Chapter 94
We'll do it just like last semester.
The professor in charge of practical magic told me with a resigned look.
"If you give a magic demonstration again this semester, I'll waive your attendance and assignments for the whole term. How about it?"
"Oh—"
This professor really knows how to talk. I like that flexibility.
"Should I blow something up or something?"
When I asked with a little more enthusiasm, the students glued to the auditorium walls started hiccuping in fright.
Terrified eyes poured onto me.
No... I didn't do anything. I wasn't planning to do anything either.
"J-just don't blow up the auditorium!"
The professor waved his hands frantically.
"Just show them something that can suitably inspire the students' desire to learn."
Something our little budding mages can look at and say, 'Ah, I want to become a mage like that,' and set as their goal.
A goal—
If you're talking about a mage's dream, there really isn't anything else, is there.
"All right."
I readjusted my grip on Arke.
Let's finish this quickly and go back to sleep.
A low hum reverberated from Arke.
In an instant, the auditorium ceiling vanished.
Thick darkness and a glittering galaxy erased the sunlight seeping in from outside the windows.
In the middle of a space briefly severed from reality.
I twirled the tip of Arke.
A huge circle was etched into the night sky.
Starlight swirling over the empty circle gathered and formed a complex, enormous magic circle.
If you're talking about a mage's dream, from ancient times—
[Star Caller.]
There had been only one.
-Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The center of the magic circle seemed to grow red-hot.
Then a heavy vibration pressed down on the air.
Soon, with a crackling heat, a burning mass of rock appeared inside the magic circle.
"M-Meteor...!"
Hearing screams burst out from all around, I raised Arke and pointed beyond the far horizon.
This space wasn't created by illusion magic; it was another reality. Dropping magic anywhere near here would be truly dangerous.
The gigantic meteor flew toward the far side of the sky, drawing a long parabolic tail.
Before long—
-KWAAAAANG!!
An explosion that shook the entire space rang out.
At the same time, a pillar of fire shot up, filling my field of vision.
A suffocating blast of heat rushed in.
The aftershock whipped my clothes like mad, and my hair flew around in a wild mess.
I lightly swung Arke once more and returned the space to normal.
Leaving the meteor's heat hanging in the night sky, I returned to the auditorium.
The silence dragged on a little too long.
The students, and even the professor, were blinking blankly, as if they'd lost their souls.
"Thanks for your hard work, Professor—"
I bowed toward the professor standing on the podium.
Only then did the professor, finally coming to his senses, say to me in a trembling voice.
"Uh... Student Lunaris."
"Yes, Professor."
"I'll exempt you from the exam this semester too."
"Is that all right?"
"You're just going to come in, sign the attendance sheet, and leave anyway."
"That's true."
"It'll be a hassle, so I'll handle everything for you."
"Thank you, Professor."
If this wasn't the very definition of a true teacher of this age, then what was?
I bowed once more to the professor, then trotted over to Princess Celestina, who was standing dazed against one wall.
"Princess, I'll head back to my room first."
"Yes, yes..."
If I went back now and flopped onto my bed, I could probably be out cold for a solid sixteen hours.
If anyone tried to wake me in the middle of that, I'd make sure not even the princess got off lightly.
*
As soon as the morning introductory magic theory class ended, Edwin headed straight for the library.
He skipped lunch, of course, and even the practical magic class in the afternoon without a second thought.
Missing one class meant nothing to him, the undisputed top student among the Magic Department's first-years.
Of course, in the not-too-distant future, after hearing that Lunaris had fired off a meteor in that practical class, he'd regret skipping it and beat his chest in frustration.
But Edwin had a more important problem right now.
'That theory... that magic system... just what in the world...!'
Edwin's heart was pounding like mad.
The words Lunaris had tossed out in class to tease Claire.
The other students probably figured that, since it was the archmage talking about this and that, it must have been something amazing and wrote it down without thinking.
But to Edwin, this was revolutionary material that could shake the entire magical academic world.
At the very least, it had completely turned Edwin's world upside down.
In Edwin's view, magic ranked bloodline first and talent second.
The properties of mana and the amount stored in the body were generally inherited.
As generations passed, arcane arts evolved and became more refined.
