Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 833

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

Chapter 833

‘I think trials would be better.’

Usually, trials might be difficult and dangerous, but they had an end.

No matter how hard they were, you could guess how to reach the end.

But now the sacred forest was just telling him out of nowhere to find a tree branch that suited him, without any beginning or end.

Even though being a mage was a profession that made the impossible possible, doing this without any clues…

“Isn’t there anything that could help?”

“I told you to wander around until you’re chosen, didn’t I?”

“Hmm. I understand.”

Lee Han ignored Ragesa’s words and pondered which divination magic he had learned to use.

Stone divination seemed a bit weak, so he thought he’d need to use spirit coin divination or the five demons divination.

‘Spirit coin divination would be impossible.’

Since it required five gold coins that had undergone special magical processing (and the ones that came up heads had to be offered to spirits), spirit coin divination was hard to use.

The five demons divination seemed more manageable. Though you’d receive a powerful curse of misfortune if you failed to identify the 2 fake prophecies, it was better than spirit coin divination.

“Divination magic? Dangerous. Kid. How many divination mages have been ruined by becoming intoxicated with the pleasure of peering into the future…”

“Hmm. I understand.”

Lee Han ignored her again and checked his reagents.

Fly agaric mushrooms collected during the new moon, bone fragments obtained from the demon realm among dimensions, cinnabar, and so on.

Ragesa realized that Lee Han was letting her words go in one ear and out the other and grumbled.

“You’ll only stop doing such things after getting seriously hurt by divination magic. What an arrogant brat!”

“No. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying I’ll definitely use it now, I was just checking.”

It wasn’t that Lee Han had no fear. Rather, he had as much as other students, if not more.

How could he not be afraid when he might suffer from powerful misfortune for a while if he made a mistake?

Because of prophecies, Lee Han was quite careful with divination magic, to the point of swinging his staff to chase away Gainando whenever he came close.

The problem was that finding the desired tree branch in this forest seemed hopeless!

‘I should first see how the other guys are doing.’

After finishing his reagent check, Lee Han watched what his friends were doing.

If someone luckily got a suitable tree branch, he planned to observe and use it as reference.

Swoosh!

The student who had grabbed the mirage earlier was actually doing better.

The students wandering around the sacred forest looking for suitable tree branches were gradually realizing that this forest was very bizarre.

Pop!

Starting with being teleported somewhere in the forest the moment they touched a branch, let alone breaking it off.

Splash!

Suddenly the clouds would disappear and they’d fall into a large puddle below.

“I… I just went to a strange place and came back. Did you guys see it too? Some spirits took me and guided me to a labyrinth??”

Or they’d fall into illusions where they kept wandering inside a labyrinth.

Except for hostile monsters, this forest contained mysteries so twisted that they were rarely seen even near Einroguard. It wasn’t for nothing that it was a forest cultivated by a mad Spirit King.

“…Everyone, tie yourselves together with rope. Don’t get too far apart. Carve 【Mark of Allies】 on the back of your hands.”

Unable to watch any longer, Giselle called together the White Tiger Tower students who were wandering around chaotically.

Even as mages, completely controlling this forest would be difficult, but they could still make some preparations.

Tying each other with continuously extending magic rope, casting the ally marking magic that would show each other’s locations until it faded away after being carved once…

“Indeed. This method would be advantageous for long-term exploration.”

“What are you evaluating!? You come here and give orders too!”

Giselle screamed in exasperation.

The guy who should be giving orders alongside her was sitting on a cloud, looking interested and going ‘So this is how White Tiger Tower students move,’ which was absurd.

Lee Han, who wanted to observe a bit more, quickly made an excuse.

“I’m from Blue Dragon Tower, so I was watching without interfering unnecessarily.”

‘Huh. Is that so?’

Angrago, who was listening nearby, thought it sounded somewhat plausible.

Certainly, if you belonged to a different tower, it might be hard to step forward and give orders due to being mindful of others…

“You call that an excuse?”

“Lee Han. Even I think that doesn’t make sense…”

Starting with Giselle’s cynical retort, even Durgyu, who usually took Lee Han’s side, showed reluctance.

“Booo!”

