Chapter 98
“Thank you very much for making time in the middle of your busy schedule, Chief Professor Maxiang.”
Receiving the journalist dispatched from the Magic Tower’s polite greeting, Maxiang sank into the leather sofa with a tired expression.
His graying hair and deeply etched wrinkles spoke of long years of experience.
“Phew—enough with the empty pleasantries. Let’s begin.”
Exactly one hour later, he had to begin his research assistant’s thesis defense, and Chief Professor Maxiang waved a hand dismissively.
“Haha. As expected, a popular professor is different. I won’t take up much of your time.”
The man quickly opened his notebook, his eyes shining.
“Since you’re a professor, we really can’t avoid asking about familiars, can we?”
A familiar.
A mage’s second wand and most loyal servant.
Since the day Chief Professor Maxiang first announced its existence, all the way to the present day.
It had become common sense for most mages to keep one familiar each.
“The ‘master-servant contract magic circle’ you presented was a revolutionary theory for the School of Life, and indeed for the magical world as a whole.”
“Haha... well, in a way, it really was a theory that overturned the world.”
“I’d like to hear what first inspired that radical theory—that by stimulating a magic beast’s brain, one could imprint a mage’s mana and grant it intelligence.”
“I feel like I’ve already said this several times, but... let me emphasize it again: I wasn’t the one who came up with the familiar-contract procedure.”
At the man’s words, Chief Professor Maxiang gave a bitter smile.
“The one and only being who walks the path of magic, the ‘Mage of the Night Sky.’”
The chief professor humbly said it was all that person’s achievement.
“I’m merely a lucky man who got to encounter his idea a little earlier than everyone else.”
“Haha. Of course, that fact is already well known throughout the magical world. Years ago, when you published that paper as the second author, didn’t you reveal it together?”
The man leaned forward and continued.
“What I’m asking about is... the more detailed story behind it.”
How he came to be connected with the mysterious mage, about whom the public knew almost nothing.
What form the joint research took.
The man asked the chief professor about that behind-the-scenes story.
“A joint research project...”
A strange sense of nostalgia appeared in Chief Professor Maxiang’s eyes.
“These days I’m getting old and often forget things from the past, but as for what happened that day, it still remains vivid in my mind.”
The professor stared into the distance, lost in recollection.
“Back when he was still called the ‘Archmage’ in his student days, I was incredibly lucky—or maybe unlucky—that he took my class.”
“Come to think of it, you were teaching there even when he was enrolled at the academy.”
The man chimed in with just the right amount of flattery, saying that, as expected, an outstanding student naturally recognizes a good teacher.
“Teacher, my foot.”
But Chief Professor Maxiang, looking embarrassed, shook his head.
“If anything, I was the one who ended up learning from him.”
“Huh? What do you mean...?”
“From the very first day he came to my lecture, he started firing questions at me left and right... and every single one of them was truly vexing.”
“He even corrected the mistaken definitions that had spread throughout academia, so that said it all,” the professor said with a bitter smile.
“Now that I think about it, it feels like he used me to verify his own insights more thoroughly.”
“Haha, normally in situations like that, wouldn’t the proper way to put it be that he asked for help?”
“Asked for help? Him? Haha. Don’t be ridiculous.”
The reporter shot back jokingly.
Then Chief Professor Maxiang let out a snort of laughter.
“More importantly... I’d only say I helped if I had actually helped. I was just being swept around by genius beyond all common sense.”
“Aren’t you being a little too humble for once?”
“Humble? Not at all. If you ever have a conversation with him about magic even once, you’ll understand.”
Chief Professor Maxiang waved it off and said in a firm voice.
“I mean, what do you think it means to crack open your head and forcibly stuff knowledge into it?”
*
“Go ahead and ask.”
A suffocating silence swept through the huge lecture hall.
Countless students swallowed dryly and stared only at Lunaris’s lips, wondering what question she would ask.
If there was anyone most tense here, it was undoubtedly Professor Maxiang.
Professor Maxiang’s throat felt dry with tension.
“Umm—”
Lunaris stared blankly into space without moving.
It was as if she had so many questions she didn’t know which to ask first.
“Just now, when you were defining magic beasts, Professor...”
Soon, her small mouth slowly opened.
“You said that using mana as one wishes is the privilege of sapient beings, and that magic beasts are living creatures that handle mana instinctively.”
Lunaris rested her chin on her hand and went on.
“Then isn’t it impossible to tame a magic beast and make it carry out really, really complicated commands?”
“...?”
Maxiang let out an inward sigh of relief.
Thank goodness it wasn’t a question about overturning the universe or defying the laws of nature.
No, on the contrary, it was nothing much at all.
It was exactly the kind of innocent question a student her age would have.
“Before that, I’d like to confirm one thing. When the student says complicated commands, what level are we talking about?”
