Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 843

“Hmm. Hmmm.”

After a long moment of deliberation, Lee Han finally made up his mind.

I’ll go with a medium-sized skeleton golem.

He would earn extra points for summoning a medium-sized creature or larger for the first time, and skeleton warriors were still the summons he had the most experience assembling.

And later, if he ever needed to assemble another summoned creature, there was always the option of choosing a large skeleton golem…

“I’d like to try a medium-sized skeleton golem.”

“Good choice, junior. …One moment.”

Did he figure it out?

Lee Han flinched when Diret stopped him.

Had Diret somehow seen through his strategy of choosing something that looked difficult while secretly containing a few convenient loopholes—and which might also help him escape future evaluations?

“Your staff changed?”

“Ah, yes. I finished it.”

“What? You should’ve told me that first! That’s excellent.”

Diret looked genuinely delighted, as though the achievement were his own.

“That Yukveltire girl may be strange in plenty of ways, but whenever magic catches her interest, she works incredibly hard. She keeps saying staff crafting is dull and tedious, but she asked about obsidian several times, so I assumed she was interested.”

“Professor Verdus made it for me, though…”

“?!”

Diret was so shocked that his wings jerked upward.

“How!?”

No matter how he thought about it, the only way to make Professor Verdus work was through threats.

“Professor Garcia threatened him for me.”

So it really was threats.

The answer had been predictable, yet somehow it still left Diret speechless. He slowly nodded, trying to regain his composure.

“I-I see. How fortunate that Professor Garcia persuaded him.”

Threats had somehow become persuasion, but Lee Han let it pass.

At Einroguard, the two words were often interchangeable anyway.

“The staff still doesn’t feel fully natural in your hands yet, does it?”

“No. I was planning to start by getting used to the wood spirit’s power first.”

“And the obsidian?”

“I’ve been careful about the obsidian.”

Lee Han assumed Diret meant the risk of disrupting his own spells because of the obsidian embedded in the staff.

But Diret slowly shook his head.

“Professor Verdus probably didn’t explain it properly.”

“Senior Yukveltire didn’t exactly explain it either…”

“Listen carefully, junior.”

He changed the subject.

Diret began explaining the properties of obsidian.

Common sense said that mages should avoid minerals that absorbed mana.

Unfortunately, mages were creatures fundamentally divorced from common sense.

If they discovered a poisonous mushroom, instead of avoiding it, they would nibble at it little by little while wondering, How can I make use of this effect?

Naturally, obsidian had been researched as well.

“The most well-known application is counter-magic. You probably {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} haven’t learned it yet, junior—”

“The Principal taught it to me last year. He said I’d probably run into magical criminals often, so he taught me how to break dark magic.”

“Of course you already learned it.”

By now, Diret had grown so accustomed to his junior from House Wardanaz that he continued speaking without even changing expression.

Among advanced magical techniques, counter-magic was notoriously difficult.

There was no single spell called counter-magic. The term referred instead to every method used to disrupt or destroy another mage’s spellcasting.

You had to identify the opponent’s spell before it was completed, interfere with it, and collapse it before activation.

Simple in theory.

In practice, it required exceptional senses to detect the spell, extensive knowledge to recognize its structure, and reflexes sharp enough to stay ahead of the opponent.

“To be honest, I rarely use counter-magic myself. I usually just rely on 【Valdororn’s Mana Hammer】.”

“I understand. It does suit you well, junior. But you can’t solve everything by smashing it apart. And some spells become too dangerous if you wait until after they’re cast. The obsidian in your staff will help with counter-magic.”

When Lee Han cast spells himself, focusing on the obsidian instead of the wood disrupted or dispelled the spell.

Then what would happen if he made contact with an enemy spell and focused his will into the obsidian?

“…It creates powerful interference and disruption. Of course, making contact with enemy magic itself requires considerable mana and concentration, but it’s absolutely worth learning.”

“That does sound useful.”

Lee Han nodded in admiration.

Until now, he had only thought of obsidian as a way to reinforce a staff so it could endure stronger spellcasting.

He had never imagined it also had applications in counter-magic.

“Where did you learn this, Senior Diret?”

“Mages from the dark magic school deal with demons fairly often. We sometimes use obsidian because of that.”

“…”

Lee Han immediately regretted asking.

Against high-ranking demons, brute force alone was often ineffective.

Deception, negotiation, restraint, and tactical retreat mattered far more.

And in situations like that, obsidian became surprisingly valuable.

It restrained not only the mage’s magic, but the demon’s as well.

“Now then, shall we practice? Eight curses, all second-circle or lower. I’ll cast them at random, and you’ll interfere before completion.”

Ugh. That’s brutal.

He was already short on time to assemble the skeleton golem, and now Diret was casually reducing that time even further.

But Lee Han couldn’t bring himself to refuse.

If Diret decided he was an arrogant junior…

What if he thinks I attend other lectures sincerely but slack off during a senior’s lesson?

That absolutely could not happen.

Lee Han gripped his newly completed staff while simultaneously calculating how to finish assembling the skeleton golem with the little time he had left.

***

“…Move!”