It wasn't for nothing that people said the children of the magical noble Velka family used magic before they could even speak.
The ability to build on top of that blessed bloodline was entirely a matter of talent.
In other words, intuition.
Complex formulas? Boring calculations?
He dismissed those as the realm of magic engineering, something only unimaginative idiots clung to.
He believed true mages were beings who bent the world through instinct and sensation.
Just like Lunaris Evermoon.
But today, that Lunaris shattered his beliefs head-on.
-In the end, magic is just an imitation of natural phenomena.
-You just have to understand its essence.
-And don't try to half-ass it by going with whatever feels right and relying on intuition. Approach it rationally.
Why does it happen that way.
What laws are at work.
The archmage he had thought was the very embodiment of genius.
The woman he had thought would be more sensory than anyone.
In truth, she possessed eyes that could see through all phenomena in the world by means of equations.
"Haa..."
Edwin sat in a corner seat in the library and wiped his face.
A dizzy feeling made his head throb.
He had gone a long time without being able to see Lunaris as a rival.
On the day of the first-semester final exam, when all the students' grades were announced.
The thrill and sense of defeat he had felt when he first saw the solution to the final problem in her Introductory Magic Theory course were still vivid in his mind.
He had thought nothing could surprise him more after that day.
But the fragment of archmage talent he witnessed today was on par with that shock.
Edwin opened his notebook with trembling hands.
Frantic notes, scribbled so quickly he might miss even a single letter, caught his eye.
[A New Classification of Ice Magic: Crystal, Frost, and Chill.]
[Muspell phase change through the rearrangement of water mana.]
He had developed ice magic, which had been treated as nothing more than a lower-tier subset of water magic, to the point where it could be classified as an entirely independent new attribute.
The idea of defining the system of ice magic around crystals was something he couldn't even dare imagine.
Not merely lowering the temperature, but changing the arrangement of mana.
At this point, it almost felt like they could found an entirely new school, a cryomancy school.
"What a shame, what a shame."
If his specialty had been water magic instead of earth magic, would it have been easier to understand?
And, above all, the most shocking final scene.
[Inducing lightning from ice crystals, how is that even possible???]
"Insane... does that even make sense?!"
Edwin let out a groan, forgetting even that he was in the library.
Out of curiosity, he had even asked the theory professor about the assignment that had been given out last week.
The answer he got was that it hadn't been a problem meant to make magic work in the first place, just a theoretical exercise for practicing formula-solving.
...And yet Lunaris had derived the laws of nature from that bogus problem and forced magic into existence.
A realm that intuition alone could never reach.
A truth that could only be reached at the end of rational analysis and logical inquiry.
Having seen that happen before his eyes, his brain as a mage had practically gone haywire.
"I'm crashing..."
He wanted to reach it somehow.
He wanted to steal even a sliver of the world the archmage saw.
-Scratch, scratch.
Only the sound of pen nibs scratching faintly echoed through the library.
Edwin repeatedly expanded his equations, formed hypotheses, and verified them based on the notes he'd copied down from Lunaris's words.
It took no time at all for one thick notebook to fill with dense formulas and intricate magic circles.
"Haa..."
Unwittingly, Edwin pressed his temples hard.
It still felt like he was walking through fog. He couldn't tell whether he was really moving in the right direction.
When he lifted his head in frustration and looked out the window, the sky was already dyed red. The day was already over.
Edwin eventually gathered his things and left the library.
"I wonder how the others are doing."
On the way back to Linea Hall, he stopped by the student-only bulletin board in the square, which was full of messages from students feeling much the same.
[Any first-years who took Introductory Magic Theory today?!]
[Buying today's Introductory Magic Theory notes for 5 gold coins. Will pay up to 20 gold coins depending on the quality of the notes!]
[Recruiting a study group! Topic: the new theory of ice magic]
[Anyone want to share notes from when Lunaris was talking and study together?!]
Edwin couldn't take his eyes off the bulletin board for a while, then picked up a pen and wrote on an empty space.
[Need help from a third- or fourth-year in the Magic Department who can skillfully use intermediate ice magic.]
[Please find Edwin Velka, first-year student in the Magic Department, through Odette, the head maid of Linea Hall.]