Episode 05

Episode 005

Magical power.

Mana, magical power, called ‘Qi’ by some eastern tribes, ether by pretentious scholars, and divine power by stubborn priests—this force with many nicknames was the source of power for wizards.

The power to change the world!

Since every time they used magic they had to draw and consume their own magical power, it was natural for inexperienced and unskilled young wizards to suffer from a lack of magical power.

But he had attempted it seven times and was still standing just fine.

“What is your name, student?”

“Lee Han.”

Professor Garcia, the troll, smiled softly.

He felt a liking for the fact that the student said his own name instead of his family’s.

Nobles. Especially among high nobles, it was rare for someone not to state their family name.

It meant he was a person well-suited to one of the school’s ideologies—‘equality.’

“Come here.”

“Uh…”

Lee Han approached anxiously.

‘Should I have just staggered?’

Everyone else staggered after using magic, but he alone was standing fine, so it was a bit strange.

He wondered if he hadn’t used magic properly.

“Hm. Hm. I see.”

When Garcia grabbed Lee Han’s wrist and nodded, Gainando behind him whispered to Yoner.

“Hey. Shouldn’t we rescue him?? What if he gets swallowed up like that??”

“…Professor can probably hear everything you’re saying, idiot.”

“!?”

Garcia let go of his wrist and said,

“Lee Han, please stay after class.”

“Ah. Yes.”

• * *

After that, didn’t do any more magic training.

Instead, Professor Garcia sternly lectured them on the mindset of a wizard.

“When you’ve used up all your magical power, you must take a break. Especially when you’re still inexperienced! Don’t get anxious just because you lack magical power. With training, your magical power will increase, and as you gain skill, your consumption will also decrease. Every year, there are freshmen who are so eager they secretly practice magic and collapse. If you’re unlucky, you could get seriously hurt, so never do that. And student. I don’t eat students.”

“Sorry… I’m sorry.”

Gainando apologized, trembling.

“Alright. That’s all for today’s lecture. Other than the required classes, there are elective lectures happening all around the school, so go try them out and think about what you want to learn. If you’re not sure, you can come to my office and ask.”

“……”

“……”

The students exchanged glances.

-Can you go to the troll half-blood professor’s office for a 1:1 consultation?

-Are you crazy?

…That kind of glance exchange.

“Wardanaz. Be careful.”

“Yeah. Trolls’ weaknesses are fire and acid.”

“But there’s neither here?”

“…Wardanaz. Be careful.”

Listening to the other students’ encouragement, Lee Han stood before Professor Garcia.

“In fact, I already heard about you, Lee Han.”

“??”

Lee Han paused at the unexpected words.

What was this?

“Would it be quicker to say I heard it from the principal?”

“…!”

When he said he’d heard from the crazy lich principal, Lee Han’s face stiffened.

Professor Garcia smiled and continued.

“Don’t worry. The principal might look like a crazy son of a bitch sometimes, but at heart he’s a good person.”

“…Excuse me??”

Does that even make sense?

But Professor Garcia pretended not to notice and went on.

“Every year, at the beginning, the principal surveys the freshmen and gives a brief report to the professors.”

The students didn’t know, but the lich principal had a very sharp eye.

The freshmen entering this school were boys and girls from all over the empire, just come of age.

To prevent accidents, a sharp eye was necessary.

-Be careful of that dwarf. Looks like the type to burn down the dorm room at least three times.

-Ha! That one’s a demon half-blood. Professors who use holy magic, beware. Don’t get yourselves hurt.

-Isn’t that one a pickpocket from the Guild?? Professors, be careful. I hope no one ends up coming to complain about getting pickpocketed by a student? Anyone like that will end up in the underground prison.

Of course, there were also professors who ignored the principal’s words.

The lich principal had a sharp eye but…

He also had a crazy personality to match.

-That orc fellow… I have a feeling he’s good with a spear.

-Actually, he’s from a family famous for swordsmanship.

-Shut up! Tell him to use a spear.

-……

The principal said this about Lee Han.

-That one has the quality of a great fool (大愚).

-…??

Great fool (大愚).

It meant ‘very foolish.’

Of course, the professors weren’t stupid enough to take those words at face value.

There was a famous proverb in the eastern empire.

-The great fool (大愚) is also the great wise (大智).

A very foolish appearance can sometimes be connected to great wisdom.

It was an old proverb meaning not to be deceived by appearances but to seek true wisdom.

If so, the principal’s words meant this.

-It’s hard to tell now, but I see qualities that could make him great in the future.

The professors’ reactions were divided.

‘If he said it like that, he must have some talent,’ or ‘Did he perhaps get treated to a big drink by someone from the Wardanaz Family last night?’

And Professor Garcia now felt he understood what the principal meant.

‘So that’s what it was.’

“Uh… What did the principal say?”

Lee Han grew a bit uneasy.

Being favored by a professor had both pros and cons.

If you were favored, you could get good grades and recommendation letters. That was a definite advantage.

But…

If you got too much favor, the following conversation would start.

-Your talent is too good to waste like this.

-Thank you!

-Yes. You should come to graduate school!

-Huh? I’ve never thought about it…

-Do you know how fierce the competition is if you try to get a job out there now? If you go to grad school and get a degree, you’ll get a better job, and above all, you’ll be able to dig deeper into the subject you love. Isn’t that great?

