Episode 725

“Isn’t the floor much too slippery? Should I help clean up?”

Seeing the seniors constantly slipping, Lee Han asked with concern.

Professor Verdus looked at the floor and fumed.

“Why is that floor so slippery, always getting in the way!”

“Didn’t you just toss things aside after your experiment, Professor?”

At Lee Han’s skeptical remark, Professor Verdus protested as if it was nonsense.

“The students clean it up!”

“……”

Since Professor Verdus never actually said, ‘It wasn’t me,’ Lee Han shook his head.

“Seniors. Shall I help you—”

“I said we’re fine!”

“Wardanaz, do you think your seniors can’t handle a slippery floor? Do we look like Baldrogard students to you?”

When the seniors snapped, Lee Han was a little taken aback.

Hadn’t they each slipped at least twice already!

If the other person had been Gainando, he would have already swung his staff and told them not to talk nonsense.

“Yes… understood.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about that. Try casting mana absorption enchantment.”

Professor Verdus, getting antsy, stomped his feet while urging him on.

Because of that trashy floor, fifty-eight seconds had already been wasted.

“With the Rule of Bible—be absorbed, mana.”

Creeping—

While Lee Han and Professor Verdus had their heads close over the workbench, the seniors quietly moved their chairs closer.

Had that junior really learned -Bible’s Mana Absorption Enchantment-?

“No matter who he is—even if he’s that guy—that’s a bit…impossible, isn’t it?”

“I already didn’t believe he learned -Bible’s Mana Emission Enchantment-.”

“Sigunting, you’re from the enchantment school. What do you think?”

A third-year dwarf student, with beard braided geometrically, wore a thoughtful expression.

Then, he spoke up.

“Uh. I don’t really care about other students, so I have no idea.”

“……”

“……”

‘Piece of trash.’

The other students glared with scorn.

Of course, they themselves honestly didn’t do a great job looking after their own underclassmen either. They were always busy handling course assignments and research.

But the enchantment school was especially bad about that.

Apprentices sometimes forgot their professors’ names, and seniors sometimes forgot their juniors even existed.

From the outside, it would be hard to understand how they even called themselves a school at all.

‘Aren’t those guys basically operating as totally separate individuals?’

“-Bible’s Mana Absorption Enchantment- is difficult magic, right? I’m not mistaken, right?”

“It’s pretty tough.”

There was a reason the students in the classroom were shocked at the name of the spell.

The Bible mana control series was a huge wall for anyone not specializing in enchanting magic.

Surprisingly, even students outside that discipline would sometimes learn a spell or two as needed.

Thanks to its unique utility, quite a few students outside the enchantment school took related classes.

Even now, there were students from other schools in this class.

But since they weren’t specialists, it was very difficult to pick up advanced tricks, and they never expected students to go that far.

What they wanted was something easy to learn, high in versatility, something they could adapt for their own school…

-Here you go, everyone. This is Professor’s -Bible’s Mana Emission Enchantment-. It’s far superior and more convenient than existing mana property conversion spells.

-Wow, you can just give this out?

-The professor doesn’t care anyway. Just so you know, whatever you want is probably in these spells, so just figure them out.

-Thanks. …Wait. Are these even learnable though?

Though superior and more convenient than common magic, they required memorizing far more delicate, complicated motions and understanding the underlying rationale. So students from outside the enchantment discipline were inevitably weeded out.

Even those specializing in enchantment magic couldn’t learn all of them and often fell short.

“So it really is impressive. Starting with emission then learning absorption so quickly.”

“No, I mean—is that really possible? Sigunting, I know you don’t care, but what do you think, by your standards?”

Sigunting said nothing. The others shook him out of thought.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Oh, sorry. I was just pondering what task I could ask that junior to help with after today’s class.”

Crash!

The seniors shoved Sigunting to the back.

When Lee Han looked up, the seniors were quick to speak first.

“The floor’s really good now!”

“Don’t worry—a greased wagon wheel would stop on this floor! Focus again!”

“It’s fine. I’ve finished everything.”

“…?!?!?”

---

While the seniors chatted up front, Lee Han helped Professor Verdus and learned further spells: amplification, increase, acceleration, explosion, curve, illusion magic.

With a work pace unlike ever before, Professor Verdus was so excited he cried out,

“Let’s do another project!”

“Don’t say nonsense, Professor.”

Professor Verdus grumbled that his student had no passion, but Lee Han ignored him.

It was time for Lee Han to prepare according to the lesson.

‘It’s like I’ve spent all my strength before class even started.’

Just in case, he checked his chair and the floor (today the classroom floor seemed especially slippery), then took his seat.

As the course -Staff Materials and Magical Amplification- implied, the performance of a staff depended greatly on how and with what you combined materials.

For instance, using bluespring wood for the base and fragments left by the lord of the deep sea inside would make for an extremely specialized water-element staff.

If you used demonic metal for the frame and painted sigils with demon blood, it would offer an edge when casting demon-summoning magic.

‘Something easy enough for me to make, but with decent performance.’

Lee Han’s current staff had been made by the talking oak tree.