“Hmm, for example...”
Lunaris twitched a finger.
“Say you don’t give a detailed command and just toss out a rough goal—something it can work out the method for and solve on its own...?”
“Like, if you told it to wash the bedsheets, it would somehow hand-wash them all nice and fluffy by itself?”
“That would be difficult. A magic beast’s brain simply isn’t developed enough.”
The example was childish to the point of being adorable, and Professor Maxiang let out a snort before he knew it.
“More importantly, taming a magic beast in the first place is a very difficult problem. It isn’t easy to make those ferocious creatures, which run on instinct, behave.”
“Really?”
Lunaris tilted her head to the side, puzzled.
“If you just showed overwhelming force, wouldn’t it feel its life was threatened and obey?”
At those words, blue lightning crackled from Arke, the silver-white staff floating behind her back.
“Eeek?!”
With a vicious crackle, nearby students let out shrill screams and backed away.
Professor Maxiang also flinched.
“Th, that...”
The professor wiped the cold sweat from his brow and gave a bitter smile.
“That would probably only work for student Lunaris... Wouldn’t ordinary mages get eaten by the magic beast instead?”
“Well, I was just saying it as an example.”
Lunaris’s shrug was cute to the point of being horrifying.
No matter how you looked at it, it didn’t seem like she’d just been saying it as an example.
Why, don’t they say you can tell just by looking?
There was way too much sincerity in those eyes.
“Anyway, I have a hard time agreeing that taming magic beasts is difficult.”
Lunaris returned to the main point.
“Why, isn’t it enough to make a familiar contract?”
“...Huh?”
Professor Maxiang narrowed his eyes and asked back.
“A familiar? A contract...? What are you talking about?”
They were words he’d never heard before.
Of course, he could roughly guess the meaning from the context and combination of words, but it still wasn’t exactly clear.
“Oh, right...”
Seeing the professor’s puzzled expression, Lunaris’s face shifted subtly.
Was the concept of familiars not established yet? Lunaris muttered to herself that this had become a hassle.
Just pretending she’d misspoken and glossing over it wouldn’t work because of Nebula’s egg.
To raise that thing into an all-purpose slave No. 2 that would guarantee her precious sleep time, the professor needed to pitch in a little.
Lunaris let out a short sigh and began.
“First... let’s make sure we’re clear on the terminology.”
Her gaze changed.
“Professor, what exactly is a magic beast?”
The drowsiness was gone without a trace.
In its place, one could glimpse the graceful elegance of a great archmage.
Of course, all she really cared about was that, since this was a hassle, she needed a crash course to get her knowledge in sync with the professor’s as quickly as possible.
“Are magic beasts dumb creatures that can use mana? Or are they living beings that can use mana and aren’t classified as human? Or are they creatures that use mana by instinct?”
“If we’re talking strict definitions... isn’t ‘instinct’ the keyword?”
“But once a mage reaches a certain level, they say magic should be cast by relying on personal inspiration and intuition.”
Lunaris waved a hand and continued.
“If you cast magic purely by intuition, without relying on formulas or magic circles, does that make you a magic beast?”
No spell incantation, no formula.
Pure natural mana swirled above her palm.
“Then what, are most mages—including me—magic beasts?”
“W-well...”
He was speechless.
He felt like the world was going black before his eyes.
It had definitely started as an easy, trivial question to answer.
Before he knew it, he was reestablishing the definitions of the very words that formed the foundation of the field.
“Let’s just be blunt about it.”
Lunaris spread her hands wide and scattered the natural mana.
“Magic beasts are stupid creatures that, despite being reduced by human supremacy to something less than human, dare to handle mana.”
“That... could be one way to look at it.”
Professor Maxiang nodded, entranced.
The wording was extreme, but the logic itself couldn’t be denied.
“Well, that’s not the important part right now.”
Lunaris tapped the desk.
The tapping gesture mixed boredom with irritation.
“The key is this: whether it’s possible for a creature that handles mana only by instinct to acquire intelligence later on. And whether that creature can be tamed as a familiar.”
She went on, almost under her breath.
“Acquiring intelligence... hmm, if you stimulate the brain with mana, it might somehow be possible...”
“If it’s like casting a body-enhancement spell, then what about casting an enhancement spell on the brain?”
“Then if you pour mana into the neural pathways, reconfigure the thought circuits, and carve the master-servant imprint in all at once...”
“W-wait a second!”
Professor Maxiang hurriedly stopped Lunaris.
“Y-you’re too fast! I can’t follow the flow of your thoughts. Let’s sort it out one step at a time, one step at a time!”
The professor was already breathless.
It was embarrassing enough that a professor was struggling to keep up with a student’s question.
But now wasn’t the time to be clinging to such petty pride.