Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 817

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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 817

“…My prediction was wrong.”

“No, Senior?! Why are you doing that there! You’re someone who would have abandoned everything and escaped by now!”

Lee Han exclaimed in surprise at Yukveltire’s words.

Seeing this, Catten thought to himself.

‘Are those two not getting along?’

They belonged to the same tower, researched together, and even did this kind of work together, so he thought they were close senior and junior, but there was no such feeling at all.

“I blocked her.”

Diret answered with an embarrassed expression.

No matter what, he couldn’t just take the duke and leave while his junior was fighting.

It was Diret who blocked the path and pushed her back to prevent Yukveltire from escaping on her own.

“Ah. I was wondering what happened. It was thanks to Senior Diret.”

At the junior’s words saying he knew it would be like that, Yukveltire felt that unidentifiable emotion from earlier rising again.

Seeing this, Catten was puzzled. It was rare to see a same-year friend trembling with their hands like that.

“Are you perhaps angry?”

“…Catten of the Jahan family. Petty emotions like anger are not for me…”

“You seem angry though…”

“I’m not angry.”

Along with her words, Yukveltire resumed her attack.

The swords Catten had jumped over came flying from behind again. The undead monsters Diret had summoned rushed forward making vicious sounds.

‘Hmm. It seems about right.’

Blinking his eyes, Catten thickly enhanced his senses and sharpened his instincts.

Everything was pitch-black darkness, the flying swords shot out phantom sound waves to confuse his five senses, and the junior was hiding in an invisible state targeting him, but…

The trained swordsman’s senses instinctively found a way.

Though mages disparaged it as ignorant and simple, the swordsman’s path of deeply delving into one’s own body alone was never to be underestimated.

Now to rush at the mages ahead and seize the duke…

“!”

Bang!

Catten instinctively deployed a secret sword technique forward. Then the telekinesis flying from the front collided with his sword strike.

Catten was surprised by the heavy impact.

“Noble-blooded Yukveltire. When did you learn such magic…?”

“I didn’t cast it.”

“A trick then?”

However, as soon as he finished speaking, telekinesis came flying in rapid succession again.

Catten, who was concentrating on blocking the fiercely flying invisible attacks, finally realized the sense of unease.

Yukveltire and Diret, who were currently controlling artifacts and summoned creatures, didn’t have the capacity to launch attacks of this caliber.

“…It was the Wardanaz family junior! What prejudice I had!”

‘Tsk.’

At Catten’s exclamation, Lee Han clicked his tongue inwardly.

He had hoped Catten would suspect Yukveltire if possible, but it seemed he immediately realized Lee Han was the culprit.

As a battle mage, taking the front line in this situation was natural, but honestly he didn’t feel like it.

“Got you!”

-■■■■!

Meanwhile, an undead monster closed the distance and pounced on Catten with a roar. Diret let out a sigh of relief.

“I don’t know if it’ll work well, but…!”

At Catten’s muttering voice, Lee Han felt a chilling sensation as his heart sank.

Flash!

Several of Catten’s projections suddenly appeared and blocked the undead monsters and artifacts rushing from behind.

And Catten himself fiercely charged toward Lee Han. Diret shouted in disbelief.

“Does it make sense to create such projections with swordsmanship?!”

‘That’s what I’m saying.’

Lee Han didn’t have the leisure to respond. He immediately fired three consecutive 【Wardanaz Telekinesis】 strikes from the front, then jumped back to create distance.

Catten raised one arm that wasn’t holding a sword like a shield and charged forward with a battle cry. The aura-burning arm collided with the telekinesis.

Once, twice, three times!

It was a desperate measure chosen knowing that the moment he stopped charging and swung his sword, the junior would disappear.

Even though he had strengthened it with aura, having blocked magic equivalent to 5th circle three times with just one arm, Catten’s arm was tattered and twisted at a strange angle.

However, Catten didn’t care. He had obtained his desired goal.