-Now that you say so, it does sound good.

It was better if you met a professor with a good personality.

If you met an evil, crazy professor, then hell would begin.

And the lich principal…

‘He’s someone I definitely don’t want to get close to.’

Lee Han just wanted to get good grades, build good connections, and graduate smoothly. He didn’t want to get close to the skull principal and go down some suspicious path of magic.

“Ah. Sorry. I can’t tell you exactly what the principal said… But instead, I’ll tell you about your talent. What the principal said was similar to this.”

“!”

Lee Han’s eyes widened at the troll professor’s words.

His own talent, he said.

‘Is my talent… really worth mentioning separately like this?’

While in the Wardanaz Family, Lee Han had never heard anything special about his talent.

Of course, he had been confirmed to have magical ability.

Even his father, the patriarch of the Wardanaz Family, had said:

-How is my talent?

-Hmm. Your magical talent is quite decent.

-Thank you.

And that was it.

But now, suddenly talking about his talent made him feel a bit flustered.

‘Isn’t this a bad sign?’

Lee Han seriously started to consider whether he should team up with Yoner and start an alchemy workshop.

“Lee Han, you have a lot of magical power.”

“…Excuse me? Is that all?”

Lee Han was dumbfounded.

It wasn’t that ‘there’s a problem with your magic’ or ‘you’re constitutionally incompatible with light magic so you won’t be able to use it in the future,’ just that he had a lot of magical power.

It was a relief it wasn’t something bad, but…

He wondered if it was worth mentioning separately like this.

‘I thought everyone was born with different levels of magical power, and it could be overcome with training and skill? Is it really so important as to be mentioned separately?’

“Of course, that’s not all.”

“Ah… I thought so.”

“Lee Han, you have a truly, incredibly, a lot of magical power.”

“…???”

“Really, truly, insanely, incredibly, a lot?”

“Oh.”

Now Lee Han could understand why Professor Garcia had called him aside to speak so seriously.

• * *

After hearing the detailed explanation, Lee Han thought.

‘Isn’t this a good thing?’

You needed magical power to use magic.

If you didn’t have enough, you had to draw in ambient magic, gather magic with a magic circle, or use a magic stone filled with magic.

But if you had a lot, you didn’t need to do any of that.

It was a very useful talent for a wizard…

“That’s unfortunate.”

“???”

But Professor Garcia was looking at Lee Han with a mix of pity and concern.

In that gaze, Lee Han realized something was going wrong.

“Isn’t it good to have a lot of magical power?”

“Usually, yes. But you, Lee Han, really have an incredible amount. It’s easy to handle water in a glass bottle, but controlling the water in a vast ocean is very difficult, isn’t it?”

At Professor Garcia’s words, Lee Han realized the seriousness of the situation and his expression hardened.

So right now…?

‘Does the difficulty of magic go up insanely?’

Even today, when learning a very simple spell called ‘Glow,’ not a single student succeeded.

That’s how difficult magic was.

Drawing out magical power, focusing, binding it with will…

All of this required superhuman concentration.

But if you had so much magical power that you couldn’t control it, the already high difficulty would increase even more.

“Here. Take this bracelet.”

A rough and heavy iron bracelet.

Professor Garcia fastened one on each of Lee Han’s wrists.

“They’re bracelets that absorb magical power. They’ll help.”

“!”

Still, Lee Han was moved by how the magic school immediately offered a solution.

“If I just wear these, there won’t be any particular problem!”

“What? No. Even with these, it’ll still be awfully hard.”

“……”

“There’s just so much magical power that nothing will really help. It’s better than nothing, that’s all.”

Professor Garcia was relatively kind and gentle, but he was still a wizard.

Wizards never sugarcoated things in matters like this.

“…Any other advice?”

“Hmm… If you use an enormous amount of magic and use up your magical power, it might get a little better. Lee Han, you can practice the basic magic training on your own. You’ll never have an accident from magical depletion.”

“…Thank you.”

In a way, it was a special privilege, but Lee Han wasn’t very happy about it.

• * *

‘Ah. Should I take classes that don’t use magic?’

Even though it was called a magic school, not every class involved using magic.

Alchemy alone, for instance, rarely required using magic.

After leaving the professor’s office, Lee Han’s head grew complicated.

‘If you don’t pick your track and manage your grades well from the first year, you’ll regret it at graduation…’

“You made it out alive!”

At the bottom of the stairs, Gainando and Yoner were waiting.

Gainando, apparently genuinely worried, looked Lee Han up and down.

“What are you looking at?”

“Checking if the professor left any bite marks.”

At Yoner’s words, Lee Han looked at Gainando as if he was dumbfounded.

‘Well, considering the skull principal, it’d be weird not to be suspicious of professors.’

“What did he say?”

When Yoner asked, looking curious, Lee Han shrugged.

“He told me to practice magic a lot.”

“How dare…!”

Gainando got angry as if it were his own business.

How dare someone tell the scion of a great family to practice magic a lot.

How rude!

‘If he gets this angry at those words, will he challenge a professor to a duel if he has to retake an exam later?’

“Enough about me. I want to try some electives before the next required class. Have you thought of any?”

“For me, of course it’s alchemy.”

At Yoner’s words, Gainando scoffed openly.

“Come on. Alchemy is for servants or slaves!”

“……”

Lee Han could clearly see it.

Yoner’s fist clenching tightly!