Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 585

While the real Skeleton Warrior Gonataltes was battling in a mysterious dimension, the lecture hall was slowly descending into chaos.

“Uwaaaah! What is this! What is this!”

“Selamodir. He seems quite angry. We should be careful not to provoke him.”

Selamodir, who looked like a seal but was from another dimension, was angry! He threw desks and even slapped the student who called him. Professor Milley quickly used her wand to stop him.

Professor Milley began explaining to the fuming Selamodir in the seal’s language.

“■■ ■■■■ ■■■…”

After hearing the explanation, Selamodir raised his large, flipper-like forefoot and waved it dismissively.

Lee Han sensed a strong message in that gesture: ‘I’m letting you off the hook today, so be careful in the future!’

Soon, Selamodir returned to his own dimension.

Professor Milley spoke as if nothing had happened.

“As you can see, summoning beings from unknown places is dangerous. I suggest you all remain vigilant.”

“……”

“…Woah, Wodanaz. Did you see that?”

Nilia tugged at the hem of Lee Han’s cloak, startled.

The sight of Selamodir slapping someone with his flipper had been quite shocking.

However, Lee Han’s eyes were wide with focus. He didn’t even hear Nilia. All his attention was on the monster struggling in the magic circle.

“Surround it! Push it back in so it can’t get out!”

Lee Han attacked the Hell Sulfur Hound along with the skeleton warriors.

Fortunately, the size of the magic circle was limited, so it couldn’t pass through completely, but if it kept wriggling like that, it might eventually break free.

It had to be defeated before it could get through!

The Hell Sulfur Hound, constantly being beaten, cursed the wizard who had forcibly summoned it and eventually retreated back to its dimension.

“Good work, Gonataltes. But let’s find something better. We can’t submit that.”

Lee Han, having praised the skeleton warrior, belatedly noticed his friend.

“What’s wrong, Nilia?”

“Oh, it’s nothing?”

“??”

As Lee Han kept trying to summon creatures from different dimensions while other students grew tired and gave up, Professor Milley spoke.

“A Hell Sulfur Hound should be sufficient, why do you keep searching?”

“No, I’ll find something better and secure it.”

“?”

Professor Milley looked puzzled at the words of a student who had already secured full marks.

“It should be enough already, what are you talking about…”

“No! Something better…”

“Wodanaz. Calm down. That’s enough!”

“Yeah! If you bring an even stronger one, we’ll be in danger too!”

Lee Han’s friends rushed to stop him.

The Hell Sulfur Hound from earlier had already seemed dangerous, and they feared what might happen if he brought something even better into the lecture hall.

They were there too, after all!

“I still need to find more!”

The old professor raised her eyebrows slightly and waved her wand, erasing Lee Han’s magic circle.

“Student Lee Han. Full marks. Next.”

His friends, sweating, released the arms they were holding.

Nilia, looking around cautiously (she had just been pulling on Lee Han’s left leg with a rope), asked.

“Full marks! So, you’re happy now, right?”

“I thought I might find something that hasn’t been discovered yet.”

Lee Han sighed and stood up.

Nilia suddenly felt sorry for him.

Were she and her friends being too concerned with their own safety, blocking their friend’s talent?

Their friend was trying to achieve the best possible result…

“If I found something, I was going to name it after the professor and impress her…”

“Hey.”

Nilia’s expression turned serious.

She had just felt sorry for him, and now this?

“So, Yoner. I’m telling you, the Summoning Magic students are really mean.”

“Uh… uh-huh.”

Yoner looked at his friend, who was grumbling after getting full marks on the Summoning Magic exam, with a complicated expression.

Shouldn’t someone stop this friend?

“Lee Han. Wouldn’t it be better to study Transformation Magic?”

“Ah. Right.”

His grumbling friend’s mind immediately returned to the exam.

Yoner was impressed by this convenient reaction.

‘I should talk about exams whenever something happens in the future.’

“Arm transformation is harder than I thought.”

Lee Han said in a voice that was calmer than before.

Unlike other magic, in Lee Han’s case, the difficulty of using transformation magic was much higher.

Even just changing the color of his hair required Lee Han to put in several times the effort, concentration, and magical power compared to his friends.

And sometimes it even caught fire…

In that regard, the final exam for Transformation Magic, transforming one’s arm, was not an easy test. In fact, this was one of the lectures Lee Han was practicing the most.

“Should I take a look?”

“Really? I’d appreciate it. Tell me right away if the shape is weird.”

Lee Han transformed the arm that wasn’t holding his wand into a leopard’s paw.

It seemed that Sharkan was the best option, rather than a griffin or basilisk.

Thanks to his consistent practice, instead of his arm changing into dozens of shapes like last time, it maintained the form of a leopard’s paw relatively well.

Yoner, seeing that, was relieved and impressed.

“It’s much better than last time!”

Lee Han smiled contentedly.

His efforts had paid off.

At first, when his arm kept changing back and forth, he felt so lost that he wondered, ‘Is this okay?’ but in the end, he achieved such results…

“It’s a perfect drake’s paw.”

“?”

Lee Han paused.

“It’s a leopard, though?”

“Huh?”

Yoner was even more taken aback by Lee Han’s words.

Scales, claws, curved joints, and so on.

No matter how he looked at it, it was the paw of a dragon-type monster.

“A leopard… isn’t it?”

Yoner spoke cautiously, considering his friend’s condition these days.

Students who only had one exam were already sensitive during exam periods, so it went without saying for Lee Han.

Even the most iron-willed person was bound to waver during exam periods.

Just looking at his reaction to getting full marks in Summoning Magic, one could guess that his friend was having a hard time.

