Troublemakers and Geniuses Have Different Tastes
"Hmm. Did I underestimate her too much?"
He adjusted his glasses.
"She seems to have some talent, but that's not enough to shake me off..."
"Gyaaaack! Monster!!!"
I screamed at the top of my lungs and bolted.
The flustered middle-aged man yelled after me.
"I'm not a monster!"
"A monster preying on a little girl!!!"
"That's even weirder!!"
"What are you gonna do tying me up like this?! You monster!!"
"I have no intentions!!"
"A monster with no intentions!! Gyaaaack!!!"
"...She won't listen to reason."
I ran at full speed.
A monster would be better!
Turning into a girl was bad enough—I didn't want any funny business on top of that!
But from what I'd seen earlier, that net's range was pretty wide.
"Bind."
He swung his staff again and intoned.
Thinking it was the same trick, I tried to find the mana convergence point once more.
...It's not there!
It was much neater, much faster, but there was no mana convergence point!
Or rather, it was all jumbled up in a mess!
I instinctively realized: I can't block that.
Still, I sent out my mana, but it all bounced right off.
The net spread across the sky plummeted down and engulfed me.
"Uwaaaack! I'm gonna get weirded out!!"
Thud, thud. I heard his footsteps approaching.
"Impressive talent."
I heard him mutter in a low, gravelly voice.
"But know this: talent alone cannot defeat this Karnaroff."
He came right up to my feet.
I couldn't resist. The net had me bound tight.
No way I could break free with my strength.
But what if he only had binding spells and nothing else...
"In code, sleep."
"How many... abilities do you... have..."
I thought he was just some random mob at the gate...
He's way too strong...
With that thought, my consciousness faded.
Meeting room.
Professors from phenomenology, potionology, biology, medicine, astrology, and more—the top experts in their fields—had gathered.
At the head seat sat the white-haired principal.
And Karnaroff.
The very man who'd restrained that outsider girl earlier.
He'd reported to the principal that she was an outsider.
"...She's not on the student roster."
"Indeed. Precisely at the very bottom, just added."
The entrance ceremony was already over, and the semester had just begun.
Reinhardt Magic School's student roster.
It automatically registers any talented student of age.
So they accept all of them.
Then they draw a thick blue line at the bottom to mark the year.
Beneath that bold blue line, the name [Yumia] was written.
[Yumia]
Karnaroff looked annoyed.
He knew what this meant.
A surprise transfer student.
"Now we must decide whether to accept her."
Reinhardt Magic School's duty.
If a child has talent, accept them and let them learn.
That was the principle, barring special circumstances.
Karnaroff knew it well.
But he opposed it first.
"Absolutely not! A half-baked mage enrolling?!"
"Didn't you just say she disrupted your spell?"
"That was just a probing match to gauge her!"
"And yet you used proper magic. She scattered it with raw mana control, no theory involved. That proves her aptitude. You know how absurd that is."
Karnaroff didn't like her much.
Disassembling his spell was definitely a plus.
Even an unencrypted ultra-short incantation requires precise mana control—impossible otherwise.
But her attitude was the issue.
The way she spoke, and she seemed utterly uninterested in magic to begin with.
Someone like that would just muddy the waters.
She probably relied solely on talent, without building any foundational framework.
All the arrogant geniuses he'd seen were like that.
They scorned theory, prioritizing talent and intuition.
They slacked on practice and didn't hone their scholarship.
Not one escaped being surpassed by him.
"She could become a troublemaker. Especially as a foreigner, not an imperial citizen."
"Eh, one or two brats are fine. Wouldn't it be fun?"
Principal Patsteman looked around at the other professors.
"Well, why not? We welcome oddballs. They often take more interest in studies that way."
Potionology professor Isabel cast her vote in favor.
"I oppose. Even with great aptitude, once accepted, she's our student. More responsibilities..."
Medical professor Celine voted against.
More patients meant more work.
The other professors voted variously, resulting in a split.
