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Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy Chapter 756
🕑 Added 2024-08-16 08:15:30 +0000 UTCChapter 756
For a while, no one in the Sentinels club spoke.
Eaktus, who belatedly recovered from the shock, wrote with shaky letters.
Eaktus: ...He's really not the principal, right??
*
While the Sentinels club members were whispering about the new member's identity, Yi-Han closed his book and left the tower to move.
He was already careful about meeting freshmen, but now he became even more cautious.
'From now on, I should move only near the main building as much as possible.'
When seniors first said "As you move up in years, you end up only active inside the main building," Yi-Han had expressed doubt.
Of course, the inside of Einroguard's main building was a strange building close to infinite, even wider than Einroguard's territory, but...
Weren't there many things that could only be obtained in the territory area outside the main building?
Even if you become an upper-year student with little time and a hard life, to not go outside the main building?
But now he understood.
'How can you go far when things like the skull principal's mad doppelganger come periodically.'
As you could be kidnapped by a strange great mage at any moment, you had no choice but to be careful.
...Of course, other students' reasons were quite different from Yi-Han's...
"Are you here?"
Yi-Han opened the door of the Spirit Festival Hall, Professor Verduus's workshop and magic tower, and went inside.
Going up to the second floor, he saw three enchantment magic school seniors haphazardly situated in the wide workshop area. The seniors were doing the finishing work on artifacts with their faces close to the workbench as if burying their noses in it.
"Senior. Do you perhaps know where Senior Yukbeltire is?"
"..."
"Senior?"
When the seniors didn't answer, Yi-Han thought he should use the method he had used on Professor Verduus again.
"Senior!!!"
"Ah-aah?! What is it?!"
The enchantment magic students who had been focusing on their magic jumped in surprise at their junior's call.
"Hello!"
"Why are you calling so loudly? Call quietly!"
"I'm sorry. I'll keep that in mind next time. Do you perhaps know where Senior Yukbeltire's workshop is?"
"Uh. Don't know."
"...?"
Yi-Han was slightly flustered.
There was no way an enchantment magic school mage of Yukbeltire's level wouldn't have a workshop in the Spirit Festival Hall.
"Doesn't she have a workshop here in the Spirit Festival Hall?"
"She probably does?"
"But you don't know where it is?"
"Nope."
Yi-Han asked with a smile.
"Do you perhaps know where Professor Verduus's workshop is?"
"Don't know? Why would I know?"
"I see. Thank you."
Hearing the answer, Yi-Han thought he should just look around himself.
Enchantment magic school students might not even know each other's names.
"Senior Yukbeltire?"
"Yeah."
"You're not Senior Yukbeltire, are you?"
"Yeah."
"...Have a good day."
"Yeah."
After breaking through the uncooperative enchantment magic school students' interference, Yi-Han was finally able to find Yukbeltire's workshop.
The princess was using the entire third basement floor for her research.
"Senior, are you here?"
"Come in."
Yukbeltire put her jade glasses on the table and gestured.
Then she spoke as if she had expected this.
"Right. You must have become interested in my research."
"..."
Yi-Han was dumbfounded at the baseless confidence.
"Senior. I was kidnapped by the doppelganger until yesterday."
"Hmm."
Yukbeltire, not understanding Yi-Han's words, fell into deep thought.
Then she clapped lightly as if she understood.
"You got inspiration while learning magic under the principal's doppelganger. And that inspiration is related to my research. Right?"
"...Actually, I came to ask you not to bother Senior Direth."
Yi-Han took out the food basket he had brought as a bribe.
As she was Adenart's older sister and also related to Gainando, he had hoped food bribes might work.
Yukbeltire immediately answered as if it was nonsense.
"You seem to be misunderstanding, but it's always Direth who bothers me. I've never bothered Direth. I've always respected her."
"..."
Yi-Han recited 'The other party is a senior, and this is the senior's workshop, so if I attack rashly, I might get hit back' three times inwardly before opening his mouth.
"Actually, I don't want to debate the definition of bothering, Senior."
"Let's hear it. You'll understand if you listen too. When we entered, Direth decided on dark magic school as her major. I advised Direth. You have no future in that school, come to enchantment magic school. Then Direth threw a curse at my face. Now. Who do you think bothered whom?"
"It seems you bothered Senior Direth."
"Ha!"
Yukbeltire sighed coldly as if it was regrettable.
To think the junior whose ability she had acknowledged would say such a stupid thing.
"Senior. Didn't you request Senior Direth's help in exchange for helping rescue me? But honestly, how effective was your help?"
"A sharp point. You're right. The output was too insufficient."
Yukbeltire admitted frankly.
She had prepared ways to find and destroy the weak points of the magic, but she lacked the means.
"I'll help you as much as I can, so please stop calling Senior Direth for this research."
"Alright."
Yukbeltire agreed surprisingly readily.
Yi-Han asked in surprise.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Can you really do without Senior Direth's help from now on?"
"Direth isn't helping with the research anyway?"
"...?"
For a moment, Yi-Han thought he had misheard.
Not helping?
"Wait. Didn't Senior Direth say she would help with research in exchange for helping with the rescue?"
