Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 240

Weekend? What weekend? For the students of White Tiger Tower, it was just the start of more hard work.

Normally, the weekend would have been a well-deserved break after tough lectures, a time to relax together…

…but this weekend was different.

Lots of end-of-term assignments were waiting.

Even the bravest student knew they had to do them.

Ignoring them meant punishment even during the holidays.

Angalo Alpha yawned, his jaw cracking. The morning sun, already high in the sky, felt too bright, too hot, even through the stone walls of the White Tiger Tower.

“Angalo,” a voice mumbled beside him. It was Ben, his friend, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Huh? What?” Angalo grumbled, still half-asleep.

“Tired, yeah,” Ben said, stretching, “but don’t you feel just a little bit proud of ourselves?”

Angalo considered this as they walked. “Maybe a little,” he admitted, a small smile starting to form.

While most students in White Tiger Tower were likely still snoring in their beds, dreaming of Quidditch or maybe even escaping assignments, Angalo and Ben were heading towards Professor Verdus’s Sanctum. On a Saturday morning, no less!

“Imagine the faces of the Phoenix Tower lot if they saw us now,” Angalo chuckled, feeling a surge of self-satisfaction. “Probably still in bed.”

Clunk-

Angalo opened the door to the Sanctum as he spoke.

The lecture hall on the first floor, which Professor Verdus had opened for the students, was dark and silent.

The two White Tiger Tower students reached for the cord of the glowing artifact hanging from the ceiling, but…

“Don’t turn it on.”

“Aaaaargh!!!”

Angalo screamed and stumbled backward.

It was natural to scream when a voice came out of nowhere in a dark, empty lecture hall.

Wizards shouldn’t be scared of ghosts, but Angalo was.

And more than anything…

The intruder who had turned the school upside down last week flashed through his mind, and Angalo quickly drew his wooden sword and swung it.

“Don’t come any closer! I’ll strike you down if you do!”

“Quiet. Be silent.”

“…Wodanaz?”

“Yes.”

Lee Han summoned a light into the lecture hall with a weary expression.

He never showed his emotions easily, but he looked particularly exhausted today. His clothes were messy, and he kept rubbing his eyes.

“How long have you been here?”

“Since yesterday afternoon.”

“……”

“……”

The two White Tiger Tower students cleared their throats.

They suddenly felt foolish for being so proud of showing up a little early.

“Why were the lights off?”

“I’m working on a magic circle, and it’s hard to see when it’s bright.”

Lee Han said, sipping his coffee.

Professors kept asking him: ‘When will the Floating Iron Shield be ready?’ ‘When are you going to show us the shield?’ ‘We’re curious about the shield.’ Lee Han had put aside other tasks to focus on it.

He had been working on it without sleep since his weekday lectures ended…

Thanks to that, he had made some progress.

‘I can manage if I use a magic circle.’

The most difficult and important part of the floating shield.

That was the part where he commanded the shield to ‘whirl around its master and automatically block any incoming danger.’

A wizard had to cast this complex command with only wand movements and incantations, so a novice wizard’s brain would twist.

It wasn’t that Lee Han wasn’t skilled. This magic was simply too difficult for anyone.

Lee Han didn’t give up and approached it.

—Just like how I cast high-level magic by breaking it down, I’ll approach the floating shield by breaking it down too.

Breaking it down.

Lee Han had already done it several times before.

The magic called , which shot out a fiercely rotating water bullet.

Even for Lee Han, he couldn’t cast it all at once with his current skills, but…

Surprisingly, Lee Han succeeded in casting it.

He floated a water orb and made it spin until it worked.

It was possible because of his immense magical power!

Since he had magic to spare, Lee Han had no qualms about approaching things by breaking them down like this.

It was virtually impossible for other wizards, who would collapse from magic depletion after a few tries.

Of course, the difficulty of this magic was still high even when broken down.

So Lee Han even used a magic circle. It glowed with faint blue light, filled with strange symbols.

Since it replaced part of the wizard’s casting process, the magic circle was essential in such high-level magic.

The problem was…

“Is this perhaps completed?”

“It roughly has the basics.”

“…Uh, was it possible to complete a magic circle this quickly??”

As he had experienced during the festival, magic circles weren’t easy to create.

The more difficult and complex it became, the more errors and variables arose.

And to confirm these, the wizard had to test it steadily himself.

“That’s why I stayed up all night.”

“……”

“……”

Was it something that could be done by staying up all night?

The two White Tiger Tower students felt something was off, but they couldn’t strongly argue.

Because Lee Han was the top student of the year, and they were just… students.

If Lee Han said, ‘If you’re a magic school student, you should be able to complete a floating shield magic circle overnight,’ they wouldn’t be able to argue.

‘Something’s strange…’

‘If Professor Knighton were here…’

Angalo, who kept tilting his head, brushed it off for now.

“Wait. So the floating shield is complete!?”

“No. If I cast it now, it’ll fall after a few seconds. The magic duration amplification work isn’t finished.”

If Lee Han combined the power of his spells and the auxiliary magic circles engraved on the shield that helped the spells, he could somehow make the shield float and move around.

The problem was the duration.

Such powerful spells consumed so much more magic power than low-circle magic that they couldn’t even be compared.

If he just cast it without any countermeasures, it wouldn’t last even a few seconds.

So the duration amplification work was essential, but…

Lee Han rubbed his furrowed brow with his hand. He suddenly felt very tired as he spoke.

“Honestly, this is already very messy, and I’m not sure if I can even make it last longer.”

