Chapter 3
The first and last day on which no one knew anyone.
It was the first lesson.
It was the first event everyone encountered after the entrance ceremony,
so naturally, its importance couldn't be overstated.
The classroom was quiet.
Expressions of inexplicable excitement and worry showed on everyone's faces.
It was the excitement of a new semester.
‘The one in front is [Kanghan]..’
Kanghan was, as his name suggested, strong in the purest sense.
He was also a character who constantly vied for second or third place in the academy with his common supernatural ability.
‘Sitting right next to him is [Helia].. and beside her is [Mizha].’
They were named characters who would each become a promising mage and marksman in the academy.
No other unusual people stood out.
No, or so I thought.
‘Hmm.. Was [Ena] here too? I didn't see her during class assignments..’
A pink head of hair that stood out in the classroom came into view.
I couldn't see her face clearly, though.
Judging by her aura alone, it had to be Ena.
- Swish.
Suddenly, as if she'd sensed my gaze, the pink-haired girl turned around,
and our eyes met.
As expected, it was Ena.
- Hel, lo.
She smiled faintly when she saw me and mouthed the words.
I waved back too.
‘Hmm.. It should be about time for the professor to come in.’
As class time drew near, the classroom gradually fell silent.
- Creak.
At last, the classroom door opened and the professor in charge entered.
“All right, hello, everyone..”
The professor in charge had a languid expression.
Blue hair that held the depths of the sea.
A youthful face.
I knew that face.
“I'll be in charge of you all for the year. My name is Naia.”
[Head Professor of Magic Naia]
‘.. Naia is our professor?’
It was extremely rare for Naia to serve as the professor in charge.
The exact reason was unknown,
but she only became the player's professor under certain conditions.
‘The Naia professor route isn't very well known..’
I grew worried.
It wasn't that Professor Naia was a bad person or anything.
It was just that she only appeared under certain conditions,
so there weren't many gameplay videos.
‘.. I need to think carefully about how to freeload my way through this.’
But it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
There were definitely clear advantages to having her as one's professor.
‘As the Head Professor of Magic.. the odds of obtaining good skills were high.’
‘On top of that.. she gave out plenty of rewards.’
‘The less-known honey pots are where all the honey is.. so it might actually be good if I search properly.’
In any case, what mattered was how well I did.
Naia trudged over and climbed onto the podium.
Then she glanced around the classroom.
“There seem to be quite a few interesting people here..”
Something was strange.
Naia's gaze kept fixed on one spot.
But why was it fixed on me?
No matter how I looked, there weren't any named characters near me..
“This year looks like it'll be fun too.. I look forward to working with all of you.”
- Clap clap clap!!
The mood in the classroom improved.
Professor Naia was famous.
Because she was the youngest head of an academy department.
Most students had already heard of her before they even entered the academy.
On top of that..
She was a beautiful professor, after all.
It would've been stranger if she weren't popular.
“All right.. today's lesson will be about the basics of magic.”
Naia perched on the lectern and raised one hand into the air.
Blue smoke rose from her fingertips.
“The foundation of all magic begins with sync.”
“The blue smoke you see right now.. is what people call mana.”
“I deliberately let a large amount of mana flow through the air so you could see it.. but mana is actually present in sufficient quantities even in ordinary air.”
Naia raised her hand.
Blue smoke climbed up along her hand.
She caught the smoke.
Then she threw it.
- Whoosh!!
The blue smoke left her hand and spread throughout the classroom.
It filled the room completely.
“Now, the classroom is filled with a high concentration of mana.”
“Sync refers to the entire process of moving this mana freely through your body.”
“Now.. watch my movements carefully. Then copy them.”
“Some of you may have studied magic, while others may not have, but all of you should be able to move it freely before class ends.”
Naia sat down on top of the lectern.
Then she began moving the mana with her hands.
“Now, in today's lesson, we'll use sync to make circles and stars.”
Her hands moved as if a child were playing with slime.
With a single gesture, the slime became a star, then the sun.
It was one of the most basic fundamentals of magic,
but her movements were graceful and beautiful.
Naia created several shapes in an instant.
“Once you've properly gathered and reshaped the mana floating in the air like this.. you're done.”
“Now, you'll be trying it yourselves.”
“I'll give extra credit to the first person to make one.. so do your best.”
Countless students began touching the blue mana.
They were probably wondering how to handle it properly.
I was thinking about something entirely different.
‘The sync required in this class.. was notorious for being devilishly difficult.’
Clearly, according to the game's setting, sync wasn't all that difficult.
But.. most people playing the game used a keyboard and mouse. At most, they used VR equipment.
‘It's easy to say you're drawing a circle and a star.. but how are you supposed to draw a star by touching slime with a mouse?’
But people found a way.
Since the game offered an extremely high degree of freedom, finding a method wasn't all that difficult.
‘So people came up with [templates].’
‘Even when drawing a circle on paper, it's easier to trace one than draw one from scratch.’
‘It turned out handling mana was the same.’
While the others worked hard on something,
I merely took a few things out of my bag.
One was a small ball, and the other a set square.