‘…Within range of the opponent’s sword!’

Lee Han activated two spells he had stored in preparation, 【Lightning Cloak Enhancement】 and 【Gonadaltes’ Surging Power】, then threw his staff aside and drew his sword.

From here on, the sword was faster than spells.

Clang!!!

When his aura-blazing sword was blocked, Catten laughed joyfully.

“Junior. Excellent! To have this much destructive power when you can’t even use aura yet!”

The enhancement magic learned from the Skeleton Principal, the swordsman’s physical enhancement that characteristically used mana wastefully, plus the sword Dawnstar that absorbed the opponent’s mana.

Combining all these things, he was able to block Catten’s aura-infused strike head-on.

But unlike the admiring Catten, Lee Han was trembling from the shock.

‘What kind of brute force…!’

Even though he currently had 【Gonadaltes’ Surging Power】 and several other enhancement spells active, heavy waves crashed through his entire body as if he had taken a shock spell directly. It was absurd destructive power.

Just as mages are treated as masters who can enter high-level magic from the moment they implement a small world, he could newly understand why swordsmen who can use aura are recognized as being on a different level.

The moment the precognition magic he had cast warned of the next attack, Lee Han gritted his teeth and rushed into the storm-like barrage of attacks from all directions.

He instinctively realized that retreating here would be even more dangerous.

“Hmm!”

Catten, who was about to deploy a technique with one arm, stepped back at his junior’s sharp counterattack.

‘Is he perhaps using precognition magic?’

Catten was quite knowledgeable despite his own shortcomings. If his junior was taking classes in all schools unlike himself, it wouldn’t be strange if he could use precognition magic.

That would explain the counterattack just now. It wouldn’t be easy for a junior who didn’t know much about Catten’s swordsmanship and had a low level to react so sensitively.

‘Senior is human too. If I just buy time, it’ll become advantageous for me!’

Lee Han quickly made a judgment inwardly.

Catten was human too.

Not only the injury he just sustained, but having implemented spatial movement and even projections, his mana must have been considerably consumed.

If he stalled for time and endured, support from Yukveltire and Diret would come.

“Hmm.”

“!”

However, Lee Han realized his judgment had been naive.

This senior who had only swung swords in the punishment room while other seniors were researching magic was a monster who could sufficiently target Lee Han even when injured and without mana.

Bang, bang, bang-!

‘The sword’s trajectory… is being twisted?!’

He was clearly seizing the initiative and launching powerful strikes with wall-breaking force.

However, each time he clashed swords with the retreating and defending Catten, his sword began to gradually slip from his control.

When the fourth powerful strike didn’t produce the power he wanted, Lee Han belatedly realized.

‘He’s deflecting my sword!’

It was hard to believe.

Of course, it would have been possible under normal circumstances. Just as Lee Han could deflect Gainando’s attacks when he tried to steal snacks even with his eyes closed, Catten, who was several levels above Lee Han in swordsmanship, could deflect plenty even with insufficient strength.

But now he was receiving various magical attacks from all directions.

Moreover, Lee Han wasn’t just attacking normally but launching powerful strikes borrowing the power of all kinds of enhancement magic…

…Yet he was calmly deflecting such attacks while leading Lee Han into a disadvantageous situation.

It was spine-chilling swordsmanship. Lee Han momentarily looked into Catten’s eyes. The vertically slit pupils characteristic of cat beastmen were watching for a chance to counterattack.

He could feel the sharpness of never letting go of prey even in an injured, exhausted, disadvantageous situation.

‘This won’t work!’

Lee Han instinctively threw his decisive move. In an instant, the pocket watch emitted mana and accelerated Lee Han’s time.

When his junior’s speed increased to a level completely different from ordinary enhancement magic, Catten was startled.

‘How enviable. Such magical ability!’

While surprised and envious, Catten’s body moved with practiced ease.

