Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 723

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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 723

At the Black Turtle Tower, Rengid looked up at the building with a nervous expression.

It was nothing more than an old, shabby 7-story building, but to the determined Rengid, it somehow felt elegant and traditional.

‘Right. I’m joining the Iaktus Soup Club.’

He had seriously considered the smuggling club or the outing club due to suggestions from friends in the same tower, but ultimately Rengid chose the Kitchen Club.

The history and philosophy of the Kitchen Club had moved the heart of Rengid, who came from a chef family.

‘Last year, honestly, there weren’t any special ingredients, so there was nothing I could call cooking. If I join the Kitchen Club, I’ll be able to use ingredients generously. I heard rumors they’re piled up like mountains…’

Without even imagining that countless upperclassmen had been fooled in exactly the same way, Rengid swallowed his saliva and stepped forward.

-Wahaha! You’ve decided. Welcome, welcome!

Senior Falkrious welcomed Rengid enthusiastically.

Breaking free from the embrace, Rengid staggered while letting out a groan filled with pain.

“Ugh, my ribs…”

“Rengid?”

“War, Wardanaz!”

Rengid recognized Lee Han and brightened up.

Though from a different tower, this friend from the Wardanaz Family was someone he could trust.

“As expected. You were here first. Please take care of me. I’ve also decided to join this time.”

“Hmm. I see.”

Lee Han looked at Rengid with a complex expression.

The club’s reality would probably be very different from what Rengid expected…

“How is it, Wardanaz? What’s the club atmosphere like? How are the upperclassmen?”

Before Rengid’s question could even finish, shouts came from behind.

“Wardanaz! Where’s Wardanaz!”

“Junior Wardanaz. Let’s think about tomorrow’s food together! Let’s join forces and create profits that will remain in club history…”

“Well then, I’ll be going now.”

Lee Han quickly escaped.

Rengid looked at Lee Han’s retreating figure with a bewildered expression.

What…

What on earth had happened!?

* * *

The person in charge of the 【Staff Materials and Magic Amplification】 lecture was the most evil and despicable person at Einroguard.

“Good day, Professor.”

Professor Verdus remained focused only on the staff he was working on, keeping his head deeply bowed despite Lee Han’s greeting.

Lee Han glanced at the staff. The staff on Professor Verdus’s workbench emitted a unique magical wavelength he had never seen before.

‘Amazing.’

Magic was a field of study that always became newer and more awe-inspiring the more one learned and mastered it.

There were areas that became visible only when one gained knowledge of things that had previously been overlooked due to ignorance.

If it had been last year, he would have simply grasped it through intuition and thought ‘high-density magic is compressed on the staff,’ but after starting to learn spell shortening and magic compression from Professor Boladi, he could see other things.

‘That’s magic that enhances telekinetic control, next is magic that strengthens telekinetic output itself, and then there’s magic that extends telekinetic range…’

If a mage who primarily used telekinetic magic were to grasp that staff, which had magic compressed into it with delicate consideration for synergistic effects?

The firepower would be unimaginable.

After admiring it, Lee Han approached Professor Verdus. Then he drew up his mana, spread it throughout his body, and shouted into Professor Verdus’s ear.

“Good day, Professor!!!”

Professor Verdus jumped in surprise and raised his head.

Then he spotted Lee Han and shouted.

“Speak quietly! You’ll make the staff shake!”

“I greeted you quietly at first.”

“You should greet me quietly enough for me to hear!”

Lee Han simply smiled quietly.

Professor Verdus gestured without imagining that Lee Han would shout in his ear again next time.

“Anyway, sit down. Good to see you.”

“You need my mana?”

If it had been another professor, they would have pretended otherwise at least once for courtesy’s sake, but Professor Verdus confidently nodded.

“Yes! Do you know how inconvenient it was when you went outside the school during vacation?”

“Oh my. It’s truly regrettable that going outside the school during vacation is the rule.”

“You can stay if you have special circumstances? Just apply.”

‘Special circumstances? Should I plot to murder a professor?’

In Lee Han’s view, even in Einroguard’s long history, there probably hadn’t been anyone who stayed during vacation.

“I’ll consider it. So where should I use my mana?”

“Here and here.”

Professor Verdus pointed to gems on the cluttered workbench and gave instructions.

One was an opaque gray gem with wind elements rippling inside, and the other was a white gem emitting a gentle light while condensing pure power.

“Just these two?”

“Huh? All the ones between them too!”

“…”

It was essentially an instruction to infuse mana into all the materials on the workbench.

Lee Han’s smile deepened slightly.

“But Professor. Today’s lecture is 【Staff Materials and Magic Amplification】.”

“Yeah. Charge the mana.”

“I’d like to ask some questions about the lecture first. This is my legitimate right.”

“Can’t you do it after charging the mana?”

Lee Han pretended not to hear and ignored it.

If he finished charging all the mana, Professor Verdus would drift off into his own world.

“Why am I the only student here?”

“Why are you asking me that? You should ask the other students.”

‘Uselessly logical. I want to hit him.’

Certainly, to know why there were no students, he would have to ask the students.

Still, he thought the professor should at least have some idea…

“What kind of lecture is this?”

“A mana charging lecture.”

“What else do we do?”

When his tricks didn’t work, Professor Verdus grumbled and began explaining.

The ultimate purpose of this lecture was actually for participating students to make their own staffs.

“…?”

Lee Han doubted his ears.

Of course, among excellent enchantment mages, those who majored in artifact studies could make staffs.

