Episode 48

“All the priests who joined the Tower of the Phoenix are sincere and good people, but…”
“It’s a place where people live. Can that really be true?”
“Please be quiet, I’m in prayer. Anyway, among them, there are some who have not yet fully let go of worldly feelings. Emotions like competitiveness or jealousy do nothing to aid faith, yet still persist.”
Last week, a new priest who had joined the Tower of the Phoenix made a fatigue recovery potion for the other priests.
She wanted to use the knowledge she had learned while living at the temple to help others.
It was truly priest-like.
‘If it were me, I would have sold it for money.’
-“After drinking this potion, my fatigue is completely gone. Thank you so much!”
-“Even Priest Siana of the Flemang Order would be impressed. You did really well. Maybe you even made it better than Priest Siana?”
While everyone was laughing and chatting in good spirits, someone joked.
It wasn’t a serious comparison, but rather a compliment that it was really well made.
Even Priest Siana smiled and nodded, and no one felt any discomfort.
…However, the next day, Priest Siana brought a fatigue recovery potion.
-??
-“I made one too. Please try it, everyone.”
-“Oh. Thank you.”
-“It’s really excellent. You did a great job.”
The following day again, Priest Siana brought a fatigue recovery potion.
-“Thank you…?”
-“It’s really excellent.”
And yet again, the next day, Priest Siana brought a fatigue recovery potion.
By then, even the priests realized.
-“I think the potion made by Priest Siana is the best…!”
-“Who could possibly compare!”
Only after that did Priest Siana stop bringing the fatigue recovery potion.
“…She’s a bit too competitive.”
After hearing the story, Lee Han spoke in an exhausted voice.
To keep making and bringing potions until she was acknowledged as the best just because of one joke—
“That’s not all that happened.”
“……”
‘It’s not over?’
The priest who made the fatigue recovery potion before Priest Siana—
That priest went to praise Priest Siana later.
-“It’s truly Priest Siana. Not just anyone could make such a potion.”
Tijilling, who was present, saw it clearly.
Priest Siana ignored the compliment as if she hadn’t heard it and just left.
-…?!
In the end, it took days before Priest Siana accepted that priest’s greeting.
‘How narrow-minded can you be?’
Lee Han was appalled as he listened.
If that’s her reaction just from a little praise about a potion…
‘What kind of praise did I receive in the classroom?’
He recalled that he’d received all sorts of embarrassing compliments—the genius of alchemy and so on.
Having said all she wanted, Tijilling finished her prayer to Prisinga.
Still unconvinced, Lee Han asked again.
“Priest Siana wouldn’t poison other people’s food or anything, right?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
Tijilling closed her lips as if she had nothing more to say.
Lee Han made up his mind.
‘If I have to work with Priest Siana, I’ll never eat anything she offers me.’

• * *
  Even when pain, despair, and endless homework rolled in like a mountain, the sun set and rose again.
  ‘Homework is homework, but there are other things I’m worried about.’
  Right now, there were two things most on Lee Han’s mind.
  How should I break into the White Tiger Tower?
  And, since he had to gather alchemy ingredients in the mountains behind the school, what kind of insane traps would be in those mountains?
  ‘I don’t know which is harder.’
  But there was no time for worrying at magic school.
  It would send students straight off to the next class, squeezing them even more.
  In the classroom for , Professor Voladi opened his mouth as Lee Han entered.
  “You’re eleven seconds late.”
  “I’m sorry. I was at the stables early this morning, taking care of the horses, and that made me late.”
  “No need to apologize. It’s you who will suffer the loss for being late.”
  ‘Do professors all learn their way of speaking somewhere?’
  Lee Han thought that as he took his seat.
  There were only the two of them in the silent classroom.
  Professor Voladi flicked his finger. Lee Han took out his staff and began spinning the iron sphere.
  His battles with the anti-magic cultists had given Lee Han a definite realization.
  His control of low-level manipulation spells was on a completely different level than before.
  The iron sphere spun in a nearly perfect circle at a constant speed.
  ‘About two years faster than I expected.’
  Professor Voladi thought with an expressionless face.
  Fortunately, Lee Han didn’t hear that. If he had, he would have seriously objected.
  -Are you seriously picking something that usually takes more than two years to master as the very first thing in class???
  “Not bad.”
  “Thank you.”
  Lee Han knew well that when someone like Professor Voladi said “not bad,” it meant ‘that’s excellent!’
  He hadn’t expected a compliment in the first place.
  “I heard you learned water creation magic.”
  “Yes.”
  “Show me.”
  “Spring forth!”
  With the spell, a mass of water appeared before Lee Han.
  Thanks to Professor Garcia’s punish—no, instruction, he was able to maintain its form.
  “Shrink it down to the size of a marble.”
  “I’ll try.”
  Lee Han gripped his staff and focused.
  The shape of the mass of water floating in the air distorted, then bulged and dimpled erratically.
  For someone like Lee Han, who had an enormous amount of mana, reducing the size of the water and shaping it into a marble was quite a feat.
  Professor Voladi picked up the iron sphere in front of Lee Han.
  For some reason, Lee Han felt an ominous premonition.
  Shwik!
  With a sharp sound, the iron sphere flew at Lee Han’s face.
  ‘Ah, this crazy professor bastard…!’
  Lee Han instinctively compressed the ball of water into a marble. The huge mass of water shrank to the size of a fist, causing its strength and hardness to skyrocket.