‘Hehe.. people really should take the easy way through life~’
——
“Haa~~ This is hard~”
Kanghan, Class 3's Number One.
He had entered the academy carrying the expectations of countless people even before admission.
But he had already run into a difficult obstacle in his very first class.
Magic wasn't his specialty.
He could use a little of a special kind of magic called qigong,
but it felt more like an extension of martial arts.
“So even you find something difficult, Kanghan? I thought you were good at everything..”
Beside him, Helia was rolling blue mana around.
She was clearly doing better than Kanghan, but she still hadn't shaped it into anything especially perfect.
“I hate using my brain like this. My family doesn't even practice magic much. But you're a mage, so why are you so bad at it?”
“I haven't really done this kind of thing much either. It feels so basic..”
“Still.. seeing how everyone's having trouble, I guess you'll be first?”
“Come on.. not many people will have learned magic before coming here. I'll be the fastest.”
Helia said that and looked around.
Sure enough, she could barely see anyone who had made one perfectly.
No.. most of them had managed to clump the mana together,
but the majority couldn't even make a circle.
“The person who really stands out is..”
Helia was saying that when she spotted a strange person.
He seemed somewhat familiar, but she had never seen him before.
“.. What is that person doing..?”
Kanghan also turned his head slightly at Helia's words.
In the place she was looking, there was Bin.
“Isn't that a tennis ball? Why is he bringing something like that to magic class?”
“.. What an unusual person.”
Helia shook her head.
“He must have gotten frustrated after failing so badly that he decided to mess around.”
Kanghan turned his head away again.
He was too preoccupied with his own trouble to have any time to spare for anyone else.
But.. Helia kept sneaking glances at Bin.
‘It seems like there's some strange flow of mana over there..’
Bin was holding the tennis ball and spinning it round and round.
The ball was spinning like a top, and mana was spreading wildly along its flow.
‘.. Wait, what is he doing?’
Bin grinned and grabbed the tennis ball.
Then, while holding it like that, he pulled out a knife.
- Slice. Slice.
He was cutting it extremely carefully.
The people right beside him watched, wondering what on earth he was doing,
but before long, they stopped paying attention.
Helia, however, realized what this bizarre behavior meant.
‘C-crazy! Is he just stuffing mana into an empty ball and cutting it open?’
‘Then, since the inside of the ball is spherical.. the mana that comes out will be spherical too?’
She let go of the sphere of mana she had been making.
That was how shocking Bin's actions were.
No, he was manipulating mana to cast magic.
What use was there in making a circle with some ridiculous method like that?
‘… This has absolutely nothing to do with the intent of the lesson, does it???’
Regardless.
Bin's insane behavior continued.
And when Bin had cut away the ball's entire outer covering,
a beautifully shaped sphere emerged.
…”
Helia stared at him with her mouth hanging open.
No.
This wasn't right.
She couldn't accept a method like that!!
And.
There was one other person watching that scene.
“Pfft.. this is driving me crazy.”
Naia, who always wore a languid and enigmatic expression,
had a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth for the first time in a long while.
Bin's method was that absurd.
He was cramming mana into a ball and simply cutting it open.
But that was merely a fluke.
“How is he going to make a star with a method like that?”
Naia continued watching Bin, even muttering to herself.
Even Naia, who rarely found other people's affairs interesting,
was shocked by what she was seeing.
“.. A set square?”
After finishing the circle, Bin took out two set squares.
When he placed the two set squares together, facing each other, they looked like a star.
It had six points rather than five.
But no matter what anyone said, it did look like a star.
“Could he really just pile mana on top of that?”
That was correct.
Bin began carefully piling mana on top of the rough star shape.
Then he used a wooden board to shave away the mana laid over the rulers.
A star-shaped pillar took shape in an instant,
and anyone could see that with a little more shaving, it would become a perfect star.
- Clap. Clap. Clap.
Naia applauded.
The surrounding students looked toward her at the sudden sound of applause.
“Everyone, you have just witnessed the footsteps of the great mages.”
“Now.. can you see what that student Bin is doing over there?”
Naia stepped down from the podium and walked over to Bin.
Her voice was lively.
It was much higher than when she had begun the lesson.
She sounded excited to anyone who heard her.
“Now! If you look at what Bin is doing here.. he pushed mana into a tennis ball, then cut it open to make a sphere.”
“On top of that.. he overlapped two set squares to make a star shape. Then he stacked mana on it to make a star-shaped pillar?”
“This.. isn't the method I intended. But that doesn't make it an incorrect method, either. I never said you couldn't use other tools. Right?”
“What surprised me even more is that this is a [magic circle] made by the creator of [magic circles] in the most primitive way possible.”
Naia infused the shapes Bin had made with stronger mana.
- Flash!
“If you fire this sphere of mana.. it's [Energy Bolt].”
“If you launch the mana star, it's [Magic Missile].”
“So.. Bin has created the magic circles for two spells through primitive methods.”
“Bin, did you come up with this method yourself?”
Bin stared at Naia, utterly dumbfounded.
What on earth was she talking about?
‘.. I just did this because I wanted to freeload my way through the lesson.’
It was just freeloading.
Yet they mistook him for a genius.