Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 977
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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 977
The golem senior initially thought it might be a joke.
However, his junior’s eyes were very serious. Overwhelmed by that gaze, the golem senior did his best to answer.
“Ah, I think it would be quite difficult. It’s hard to predict divination mages who are more skilled than yourself.”
Fundamentally, divination magic was born to glimpse into an uncertain future, so its foundation was fragile and precarious.
Even predicting a relatively smooth future required meticulous preparation, but what about a future involving several divination mages who were unpredictable variables?
From that point on, the burden experienced by the mage would increase dramatically.
Not to mention predicting divination mages more skilled than oneself.
‘Ugh.’
Lee Han trembled with frustration.
“…The more I learn magic, the more I’m appalled by the imperfection of the discipline of magic.”
“Good words.”
The Insane Doppelganger passing by praised him as if satisfied.
Lately, he was quite pleased to see his disciple stop paying attention to nonsense and devote himself to magic.
Perhaps he had finally come to his senses.
‘I’d like to hit him.’
While Lee Han irreverently stared at the back of his master’s head, the Bronze Golem hurriedly called his junior.
“Junior. Come here. I’ll teach you as enthusiastically as the flames of a newly born star.”
“…You don’t need to take those words seriously. Just forget about them.”
However, the golem senior had already made up his mind.
In fact, from the golem senior’s perspective, there wasn’t much difference between the Skeleton Principal and the Skeleton Principal’s Insane Doppelganger.
Both were archmages, eccentric, and likely to cause trouble if not obeyed.
Since he was told to teach enthusiastically, he had to teach enthusiastically.
“Wandering stars are naturally harder to observe than ordinary stars.”
“I thought so.”
Lee Han answered in a resigned voice.
If they were easier to observe than ordinary stars, why would the Insane Doppelganger have assigned this task?
“But they can also divine destructive and irregular futures. Among the divination mages who left their names in history, many were skilled in astrology using wandering stars. Sometimes they could foresee futures that other mages couldn’t see.”
Lee Han wanted to ask how many of them had contracted with the wandering star Arna, but he held back.
He felt that hearing the answer would only make him sad.
“If you learn to read signs of the future from the movements of wandering stars, you’ll be able to avoid various misfortunes you’ll encounter in the future.”
“Like Master’s approach?”
“As I said, it’s hard to predict divination mages more skilled than yourself.”
The senior was coldly realistic like a golem. He would never say yes to something that was absolutely not possible.
“Now. Hurry up and grab the observation artifact and find traces of any wandering star. Otherwise, who knows what the Principal might do.”
Excellent divination mages don’t rely on magic.
The Bronze Golem senior predicted the future without using divination magic.
Of course, it wasn’t particularly helpful to Lee Han.
‘I miss Senior Diret…’
To think that a senior would bow to authority and sell out his junior.
Well, Senior Diret was the unusual one; the Bronze Golem senior wasn’t bad.
How could an Einroguard student defy the Skeleton Principal’s (doppelganger’s) orders? Even Lee Han was doing as told when ordered.
Lee Han stopped grumbling and grabbed the elongated telescope-shaped artifact, 【Star Guide】.
Thanks to the Yachaowang, he definitely knew how to use it.
The thought that the yatcha bastard might later take credit for this made him feel unpleasantly annoyed.
‘Is this it?’
While manipulating the artifact, Lee Han discovered a star moving with a long tail.
Its movement and appearance were distinct from other nearby stars.
However, even though he found the star, the future didn’t immediately become visible. Lee Han didn’t rush and observed slowly.
‘Hmm… I think I can see something.’
The comet’s movement twisted as if creating an illusion. Lee Han blinked and realized that the comet’s movement hadn’t changed at all.
Only his vision had changed.
He had definitely discovered a fragment of divination just now.
‘…Was it like this? It’s not as difficult as I thought.’
Contracting with stars was much more difficult than this.
He had to search through countless stars to find one that would contract with him.
Although Lee Han had found the wandering star Arna after great hardship, that wasn’t the end either.
He had to accept that burning power until the contract with Arna was completely established.
It was fortunate that his mana could endure it, otherwise Lee Han might have burned up along with it.
Compared to that, performing astrology to divine the future through star movements was much easier.
All he had to do was find a star, observe its movement, then wait until he saw visions that foretold the future.
‘I should look again.’
-&*@*$^(!*!&!
-$@%%$&#!
‘?’
Noise could be heard from afar.
Since there was no way such noise could occur in the quiet sea filled only with stars and darkness, this must be noise from the lecture hall.
Lee Han stopped concentrating and turned off the artifact. Then he turned around.
“What’s happening?”
Whoooosh!
“Aaaaah! It’s a rebound! A rebound!”
“That’s why I told you not to stare too much at hot stars!”
“…”
One of the seniors was blazing due to a star’s curse.
Astrology was fundamentally magic with strong reactions, and even when borrowing the power of stars, that didn’t completely disappear.
If one was too careless, they could suffer harsh consequences like this.
The Bronze Golem senior extinguished his junior’s fire and said.
“That’s why I told you to stay transformed as a flame agwi this month.”
“That’s, that’s too ugly…”
“Oh my. Junior. Was it noisy?”
The golem senior noticed Lee Han’s gaze and asked. Lee Han shook his head.
“I was wondering what was happening.”
“You didn’t miss any traces because of this, did you?”
“That’s not the case.”
‘He must not have found any yet.’
The Bronze Golem judged from his junior’s answer that he hadn’t found any traces yet.
Well, it wasn’t strange.