  Clang!
  The flying iron sphere clashed with the water marble and lost all force, falling to the floor.
  “…Professor. Are you going to keep doing this from now on?”
  “What are you talking about?”
  “I mean, throwing the iron sphere at me just now.”
  “Oh, you meant that. Yes, I am.”
  “…Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”
  Lee Han tried persuading Professor Voladi as he would other students.
  However, Professor Voladi was not swayed like the students.
  “But wasn’t it efficient?”
  “Excuse me?”
  “Just as in your fight with the imperial anti-magic cultists, a sudden crisis honed your focus and instincts, increasing your control over magic. Why take a detour when such a method exists?”
  “……”
  Lee Han was speechless.
  Not because he couldn’t argue, but because he was just dumbfounded.
  When people hear something completely absurd, they really do become speechless!
  “You seem convinced. Now, spin it.”
  From the spiritual stone marble to the iron sphere, and now even to the water marble.
  Definitely, spinning the water marble was the hardest yet.
  He had to maintain the water in marble form and spin it at a constant speed.
  Just as when fighting the imperial anti-magic cultists, he felt his nerves burning out.
  Shapes that could barely be called circles were drawn in the air, over and over.
  And then, Professor Voladi shot the iron sphere again.
  Clang!
  Lee Han blocked it right away.
  Though his control didn’t draw a perfect circle, as long as he was on guard he could block a single attack.
  ‘I knew this would happen!’
  But Professor Voladi also anticipated Lee Han would block it. At the same time, another iron sphere whirled in from the opposite direction.
  Thwack!
  “…!”
  He desperately turned the water marble but was too late. The iron sphere hit him square in the back. Lee Han gritted his teeth.
  ‘Damn!’
  He had tensed his muscles to endure but still felt the impact. He was reminded of learning swordsmanship from Alarrong.
  “Focus.”
  “……”
  Lee Han didn’t even have the presence of mind to reply now.
  All he could do was move the water marble desperately to dodge the flying iron spheres.
  One thing was certain.
  ‘I’d rather have the classes with more homework.’
• * *
  “Wardanaz looks really tired.”
  “It must be from all the homework. I couldn’t sleep properly either because of it. Besides, Wardanaz isn’t the type of guy to only take easy classes.”
  “Yeah, if it’s a class Wardanaz is attending, it couldn’t be easy. He’s Wardanaz, after all.”
  “By the way, when are we breaking into the White Tiger Tower?”
  “Who knows…”
  The Blue Dragon Tower students gathered in the classroom whispered among themselves.
  Lee Han’s face, slumped with his eyes closed, looked extremely tired.
  It was an aftereffect of his life-or-death marble fight with Professor Voladi.
  It wasn’t just the Blue Dragon Tower students who were murmuring. Black Tortoise Tower students were also chatting.
  “Is anyone taking alchemy class? I heard we’re going up the mountain tomorrow, is that true?”
  “The rumors already spread? Yeah. All the other tower students have agreed to go together.”
  “Maybe there’s a path out of the mountain?”
  ‘Dreaming in vain.’
  Lee Han felt sorry for the Black Tortoise Tower students.
  To think there was a way out of the mountain.
  They’d be greatly disappointed when they learned the truth.
  “Wait, so we’re going with Wardanaz? If anyone messes up, won’t we get punished…?”
  “No, no, that won’t happen. We’re from different towers.”
  “……”
  Lee Han sighed deeply to himself.
  “Good to see everyone.”
  “Hello, Professor!”
  When Professor Garcia entered, the students all greeted him politely.
  The students now knew.
  At a school like this, Professor Garcia was about as upstanding as it got.
  Professors who didn’t understand people’s feelings were scarier than trolls.
  “Until last class, we practiced various things to get more familiar with the elemental school of magic. But in , we’ll cover not just elemental magic but all sorts of fields… illusions, prediction, summoning, transformation, and so on. When you advance in grade, you’ll get to specialize in these types of magic.”
  The world of magic was infinitely vast and bottomlessly deep.
  It was impossible for anyone to learn all of it with human limits.
  Naturally, wizards picked a field and specialized in it.
  Since Lee Han already knew, he wasn’t surprised.
  “Today we’ll have a chance to learn what other fields of magic are like. Instead of my teaching, the professor who’s a specialist in this field will do so in person.”
  At Professor Garcia’s words, the students’ eyes sparkled with expectation and curiosity.
  Each had a field of magic they were interested in.
  Some were into elemental magic, some spirit magic, some enchantment…
  ‘I hope it’s an outstanding spirit shaman! I want to learn spirit magic…’
  ‘I enrolled to learn body enhancement and healing magic. Please teach enhancement magic.’
  “Come in, please.”
  As the door opened, the classroom temperature dropped suddenly. The students shivered at the sudden chill.
  “Nice to meet you all… cough, cough. I’m Professor Mortum.”
  For a moment, Lee Han thought the professor was a dwarf. But the professor was just a short human.
  As Professor Mortum spoke, he coughed so much it seemed a mere breeze could knock him over.
  “Is he really okay?”
  “Shouldn’t he be in the infirmary instead of teaching…?”
  “Cough, I’m fine, I’m fine…”
  Even while coughing, Professor Mortum spoke softly. A student raised a hand.
  “Professor, what kind of magic do you teach?”
  “I teach black magic.”
  “……”
  “……”
  The atmosphere froze cold.
  Black magic had the worst reputation among all schools of magic.