential process for dark mages who wanted to specialize in it, as it could fulfill firepower requirements in the easiest way.

“Huh? But that starts from at least 3rd circle, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right. Is there some problem?”

“…Nothing at all!”

Lee Han gave up questioning when Professor Mortum asked back as if it were completely natural.

There was no point asking that madness-filled face for a useful answer.

“Cough. Of course it won’t be easy. Do you know what you need to be most careful about when learning bone explosion magic?”

“Hmm. The mana connection, isn’t it?”

The farther a mage was from an object, the more difficult it became to directly apply mana to that object.

A mage who summoned and manipulated bone elements had to control the bones so they could cast magic on them while shooting them far away.

To do that, they had to pay even more attention to mana connections…

“Wrong.”

“Is that so?”

“What you need to worry about is controlling the explosion’s power. Cough. So the explosion doesn’t hurt you too.”

“…”

Lee Han was speechless at such practical advice.

No way…

“I’ve set up defensive magic circles here, so practice within them. If it looks like the magic circles might break, call me immediately. Cough. It’s bothersome, so absolutely don’t destroy the workshop.”

“Yes…”

* * *

Gainando, Raphadael, and Ymirg wondered what on earth was happening inside that had been causing loud booms to burst out since earlier.

“Lee Han isn’t being tortured, is he…?”

“Hey. You stupid prince. Why would the professor torture Wardanaz?”

“You’re the stupid one, you bastard. Then why does the Principal attack us?”

“…”

“Cough. Everyone focus.”

Everyone startled at the professor’s words and turned their attention.

But the booming sounds from inside continued to make them worry.

“Oh. Professor.”

Raphadael carefully raised his hand. Professor Mortum turned his gaze as if telling him to speak.

“I heard summoning mages are visiting this time. Is there anything we should do?”

One might wonder why dark mages would care about a summoning mages’ festival, but their domains overlapped more than expected.

Wasn’t undead summoning one of the domains of dark magic?

Naturally, among those participating in the festival were dark mages as well.

Given Professor Mortum’s personality, he wouldn’t want to show dark mages being outshone in front of other summoning mages.

“Cough. It’s fine. Nothing to worry about.”

“Ah. Is that so?”

“Yes. Just enjoy yourselves comfortably.”

Raphadael was slightly surprised.

He had expected the professor to give detailed instructions regarding the festival.

Gainando scolded him from the side.

“What do you take the professor for, saying such things? With so much magic to cover in the curriculum, would he worry about festivals too?”

Ymirg nodded in agreement.

No matter how strong the professor’s pride was, he wouldn’t go so far as to send disciples to a summoning magic festival just to prove something…

“Cough. Wardanaz will handle the proving there. You guys can just play around.”

“…”

“…”

Somehow it felt like the booming sounds from inside had stopped.

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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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