Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 280

It was a nightmare for a wizard who could see the future.

And the best way to handle it was…

“Don’t even go there.”

It sounded a bit silly, but it was actually the right answer.

Instead of using magic to see the future right away, you had to find the trap in the question and react to it.

Freshmen weren’t expected to do very hard things, like leaving a special mark in their vision of the future to escape the cycle, or even moving their vision to a future far away.

Just finding the trap in the question and reacting to it was good enough to get a high score.

The worst thing you could do was try to use precognitive magic right away.

If a student just jumped into the trap question without thinking, they would get stuck in the cycle, struggling and using up all their magic until they fainted.

That was how it was supposed to work, but then…

Lee Han casually waved his wand and tried precognitive magic again and again.

Professor Pasellet stared, completely confused.

“What in the world…?” he thought.

Lee Han didn’t notice the professor’s confusion and cast precognitive magic again.

But he still didn’t see a proper future.

When no picture appeared, Lee Han tilted his head and stopped the spell.

It was as easy as breathing for him.

Of course, it used a lot of magic, but it didn’t really affect Lee Han.

“Was this not the right way to do it?”

“Ugh… ugh…”

Lee Han heard a painful groan from beside him.

The professor had put up a magic barrier, so he couldn’t see his friends, but he could hear them.

It was a sound you only heard when magic went terribly wrong.

“Keugh.”

“Keee-eck.”

Plop!

It wasn’t just groans; he could even hear people falling to the floor.

Lee Han had trained hard with Professor Voladi, so he could figure out what was happening even without seeing.

He heard people being dragged away and no more groans…

“They’re kicking people out of the exam?!”

Lee Han didn’t understand.

It wasn’t an easy problem, but it shouldn’t have been as hard as Professor Voladi’s exam, where people were collapsing.

“Could it be…”

Lee Han quickly understood.

This precognitive magic test wasn’t just a simple test; it was about finding the trap.

If you didn’t find the trap and just rushed in, you would collapse like his friends who were being dragged out.

…Lee Han had already tried it many times!

“I was lucky. I guess I could handle it because I have a lot of magic,” Lee Han thought, patting his chest.

He had to be more careful, since precognitive magic used so much power, it was no wonder his friends had collapsed.

He needed to be more cautious now.

“He figured it out?” Professor Pasellet thought, raising his eyebrows when Lee Han stopped casting magic.

He was a bit slow, but he seemed to realize what the test was really about.

“Right. Stop using precognitive magic and point out the trap… No!”

Lee Han cast precognitive magic again.

Professor Pasellet was even more confused than before.

“Why?” he wondered.

He knew it was a trap, so why was he doing that?

“Come to think of it, I don’t need to save my tries,” Lee Han thought.

The reason Lee Han cast precognitive magic again was simple: he didn’t need to be careful.

He had plenty of magic!

Lee Han kept casting precognitive magic, trying to figure out how to break through this cycle.

He could have just thought about it without casting magic, but Lee Han had magic to spare, so he kept trying.

Professor Pasellet finally realized what was happening and almost laughed.

“What kind of brute force is that…?” he wondered.

It was good that he knew the problem was strange, but he should have tried a different way, not just force his way through.

“What is he even doing?”

“Professor, I think I’ve found the answer,” Lee Han said, finally stopping.

Professor Pasellet was surprised but ready to hear the answer.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I think the answer is to find the trap in the question. You shouldn’t just try precognitive magic with these kinds of questions.”

“That’s right,” Professor Pasellet said, nodding.

It was a good answer.

But…

“Then why did he keep casting precognitive magic?” he wondered.

He should have answered right away when he realized it, but he kept casting magic before answering, so Professor Pasellet was curious.

He couldn’t help but ask, “How did you figure out the answer? Did you use logic?”

“I used logic, but I also used precognitive magic,” Lee Han replied.

“How?” Professor Pasellet asked, his voice a bit rough.

“I thought it would be hard to find the answer with the question, so I looked further into the future. I saw what happened after the exam and figured it out.”

Professor Pasellet was speechless.

He couldn’t believe he had actually done that.

Escaping the cycle or seeing a future beyond the cycle to find a clue was a valid method, but…

He didn’t expect freshmen to be able to do that. It didn’t make sense, no matter how talented they were.

The further you looked into the future, the less certain things became.

And since it was a future unrelated to the question, finding a clue and figuring out the answer wasn’t easy.

Only skilled precognitive wizards could do that…

“Could it be…!” Professor Pasellet realized why Lee Han kept using precognitive magic.

“You didn’t just keep casting precognitive magic until the answer appeared, did you?”

“That’s right,” Lee Han said, admiring the professor for figuring it out.

“He’s a professor for a reason,” Lee Han thought.

