Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 568
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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 568
“Are you alright?”
Professor Boladi stared intently at Lee Han, who seemed to be choking.
Lee Han coughed and waved his hand.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“So, about the form transformation of the lightning element.”
“Cough, cough.”
He coughed again, but Professor Boladi waited calmly.
“…Yes.”
In a resigned voice, Lee Han answered.
“I heard it’s still unstable.”
“Yes.”
“The lightning element has a high difficulty for form transformation, so keep practicing.”
“Yes.”
Lee Han observed Professor Boladi keenly, staying tense as he watched for when he might attack.
It was about time for him to say ‘I’ll help you practice, prepare to die.’
However, Professor Boladi didn’t say anything more after those words.
Instead, he opened the baby basilisk’s mouth and stuffed green chunks of meat back in.
“?”
This actually left Lee Han confused.
‘What? Is this a trick?’
Professor Boladi, who was feeding it, felt Lee Han’s gaze and turned his head.
“Do you have something to say?”
“I thought you were going to attack me, Professor.”
“Why would you think that?”
“…”
Lee Han was dumbfounded.
Was he seriously asking that as a question?
‘Haven’t there been few lecture times when you didn’t attack?’
Honestly, even if the lecture name was changed to 【Professor Boladi’s Cruel Ambushes】, it wouldn’t feel out of place at all.
“Well, you often attacked saying it helps with magic practice.”
“Ah.”
Professor Boladi nodded slightly as if he understood what Lee Han was talking about.
Then he looked at his overly hasty disciple with concern.
“You’re being too hasty.”
“Pardon?”
“Form transformation of the lightning element can be dangerous if trained that way.”
“Pardon???”
To his disciple who was strangely surprised, Professor Boladi explained in detail.
Even if the water element lost control due to failed form transformation, it wasn’t very dangerous.
Water, if not sharply refined, had significantly reduced danger levels.
In comparison, the lightning element was much more dangerous if form transformation attempts failed.
He knew well that this Wardanaz family boy displayed several times his usual ability when in dangerous situations, but even considering that, the lightning element was too dangerous to train form transformation that way.
When the explanation ended, Lee Han’s mouth fell wide open.
“Is it difficult to understand?”
“No! I understand!”
Lee Han swallowed his shock internally.
He had thought Professor Boladi had been thoughtlessly sticking to a ‘they’ll learn if they don’t want to die’ style of teaching, but he actually had his reasons.
It felt like a natural disaster such as a typhoon or earthquake was talking to him saying ‘Actually, I had my reasons.’
‘Is this fortunate… or not?’
His feelings were complicated, but it was fortunate that no attacks were coming his way.
Especially since he needed to prepare for final exams, returning in tatters would be too much of a loss.
“I’ve said this many times, but don’t rush.”
“…”
Separate from being fortunate, he couldn’t help the anger welling up.
Lee Han suspected this was all actually Professor Boladi’s scheme to make him attack.
-■■■■! ■■■■!
‘Hmm. Let me calm down.’
Seeing the baby basilisk eating chunks of meat while letting out pitiful screams brought him back to his senses.
Lee Han decided to be purely grateful for the luck of saving his life today.
“Yes. I won’t rush. Currently, I can fix it in spear form on my staff, but other forms are difficult.”
“That would be so.”
In fact, even with elements like water that were relatively easy to transform, changing them freely was very difficult.
Especially if it was someone who hadn’t been learning magic for very long.
As such, other mages didn’t obsess over it much either. Even among Einroguard’s upperclassmen, few people pursued the limits of such form transformation.
For example, with the fire element, learning just three forms – arrow form, spear form, and barrier form – wouldn’t significantly hinder magic casting.
If a different form was needed for something, they could just respond with new magic.
Lee Han wouldn’t have delved this deep either if it weren’t for Professor Boladi, who placed great importance on fundamentals in magical combat.
“You were lucky to learn the spear form first. It’s a highly versatile form. Next, try approaching it with the feeling of splitting the spear.”
“Like dividing it into dagger-like forms?”
“Right. Daggers would be good, or orb forms would work too. Try dividing it into familiar forms. That would be advantageous.”
Lee Han summoned a lightning spear on his staff and then transformed its shape.
The tip of the spear split and fixed in the air. Just like when he had changed the form of water orbs, Lee Han concentrated on trying to change the lightning’s form too.
‘It’s more like stones than orbs.’
Unlike the water element that maintained a smooth spherical form, the lightning element came out bumpy and jagged even when shaped into orbs, sparking in all directions.
Crack!
When he lost concentration for a moment, the lightning element lost control and fired.
The baby basilisk was startled when lightning flew toward it.
“Keep practicing.”
After Professor Boladi finished feeding the baby basilisk, he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and stood up.
The still-growing king of serpents whined and resisted but couldn’t escape.
Thud-
“Run around.”
-…
The basilisk looked at the toys placed before it and stared at Professor Boladi as if dumbfounded.
Toys and a racing track arranged in the center of the lecture hall.
Did he really mean for it to run around here?
The baby basilisk shook its head desperately.
Being force-fed nutritional food earlier was unfair enough, but this was really a matter of pride.
How could a basilisk, an untamed fierce beast and noble king of serpents, jump over such toys that only pets would play with?
Professor Boladi patiently explained to the young beast that couldn’t understand.
“Your slow growth might be due to lack of exercise.”
