Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 786

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 786

What Lee Han liked was a senior who had lots of gold and knew how to shower it on juniors, not a senior who tried to exploit them for free.

How could someone become a senior at Einroguard and commit such shameless and heinous acts?

“Ah, no. Junior. Senior Jarun is originally a person obsessed with gold. He was always like that.”

When the junior glared coldly at Jarun, Karnella panicked and came to his defense instead.

The reason Jarun was said to have the greatest talent for making money wasn’t simply because he continuously mined in his spare time.

By that logic, there were several other students doing magical research that could bring in high income.

What made Jarun special was his thorough spirit of frugality that others couldn’t dare to follow.

He wouldn’t waste a single penny!

-Jarun. The Soup Club menu is good today. You should go eat too.

-I don’t need it.

-Why? It’s noodles with plenty of serpent Salko meat for one gold coin. When do you think such a day will come again? Do you want to pay one gold coin for stone bread stuffed with salted meat?

-Hmph. If I don’t buy anything at all, it won’t cost even one gold coin.

Jarun’s legendary anecdotes didn’t end there.

-Jarun. Stop being stubborn and buy the reagents! If you don’t pay for them, you won’t finish this semester!

-I’d rather go to the punishment room than pay money for this!

Refusing to buy reagents, refusing wand movements for fear of wearing out his wand, hanging gold accessories in the air to look at instead of wearing them…

These were extraordinary incidents that any student from the Transformation Magic School would know about.

As Karnella spoke, her voice grew louder as if she felt wronged.

“Do you know what it was like when I came to pick him up last time? The chair was gone, the chair! When I asked, that damn senior had removed the chair! Because it would wear out if I sat on it!”

“Hmph. Do you think chairs are free?”

Jarun grumbled.

Even now, he felt sorry for the chair that had worn out from Karnella sitting on it.

‘So that’s why there was no chair.’

Lee Han could finally understand why there were no chairs in this workshop.

“Senior Hormashi. I understand well that Senior Jarun is a frugal person.”

“Hey. This isn’t frugality, it’s insanity.”

Lee Han pretended not to hear and said what he wanted to say.

“But that’s that and this is this. I’ve always received payment for the work I’ve done. Even from Professor Verdus.”

“…!”

Karnella was shocked.

She knew this junior had genius talent in magic, but to think he had even extracted payment from Professor Verdus.

‘Amazing! How!’

Even for Karnella, who was from an unrelated school to Professor Verdus, it was an interesting story that made her want to see how he did it.

“Th-that’s impressive… but as I said, Senior Jarun won’t bleed a drop even if you stab him. He’s someone who would use transformation magic to put it all back because blood is precious.”

Karnella had actually stabbed Jarun with a needle, beyond just a simple metaphor.

She had attacked Jarun together with other Transformation Magic School students.

Even in that chaotic situation, Jarun felt sorry for every drop of his blood and stubbornly collected it with transformation magic before fleeing.

If it’s such a person, surely…

“He’ll just reject your proposal.”

“Grrrgh.”

“?!”

Karnella was startled by Jarun’s groaning sound from behind.

“Grrrrrgh…”

Jarun was groaning with an expression of agony as if he had contracted a serious illness.

“What’s wrong, Senior Jarun? That’s why I told you not to skimp on food! The Soup Club food has been good lately!”

“I’m not hungry, you fool! I’m in pain!”

“Of course you’re in pain if you don’t eat!”

“My heart is in pain!”

Jarun growled angrily.

It was because of the junior’s cruel and outrageous proposal that dared to demand payment in gold coins.

The proposal itself was painful, but the reality of not being able to refuse it was even more bitter.

To proceed with the research he was currently working on, he needed a competent assistant.

‘The progress is too slow. I started it for the first time today, but at this rate, completion will be impossible. I do need an assistant…’

And the junior in front of him was indeed a talent that was hard to find anywhere.

Not only had he perfectly mastered all the necessary magic, but he had even assisted with the production of Dobrooke’s soul potion in the alchemy workshop.

Such talent was hard to find anywhere. Especially since all the upperclassmen at Einroguard were busy with their own research.

‘If I think of it as an investment to proceed with research? Ugh. That’s nonsense. How can I deceive myself with such contradiction? But I need an assistant. Ugh. Urgh. Urrgh.’

“Junior. I think it would be better to just leave. Senior Jarun seems to be broken.”

“Understood. I’ll come back next time…”

“…Wait!”

Jarun stopped Lee Han with a desperate voice that sounded like metal clashing against metal.

“I’ll give you… payment…!”

“Was that really something to agonize over so much?”

The dark elf student shook her head in disbelief.

* * *

The negotiation that started at three and a half gold coins per hour had to pause briefly each time due to Jarun’s desperate screams whenever the gold amount increased.

Nevertheless, Lee Han pushed forward with the negotiation without changing his expression.

No concessions!

‘I think I’ve grown too.’

Lee Han felt for the first time since entering his second year that he had matured a little.

He had always been deceived by professors, but for the first time, he had pushed through with his own assertion.

“…Look at this.”

Jarun spoke in a hoarse voice from screaming.

His chest ached, but that made it all the more urgent to proceed quickly. Since he was paying gold coins, every minute and second was precious.

“My current research, this… 【Gold Come Out Magic】…”

“…Let’s call it Dimensional Transformation Gold Observation Collection Research?”

“Why?”

