Episode 568

“Are you alright?”

Professor Voladi stared keenly at Lee Han, who seemed to have choked.

Lee Han coughed and waved his hand.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“So, about the transformation of the lightning element.”

“Ke-heuk-heuk.”

He coughed again, but Professor Voladi waited calmly.

“…Yes.”

Resigned, Lee Han replied.

“I heard it’s still unstable.”

“Yes.”

“The transformation of the lightning element is difficult. Keep practicing.”

“Yes.”

Lee Han stayed tense, watching sharply for when Professor Voladi would attack.

It was about time for him to say, “Let me help you practice—now, die.”

But Professor Voladi said nothing more after that.

Instead, he opened the baby basilisk’s mouth and stuffed the green chunk of meat inside again.

“?”

This actually left Lee Han confused.

‘What is this? A trick?’

Feeling Lee Han’s gaze as he was feeding the basilisk, Professor Voladi turned his head.

“Do you have something to say?”

“I thought you would attack me, Professor.”

“Why is that?”

“……”

Lee Han was dumbfounded.

Was he seriously asking that?

‘Isn’t it rare for you not to attack during class until now?’

Honestly, even if the class was renamed -Professor Voladi’s Brutal Assault-, there would be nothing odd about it.

“Well, you often attacked, saying it would help my magical practice?”

“Ah.”

Professor Voladi seemed to understand what Lee Han was saying and nodded slightly.

Then he looked at his overly impatient student with concern.

“You’re too hasty.”

“Yes?”

“Trying to practice lightning form transformation like that could be dangerous.”

“Yes???”

To his extremely surprised student, Professor Voladi explained in detail.

If you lose control of the water element during transformation, it’s not that dangerous.

If water isn’t sharply refined, its danger drops significantly.

In contrast, failing while attempting to transform the lightning element was much riskier.

He knew well that this boy from the Wardanaz family exhibited several times his usual ability when in a dangerous situation, but even so, practicing lightning element transformation that way was dangerous.

After the explanation, Lee Han’s jaw dropped.

“Is it difficult to understand?”

“No! I understood!”

Lee Han swallowed his shock.

He had thought Professor Voladi was just thoughtlessly following a ‘learn if you don’t want to die’ teaching style, but it turned out there was reasoning behind it.

It felt like a typhoon or earthquake saying, “Actually, I had my reasons” and striking up a conversation.

‘Is this… a relief?’

He had complicated feelings, but at least he was grateful no attack was coming.

With finals approaching, returning battered would have been a huge loss.

“I’ve said it many times, but don’t rush.”

“……”

Even so, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of anger.

Lee Han wondered if all of this was actually a ploy by Professor Voladi to make him want to fight.

-■■■■! ■■■■!

‘Right. Calm down.’

Seeing the baby basilisk crying mournfully as it ate the chunk of meat brought him back to his senses.

Lee Han decided to simply be thankful for surviving the day.

“Yes. I won’t rush. I can keep it fixed in a spear form in the staff for now, but other forms are tough.”

“I’m sure.”

In truth, even elements like water, for which form transformation was relatively easy, were very hard to freely transform.

Especially for someone who hadn’t studied magic long.

For that reason, other wizards didn’t obsess over it much. Even among Einrogard’s seniors, few pursued the ultimate end of such form transformations.

For example, if it was the fire element, learning just the arrow, spear, and barrier forms was enough for most magic casting.

If another form was needed, just respond with a new spell.

If not for Professor Voladi’s focus on fundamentals in magical combat, Lee Han wouldn’t have pursued this so deeply.

“Learning the spear form first was lucky. It’s a highly versatile shape. Next, try approaching it as if you’re splitting the spear.”

“Like dividing into daggers?”

“Yeah. Daggers work, and spheres too. Break it down into familiar forms. That’ll be advantageous.”

Lee Han called forth the spear of lightning in his staff and tried to change its form.

The tip of the spear split and hovered in the air. Just as he had changed the form of the water orb, Lee Han tried focusing on changing the form of the lightning as well.

‘Feels closer to a rock than a sphere.’

Unlike the water element, which kept a smooth round form, the lightning element, even in a sphere, scattered in all directions with a rough shape.

Crackle!

Losing focus for a moment, the lightning element broke from control and shot out.

The baby basilisk was startled as lightning flew in front of it.

“Keep practicing.”

After feeding the basilisk, Professor Voladi grabbed it by the scruff and stood up.

The young king of snakes whined and struggled but couldn’t escape.

Tap—

“Run.”

-……

The basilisk looked at the toys placed before it, then stared at Professor Voladi as if in disbelief.

Toys and a racing course set in the center of the classroom.

Did he mean it should run around here…?

The baby basilisk shook its head desperately.

It had already been forced to eat that tonic, but this was a matter of pride.

How could a wild beast, a proud king of snakes like a basilisk, leap over toys like a pet?

Professor Voladi patiently explained to the young beast that couldn’t understand words.

“The reason your growth is slow could be a lack of exercise.”

