Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 780

FLASH!

<Ogonin’s Thin Mist> and <Bagreg’s Momentary Foresight> were cast instantly without incantations.

<Low-Grade Magic Storage>, which could store two third-circle-or-lower spells and cast them immediately, had operated successfully.

Since he had cleanly succeeded at a spell he had not fully mastered, he should have been delighted, but Lee Han had no such leisure.

A Frost Giant was chasing them from behind.

—…Wait, are you running away?

The Frost Giant shouted as if it could not believe it.

But no matter how much the Frost Giant denied reality, the fact that the mages were scampering away into the distance did not change.

—How?! Why would an honorable challenger acknowledged by the king run away?!

“Let’s compete later when we have time! I’ll visit you once!”

Lee Han shouted with the feeling of saying, “Let’s have a meal together sometime.”

If the other party had been Gainando or the giants of Einroguard, it might have worked, but unfortunately, the opponent was an intelligent Frost Giant. It immediately saw through Lee Han’s intentions.

—So you are running away to avoid me right now! You rude mage. Does this mean that although the king acknowledged me as an opponent, you refuse to do so? I will change that thinking!

Lee Han wanted to refute that, but he was holding his breath and running quickly, so he no longer had room for it.

It was fortunate that Ogonin’s Thin Mist was wrapping around Lee Han and his friends and disrupting the enemy’s vision. Otherwise, it would have been far more dangerous.

“Gainando, left. Princess, right. By the master’s command… freeze!”

Along with the incantation, <Pengerine’s Frost-Element Clone> shot out.

The power of the frost element filling the surroundings gave Lee Han some mental composure. For a moment, Lee Han received the intuition that he could create one more clone.

“By the master’s command, freeze!”

Is it fortunate this is a cold dimension?!

He was not sure whether to call this an advantage, but at least it was fortunate.

—Hmph!

With a thoroughly offended voice, the Frost Giant bent at the waist and leaped.

Then it began pushing down the slope with a full-body charge. Its strategy was to devastate everything around it, regardless of what illusions or clones confused its vision or kept it in check.

It was simple and ignorant, but the effectiveness could not be denied. At that sight, Lee Han, who had been raising his mana and preparing the next spell, clicked his tongue.

Should I cancel and block it?

If he canceled the spell he was currently preparing, it would mean handing the initiative to the Frost Giant again.

But he could not just leave it to approach that quickly…

“Go! Cut off the path!”

“!”

Lee Han was startled by Gainando’s spell.

Gainando, who had been keeping distance while running away, seemed to have realized the urgency of the situation and joined in.

Seeing that he had taken out a large undead summon and corrosive poison, it was clear that he intended to destroy one part of the icy slope.

The Frost Giant had powerful physical abilities, but that also meant it was extremely heavy.

The thick slope made of an iceberg looked sturdy, but once cracks began to form, even a small shock would shake it.

“Hurry! Hurry!”

Gainando gave orders in a rush.

Normally, if a mage issued successive commands that stimulated the rebelliousness of a contracted undead summon like this, it could lead to rebellion later, but none of that entered Gainando’s mind right now.

I even used expensive penguin-catching poison, and these bastards!

This ice-corroding poison, which he had brought in preparation for the Ice-Void Realm, cost as much as a week’s worth of snacks.

Even after using that, there were only that many cracks in the ice.

“Fly!”

“W-wah!”

Gainando screamed in surprise when a chakram-shaped artifact flew in.

The artifact Adenart had summoned had flown over to support him.

“Hey! What are you going to do with that!! Summon something big! You idiot!”

Gainando jumped up and down, wondering what she intended to do with a mere round circular weapon, but Adenart paid him no heed.

The power of the chakram artifact was not what mattered.

SHATTER!

The potion hanging from the artifact was dropped precisely and fell onto Gainando’s undead summon, the Thorn Revenant.

As expected of the top student of the alchemy school, Lee Han immediately recognized what potion it was.

That was…

A potion of undead explosion!

It was a potion made by an Imperial alchemist who had participated in the suppression during the previous undead catastrophe. It was a powerful potion that caused any undead it touched to explode and inflicted damage on the surroundings as well.

It was quite difficult to make and unstable, and even had a short shelf life, so unless one was subjugating undead, there was no reason to carry it around…

Surely it isn’t because of Gainando.

BOOM!

The effect was outstanding.

The soul of the Thorn Revenant, a large-bodied summon covered in armor-like protruding spikes, reacted with the potion and exploded on the spot.

Unable to withstand the impact, the slope on the iceberg began to crack and split. Gainando screamed.

“You! You!!”

How dare she reverse-summon his summon?!

“Are you insane?!?!”

“W-was that not why you sent the undead?”

Adenart answered in a bewildered voice.

Judging by the time available, destroying the slope with Gainando’s undead and poison would have been impossible.

Naturally, she had thought Gainando had positioned this undead with the intention of exploding it…

“What crazy dark mage throws an undead in while prepared to blow up the undead!!”

“Of course, a reverse-summoned spirit may be dissatisfied, but if the situation is explained, it will understand…”

“Undead are different!!”

Spirits had the magnanimity to understand if one explained properly, even if they were reverse-summoned due to an unavoidable accident, but undead were basically narrow-minded and full of grievances, so most of them only thought of stabbing their mage in the back.

Unless one was frightening and threatening them like Lee Han, a dark mage could not handle them too aggressively.