“Senior. Listen to the junior here. I think that’s better too. The current name would be ignored no matter where you submit it.”

Jarun grumbled a bit but changed the name of his research. Meanwhile, Lee Han and Karnella, true to being Transformation Magic School students, carefully observed the research.

Then, unlike the fresh shock when they first saw it, the flaws in the research became apparent.

“Isn’t the speed of transforming the connected dimensions getting slower and slower?”

“Right. You observed well. And the device supporting this… looks too weak. It’ll break if you run it for another hour or two.”

“To secure gold meaningfully, we’d need to increase the number of connected dimensions much more, and increase the transformation speed to expand the collection scale.”

“But then can you handle the costs?”

“You both spoke well.”

Jarun sighed.

“This 【Dimensional Transformation Gold Observation Collection】 research is too slow and the device consumption is severe. I started it for the first time today, but it’ll stop soon. Since I’ve checked the speed… I need to increase both stability and speed.”

“How will you increase it, senior? Do you have a method?”

Karnella, who had been asking back, clapped her hands as if something had occurred to her.

“Ah. Let’s change the supporting device here to 【Paldar Ruji’s Gold】. Then it would withstand the shock of dimensional transformation much better.”

“Don… don’t say crazy things!”

Jarun made an expression as if he had suffered a heart attack at his junior’s words.

Paldar Ruji’s Gold.

He couldn’t even imagine how much of the gold coins piled here he would have to spend to obtain that.

“Why. That’s also gold.”

“It’s a metaphor, you crazy fool! How is that gold!”

‘Hmm. I shouldn’t make jokes about gold in front of my senior.’

Watching the conversation between the two, Lee Han thought to himself.

After getting angry for a while, Jarun finally calmed down and opened his mouth.

“I’ve been constantly thinking about this method because I need it. Until now, I’ve been going around Einroguard’s workshops picking up scraps to recycle.”

“…”

‘Ah. This is really fucking embarrassing.’

Karnella glanced at Lee Han while listening.

Even among all the schools of Einroguard, there probably wasn’t anywhere as shameful as this.

“But recycling scraps seems to have its limits after all. So I’m trying to create a few new materials.”

“Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse?”

Changing the properties of materials to create new substances was the specialty of transformation mages.

Armor made from flowing river water.

Books made from the air of hell.

Of course, these things were never easy.

Even temporarily changing properties was quite difficult, but finding stable properties that could be maintained permanently was much harder.

If one could find such properties and create new materials with stable transformations…

‘…It seems like it would be better to just make that the graduation project.’

“It’s not easy. But I have a few directions I’ve set up.”

Jarun’s Inelastic Rubber

Jarun’s Surface Membrane Lava

Jarun’s…

“!”

Lee Han became interested seeing the list of new materials for research that Jarun was looking for.

He was researching more useful materials than expected.

【Jarun’s Inelastic Rubber】 was a material that removed the elasticity of rubber while maximizing several other properties, spreading like a swamp once touched and wrapping around external materials.

‘How would it be if I used this for traps?’

It was a trick that would quite confuse even fairly experienced mages if they encountered it for the first time.

“What you guys need to do is keep experimenting in this direction, casting magic and recording the results.”

“Senior. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s not ‘you guys.’ It’s just this one junior.”

“…What you need to do. Happy now?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Lee Han accurately noted down Jarun’s words and nodded.

“I understand, senior. I’ll proceed like this.”

“Good. Please…”

Knock knock knock-

“?”

Jarun paused at the sound coming from outside.

“Who is it, senior? Do you have another customer?”

“No. More importantly… I reactivated the magic after you guys came in. Who could it be?”

“Someone seems to have come to steal senior’s gold, shall we show them what’s what?”

“How dare they!”

Flames of greed sparked in Jarun’s eyes. Gripping his hammer-shaped staff, Jarun angrily rushed to the door.

Click!

“Come at me! You thief!”

“…”

Standing in front of the door was Professor Yonramo of the Lerji family, who was in charge of transformation magic.

The professor looked at Jarun and asked.

“What are you doing instead of giving lectures?”

“…Uh, well, you see, Professor.”

Jarun rolled his eyes around and quickly tried to close the door.

At that moment, Professor Yonramo’s cloak transformed into dozens of tentacles and swallowed Jarun whole.

Gulp!

The professor let out a deep sigh.

“I wondered what he was doing instead of lecturing. I don’t understand why all students are like this. Don’t you agree, you two?”

“…Yes!”

“I agree, Professor!”

Lee Han and Karnella quickly answered, worried that the professor’s anger might turn toward them.

They were concerned he might ask why they weren’t brought along and what they were doing here separately.

“But what were you two doing here?”

“Uh, I was helping with magic.”

“Hormashi was? That’s unexpected.”

“No, I was.”

“…”

Professor Yonramo stared intently at Lee Han.

He had definitely thought this Wardanaz family boy was being pressured by the principal and several other professors because of his innate talent, regardless of his own will…

‘Could it be that he just really likes magic?’

He was slightly suspicious that it might actually be the case, even though only he refused to acknowledge it.

Professor Yonramo shrugged his shoulders and said.

“Then finish studying and come out. Today’s lecture will be canceled anyway.”

“Uh…”

Lee Han wanted to say ‘My senior disappeared so no gold coins are coming out, shouldn’t he wake up?’ but seeing the professor’s cloak that had just turned into tentacles, he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————