-…
The baby basilisk hissed in protest, but Professor Boladi no longer listened.
He picked up a toy stick and began poking from behind until the basilisk moved.
The baby basilisk had no choice but to run the course while enduring anger and humiliation.
“Don’t stop.”
Lee Han, who had been concentrating on lightning magic nearby, watched with curious eyes as Professor Boladi and the baby basilisk circled the center of the lecture hall like taking a stroll.
Did basilisks enjoy such walks?
“Do basilisks originally like taking walks?”
“That’s right. According to what I heard from Professor Lightningstep, they’re monsters with quite a wide territory.”
“Oh my, I haven’t been giving it exercise…”
“You can start doing it from now on.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lee Han nodded and reflected on himself.
He thought the baby basilisk disliked walks since it only liked to coil up all the time, but seeing how quickly it was crawling now, it seemed to actually enjoy moving around.
Thinking that he had made it endure because of his own circumstances made him feel sorry for no reason.
‘I should take it on walks from now on.’
While Lee Han was thinking this, Professor Boladi mercilessly poked the basilisk with a toy stick.
“Pick up the pace. More. More. More. More. More. More. More.”
The baby basilisk made fierce hissing sounds as it went round and round and round again on the course.
Jumping through hoops to pass through, crawling up toy stairs, swimming across sections filled with rough sand…
When it was about to collapse from exhaustion, Professor Boladi stopped poking it with the toy stick.
Instead, he began waving the stick in front of the basilisk.
This was to enhance the monster’s wild instincts.
“Bite it.”
-…
“It seems the walk is still insufficient.”
When Professor Boladi tried to get up again, the baby basilisk hastily bit and tore at the stick.
Only then did Professor Boladi look satisfied.
If he continued training it like this, someday this baby basilisk would become useful too.
“Oh right. Professor. Have you heard about the bloodsucker monster that appeared?”
Professor Boladi stopped the stick and let out a light sigh.
“The giant is sufficient for the final exam. Stop being so greedy.”
“…No, I was just mentioning it!”
“Is that so?”
The professor answered with a voice that said ‘I don’t believe you, but since you say so, I’ll pretend to believe you.’
Lee Han nearly lost his mind and went crazy for a moment.
“Do you have any advice? …I’m absolutely, absolutely not asking because I want to catch it. I’m asking because I’m worried the bloodsucker monster might attack.”
“It nearly died to the death knights, and it would appear near the school again?”
“…It could appear.”
“I see.”
Professor Boladi looked at his disciple once with an expressionless face and continued speaking.
“It’s a typical regeneration-specialized monster.”
Countless monsters appeared in unpredictable places at Einroguard, and knowing all the names of these monsters would be difficult even for a professor.
However, Professor Boladi had figured out what type of monster the enemy was just by hearing the death knights’ stories, despite never having met it directly.
No matter how unique and strange a monster might be, it couldn’t exist by defying the laws of nature itself.
If one learned the habits, characteristics, and laws of monsters, it became possible to understand even unusual monsters when encountered.
First, the fact that it succeeded in regenerating even after being hit by the death knights’ attacks meant it possessed regenerative power strong enough that ordinary monsters would find it hard to imitate.
“This kind of regenerative power is a strong ability, but it requires a corresponding price.”
Lee Han nodded as if he understood what this meant.
Magic was the same way.
Just as stronger magic required more mana, longer casting time, complex reagents, etc., the bloodsucker monster’s regenerative power was the same.
“It kept looking for blood, so that might be the fuel for its regenerative power.”
“Highly likely. Blood is also a powerful reagent in terms of sorcery.”
Of course, that alone wasn’t enough.
It would have to sacrifice defense and various other abilities to achieve such regenerative power. Moreover, hadn’t its speed also been beyond imagination?
“It’s probably several hundred years old.”
There were quite a few monsters with blood-sucking abilities, but the level of ability the bloodsucker monster showed yesterday was something only a monster that was at least several hundred years old could display.
“Are there monsters over several hundred years old wandering around Einroguard too??”
“There are monsters over a thousand years old too.”
Lee Han momentarily almost asked ‘You mean the principal?’ but stopped himself. That didn’t seem to be what he was talking about.
“It was probably sealed somewhere underground or hibernating.”
‘Terror itself.’
More than the bloodsucker monster, what was scary was that monsters much older might be stuck somewhere in the basement like miscellaneous items.
Was this a magic school or a hellish labyrinth…
Crack!
When lightning finally took shape, Lee Han was delighted.
Even if it wasn’t perfect, he had somehow managed to create a new form.
“Oh right. Professor. I think I succeeded with one. I did use an object’s form as the core, but still…”
“A dagger?”
Professor Boladi wondered if Lee Han had created a new lightning element form using a dagger or orb as the core.
A dagger was a fragment form of a spear.
An orb was the form Lee Han had handled most recently.
Both were easy and familiar forms.
In contrast, difficult forms would be armor, shields, and cloaks.
Since lightning element didn’t suit defense, armor or shields that required maintaining a wide area didn’t match well.
Moreover, cloaks had the additional property of fluttering softly, making them even more difficult.
“No.”
“An orb?”
“I somehow managed to fix it in cloak form. Please look.”
Lee Han pointed to the cloak crackling with sparks with a proud expression.
Seeing this, Professor Boladi seriously wondered if he had underestimated his disciple too much.
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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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