Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 354

Of course, saying no wasn’t an option.

Professor Voladi thought Lee Han refused because he was humble and didn’t want to bother him. So, Professor Voladi quickly took out his wand.

Lee Han, as if waiting for this, immediately drew his own wand.

“???”

Alsicle’s eyes darted between the two professors. *What was going on?* He felt completely lost.

They glared at each other intensely, as if about to duel.

“What are you doing right now? What is going on?”

Professor Voladi didn’t explain. He *showed* Alsicle.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, the water drops shimmered, becoming sharp and thin like needles. They shot out.

Professor Voladi was demonstrating precisely how the ‘firing’ attribute differed.

The water needles flew straight, not changing direction much. But they were very strong. Each one made a loud *crack* as it broke the walls and went right through the floor.

“What is this!? What are you doing!?”

However, Lee Han was not to be underestimated. The moment Professor Voladi raised his wand, Lee Han was already chanting a spell.

‘Earth Shield!’ Lee Han yelled, the spell bursting from his wand. He quickly cast other spells to make himself faster and stronger. Then, he sprinted through the magic tower, his heart pounding.

Luckily, Lee Han had used a spell to sense everything around him, called Spatial Awareness. Lee Han put distance between them, targeting the spheres Voladi had summoned.

“Ice, become arrows and be shot forth!”

Professor Voladi’s brutal pressure sharpened Lee Han’s instincts even further.

The spell was quickly chanted, and at the tip of his wand, cold energy turned into the shape of arrows and shot out.

Even as bits of wall and floor exploded around him, Alsicle’s eyes grew wide.

‘Again? He did it *again* in one go?!’ Alsicle’s mind raced. He thought doing all those magic steps together would take ages. But Lee Han was doing it instantly, like blinking.

From Alsicle’s perspective, who didn’t know about Lee Han’s training in his first semester, it was astonishing.

Crack!

‘Too late!’

The magic worked, but the sphere Voladi had summoned moved, dodging the ice arrow.

Lee Han clicked his tongue, failing to shoot it down.

‘This won’t do…’

He had combined several processes into one, but it was still a bit slow.

Professor Voladi had moved the sphere after seeing Lee Han begin to chant.

‘…Faster. I need to cast faster to shoot it down.’

To overcome this, he needed to fire the arrow even faster to bring down the sphere.

“…Stop it, you madmen!”

Alsicle swung his wand, scattering cold energy everywhere.

The magic core above the ceiling controlled the mana with powerful force.

The sphere summoned by Professor Voladi lost its power and disappeared, and the ice arrows fired by Lee Han also lost their strength and vanished.

“What on earth…”

“Why are you interfering?”

“…What are you talking about! Fighting with your student in someone else’s magic tower!”

“We are not fighting.”

Alsicle was dumbfounded by Professor Voladi’s words.

If that wasn’t fighting, then what was it?

Education, maybe?

“What is it then?”

“Teaching.”

For a moment, Alsicle thought Voladi Beggrak had lost his mind and looked at Lee Han.

“It is teaching, indeed.”

“……”

‘Should I send a message to the Emperor?’

Alsicle sat down on a chair with Yumidihus and watched Voladi and Lee Han’s duel… no, teaching.

“…No matter how I think about it, that’s just not right, is it??”

“But it’s effective. At least, Voladi Beggrak says so.”

‘I knew he was crazy, but I didn’t know he was this crazy.’

Having learned under Yumidihus together, he thought he knew Voladi Beggrak to some extent.

Although he wasn’t from a rich family like Alsicle, he was a famous fighter in the Empire, so he thought he would act within reason…

“Kugh!”

Lee Han was hit by a water droplet and fell. After moving, he was finally surrounded and hit.

However, Professor Voladi didn’t stop, launching another attack at the fallen Lee Han.

Despite falling, Lee Han showed no opening and immediately jumped backward, creating distance.

‘…Is that really teaching? Is it really okay to teach like that?’

“Brief rest.”

As Professor Voladi declared a break and returned, Alsicle asked in a quiet voice.

“Voladi Beggrak. Is it really necessary to teach in such a way?”

“Do you have something to say?”

