Episode 584

Episode 584

Lee Han was momentarily flustered, but soon composed himself and spoke.

“I practiced a lot.”

“Cough. So…”

“It’s a dark element skeleton warrior.”

“Cough, cough. That…”

“Summoned with ancient necromancy, and can even dance…”

“What? That’s rather interesting.”

Professor Mortum, who was coughing, showed interest and forgot his cough as soon as he heard “skeleton dancer.”

To implement a skeleton dancer using ancient necromancy, which required the dark mage to give detailed commands directly.

He wondered how much talent and effort must have gone into it.

“Oh right. Look at me, losing my mind. Even so, no.”

“But why not?”

“Cough. If Rapadael sees your undead summon, he’ll lose confidence and be disappointed.”

“……”

It was so reasonable that Lee Han couldn’t argue.

Indeed, Rapadael had finally become passionate about dark magic, and there was no point in crushing that enthusiasm.

When thinking about the future of the dark magic faction, which had few students, it was only right to show consideration to someone like Rapadael, who endured to the end of the school year.

“And besides, you’re going to get full marks anyway. Cough. Now, go get ready for your next exam.”

With a feeling of emptiness, Lee Han walked out of the Dark Hall.

‘Is it okay for an exam to be like this?’

• * *

Before Professor Millei’s summoning magic exam began.

A tense atmosphere lingered in the classroom.

With many listening students, the tension was on a different level than the dark magic faction.

Who would get the better score; there was such tension in the air.

Salko of the Tutanta family wasn’t someone who’d back down from such competition.

“Tutanta. Looks like you’re well-prepared.”

“Hmph. I didn’t actually prepare much since I was busy studying granting magic.”

“For someone who says that, your book looks pretty worn out?”

“It was old to begin with.”

Salko tried not to reveal any gaps to competitors from other towers and pretended not to have studied.

The real competition always started before the exam.

The strong knew how to hide their claws.

‘I actually prepared a lot.’

Nillia was a little flustered by Salko’s words.

Hearing her friend say they hadn’t prepared much left her slightly confused.

Did I end up being the only one who studied hard?

‘If my scores end up low when things are like this, that’d be a problem…!’

“Whew. I didn’t study much either.”

“I just played ball and went to bed early last night.”

“Actually, same here.”

Salko’s bluff spread like an epidemic.

Every student taking summoning magic began competing on ‘who can take the exam with their usual frame of mind.’

“Look at this summoning magic tome. Looks practically new, doesn’t it?”

“That’s not even the tome covering this semester’s material.”

“Oh no. My reagent pouch is full. Guess it was too heavy because I didn’t use any?”

“Didn’t you just refill it? There’s powder on the mouth of the pouch.”

A tense showdown.

The students who were glancing sideways at each other were startled by a newly arrived student in the back.

The introductory summoning magic tome was completely neat and looked brand new.

Who on earth?

“Huh? Why is everyone acting like that?”

Gainando was puzzled by his friends’ stares.

“…It’s nothing, Gainando. Haha. You must not have studied.”

“Prince. Still, you should’ve reviewed a little.”

“What? No way! I studied a lot??”

Gainando was flustered and tried to explain, but his friends smiled with satisfaction and patted his shoulder.

What a reliable guy!

Lee Han, who came in late, looked on in wonder at the friendly atmosphere in the classroom.

“Why is everyone laughing and chatting before the exam?”

“Lee Han! Those guys are making up rumors saying I didn’t study…”

Lee Han glanced at Gainando’s book and reagent pouch, then said,

“That’s why they’d say so.”

“Wh-How…?! Is that magic?! Is it magic!?”

Smack!

Gainando, hit once, realized he’d been found out and tried to explain.

“I was prepping for dark magic!”

Smack!

“?!”

“What did you answer for the undead organism question earlier?”

“Oh? That one? Sand octopus.”

“……”

Lee Han was momentarily taken aback.

He was sure Gainando would answer “skeleton” and had hit him for that, but…

“Why on earth did you say sand octopus?”

“Because it’s a living thing?”

“…That’s true. But sand octopuses have never been found among undead creatures.”

“But just because they’ve never been found doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They could always be discovered one day, right?”

“!”

Lee Han was surprised at how Gainando pointed out a rather logical loophole.

“Well, you could look at it that way, I suppose.”

“Ah. So does that mean I got it right?”

“No, not that.”

Lee Han started explaining, “what is inductive reasoning?” to his friend.

Gainando, listening, screamed that he was wrong.

“To your seats.”

Professor Millei swept his staff as he entered the classroom.

The window closed, the curtains moved. The scattered chairs returned to place and the students were forced into their seats.

“I’m curious whether everyone studied a lot.”

“Yes! Professor.”

“Usually, students who are overconfident about how much they studied aren’t actually that well prepared. Confidence is good, but overconfidence is dangerous.”

Gainando heard that and flashed a confident look.

Lee Han, sitting next to him, hit him once again.

“Students who’ve been studying this year might know this, but summoning magic essentially follows the experiences of our predecessors.”

Professor Millei started to speak calmly.

Summoning magic essentially dealt with how to draw entities from other dimensions into the real world.

Naturally, it could be a very dangerous process, and summoners had devised many safety measures to prepare for such situations.

One of those was that, when students attempted to send their soul to another dimension, they did so through Professor Millei’s magic circle.

With dozens of linked spells, they protected their souls from threats in other dimensions.

