The AI Archmage - Chapter 3

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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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AI Archmage Episode 3

To the mages of the Blue Tower, Tower Master Lumia Kabala was nothing short of an idol.

Because of this, Lumia never lost her smile in front of the Blue Tower’s mages.

Whether sad or happy.

No matter how bad the situation became, Lumia always tried to smile.

To the Blue Tower’s mages, Lumia’s smile was a given.

So everyone thought that way.

That the smile would never disappear from the Tower Master’s face.

But.

“Tower Master, calm down! Please calm down!”

“Let go, let go! C-calm down?! This, this crazy bastard said such things to my face…!”

That idol was rolling her eyes back and trying to lunge at a student like a madwoman.

“This is a theory I’ve staked my entire time as Blue Tower Master on, and you dare say what about it!”

“I can’t call something that sucks not sucky. Originally, you have to acknowledge what needs to be acknowledged.”

“Aaaahhhhh!”

Lumia roared.

The other Blue Tower mages present were equally confused.

‘Why is he so confident?’

They all knew Sion Rostery.

He was one of the legitimate sons of the Marquis Rostery Family.

The Marquis Rostery Family’s funding was nothing less than the pillar that had sustained the Blue Tower until now.

That’s why Sion could live peacefully in the Tower despite all his troublemaking.

But this time was different.

To insult the Tower Master head-on.

This was crossing the line by far.

“Apologize, Sion Rostery.”

Serentia, the Blue Tower’s Vice Tower Master who had been trying to calm Lumia, spoke with a stern expression.

“Even if you are a direct descendant of Rostery, you have no right to insult the Tower Master like this!”

“Insult?”

Sion tilted his head with an expression of incomprehension.

“Why is stating facts considered an insult?”

“You little…!”

“Tower Master, please calm down!”

Thanks to that, only Serentia caught in between was suffering.

Of course, from her perspective, Lumia’s anger wasn’t incomprehensible either.

Rostery wasn’t supporting the Blue Tower out of pure goodwill.

Their ultimate goal was to erode and take control of the Blue Tower through capital.

The Rostery direct descendant before them, Sion, was proof of exactly that.

And that Sion was touching the Tower Master’s magical pride?

No matter how important the Rostery family’s support was, there was no way the lid wouldn’t open.

At that moment, Sion spoke.

“If you’re doing this because you don’t believe me, then it’s just a matter of me proving it, isn’t it?”

“Prove it? Ha!”

Lumia was dumbfounded.

While she couldn’t say her theory was perfect, it wasn’t at the level where she deserved to be called a frog in a well.

Especially not when her opponent was the good-for-nothing Sion.

Lumia tried to suppress her anger and asked Sion a question.

“Student, do you even know what theory I’m currently researching before you speak?”

“The establishment of a ‘system’ for efficiently managing mana.”

“…You do know.”

At those words, Lumia’s eyes wavered, but only for a moment.

Since the research content itself had already been made public, this much was understandable.

“That much is already public information. Even a beginner who just started learning magic could understand that content.”

“Yes, that would be true. But going deeper, there’s the issue of small amounts of mana leakage during the process of reducing mana used in magic, along with the magic itself becoming corrupted?”

“…!”

She couldn’t help but be shocked at those words. She hadn’t made public the side effects of that theory.

To know that, one would need to fully understand her research content.

‘That Sion Rostery understands my research?’

At that moment, Lumia felt the hair on her entire body stand on end.

The theory she was currently researching wasn’t simply for mana management.

In fact, strictly speaking, it wasn’t even a theory for proper ‘magic.’

If Sion understood even the hidden aspects of her research…

Drip.

Without realizing it, she felt cold sweat flowing from her forehead.

The people who had been murmuring and watching the confrontation between the Tower Master and Sion also held their breath.

They sensed that Lumia’s reaction was far from ordinary.

“If I may advise, you’re missing the most important part. Well, considering the ‘result’ that the Tower Master ultimately wants to create, it’s not strange that…”

“Wait, wait a moment!”

Lumia hastily cut off Sion’s words.

Her face no longer showed the same anger as before, but rather was filled only with anxiety and concern.

“Don’t say… anything more than that.”

“Well, if you say so.”

Sion shrugged his shoulders and didn’t continue speaking.

Lumia pressed her forehead with a tired expression, lost in thought for a moment, then opened her mouth.

“…Student Sion, follow me to my room. Vice Tower Master, please escort the students.”

“Yes, Tower Master.”

Serentia quickly understood what Lumia wanted to say and escorted the students.

And Lumia quietly headed to her room with Sion.

Unlike before, with a face full of anxiety and concern.

* * *

“Please sit, Student Sion.”

As soon as they arrived in the room, Lumia immediately offered Sion a chair.

Of course, Sion had no reason to refuse, so he obediently took a seat.

He had intended for this situation to happen anyway.

‘At least she’s quite perceptive.’

Sion mentally raised his evaluation of Lumia by one level.

Lumia sat across from Sion and asked with a stern expression.

“I’ll ask you straight. How much do you know?”

“Well. That the Tower Master’s ‘true purpose’ is to recreate that Altair Grimoire?”

“…!”

At those words, Lumia’s eyes wavered once again.

She couldn’t help it.

Sion was a direct descendant of Rostery.

If her true purpose were to leak to the Rostery family, she didn’t know what would happen.

But she still couldn’t understand.