Several White Tiger Tower students outright jeered.

“Wardanaz, stop talking nonsense and give instructions like usual! We want instructions!”

“Right! Wardanaz should as usual… ugh, urgh!”

Giselle kicked the friends who were chattering shamelessly.

Even if they were used to following orders from students of other towers, what they just said was really too ugly.

“Hey. Come here.”

“Alright. Alright. Let’s divide into groups of three each. I’ll cast underwater breathing and bestow true light… What else do we need? We probably don’t need undead protection, right?”

Lee Han cast a comprehensive set of possible enchantment magic from low circles all at once.

Angrago, who had been watching nervously, raised his hand.

“Wardanaz. I have something to say.”

“Oh. What is it? A magic recommendation?”

“No. You told us to bring friends. How about we quickly call the other tower guys too…”

“…”

When Lee Han and Giselle looked at him with contemptuous eyes, Angrago hastily made excuses.

“Ah, no! I don’t have bad intentions, we should share this opportunity with friends from other towers too!”

“I’m sure you would.”

“Ha. I’ll have to make them compete when bringing them next time.”

“But isn’t Angrago the second-in-command of your tower?”

“Shut up.”

* * *

The White Tiger Tower students went around each tower to share this joyful news with their friends.

-Oh, friends! While helping Wardanaz with his work, we happened to meet the benevolent tree Spirit King! The Spirit King said, ‘Call your close friends to come break off tree branches!’ We really hope you’ll come and break off tree branches too! This place is truly beautiful and mysterious!

“How can you not be happy!? The Spirit King invited us and opened his domain!?”

Gainando looked at Yoner as if he couldn’t understand.

Yoner tried to explain calmly.

“So…”

“Guys! Yoner says he’s not happy at all! He says he doesn’t need the Spirit King’s gift because he’s too much of a genius!”

“Boo! Booo!”

Yoner took out a potion bottle and swung it toward his relative’s head.

With a brief scream, Gainando, hit by the voice prohibition potion, flailed about.

Then several friends who had just been jeering quickly shut their mouths.

“I was making fun of Gainando.”

“Right. Meikin.”

“…I wanted to say that now isn’t necessarily the time to be happy.”

“Why is that?”

At Salko’s question, Yoner spoke in a worried voice.

“Spirit Kings aren’t beings who give gifts without any price.”

“That’s true, but… that doesn’t mean it’s not good fortune. We might be too pickled by Einroguard and ignoring the spirits’ goodwill.”

‘…I-Is that so?!’

Yoner was slightly flustered.

Upon hearing the magical words that would shake even the most confident student, “You might be too Einroguard,” his certainty wavered.

“That’s right. Meikin! When will such an opportunity come again! And Wardanaz gets along well with spirits.”

“???”

“????”

Yoner and a few friends who knew the truth had question marks floating on their faces.

Gets along well with spirits?

“You’ve come. Everyone. Welcome for coming.”

“We wanted to show you all this scenery together. Haha.”

After passing through the rift and entering Gwangmok King’s domain, the waiting White Tiger Tower friends greeted them with artificial smiles.

At that sight, Yoner felt his wariness rising even more.

…Something’s strange?

“Why is the Prince acting like that?”

“I don’t know. He probably picked up and ate something weird somewhere. He ate hiccup mushrooms last time too.”

“Mmph mmph mmph!”

“Now. Everyone follow this way! We’ll explain everything!”

Calling to the other tower friends who were admiring the mysterious scenery of the unfamiliar domain, the White Tiger Tower students quickly guided them to the sacred grove.

And after finishing their explanation, they hurriedly disappeared.

“…So that’s how we got this opportunity. Well then! We also have to search. Good luck!”

‘Strange. It seems like a lot of the story was omitted.’

Salko was also starting to feel something was off.

It seemed true that the Spirit King had invited them and given them an opportunity, but why did it feel like a lot of content was omitted in between?

1 hour later.

“Where did those Tiger Tower bastards go?!”

The enraged Black Turtle Tower students wandered around searching for the White Tiger Tower students who had guided them and then disappeared.

Everyone looked disheveled from having been hanging from treetops until just moments ago.