These included direct protective spells like soul protection, soul trace reduction, affinity enhancement, but also spells that fixed the dimensional coordinates and made movement along familiar routes.

The areas explored beforehand were relatively safe, so students were to move within those.

But paradoxically, only walking these safe paths meant true wisdom could not be found.

The wisdom unknown to wizards was always beyond those dangerous areas.

‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

Lee Han scowled as he listened to Professor Millei’s words.

The other students of the summoning faction were taking notes with impressed expressions, but Lee Han wasn’t easily fooled by such words.

Professor Voladi would also say things like, “let’s explore beyond the limits of current magical combat,” and then beat Lee Han up.

When professors said to “go beyond,” things rarely ended well.

“So for today’s exam, we’ll remove the safety measures and explore the zone of uncertainty.”

“!”

Students who realized what Professor Millei meant were shocked.

Among the murmuring students, someone carefully raised their hand to ask.

“Professor, isn’t that too dangerous?”

“Good question. Of course, just because it’s the zone of uncertainty doesn’t mean I’m leaving everything to you. There will still be some controls in place.”

When Professor Millei swept his staff again, the chalk danced across the board, drawing pictures.

A new dimensional gateway, and passing through that gateway…

‘A dip net?’

‘A fishing rod?’

‘An all-purpose golem arm?’

Students murmured over the strange artifact’s shape.

It looked like a golem arm, or perhaps a fishing rod or dip net used by fishermen—it was quite odd.

“I understand, Professor. So instead of going in directly, we’re only sending the artifact.”

Salko spoke as if understanding.

Other students realized, “oh!” at those words.

“I thought of that too!”

“Right. It’s much safer if we just put the artifact in.”

Professor Millei glared at the students getting fired up over unnecessary competition through his monocle.

The students fell silent, embarrassed.

‘Certainly, if it’s done this way…’

Lee Han pondered.

Usually, mages would directly interact and enter other dimensions, but this was a method of simply sticking in the artifact instead.

Of course, it’d be much more inconvenient and trickier than the former, but in terms of safety, nothing could surpass it.

For someone like Lee Han, who always faced rough treatment in other dimensions, it was quite a tempting idea.

“Professor, can this be used in the spirit realm too?”

“Student Lee Han. You’d best not try to make contracts with spirits in this way. They are delicate and sensitive beings—if you kidnap and bring them like this…”

“Ah, no, I was just asking. I didn’t plan to contract with it.”

Flustered that his true intention was seen through, Lee Han was surprised.

How did he know?

“Now then…”

Professor Millei glanced at the time.

“Before the exam ends, do your best to find and pull in mysterious beings from other dimensions…”

Before he’d even finished, the students got up and each grabbed an artifact and returned to their seat.

On the table, the magic circle prepared by Professor Millei was shining.

‘This time, I’ll definitely prove myself.’

Dissatisfied with exams that professors just brushed off, Lee Han’s resolve was stronger than ever.

Even if it meant using everything he’d learned so far, he’d definitely show something!

• * *

“Mmhmm. Yes, yes. Thank you.”

Nillia nodded at the sound of spirits whispering to her.

While ordinary students jabbed artifacts in and stirred up other dimensions, quick-witted students used every available method to check on the details of the dimension.

Someone like Nillia, who had high affinity with spirits, received help from them.

Even if she didn’t have direct information, the spirits’ rumors allowed rough confirmation.

“O stone, please choose between up and down.”

Some used limited foresight magic.

“Ugh. I can’t get a visual. The artifact breaks while passing through the dimension.”

Some cast additional granting spells for extra vision.

“Go in. Yes. Now wait, hm, it broke. Next. Go in.”

Some lined up skeleton warriors in front of the magic circle and shoved them in one by one…

“?!”

“????”

Students nearby forgot about their own exam and just stared at Lee Han.

It was that shocking.

Even if they were summons, was it okay to use them as throwaways like that?

“Hmm. Yeah. Maybe a bit more to the right?”

The sparrow spirit and the squirrel spirit advised, from Lee Han’s shoulders, on where to send the skeletons.

Meanwhile, all the summoned skeleton warriors disappeared.

Lee Han rummaged through his reagent pouch and took out new bone powder.

“Rise, again…”

“Wha—Wardanaaz. Won’t your summons get angry if you treat them like that?”

“My skeletons are fine.”

The skeleton warriors animated by ancient necromancy were like puppets entirely composed of Lee Han’s mana, not true beings from other dimensions.

So even if he handled them as he wished, there was no problem.

It was, of course, a shocking answer to students who didn’t know.

“…?!!”

“No… Wardanaaz’s skeletons really are different.”

Nillia quickly spoke up for her friend.

She thought things could get misunderstood at this rate.

“They weren’t contracted. He summoned them directly!”

“Oh, really? You can do that with dark magic?”

“Almost misunderstood there.”

Thanks to Nillia’s explanation, her friends nodded in understanding.

They almost misunderstood Wardanaaz.

Meanwhile, Lee Han summoned a true skeleton warrior, Gonadaltes.

“Gonadaltes. I think I found a roughly safe zone. You need to go in and lead the other skeleton warriors. Can you do that?”

Seeing this, his friends smiled as they spoke to Nillia.

“He even names those assembled skeletons?”

“If Nillia hadn’t told us, I’d have misunderstood because he talks to them like that. Haha!”

“…Y-yeah! That’s just another assembled skeleton!”