Being a standard Einrogard-made staff, its form and balance were near perfect but it didn’t contain any especially potent power or sealed spells.

-Quick, steal it while the professor’s distracted!

-You thieves! You’re stealing a lawfully protected possession under imperial law!

-Professor, you’re the last person who should talk about imperial law!

Noisy voices sounded nearby, but Lee Han ignored them to concentrate.

The staff made by the talking oak tree was inhabited by a wood spirit.

On top of that: the Frost Giant King, and a teleportation statue.

The staff’s body contained the wood spirit, with the Frost Giant King’s blue jewel and the teleportation statue’s ore at the tip.

‘I could probably transfer it, but I’ll have to keep those elements in mind.’

Forcing too much power into a staff beyond what it could handle was never a good thing.

In the worst case, the staff could crack or shatter.

-Amazing! He really learned it! Look at this!

-This is a miracle of Einrogard!

-How is this possible? Wait, is that amplification? Did he do amplification too?

-Give it back, you thieves!

Clatter!!

-Damn, he’s back already! Scatter! Stall for time!

Lee Han calmly drew a simple magic circle and began preparing a summoning spell.

When he’d first received the staff, he could only use a few spells, but now, after spending time at Einrogard, Lee Han could wield a fair few.

The spell he wanted now was second-circle, -Lesser Spirit Communication-.

It belonged to the school of summoning magic, meant for posing a few questions to unsummoned spirits you hadn’t contracted with.

Lee Han hadn’t had a chance to use it much since he rarely met spirits, but he made sure to learn it well.

‘Glad I studied it. No harm in learning more spells, ever.’

Lee Han prepared to ask the wood spirit in his staff a question.

“Spirit, please answer my questions.”

The spell cast correctly, but there was no reply from the spirit.

‘What’s this?’

Wondering if he’d made a mistake, Lee Han was puzzled.

Since he’d never done it before, it was hard to tell what had gone wrong.

“Senior… Senior, what happened?!”

Only then did Lee Han look around and realize the seniors were limping and bleeding from their noses.

“It’s nothing.”

“Did you try to learn Professor Verdus’s magic again?”

“W-well, something like that.”

“Amazing.”

As the junior looked up in admiration, the seniors felt a prick of conscience.

They couldn’t bear to admit: ‘We were fighting to bet if you’d really learned it or not.’

“You’re the amazing one. No one else has ever been able to help Professor Verdus like you.”

“?”

Lee Han didn’t get it.

Yes, he had a few special advantages in enchanting magic, but there had to be seniors in the school who were better than him.

“There are seniors in the enchantment school, aren’t there?”

“Oh. Those with enough skill to help Professor Verdus usually just work on their own magic instead.”

“……”

Once again recognizing the bleak human relationships inside the enchantment school, Lee Han smiled bitterly.

‘Come to think of it, if the seniors had taken Professor Verdus’s work, I wouldn’t have had to suffer this much.’

Lee Han failed to realize that, given his mana characteristics, he would still have been conscripted even if the seniors had taken the job.

“Senior. Could you check if there’s anything wrong with this spell?”

“Enchantment magic? You’re probably better at enchantment than I am.”

“Haha, that’s too much.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Alright. Thank you for the compliment.”

“No, really, I’m not joking…”

The senior muttered in disbelief, but checked as Lee Han asked.

It was a staff with a wood spirit, but even when -Lesser Spirit Communication- was cast, there was no response.

“The spell cast fine. I don’t see anything wrong.”

“Really?”

“I’ll try casting it myself.”

The senior swung the staff and cast -Lesser Spirit Communication-.

Watching, Lee Han suddenly felt uneasy.

‘…Surely it’s not refusing to answer because it’s scared of me?’

“Spirit, are you listening?”

A symbol appeared, affirming in front of the staff before vanishing.

“It works. Strange. What could be the reason?”

The senior fell into thought.

The spell only answered yes or no, so the questioner had to ask carefully.

“Senior, could you ask if it’s afraid of me, is that why it didn’t answer?”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

The senior laughed at Lee Han’s words.

“Hey, maybe you do seem scary to other Einrogard students, since you’re taking every discipline.”

“……”

Lee Han glared at the senior, not amused.

“But spirits don’t get scared by things like that.”

“Please, just try.”

“Alright, alright. Spirit, did you not answer because you’re afraid of this wizard?”

Surprisingly, the answer was no.

Shocked, Lee Han grabbed the senior’s shoulders and shouted.

“Senior, look!!! The spirit says it’s not afraid of me!!!”

“Y-yeah. Congratulations. I don’t know why you’re so happy, but could you let go? My collarbone’s still sore from Professor Verdus earlier.”

“Sorry.”

Freed from Lee Han’s strong grip, the senior rubbed his shoulder and pondered.

“Hmm. I really don’t know why.”

“I wanted to ask a few things since I’m making a new staff…”

“Well, can’t be helped. Let’s ask everything we can.”

The senior pulled out a spirit summoning spellbook and started asking questions in order.

“Were you perhaps under contract with an evil being?”

“Ugh.”

“Did you perhaps partake in a dangerous battle?”

“Ugh…”

“…What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“No. Please continue.”