-……

The baby basilisk hissed in resistance, but Professor Voladi was unmoved.

He grabbed a toy rod and started poking the basilisk from behind until it moved.

The baby basilisk had to circle the course, enduring anger and humiliation.

“Don’t stop.”

Lee Han, who was focusing on his lightning magic nearby, stared in fascination at Professor Voladi and the basilisk circling the classroom as if taking a stroll.

Did basilisks like walks?

“Do basilisks like walks by nature?”

“Yes. According to Professor Lightningstep, they’re said to be quite territorial monsters.”

“I see. I didn’t have it exercise…”

“You can just start now.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Lee Han nodded in reflection.

He’d thought the baby basilisk didn’t like walking, as it always seemed to enjoy coiling around things, but seeing it crawl so quickly now, it looked like it actually liked moving.

He felt oddly guilty for making it hold back due to its owner’s circumstances.

‘I should let it walk from now on.’

As Lee Han was thinking this, Professor Voladi relentlessly poked the basilisk with the toy rod.

“Pick up the pace. More. More. More. More. More. More. More.”

The baby basilisk circled and circled the course, hissing fiercely.

It jumped through toy rings, climbed toy stairs, swam across patches of rough sand…

When it was about to collapse from exhaustion, Professor Voladi stopped poking it.

Instead, he started waving the rod in front of the basilisk.

This was to strengthen the monster’s wild instincts.

“Bite it.”

-……

“Still not enough walking, it seems.”

When Professor Voladi started to stand up again, the baby basilisk hurriedly bit the rod.

Only then did Professor Voladi look satisfied.

If it continued training like this, someday, even this baby basilisk would become worthwhile.

“By the way, Professor. Have you heard the rumors about a vampiric monster appearing?”

Professor Voladi stopped twirling the rod and let out a faint sigh.

“Giants are enough for the finals. Try not to be greedy.”

“…No, I was just saying!”

“Is that so?”

The professor replied in a tone of, ‘I don’t believe it, but since you say so, I’ll pretend to believe you.’

Lee Han nearly lost his mind for a second.

“Do you have any advice? …It’s absolutely, absolutely not because I want to catch it. I’m asking out of concern that it might attack.”

“It barely survived the Death Knights, and you think it’ll come near the school again?”

“…It could show up.”

“I see.”

Professor Voladi looked blankly at his student and continued.

“It’s a classic regeneration-specialized monster.”

In Einrogard, countless monsters showed up in unpredictable places, and even professors couldn’t know them all by name.

However, Professor Voladi, even without seeing it directly, grasped just from the Death Knights’ reports what type of monster it was.

No matter how strange and rare, no monster could exist contrary to the fundamental laws of nature.

Once you were familiar with monster habits, characteristics, and natural laws, you could analyze even rare monsters.

First, if it survived Death Knights’ attacks and still regenerated, that meant it had a level of regeneration most monsters could hardly imitate.

“Such regeneration is a powerful ability, but it comes with a price.”

Lee Han nodded in understanding.

It was the same with magic.

The more powerful the spell, the more mana, longer casting time, and more complex reagents it required—regeneration for the vampiric monster was the same.

“It kept seeking blood. That’s probably fuel for its regeneration.”

“High possibility. Blood is a powerful reagent, even in sorcery.”

Of course, that alone wouldn’t be enough.

One had to sacrifice defense or other abilities to achieve such regeneration. Plus, didn’t that thing have incredible speed?

“It’s probably hundreds of years old.”

There were many bloodsucking monsters, but the abilities displayed by yesterday’s vampiric monster would generally only be shown by one with at least several hundred years under its belt.

“Are there monsters over a hundred years old roaming in Einrogard??”

“There are ones over a thousand years old.”

For a second, Lee Han almost asked, ‘Like the principal?’ but stopped himself. That didn’t seem to be what Voladi meant.

“It was probably sealed or hibernating somewhere underground.”

‘True terror.’

More frightening than the vampiric monster itself was the thought that far older monsters might be piled in some basement like forgotten clutter.

Was this a magic school or hell’s great labyrinth…

Crackle!

Finally, the lightning took form and Lee Han beamed.

It wasn’t perfect, but he’d managed to make a new form.

“Oh, Professor. I think I’ve succeeded with one. Though I used an object’s form as a core, still…”

“A dagger?”

Professor Voladi assumed Lee Han had created a new lightning element form with a dagger or sphere as the core.

Dagger—splintered spear form.

Sphere—the form Lee Han had used most lately.

Both were easy and familiar.

The harder forms were things like armor, shields, or a cloak.

Lightning wasn’t suited for defense, and wider forms like armor or shields didn’t hold well.

Furthermore, the cloak was even more difficult due to its need for a gently billowing motion.

“No.”

“A sphere?”

“I managed—barely—to stabilize it in a cloak form. Look.”

With a proud expression, Lee Han pointed to a crackling, sparking cloak.

Seeing this, Professor Voladi began to seriously reconsider whether he had underestimated his student.