“Do you know how hard it was for me to contract that thing?! You… you ignorant idiot who doesn’t know a single thing about dark magic!”

“!”

Adenart was so shocked that her already pale face turned even whiter.

To think she would hear from this half-brother that she knew nothing about magic and was ignorant!

“Lee Han! Say something to this idiot who doesn’t know dark magic!”

But Lee Han could not answer.

He was in the middle of completing a spell.

“Flames. Rise as a barrier!”

ROAAAAAR!

Flames began to surge up above the cracked cliff of the slope.

These fierce flames would surely serve as a barrier to keep the Frost Giant from crossing over.

Adenart was about to ask, “Do you think I should learn a little about dark magic?” but stopped.

Isn’t that… strange?

The power of the flame barrier spell looked far stronger than expected.

…No matter how much mana he overinvested, was this kind of power possible with <Low-Grade Flame Barrier>?

“Guys. Run!!”

“Huh? Why? Isn’t it unable to cross?”

Gainando asked in puzzlement, but immediately realized why they had to.

The wide-rising flame barrier began to expand around it as if going berserk.

At a speed far faster than the Frost Giant.

“Is… is flame barrier usually this aggressive…?”

“I said run!”

“O-okay!”

The three began running like mad.

Only then did Adenart realize what Lee Han had done.

He had to have cast <Low-Grade Flame Barrier>, shaped it above the cliff of the slope, then poured in mana like mad and made the spell run wild.

This kind of spell rampage was impossible for the mage to control as well, but it certainly produced power beyond the spell’s normal level. The fierce flames billowing behind them were proof.

“How did you… put in mana… until it ran wild…?”

Even in the middle of that, Adenart did not let go of her curiosity about magic and asked.

It was very difficult to intentionally create a spell rampage.

First, causing it was difficult, and even if Wardanaz had overinvested mana with his characteristic overflowing reserves, maintaining the spell’s form until the magic ran wild was no ordinary matter either.

Was that kind of magical control truly possible?

Since Adenart did not know that until relatively recently, Lee Han had used fire-element magic by suppressing and controlling it like mad every time he cast it, she could not help being astonished.

“Yes? I couldn’t hear you.”

“Until it ran wild… how did you put in mana…?”

“Let’s talk about it later for now!”

“……”

At Lee Han’s obvious attempt to change the subject, Adenart wondered why he was acting like this.

…Did this person perhaps think she was blaming him right now?

“I was not trying to blame y—”

—Challenger! Just you wait! I will absolutely make you acknowledge me. Keep our duel until then!

“…I really should avoid cold dimensions from now on or something.”

*****

Asan and Raphaedel moved through the Rainforest Realm, sweating heavily.

This dimensional region, filled with all kinds of giant plants, was humid and hot, easily exhausting mages.

“I… I think we, got, the hardest place…”

“…I agree.”

The students of the summoning magic school who joined them later also nodded as if agreeing.

If one listed the hardships each student who had fallen into the Rainforest Realm had suffered, they were truly on a level without equal.

First, as soon as Asan landed, he landed near a man-eating plant and had to scramble out in ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) a hurry. If he had not prepared a flame artifact, it would have been truly dangerous.

Raphaedel had lost supplies due to dimensional-transfer instability and had nearly drunk poisoned water while trying to secure drinking water. It was fortunate Raphaedel belonged to the dark magic school and had an antidote, or that would have been an immediate elimination.

Another student stole a giant turtle’s eggs to secure food and nearly got buried alive in a pit, while another student was chased by an enraged pack of velociraptors and had to flee up a tree…

“The forest is ending. Look over there!”

The students stretched out their fingers in relieved voices.

As if announcing the end of the Rainforest Realm, the central region of the dimension was revealing itself.

The central region of the dimension was a vast rocky mountain area hidden by magical fog and clouds, and the map described it as “relatively safe.”

It was the most suitable place for gathering with the other students and setting up camp.

“That’s Wardanaz over there!”

“Wardanaz! This way!”

The students, who had discovered Wardanaz’s group walking in the distance, cheered and fired up signal magic.

Perhaps they had noticed from that side as well, because magic immediately rose in response. Forgetting their fatigue, the students hurried over and joined them.

“Everyone went through a lot. I didn’t expect us to regroup this quickly. We were lucky.”

“Lucky? Wardanaz. Do you know how much we suffered?”

Raphaedel spoke in an exhausted voice.

Considering the misfortune they had suffered after falling into the dimension, this much luck was not remotely satisfying.

“That’s true. The Rainforest Realm has many giant plants, so it must have been hard.”

No sooner had Lee Han finished speaking than the students began pouring out their words as if agreeing.

They had been tormented so much that they could not endure it unless they at least poured it out to Lee Han.

“Exactly, Wardanaz! That turtle bastard kept going on just because one egg was stolen…”

“Do you know how annoying those raptor bastards are?”

“It’s a good thing I prepared a flame dagger in advance. If I hadn’t, I would have been subdued immediately…”

Raphaedel, who had complained first and then stood quietly while the others spoke, looked at Gainando and asked.

Because of the reverse-summoned undead summon, Gainando was still downcast.

“Didn’t you run into anything?”

“We met a Frost Giant and ran away.”

“…How?”

“We broke an iceberg and burned everything around it to escape, what else…”

“……”

Raphaedel was horrified.

This… this bastard deliberately waited for us to talk first…!

To make Raphaedel’s group look like they were whining over trivial hardships!