“Junior… since you assembled it yourself instead of summoning it from another dimension, yelling at it won’t help…”

“Ugh.”

The counter-magic training had actually gone quite well.

Partly because Diret had adjusted the exercises to help Lee Han grow accustomed to the new staff, but still—the results had been impressive.

—I think I understand the sensation now, senior. Long-distance interference is difficult, but at close range…

—Start by disrupting spells whose structures you already understand well.

In contrast, assembling the skeleton golem had become a nightmare.

Damn it. There’s barely any time left.

Lee Han checked the clock with growing anxiety.

In traditional—no, ancient orthodox—dark magic, undead summoning proceeded through several stages.

First, you prepared the core reagent containing the compressed body of the summon.

Then you infused magic into it to construct the creature’s form.

Finally, you embedded commands into it so the summon could act independently without requiring constant direct control from the mage.

The first stage, the reagent, wasn’t a problem.

Diret had prepared 【Large Beast Bones】, and Lee Han himself regularly reinforced the bone fragments he carried with dark elements and blood elements anyway.

Thanks to that, even ordinary bone fragments were enough to sustain a medium-sized skeleton golem.

The second stage—constructing the form—also succeeded immediately.

Lee Han had summoned skeleton warriors countless times already, and during emergencies he had even fused them together into stronger undead. His understanding of skeletal structures far exceeded expectations.

The real problem was the final stage: commands.

Every instruction had to be individually embedded, linked together, and stabilized.

It placed an absurd burden on the mage’s mind and was nearly impossible to complete quickly.

The previous skeleton golem had tried to smash through the lecture hall wall and escape.

The one before that had attempted to dance in three-quarter time. Diret had been fascinated and wanted to preserve the configuration, but Lee Han himself couldn’t reproduce it afterward.

And now this latest skeleton golem wouldn’t move at all.

Since the earlier ones had acted independently, he had tried being more careful this time, but apparently something had become tangled in the command structure.

Damn this stupid skeleton golem…

“Come to think of it, junior.”

Completely unaware of Lee Han’s inner suffering, Diret spoke up.

Though the interruption nearly made him cry, Lee Han answered immediately. How could he ignore a senior who had called him?

“Yes?”

“I forgot to mention this earlier, but about that staff. It’d be better if you said Professor Verdus forced you to make it.”

“…Excuse me? Why would I tell a lie like that?”

Leaving aside the question of why he needed to lie, nobody except first-year students would ever believe otherwise.

Professor Verdus voluntarily helping a student?

That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve heard all year.

“No, listen carefully, junior. Professor Verdus occasionally helps students if the magic interests him.”

Diret spoke cautiously.

As a member of the Divination Magic Guild, Yukveltire knew Professor Verdus extremely well.

Professor Verdus had a terrible habit of sneaking into guild research projects, completing only the most entertaining or exciting portions, and then vanishing without a trace.

Whenever Yukveltire conducted research, she locked the doors and stood guard specifically to keep Professor Verdus out.

“That… does sound plausible. But why should I lie?”

“So Yukveltire won’t be disappointed. She was genuinely interested in your staff.”

“Oh, come on. You’re mistaken, senior. Senior Yukveltire’s heart is made of tin. There’s no way she’d feel disappointed.”

“…”

Diret suddenly felt a little sorry for his friend, who was currently being slandered so confidently by a junior from the same tower.

Still, there wasn’t much he could say.

She had brought this on herself.

“Junior. I’ve known Yukveltire longer than you have. Just trust me on this.”

“Understood. So I should say Professor Verdus forced me into it?”

Since it wasn’t particularly difficult, Lee Han agreed without hesitation.

“But if what you’re saying is true, won’t the Professor get angry?”

“Yes.”

“…”

Lee Han silently nodded.

Then he turned back toward the skeleton golem.

“Oh, right. About Duke Ikalderen.”

Ugh.

Unaware of his junior’s growing despair, Diret continued speaking about the duke they had kidnapped—no, escorted—last time.

“When we first brought him in, he was too terrified to hold a proper conversation. But he’s calmed down considerably these days. He even talks comfortably with Yukveltire now.”

“Really? What do they talk about?”

“Yukveltire mostly asks how much money he can offer. The duke requests prosciutto topped with truffles, chicory salad harvested within two days, and southern Imperial mushroom consommé.”

Didn’t the Principal starve him enough?

Lee Han was astonished the duke still had enough mental energy to focus on gourmet cuisine.

If he’d been living like the students, he would’ve forgotten those ridiculous dishes instantly and started begging for roasted meat, fried meat, hot fruit pies, cake, and chocolate.

“But does that really count as a good conversation? They’re talking past each other.”

“The duke is in a disadvantageous position, so eventually he’ll compromise. At this level, it counts as productive conversation.”

Sometimes the optimism seniors show is genuinely terrifying.

That counted as productive?

Pop!

“…Senior! It’s moving! The skeleton golem is actually moving properly!”

“What? Really?! I didn’t expect you to finish it today.”

“What a relief— Wait a second. Senior. What do you mean you didn’t expect me to finish it today?”

Lee Han had been about to celebrate with Diret, but abruptly stopped and narrowed his eyes.