“Well… it’s just that. It seems too dangerous, violent, and strange.”

Alsicle tried to say it gently, but it didn’t quite work. Yumidihus, who was listening beside him, clicked his tongue.

However, because the listener was Professor Voladi, nothing like anger happened.

“It is effective.”

“There’s no way such a method could be effective…”

Alsicle didn’t know what to say.

Certainly, the achievements of that Wodanaz family boy were truly good.

No matter how talented he was, he doubted whether that was possible with talent alone.

‘…Really? Is it really?’

Alsicle became fearful, wondering if Voladi Beggrak’s teaching was truly effective.

“Compare yourself to him.”

“There’s no need to say that, Voladi Beggrak!”

Alsicle glared at him in anger.

Wasn’t he being too harsh, considering he was a guest?

“…Do as you please. You’re a professor, so you must have your reasons.”

‘Alsicle doesn’t know well because he’s not from Einrogard.’

Yumidihus clicked his tongue inwardly.

If he were from Einrogard, he would never think, ‘There must be a reason for what the professor is doing.’

Tap tap tap tap tap!

As the break ended, Professor Voladi summoned the spheres again and began firing them at Lee Han.

What was astonishing was that Lee Han’s spellcasting speed was also getting faster.

Alsicle felt his own beliefs about teaching start to shake. He had never seen anything like Professor Voladi’s method. *Was this really how you taught someone magic?* He felt a mix of shock and a strange curiosity.

‘…No, no, no. It’s because of talent…’

“??”

As he was thinking, once he acknowledged Lee Han’s talent, Alsicle’s eyes welled up with tears.

To think there was truly someone more talented than him in the world.

Of course, from Yumidihus’s perspective, Alsicle just looked like he was suddenly tearing up.

“Are you worried about Wodanaz? Don’t worry. Voladi Beggrak wouldn’t make a mistake.”

Alsicle sniffled, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “It’s just… kuh-huh… it makes me sad to think someone is more talented than me.”

Yumidihus just looked away, a frown on his face.

Alsicle, who had been sniffling, sensed something was amiss.

Professor Volardi roared, sending blasts of water like sharp needles at Ihan. Between attacks, Volardi quickly drank from a small bottle, a mana potion to keep his magic strong. But Ihan, his own student, hadn’t touched a potion at all.

Alsicle frowned, watching. ‘That’s strange…’ he thought.

“Yumidihus,” Alsicle said, leaning closer. “Why is Volardi the only one drinking mana potions?”

Yumidihus shrugged. “Wodanaz has so much mana, he just doesn’t need them.”

Alsicle raised his eyebrows. “Even so, shouldn’t you offer him one? Just in case?”

“Honestly, Alsicle,” Yumidihus said, a little impatiently. “He really doesn’t need it. Trust me.”

Alsicle still looked doubtful. “But fighting like this… even with a lot of mana, he must be getting tired…”

Alsicle paused.

Yumidihus didn’t say anything, but he raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly at Ihan, then back at Volardi. This shows Alsicle that something is unusual without words.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Alsicle quietly walked to the back.

And then, a sound of utter sorrow erupted from behind.

“-Why does the world give me such talent…”

Crash! Bang! Smash!

Ihan, who had broken through the ice shield and rolled to Yumidihus’s feet, coughed and met the old wizard’s eyes.

“Oh. Yumidihus, where did Peng-Erin go?”

Yumidihus said, “Peng-Erin is taking a short break.”

“I see. Frost, become mist!”

Ihan cast the 2nd circle spell, >Lesser Frost Mist>.

One of the elemental spells he learned from Alsicle, a cloud of icy mist billowed out from Ihan’s hands, spreading like a winter fog. The air grew instantly colder, and tiny ice crystals sparkled in the mist, slowing the water droplets to a crawl.

Seeing Ihan using frost magic again and again, which already consumed a lot of mana, with mist-type magic, which also consumed a lot of mana, Yumidihus couldn’t help but be impressed.

“Damn it. It’s so hard to hit him. Yumidihus, I’ll borrow this!”

When Professor Volardi’s sphere kept dodging the ice arrows, Ihan kicked the wooden chair Alsicle had been sitting on, broke it, and then cast >Lesser Frost Enchantment> on the fragments.