"She did. But as you pointed out, the help wasn't very effective. Direth pointed that out and persuaded me. I accepted. Wait. I could use this as another piece of evidence that Direth is bothering me."
Yukbeltire examined in a cold voice.
Indeed, no matter how she thought about it, Direth was bothering her.
Such a self-serving insistence.
"So even if I didn't help, Senior Direth wouldn't have participated in this research?"
"Well. Direth might have come to help after reflecting."
"...Senior. Please keep it a secret from Senior Direth that I'm helping with the research."
"?"
Yukbeltire tilted her head slightly, not understanding why her junior was saying such things.
*
The research was just as he had seen last winter break.
An artificial realm artifact.
It was a grand project to create a newly isolated realm artificially according to the mage's will.
"There's something I learned from the last failure."
"Don't trust other mages?"
"That's a good lesson too. I'll pass it on to Direth."
Although trusting other mages was one of the causes, Yukbeltire felt the need to improve the fundamental structure of the artifact.
This artificial realm artifact had a structure that continuously accelerated mana by connecting dozens or hundreds of magic circles.
Mana accelerated in the first magic circle was accelerated once more in the second magic circle, and accelerated again in the third magic circle...
It was an unavoidable choice as that much power was needed to create an artificial realm even if it was very small in size.
But such an excessively intricate and complex structure brought irreversible results with just one mistake in one of the magic circles.
There was no problem when Yukbeltire herself managed and supervised everything from start to finish, but from the moment external mages participated, it became a time bomb that could explode at any time.
Just last time, it had degenerated into an elliptical shape and connected to an uncertain realm due to a very minor mistake.
"I'm thinking of two main things. One is simplifying part of the structure. The other is a safety device to detect realms in advance."
Reduce and combine some of the magic circles to reduce the probability of mistakes, and at the same time add artifacts to detect and sense in advance in case it connects to an uncertain realm.
It was a reasonable improvement method that even Yi-Han, who wasn't very interested in this research, could understand.
"I see. Is my role to infuse mana to supplement when combining magic circles?"
"That's one of your roles."
Yukbeltire was satisfied with her junior's answer.
Unlike other juniors who needed to be told five or ten times, she was very pleased to see him understand right away.
In the process of improving some connected magic circles by combining them into one magic circle, there would inevitably be mana loss, so a method to supplement that was needed.
Originally it would have been quite complex, but if there was one mage who could infuse mana, it was a problem that could be solved at once.
"Then sit and wait."
"Yes."
Yi-Han sat and waited while reading <Escape from Einroguard>.
Yukbeltire kept drawing new magic circles while flipping through and classifying over hundreds of pages of papers.
'Hmm.'
After about an hour, Yi-Han wondered if he could ask if it was still far from done.
But as the senior seemed to be concentrating so much, he took out a toy from his pocket and played with the basilisk.
The baby basilisk made hissing sounds and was very happy.
'By the way, those Sentinels club bastards. To think they can't distinguish fake news.'
Yi-Han resolved to confront Beaver-Penguin-Fox next time he met them.
It wasn't for nothing that an ominous animal was in their alias. What were they doing bringing unconfirmed rumors?
Another hour or so passed like that.
Yukbeltire raised her head with the most tired face in the world. Her voice was half hoarse.
"It's done. Come here and infuse mana."
"Yes."
Yi-Han approached the artifact as Yukbeltire instructed and infused mana. With a flash of light, one part of the artifact was newly modified.
Enormous mana flowed out, but Yi-Han was unaffected.
"Is it done?"
"Now we have to do the next one."
Yukbeltire sat down again at the table piled with over hundreds of pages of papers and started drawing a new magic circle.
Yi-Han looked at the artificial realm artifact once and calculated Yukbeltire's work speed just now.
'So to improve all of this...?'
While he was calculating how many years it would take, and whether he could escape by graduating before that, there was a thud sound in front. Yi-Han raised his head in surprise.
Yukbeltire had collapsed.
"Are you alright?!"
"I consumed too little nutrients..."
Yi-Han was dumbfounded at her saying she was hungry in such a fancy way.
Both Adenart and Gainando ate their meals well, so what was this 5th year doing?
"I happened to bring snacks, so have some. Here. I have sandwiches."
"Is there cheese in it?"
Yi-Han felt pleased at her food craving that discerned ingredients like a ghost, thinking it was indeed befitting of royalty.
"Yes."
"I'm not really into cheese though."
"...I-I see. Then have this sandwich with ham and egg."
"I'm not really into ham either..."
Yukbeltire took out all the ingredients inside the sandwich one by one, then chewed the bread pieces satisfactorily.
"Your cooking skills are decent. It's on par with imperial chefs."
"..."
Yukbeltire, who finished her meal with one piece of bread and one sip of cocoa, immediately signaled she was full.
While Yi-Han was dumbfounded, the workshop door opened and Direth entered.
"Hey. I'll help. Although I was incompetent, I did try..."
"..."
Yi-Han, whose eyes met Direth's, froze on the spot.
Yi-Han spoke urgently.
"...I just came to look around by chance!"
"Didn't you come to help with the research?"
Yi-Han pushed aside the interfering senior. Yukbeltire rolled down under the sofa with a thud.