Wandering stars were among the hardest stars to find, and finding one that matched one’s spiritual affinity was even more difficult.
The golem senior never imagined that his junior had already contracted with the most powerful wandering star.
Unfortunately, when his junior had come with professors to report last time, he had fled outside the workshop.
At that time, Professor Paselette was extremely enraged because of Professor Verdus, so even the golem senior couldn’t help it.
However, his junior had already passed the stage of tracking traces and was seeing visions from star movements.
As the Insane Doppelganger said, this was possible because he was loved by wandering stars.
“Ah. Senior. What happens if you’re seeing the future after discovering a star but get interrupted midway?”
The golem senior was dumbfounded by his junior’s question.
Predicting the future from star movements was also a type of astrology, so what would happen if astrology was interrupted midway?
If lucky, it would end with just not seeing the results, but if unlucky, there would be a rebound on the caster too.
“To ask such a question. You’re a third year… no, you’re not a third year. Sorry.”
“The chatter is long.”
“Sorry. Everyone to your positions!”
The golem senior who was trying to explain quickly sent the underclassmen back to their places at the Insane Doppelganger’s words.
Lee Han tilted his head.
‘I guess it’s nothing serious.’
Even when he had cut off just now, there definitely hadn’t been any problems. Lee Han grabbed the artifact again and looked for the comet he had seen earlier.
As he concentrated his mind, a familiar vision slowly bloomed.
-&$$$*^!
-$&#$@%%!
‘Ah. What is it this time?’
At the noise in the lecture hall, Lee Han stopped concentrating again.
Beyond simple curiosity, he had become curious about what kind of rebounds a mage might experience while observing stars.
If he knew in advance, wouldn’t it be possible to prepare for them?
As Lee Han turned off the artifact and stood up, the distant comet flickered faintly.
It was surely just a coincidence, but somehow that flickering seemed to convey a displeased emotion.
* * *
“…Did you find any traces?”
As the lecture was coming to an end, the Bronze Golem lifted up a collapsed student (who had unfortunately seen a future of not graduating) and approached Lee Han.
“Yes.”
“Great! …Wait. What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
The golem senior realized that his junior was wearing a very serious expression.
It seemed he was staring intently at some scribbles drawn on paper.
“What are these scribbles? They can’t be drawings of… star traces.”
“I simply drew the future I saw.”
“…”
As the senior stared intently at the scribbles trying to figure out what the drawing was, Lee Han made an excuse.
“It’s because I drew it simply. If you give me time, it will come out much better.”
“Let’s just handle it with magic… Draw what you want to show!”
After sprinkling black powder and chanting an incantation, the powder spread across the white paper and created a picture.
The content of that picture was truly shocking.
In the picture, the Skeleton Principal in human form and his junior were confronting each other.
“…”
The Bronze Golem senior was so shocked that he completely missed the fact that his junior hadn’t just found traces of a wandering star but had even glimpsed the future.
Normally he should have been greatly surprised by this, but the picture before his eyes was several times more shocking.
What on earth was this?
“Is, is that really the Principal or a projection?”
“Does that matter?”
“Of course it matters… Hmm. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”
The golem senior understood his junior’s meaning.
Indeed, if you glimpsed a future of death, what mattered was why you died, not whether you died by a sword from the Western Empire mountains or a sword from the Eastern Region mountains.
“I tried looking at the star again to divine once more, but it wouldn’t show me anything else.”
“Star divination shows the future when the star wants to, not when the mage wants to. It’s magic that belongs to the more passive side of divination… Wait, so you found a star and even saw the future?!”
“Senior. Is that what’s important right now?”
“That… that’s true.”
The golem senior felt wronged but couldn’t argue back.
Honestly, what could be important in front of such a shocking picture? Even if an earthquake struck the workshop, he would probably ignore it.
“Senior. Please help me.”
“How, how can I…? If I face the Principal, I’ll become a bronze ingot with just one finger.”
“…I’m not asking you to fight instead, but to advise me on how to change the future like last time.”
Lee Han was serious.
Actually, Lee Han wasn’t as shocked as the golem senior.
That picture surprisingly had several possibilities.
For example, the Insane Doppelganger might explode from Lee Han constantly focusing on useless Einroguard exams and attack until he learned magic…
Since it had happened several times, the degree of shock they each received was bound to be different. Of course, from the golem senior’s perspective, this was also shocking.
‘To not go crazy even after seeing such a future. Is this what a genius is like?’
If it were him, he would have run out screaming ‘The end is coooooming!’ but to maintain such composure after seeing such a future.
Perhaps he was already insane from taking all the schools of magic. The golem senior nodded with firm resolve.
“Right, you’re correct! There’s no point in trembling.”
“This time I’ll definitely be careful. Even if you tell me to avoid the Imperial Family…”
Lee Han was truly prepared to swing his staff every time nearby Imperial Family members approached this time.
“No. That won’t work like last time.”
“What? Why not?”
“This is a future predicted much more clearly and strongly than that time. Changing something like this with a few gold restrictions isn’t easy.”
Seeing his junior’s face darken, the golem senior spoke again.
“But it’s not like there’s no method. A true divination mage relies not on magic but on wisdom. The answer lies in the future you saw. Junior.”
“!”
“Now. Look here.”
The golem senior pointed to the upper right corner of the picture.
A strange starlight was shining down on Lee Han’s head.
“This kind of symbol can be interpreted in two ways. Either you made a contract with a star to face the Principal, or you fell into a star’s trap. It can’t be the former, so it must be the latter. Then you should be careful of falling into a star’s trap in the future…”
“…That’s the star I made a contract with.”
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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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