He had guessed how Lee Han found the answer so quickly.

Professor Pasellet had a headache, wondering how to teach this strange student.

“What kind of nonsense is this…” he thought.

Lee Han was just standing there with a naive look, as if asking, “Is something wrong?” which only made the headache worse.

“Okay, well done. But… I think you need to learn a few more things,” Professor Pasellet said.

“Ah, is that so?” Lee Han asked.

“Next week…”

“Next week is vacation, though,” Lee Han pointed out, feeling uneasy.

“He wouldn’t ask me to come to magic school during vacation, would he? If he does, I might have to complain to the Emperor.”

“…Then next semester,” Professor Pasellet said.

“Ah, yes. That’s all,” Lee Han replied.

“You must come,” Professor Pasellet insisted.

“Yes, I understand,” Lee Han said.

“You must come. Do you understand? Promise me again,” Professor Pasellet said sincerely.

Lee Han’s gaze towards the professor changed slightly.

“Does he not have any students?” Lee Han wondered.

Professor Mortoom, or rather, professors with few students, were very worried about their new students running away.

If a student decided not to take the class at the start of the semester, there wasn’t much a professor could do.

They could threaten or persuade, but wizards didn’t change their minds easily.

Professors with many students could act relaxed, like, ‘If you don’t want to listen, fine. I don’t care,’ but professors with few students might end up with no one listening.

Some professors proudly sat in the lecture hall even without a single student, but that was rare.

“I’ll have to be considerate since I’m going to listen anyway,” Lee Han thought.

Since he was going to attend the class, he might as well be considerate of the professor.

Lee Han said kindly, “Don’t worry, Professor. Why wouldn’t I come?”

“Because you’re already taking Dark Magic, Summoning Magic, Illusion Magic, Enchantment Magic, Transformation Magic, and Healing Magic,” Professor Pasellet said.

Lee Han was speechless.

“He’s a good precognitive wizard; he’s very sharp,” Lee Han thought.

“He’s definitely right!”

Dirette waved his wand, trying to stay awake.

He had to be ready for the Dark Magic final exam for the freshmen.

Cohorti, who was in the same year, waved his wand as well.

“Is everything ready?” Dirette asked.

“It’s all ready. But are there enough bones? Should we bring more? And the poison bottles seem a bit few,” Cohorti said.

“It’s fine. There aren’t even five freshmen learning Dark Magic this time,” Dirette replied.

Cohorti looked worried.

He didn’t need a lot of freshmen, but if too few people were learning the magic he was learning, it felt strange.

“Why isn’t anyone interested in Dark Magic?” Cohorti asked.

“Isn’t it because you summoned the Frost Giant King in the hallway last time?” Dirette asked.

“That was a problem with the artifact, not Dark Magic!” Cohorti said, his face turning red.

Dirette knew why Dark Magic wasn’t popular.

“It would be weird if it was popular,” he thought.

If Dirette saw an article in the Imperial Newspaper that said, “Young Dark Wizards on the Rise… Dark Magic, Leading the Trend of Imperial Magic!”, he would think, “Is the Empire going to collapse?”

Almost everything about the magic made it unpopular…

“Ah, they’re coming in,” Dirette said.

As the freshmen entered, the fourth-year students quickly moved to the back of the lecture hall, to a place where a magic circle made them invisible to the freshmen.

“Ugh… Is this too hard?” Cohorti asked, worried as he looked at the freshmen.

This Dark Magic final exam included everything they had learned in the first semester: curses, poison, and bones.

It was a test to check all three basics.

It sounded simple, but these kinds of tests were usually harder.

You had to use the proper method for all three fields of Dark Magic, so you couldn’t make up for it if you were lacking in one.

“This should be fine. Why are you saying this now? We decided this with the professor,” Dirette said.

“I’m worried we’ll lose even more since there aren’t even five of them…” Cohorti said.

That was true.

Dirette was surprised that Cohorti had made a good point.

But they couldn’t change it now…

Tap-

The door opened, and a student entered.

The student cast curse magic on the scarecrows, knocking them down, and then threw bone fragments at the desks.

A storm of bones filled the lecture hall, and the bone magic scarecrows tumbled around.

Clatter!

It all happened in a few seconds.

Cohorti watched with wide eyes and an open mouth, completely shocked.

“What???” he thought.

The freshman didn’t stop there. He immediately summoned poison from the air and put it into the poison bottle.

The poison bottle reacted to the poison and emitted smoke. The more high-quality poison it contained, the thicker the smoke, until it covered the entire lecture hall.

“W-was it too e-easy…? Huh? That’s strange? The freshmen’s level is…?” Cohorti stammered.

“No. It’s just one person who’s strange,” Dirette said coldly, recognizing the freshman.