“Frost, dwell within!”

Ihan used telekinesis to control and launch the splinters of wood that scattered frost.

Plain ice shards would shatter after penetrating a few water droplets, but wooden pieces would last a bit longer.

However, Professor Volardi didn’t panic and calmly focused his attacks, shattering the wooden pieces in mid-air as well.

“This doesn’t work either… Yumidihus, I’ll borrow that too!”

Seeing Ihan trying to break the table while Alsicle was away, Yumidihus momentarily hesitated whether to stop him.

He was clearly achieving rapid progress, but…

As the sun set and the training came to a halt, Alsicle brought out the frozen sardines he had placed in the corner.

“…I’ll do the cooking.”

“Really? These are delicious even if you just eat them as they are.”

Thanks to his experience in Einrogaard, Ihan had developed a habit of packing some food before going anywhere, which saved him.

Ihan prepared stir-fried mushroom vegetables for Professor Volardi and cream stew for Yumidihus.

Alsicle crunched loudly on a frozen sardine, his teeth scraping against the ice. He closed his eyes for a moment, a look of surprised pleasure on his face.

“Why are you cooking?”

“It’s showing respect for your teacher. You should learn too.”

“If I had servants, I would have ordered them to serve Yumidihus…”

“……”

Yumidihus didn’t know where to start pointing out the problem.

Alsicle, who had swallowed a whole sardine, asked Yumidihus.

“So, uh, how’s that magic stuff going? You think you got the hang of it?”

Alsicle had taught him not only ice arrows but also several other spells.

Including Lesser Frost Mist (Professor Volardi pushed him away and started attacking the moment he taught it), and Lesser Frost Enchantment (similarly, Professor Volardi intervened as soon as this was finished)…

It seemed like he had taught him all the low-circle magic possible with frost.

Despite not being his area of expertise, Alsicle was clearly a wizard who had reached the pinnacle of frost magic, given that he could teach various spells such as summoning, illusion, enchantment, and transformation.

“I’ve mastered them all.”

“……”

“Ah. Except for summoning.”

The magic to summon a frost spirit was the easiest of the ones he had learned today.

Hearing this, Alsicle’s shoulders drooped even more.

“Was it perhaps too easy for you to even bother with?”

“It’s not that.”

“I think it is… Mmph.”

“Just eat your sardine.”

Yumidihus, who didn’t want to explain, threw a sardine into his mouth.

“There is still much lacking in speed.”

Professor Volardi opened his mouth.

In fact, it was only natural.

Compared to the simplest 1st circle magic, the magic he learned today was 2nd and 3rd circle.

As the process was longer, it was difficult to keep up with the casting speed.

However, that was a source of dissatisfaction for Professor Volardi.

‘Is that so?’

“That’s enough, you’re going too far! Do you want to be known as a student-killer…?”

Alsicle, who maintained his dignity as a noble family member, simply blurted out his true feelings because there had been too many shocking events today.

Of course, Professor Volardi ignored whatever Alsicle was babbling about.

He thought his teaching skills were inferior to his own.

“The food is ready. What were you talking about?”

“We were talking about how much you’ve suffered.”

Yumidihus said kindly.

One way or another, it was undeniable that this boy from the Wodanaz family had done well against the two madmen today.

Which wizard could have learned the basics of frost magic so perfectly under Alsicle and Volardi?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Wodanaz!! Wodanaz!!!”

“?!!”

Someone was banging violently on the magic tower’s door, calling Ihan’s name.

Ihan, recognizing Nilia’s voice, was startled and got up.

“Nilia? How did you get here… What’s wrong?”

“The… uh, the Prince is stranded!”

“What?!!”

Alsicle was also startled and got up.

“The Prince is stranded? This is no ordinary matter! I will go find him myself. Tell the other followers to stay inside the magic tower!”

“Are there other followers?”

“There aren’t…”

Nilia and her friends avoided eye contact with embarrassed expressions.

It seemed like that penguin-like beastman wizard was misunderstanding something.

It’s not like the dignitaries of the empire would express their gratitude just because they saved Gainan Island…