Of course, naturally the White Tiger Tower students had already gone somewhere in the sacred grove to look for their own tree branches.

“Damn it. We were tricked! Surely that Wardanaz guy’s name wasn’t a lie too, was it?”

“That probably wasn’t.”

“Why?”

“No matter what, surely Wardanaz wouldn’t lie using his name as collateral. He’d face terrible retaliation later.”

At Ratford’s sharp deduction, Salko had no choice but to be convinced.

“That makes sense. Damn it. This is too overwhelming. Divination magic doesn’t work well either… Oh, Wardanaz!”

The Black Turtle Tower students spotted their friend with a tired face in the distance and shouted loudly.

“Wardanaz, even if it’s a good opportunity, how could you lie!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You should have told us what kind of place this was!”

“I said to tell them.”

“…”

“…”

Salko vowed to definitely hang those White Tiger Tower guys who had delivered the message upside down.

Lee Han said in a tired voice.

“The White Tiger Tower guys must have left out a few facts. They did something pointless. You would have come anyway even if they told you. You’re all mages, so there’s no way you’d miss an opportunity like this.”

“?”

Several students tilted their heads.

…Is that so?

‘I think I would have hesitated a bit if I’d heard beforehand…’

“You all think the same, right?”

“Uh, huh? Of course we do.”

“Everyone would think the same. Wardanaz!”

The Black Turtle Tower students and Salko exchanged glances and spoke hurriedly.

“I recommend preparing tracking methods in case we get separated and moving around. Contact each other periodically. There’s nothing dangerous, but it’s exhausting. I don’t know how long we’ll have to wander around.”

“Wardanaz. Have you tried divination magic? We tried it on our end too, but it had no effect.”

Salko asked with hope, counting on his friend who was the top student in the divination magic school.

Lee Han slowly nodded and answered.

“I tried it. I performed the Five Demons divination.”

“!”

The Black Turtle Tower students were shocked.

Is it okay for a 2nd year to already cast such high-difficulty divination magic?

The surprised students were convinced in less than a second.

‘Well, Wardanaz was always like that.’

‘Geez. Why was I surprised?’

When his friends stopped being surprised, Lee Han looked slightly puzzled and continued speaking.

“I tried it but failed.”

“As expected. It must be high-difficulty magic…”

“No. The magic succeeded, but the demon returned the reagents I offered. He said he couldn’t tell me anything because this forest is covered with the Spirit King’s madness.”

“…”

“…”

The students’ mouths gaped wide at the first-ever offering rejection incident they’d heard of.

That’s when it happened.

-The Prince found a tree branch! The Prince found a tree branch!!

-No way, that guy didn’t even wander around, so why?! What’s so good about him!?

“!”

“!!!!”

Everyone was shocked when the first person to obtain a tree branch from the forest appeared.

“That way! Let’s go!”

Lee Han and everyone else hurriedly ran out.

Several Blue Dragon Tower students had gathered to watch Gainando. Gainando was holding onto a writhing tree branch and shouting.

“Lee Han! Look at this! I got a tree branch!”

The human-sized tree branch writhed and smacked Gainando’s head with thwack thwack sounds.

Lee Han panicked and called Ragesa.

“Is that thing okay?”

“Materials like that are originally picky about choosing their owners. It’s fine. If he wasn’t compatible from the start, it wouldn’t have chosen him. If he just endures, he’ll be able to gain some recognition. By the way, that brat, wasn’t he royalty? Even though he received noble blood, to find it the fastest.”

“Huh? Isn’t finding it fastest a good thing?”

Ragesa giggled and finally revealed the truth.

“Where you search in the forest isn’t what’s important. How much you wander around is what matters.”

“…?”

“The forest quickly finds narrow-minded mages. Since there’s nothing more to see in someone who gives up right away, it sends an appropriate tree to grab their hand. Rather, the broader-minded the mage, the more the forest keeps watching. It expects to see how long they can walk and wait. Kihihi. That’s why I told you to wander around until you’re chosen, didn’t I?”

“Ah. I see.”

Lee Han opened the Echo Stone and prepared to call his Insane Doppelganger.

It seemed he’d need to ask about methods for threatening an insane forest.

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