Finding the connection to the Grimoire from the Magic Theory she had published was by no means an easy task.

It would be impossible to notice without high-level master-grade magical engineering knowledge.

“How on earth did you….”

“For now, research on the Grimoire has been temporarily halted on the surface. You can’t completely ignore the Magic Council’s pressure, can you?”

“Th-that’s…!”

Watching Lumia panic and fail to answer properly, Sion chided her with a bitter smile.

“Tower Master, in situations like this, you should deny it to the very end. With such poor expression management, even if it weren’t me, someone would have caught on eventually.”

“Who are you.”

As if finally coming to her senses, Lumia glared at Sion with sharp eyes.

“Sion Rostery couldn’t be like this. He lacks not only knowledge of magical engineering, but also talent for magic….”

“Tower Master.”

Sion calmly interrupted Lumia’s words.

Who in the world would think that the great Altair had been reincarnated into the body of a mere student at the Blue Tower?

Lumia’s suspicion of Sion was perfectly reasonable behavior, and from Sion’s perspective, it was within his expected range of reactions.

So he began the conversation in the direction he had planned.

“Let me make one thing clear first. I have no intention of sharing what I know with my family.”

“…What did you say?”

“The family has already abandoned me. The very fact that they threw me into this declining Magic Tower as negotiating material proves that.”

“De-declining?!”

“There’s no need to react so strongly to an obvious fact.”

Sion replied calmly while looking at Lumia.

The disciple of his closest friend.

That friend wasn’t even involved—it was his disciple who was trying to revive the invention that had been thoroughly rejected by the Magic Academia.

The sight was quite intriguing.

Not craftsmen who had inherited his will, but the fact that a mage was clinging to the legacy he had left behind.

“I simply came here to make a proposal.”

“A proposal? If I wanted to right now, I could erase your memories on the spot.”

With those words, mana began to slowly rise around Lumia.

The mana, like water, gradually submerged Sion starting from his feet.

If he did nothing like this, perhaps Sion might drown in this rising mana.

“The title of Blue Tower Master isn’t something I carry lightly. I don’t know what you’re counting on, but I can forcibly shut your mouth right here and now…”

“Then go ahead and try.”

“…What?”

At those words, Lumia froze with her eyes wide open.

“Go ahead and… try?”

“Try forcibly shutting my mouth. You could just give it a try, couldn’t you?”

With Lumia’s current capabilities, she couldn’t inflict any harm on him.

At Sion’s calm reaction, Lumia frowned.

She probably thought he was making light of her warning.

She let out a small sigh and extended her hand.

“…Mana, become shackles according to my will and bind the fool.”

With the short incantation, Lumia’s mana that had been rising toward Sion took shape.

And just as it was about to seal all of Sion’s movements…

Crash!

It shattered into pieces.

“…Huh?”

Lumia’s eyes widened.

She stared blankly at Sion, then shook her head and cast the same spell again.

And.

Crash!

It broke again.

“Huh?”

Faced with an unthinkable reality, Lumia’s mind rejected what was happening.

The magic she had cast on Sion was the 4th Circle Magic 【Bind Chain】.

And the caster was Lumia, a 6th Circle mage.

In that case, Sion should have been helpless against it.

But he was completely unaffected.

“Are you finished?”

Sion asked nonchalantly.

If her eyes hadn’t deceived her just now, there was only one answer.

“Dis… spell?”

Lumia’s voice trembled.

Magic Dispel Spell.

In short, it’s about breaking through an opponent’s magic head-on.

Dispel, strictly speaking, isn’t ordinary magic.

It’s about dispelling the magic of opponents whose level is lower than your own.

But a mere student had dispelled the magic of herself, a 6th Circle mage who had cast it with full intent?

Lumia looked at ‘Sion’ before her with trembling eyes.

…No, was it really ‘Sion’?

Having come this far, she couldn’t even be certain of that anymore.

“Well, I think you understand to some degree now.”

“Wh-who are you…?”

“I’m Sion Rostery.”

Sion smiled faintly as he said this, then corrected himself.

“No, let’s just say I am.”

“…!”

An answer laden with multiple meanings.

‘This should be enough.’

Seeing Lumia’s reaction, Sion was convinced that his intention had gotten through to some extent.

This was bound to happen eventually anyway.

He had no intention of living as the Blue Tower’s delinquent student and the abandoned child of the Rostery Family.

He hadn’t forgotten the conviction he had dreamed of.

‘Magic for everyone.’

Magic should not be monopolized by anyone.

And magic should not degenerate into a ‘means’ for maintaining vested interests.

Then what was necessary to achieve that?

‘I need to crush all those bastards who hindered me in my previous life.’

With such thoughts in mind, Sion smiled faintly.

Unaware of his inner thoughts, Lumia asked him with a trembling voice.

“Wh-what… do you want?”

“Well. For now…”

Saying something like ‘let’s turn this rotten magic academia upside down’ wouldn’t get through to her.

Then it would be better to present an option that Lumia would voluntarily rush toward.

“How about I tell you about the location of the ‘Secret Repository’ of the great mage Belusian Kabala, hidden in the Blue Tower?”

At those words, Lumia looked as if asking what he was talking about.

“Master’s Secret Repository? There’s no way I would know about such a thing…”

“No, I’m saying I know about it.”

“…?”

That answer instantly dropped Lumia’s intelligence by about 20 points.

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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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