“It’s a leopard? Wait.”

Lee Han stared intently at his transformed arm.

Then, he exclaimed in surprise.

“No, it’s not a leopard?!”

It was definitely a leopard’s arm when he first started practicing, but at some point, it had changed into the arm of something completely different.

What the heck?!

Yoner calmly began to explain.

“The appearance of a monster is created to withstand and maintain the magical power that the monster possesses, right? Maybe a normal leopard’s arm is a bit difficult to withstand Lee Han’s magical power…”

A monster’s external characteristics and magical power were closely related.

A monster with strong magical power, and one that maintains it, has external characteristics suitable for that purpose.

This theory also applied to transformation magic.

It usually came up as a problem when a wizard tried to transform into a monster that was too powerful for their level, but it could also hold true in reverse.

“Isn’t a leopard quite strong? Besides, this isn’t a normal leopard’s paw, it’s Sharkan, a monster…”

“But it’s not working, so…”

“……”

Lee Han wore a complicated expression at Yoner’s words.

“Should I just go with a drake now?”

“Wodanaz! Wodanaz! Did you hear!?”

A student from the Blue Dragon Tower ran towards the two who were sitting in front of the courtyard.

He was a student taking Transformation Magic together with them.

“What?”

“Professor Lezi’s exam. A friend went ahead to check it out.”

‘Ah, shoot!’

At his friend’s words, Lee Han realized that he had been complacent.

Professor Yonlamos had clearly said that the final exam was about transforming one arm, but he couldn’t completely trust that.

He could go to the lecture hall and be told, ‘Actually, the final exam is about surviving a wicked transformation curse.’

Naturally, an Einroguard student should check the exam location in advance and prepare things that would help with the exam.

“Damn it. How could I make such a mistake…!”

The Blue Dragon Tower student panicked at Lee Han’s genuine frustration and said.

“Ah… no. Wodanaz, you don’t even have time for that. It’s physically impossible…”

“So? What’s going on?”

Yoner brought the topic back to the original point, as it seemed to be going off track.

“It doesn’t seem like the exam is about transforming an arm. The rumors are spreading among the guys who went to see it.”

“I shouldn’t have trusted the professor!”

Yoner felt a little sorry for Lee Han, who accepted it without a second thought.

He was sure that he wasn’t like this at the beginning of the year…

“Tell me exactly. What was it like?”

“Well, that’s…”

The friend explained the rumors he had heard.

This time, Professor Yonlamos’s exam was being held in the Jade Forest Lecture Hall on the third floor. The Jade Forest Lecture Hall was known for its strange, green light and the scent of damp earth that always hung in the air, even indoors.

They didn’t usually go to the third floor, but even first-year students ventured there from time to time.

Students familiar with the geography of the third floor moved to check near the Jade Forest Lecture Hall, but…

“It had completely turned into a jungle. None of the lecture hall doors were visible.”

“A jungle??”

“Yeah. The guys who went said they couldn’t find the path at all, so they turned back.”

“I think I know what it is.”

Lee Han said calmly.

The Blue Dragon Tower student’s eyes lit up at the sight.

The always cool-headed and rational top student would surely make a definite prediction even in this situation.

“What is it, Wodanaz?”

“There’s probably a hint in transformation magic. We’ll have to use the transformation magic we learned this semester to find the path through the jungle and enter the lecture hall.”

“Indeed…!”

The student nodded repeatedly, as if he felt it was definitely plausible.

However, Yoner, who was listening from the side, wore a puzzled expression.

‘Is that so?’

He was confused as to whether Professor Yonlamos was the type to put so much effort into testing students before the exam like that.

Of course, it was possible, but Lee Han’s judgment seemed a bit dull because he was tired.

Should he even be worrying about this?

“Okay. I have to let everyone know. Thanks, Wodanaz!”

After his friend left, Lee Han pondered deeply.

“I don’t know if I can break through with my current level of transformation magic.”

“Lee Han. Why don’t you sleep for a bit before coming out? How much sleep have you gotten?”

“About 3…”

“3 hours? That’s not good.”

“About 3 days ago…”

“Hey.”

Professor Passelette Kraer, the Divination Magic professor, sighed. At Einroguard, Divination Magic was seen as mysterious and difficult.

There were many opinions on which professor suffered the most during the final exams, but Professor Kraer was always among them.

It wasn’t just because of exam preparation. She also had to prepare the Great Magic to find next year’s freshmen.

A magic that identifies the location of freshmen with talent spread throughout the empire.

Even with the great wizard Gonataltes and the territory of Einroguard, which possessed immense magical power, it was by no means an easy task.

So much so that the divination wizards outside would be shocked and go crazy if they knew about this magic.

Professor Kraer, Professor Kraer!

“Uwaaah! I’m preparing right now!”

Professor Passelette, who had been dozing off, quickly summoned one of her personalities and stood up.

It was hard to expect good things if she dozed off in front of the Skull Headmaster at the end of the year.

I have something to tell you. It seems you don’t have to prepare the magic to additionally confirm the location on-site.

“?”

Professor Passelette was more bewildered than pleased.

The method of finding freshmen was to first roughly confirm the locations spread throughout the empire, and then go around those areas to foresee the detailed location once more.

The latter consumed as much magical power as the former, so she had to prepare in advance by paying the price beforehand.

Of course, this involved a complex process that was called the essence of divination magic.

“Is that true?”

Yes. I’ll just use magic on-site to find them.

“……”

Why are you looking at me like that?

“Headmaster. If you’re going to commit a crime, I’d rather…”

……

The Skull Headmaster glared at the professor.