But conversely, it meant that to make a staff, one needed to accumulate at least that level of experience.

A staff served as the core and axis when a mage carried out the complex and unstable process of changing the world through will, while also taking on roles of amplification and guidance.

The roles a staff played in magic were so diverse that they couldn’t be listed one by one.

Accordingly, making a staff was naturally no ordinary difficult task…

“Can second-years make this?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

‘I just want to hit him.’

When Professor Verdus brought out the logic he had used earlier, Lee Han also brought out an excuse he had used before.

“Professor. My mana suddenly decreased, so charging will be difficult. If I don’t get a proper answer, I don’t think my mana will rise.”

“Since we’re not making such complex staffs, shouldn’t it be possible?”

Professor Verdus immediately answered kindly.

Of course, Lee Han didn’t completely believe him.

‘Professor Verdus’s sense of difficulty is completely paralyzed.’

When the professor said something was easy, it was difficult, and when he said it was difficult, it should be considered impossible.

“For what reason is it not complicated?”

“You see this right now?”

“Yes.”

“You can see what kind of magic connection it is?”

“Yes.”

The two geniuses casually continued their conversation that would have made other mages weep in despair if they had witnessed it.

The staff Professor Verdus was working on at his workbench was far too difficult to use as teaching material for students.

It was an artifact being created upon commission from the 【Malachite Magic Tower】, where telekinetic mages gathered.

Naturally, being a commission from an external magic tower, the magic contained within was high-level and its security was quite thorough.

If one could discern the magic inside just by looking from the outside, the artifact’s weaknesses would become too great, so a certain degree of security was essential.

With difficult magic and additional magic cast to keep secrets, even if Professor Verdus explained in detail it wouldn’t be enough, yet here he was saying they could just look and move on.

But neither Professor Verdus nor Lee Han minded. Both were sufficiently strange mages.

“What you guys need to do requires none of that stuff. You just need to match the materials.”

“Materials, you mean…”

Instead of weaving special magic into the staff, it meant they just needed to properly match the material composition ratios of the staff.

Of course, that wasn’t easy either. Not only the staff’s components but also its structural balance could affect the magic.

‘But it’s much better.’

“I might be able to do it if I work on it for a year.”

“You have to do it. What if you can’t?”

“Professor. Suddenly my mana…”

“You don’t have to do it!”

After teasing Professor Verdus enough, Lee Han prepared to begin work.

Originally, carrot and stick should include the carrot together – if you only wield the stick, it’s just a stick.

“How much mana should I inject?”

“Maximum.”

Crack!

The gem in Lee Han’s hand shattered.

“Did you need a shattered gem?”

“You should only put in as much as won’t break it!”

“…”

Professor Verdus forgot the words he had just carelessly uttered and scolded his disciple.

“You told me to put in the maximum.”

“Did I say that? With your amount of mana, you can’t put in the maximum.”

“Yes…”

Lee Han injected mana and then extended his senses keenly to detect cracks in the gem.

If there was any sign of cracking or breaking, he had to stop immediately.

As his disciple quickly charged and injected mana beside him, Professor Verdus began working with about twice his usual enthusiasm.

“Next!”

“Here it is.”

“Next!”

“Here.”

“Quickly! Next!”

“Professor. Going fast makes my mana suddenly…”

“Slowly!”

While the two worked, third-year students began entering one by one.

Then they looked at Lee Han and Professor Verdus with bewildered eyes.

…Who is that guy?

“Was there such a… kid in our year?”

“Isn’t he a fourth-year senior?”

“Was there such a person among the fourth-year seniors…?”

Einroguard’s lectures didn’t have strict year restrictions, but it was practically as if they did.

There was no reason for a second-year to bother coming to listen to lectures that third-years mainly attended.

Occasionally, an upperclassman would desperately beg for unavoidable reasons to attend a lower year’s lecture, but it wasn’t common.

As such, to the third-year students who came to attend 【Staff Materials and Magic Amplification】, Lee Han was a very alien presence.

They hadn’t seen him in their year, and seeing him help Professor Verdus made him seem like a fourth-year student, but was there such a person among the fourth-year seniors?

“Oh. Professor. Other people have arrived.”

“I have eyes and ears too, don’t I?”

“…Shouldn’t you give the lecture? Wait. Hey, isn’t this 【Staff Materials and Magic Amplification】?”

Lee Han was confused because all the students had unfamiliar faces.

Still, he at least roughly remembered the faces of students from his own year since they had worked together on various things last year.

“That’s right. Are you perhaps a senior?”

“Excuse me?”

“Aren’t you a fourth-year senior? You don’t need to worry too much. You can attend third-year lectures.”

“I’m a second-year though…”

“…”

“…”

The lecture hall atmosphere turned cold and the third-year students murmured among themselves.

“Is Professor Verdus perhaps holding two lectures in the same lecture hall because he finds it bothersome?”

“Surely not… but it’s possible.”

“But wasn’t he helping with work?”

As the atmosphere became strange, Lee Han quickly said,

“Seniors. I’m also attending this lecture. I’m not attending a different lecture.”

“This lecture? Isn’t it too difficult? It would be better to change even now.”

“That Wardanaz kid doesn’t matter.”

Professor Verdus waved his hand dismissively as the students were being noisy.

“Wardanaz? Is that him?!”

“It seems to be him, right?”

“He really is quite different…!”

That was the end of it. The seniors quickly accepted it and sat in their respective seats to begin work.

“…”

Only Lee Han failed to accept it and stared intently at the seniors.

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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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