His aura-infused sword blocked the path of his opponent’s attack trajectory.

Lee Han didn’t know it, but the acrobatics Catten was displaying now was the secret technique of the swordsmanship he had learned, the Willow Sword’s Fallen Willow Remaining Flowers.

The essence of illusion that deflects the opponent’s attacks and guides them to disadvantageous positions!

No matter how injured and exhausted Catten was, it wouldn’t be easy for his junior to break through this with brute force.

Quickly correcting his stance, three sword strikes flew in. Catten deflected them.

Two more sword strikes came flying. Catten deflected them again.

“…?”

For the first time today, Catten felt something strange about the sword.

His junior wasn’t moving to where he wanted him to go.

‘What’s this?’

Just then, his junior’s invisibility magic was dispelled. Seeing Lee Han’s eyes for the first time, Catten was surprised.

He wasn’t overwhelmed by his senior’s sword but was still looking for an opening.

‘Breaking free from the guidance is surprising, but that attack can’t break through this defense…’

Kwarrung!

A sound that only those sensitive to mana could hear – the sound made when mana condenses abnormally – rang out.

Catten was horrified.

Aura was forming on his junior’s sword.

Crisis.

Enhancement.

Divination.

Acceleration.

A plasma form that couldn’t be shown through ordinary mana condensation, created by the powerful concentration brought about by will and other circumstances intertwining with solid determination.

The aura flashed and combined with the Blue Rock Sword that Lee Han had learned. That single strike shattered Catten’s Fallen Willow Remaining Flowers and sent his sword flying backward.

Bang!!!!!!

“!”

Lee Han, who had sent the sword flying, was more surprised than Catten, who had lost his sword.

He hadn’t expected to be able to break through his senior’s defense.

“…Excellent, Junior!! To think you could use aura!”

Regardless of the defeat he had just experienced, Catten spoke with joy as if it were his own achievement.

Lee Han wanted to gracefully express his gratitude, but he couldn’t. The rebound from the time magic he had just used, among other things, was hitting his entire body.

“Ugh… urgh… krgh… Thank you… But aura… what do you mean by that…?”

“The attack you just launched. That was aura. Hmm. That’s probably why the invisibility magic was dispelled too.”

Catten nodded.

Since aura itself was an abnormal condensation phenomenon of mana, he had heard that it sometimes affected surrounding magic, but to see it like this.

Magic was truly a mysterious thing.

Enduring the intense pain throughout his body, Lee Han asked again.

“But there was no change in the sword at all…”

If it was aura, shouldn’t some kind of burning flame have risen from the sword?

To that question, Catten answered as if he didn’t understand it himself.

“That’s what I’m saying. It definitely tried to flare up but then died down inside… Ah.”

“?”

“…Junior. You’re holding a sword that absorbs mana.”

“…Ah… I’m sorry.”

Lee Han felt embarrassed.

Come to think of it, holding Dawnstar, a sword with a mana-absorbing obsidian blade, and asking ‘Why isn’t the aura burning?’ was ridiculous from the start.

“Um. But Senior.”

“Ask me anything.”

“I think you should look behind you first…”

Catten turned his head.

Flying swords summoned by Yukveltire were aimed at vital points including his neck, and above his head, a bloody undead monster summoned by Diret was glaring with its mouth wide open.

“Ah. I lost. I surrender.”

“…”

“…”

“As someone from the same year, couldn’t you let it slide?”

“Shouldn’t you offer something?”

When Diret and Yukveltire looked like they might tear Catten apart at any moment, Lee Han asked with slight concern.

Catten answered with a dejected attitude.

“Junior. I don’t have any wealth. I’ve been in the punishment room most of the time, so I couldn’t do commissions or research.”

“…Just give us your broken arm or something.”

“Even healing magic, Junior is truly amazing unlike me…”

“Please be quiet.”

Lee Han covered Catten’s mouth while watching the two seniors’ reactions.

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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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