Even though I finished it, the magic circles on the shield are very weak right now.

Lee Han thought, “It’s amazing this even works,” because the magic circles were so complicated and mixed together!

“What are the chances it will break if I try to make it last longer?”

“…It feels like it will break 99% of the time. Should I start over?”

Even though Lee Han was tough, the thought of rewriting this from scratch was daunting.

“Trying to make it work without magic circles… that would be even harder.”

“Can’t I at least take a look?”

“Take a look?”

Angaro sounded scared, like he thought Lee Han was angry.

“Ah… no. It’s not that I necessarily want you to show me, are you angry? You’re not angry, are you?”

“I’m not angry.”

Lee Han was just tired.

“I’ve wanted a floating shield for a while now. So, I just wanted to see how it works…”

“Alright. I get it.”

“…You’re not angry, are you?”

“I said I’m not.”

Lee Han stood up from his seat.

Wizards have to be careful with their magic power, called mana. But Lee Han was different. He could use magic again and again without getting tired.

Anyway, now that he had completed the magic circle, he also needed to check if it worked well…

“If you’re unlucky, it might sink in just one second, so watch carefully.”

“Y-yes!”

“Ready, Wodanaz!”

The White Tiger Tower students said with sparkling eyes. Anyone could tell they were excited.

‘Why do these guys like shields so much?’

Lee Han didn’t grow up in a knight family, so he didn’t understand why the White Tiger Tower students were so crazy about weapons and shields.

Weapons like swords, shields, and armor were part of a knight’s body and their very pride.

-Wow! Did you see that knight? He’s still using a sword from the Aeron Guild!

-That cheap sword they make quickly and sell without care. He has no pride as a knight.

Knights always wanted the best and most expensive weapons and shields, because of their pride.

“Arise and protect your master, O Shield!”

Lee Han chanted the spell.

At that moment, the steel shield lying on the desk soared into the air and began to slowly circle around Lee Han.

Angaro exclaimed.

“It really floated!!”

“Wodanaz! Wodanaz! Can I try attacking it? Just a little tap! Not really *attack* attack, you know, just… for science!”

“Do it quickly. I don’t know when it will end.”

The White Tiger Tower student hurriedly threw a wad of paper.

Then, the shield spun and blocked the wad of paper.

“Me! I want to try! I’ll throw it from the back!”

“Alright! Throw it!”

‘Are these guys crazy?’ Lee Han thought. He was tired from staying up all night and couldn’t understand why the White Tiger Tower students were so excited.

Why are they so excited?

Plop!

“It… it blocked it!! Even though I threw it from a blind spot!!”

Lee Han was about to say, ‘I could feel all of your attacks because you’re too clumsy, what blind spot,’ but he was too tired to say it.

Anyway, it seemed the shield was at least half successful.

Now, if I can just increase the duration…

“Next one coming!”

“Alright, this time it’s a chair!”

“Throwing a wooden sword!”

Clang! Thud! Wham!

The two White Tiger Tower students were excited and kept throwing things.

Maybe they were even more excited to throw things at *him* than at the shield.

“…W-what are you all doing?”

“What are you doing?”

The students who came in late were shocked by the bizarre scene inside the lecture hall.

White Tiger Tower students throwing junk at Lee Han.

If the opponent wasn’t Lee Han, they would have reacted with, ‘The White Tiger Tower guys are bullying someone!’

“Wodanaz is making a floating shield, and we’re helping him test it!”

“I think you can stop now.”

“Just one more! I’ll throw just one more thing!”

“Alright…”

Lee Han, who was too lazy, sat back down in his chair and paused.

‘Wait. Hasn’t it been over an hour now?’

Huh?

“Moradi. I hope you don’t feel too bad. In a way, this is lucky for us. We have overwhelming power compared to the other groups.”

Dergyu tried to make Giselle feel better.

Most students would relax on a weekend like this. Only a few strange people would want to climb mountains, like the students from the Shadow Patrol group.

However, there was only one reason why they gathered to enter the mountain range like this.

Both Giselle and Dergyu were guessing that Professor Ingeldel’s final exam would not be easy.

Already, some of the White Tiger Tower students were throwing away other pre-final assignments and entering the mountain range to find useful prey in advance.

They were so determined to get good grades in swordsmanship that they didn’t care if they failed other classes.

Giselle was getting very annoyed.

“You idiots,” she thought, “you’re making our tower look bad! That’s why no one respects us!”

“Moradi, we have so much homework. We can’t waste time on weekends. Let’s work together and do well.”

“I know that, so stop nagging. How much have you done on the enchantment magic assignment?”

“I’ve done a lot already, thanks to Lee Han. Do you want to work with us?”

Giselle pondered.

There was no good reason to get involved with Wodanaz, but…

…in this situation, Wodanaz’s magical abilities were tempting.

She knew she wouldn’t get good help with magic from her other friends in the tower!

“Lee Han will never agree easily.”

“Hmm, it’s true Lee Han might not help us unless we give him something, but…”

Dergyu had a conscience, so he didn’t say that Lee Han would just help them.

“Lee Han hasn’t finished his magic homework either. If we work together and ask him questions, he’ll answer. He knows we should help each other until the final exam.”

“You two were here first.”

“Lee Han!”

Just as Lee Han arrived, Dergyu turned around, welcoming him.

Then, he saw the shield floating around Lee Han and his eyes widened in shock. “No way… this can’t be real! It can’t be real!”

“What are you talking about?”