But they weren't too serious about it.
One extra student wouldn't burden their workloads much.
"Well, we threw her into the dorm exam, so let's see how she does. Karnaroff, aren't you a proctor now too?"
"What's there to see?"
I finally figured out what this place was.
Incredibly, it was Reinhardt Magic School…!
And even more shocking: you could learn magic here…!
...What bullshit is this?
But it seemed legit from what I'd seen.
So I interpreted it my way.
I heard the Tower has something similar.
The Tower has themed floors per level.
Not just combat—some require quest-solving genres.
And people get rare traits or abilities from them.
If I could use magic here too...
If this was a 'themed' gate, the opportunity would come that way.
...Got it. This gate's core!
Do well here, and it'd help with enrollment.
Get the opportunity called magic and escape.
That became my first goal.
Dorm exam.
Performance determines dorm position and room.
But unlike the other kids, mine could decide enrollment.
If it flops, I bail.
On the way to the exam hall, I asked about the forest I'd come from.
Surprisingly, they answered.
This world might not be so harsh after all.
[Practical Exam Hall]
I stood in one of the lines of robed kids.
Kids entered the black room and came out in under three minutes.
About a dozen such lines.
"How's it work?"
I quietly asked the kid in front.
"...What, you don't even know that?"
"Tell me."
The kid sighed and explained roughly.
"Just redirect the incoming mana the opposite way or scatter it in multiple directions."
"That's it?"
"'That's it'? Knowing how to move mana is the start of magic!"
"So what can you do with it?"
"Hmm... You can cast spells... And if you're super skilled, disrupt incomplete magic to collapse it! ...Ah! You broke my focus! If I mess up, it's your fault!"
The kid adjusted their glasses and darted into the black room.
I waited my turn, thinking.
...Similar to that thing earlier?
Practical seemed doable anyway.
I somehow passed the practical.
Remembering that sensation, I scattered mana as instructed.
Similar to what I'd done outside this gate or whatever—easy.
The written exam began.
Honestly, not sure if I even passed practical properly.
The proctor was that prickly-looking professor from before.
Sleepiness hit.
Since this body, I needed eight hours or I got drowsy.
Probably from my habit of sleeping a lot.
I could fight it, but why bother?
Just sleep.
Sleeping six hours a day before was the weird phase.
How does anyone live on six hours?
But... optics...
Super awkward.
Face-planting now would label me a troublemaker to the other students.
Practical felt iffy too... Too bad and there might be penalties.
I checked for solvable problems...
[Basic Mathematics (30 points) - Reinhardt Faculty]
What the—math?
I graduated Korean high school in the sciences.
Sure, fashion science memorizing formulas, but still sciences.
Middle school math and basic high school stuff.
Piece of cake.
No proofs, so formula plug-and-chug time.
Easy multiplication tables and arithmetic? Done.
Examples given, so slight variations no issue.
Geometry? Pythagoras carries.
Tough calculus? Derivative formulas and L'Hôpital's rule.
In under ten minutes, I solved every basic math problem.
Problems flowed, sleepiness gone!
This pace? Written top score no sweat!
Thinking back, practical went okay too!
Gate or not, good is good!
I grinned ear-to-ear and flipped the page.
Next section.
"Gack."
[Magic Mathematics - Ivan G. Karnaroff (70 points)]
Magic circles everywhere.
Insanely complex equations.
Letters I'd never seen.
Sleepiness... crashing...
I glanced at the proctor ahead: Karnaroff.
Uh-heh...
This should... do...
Flashed a surrendering smile and slammed my head on the desk.
As a proctor, Karnaroff entered and, shortly after the exam started, retracted several low evaluations of Yumia.
She has framework. The opposite, even.
The front math problems were similar formats with swapped numbers.
He usually left them to new instructors.
But students overlooked arithmetic and geometry basics, so few solved properly.
Even with examples.
And few solved that fast.
Solutions neat; several times faster than peers.
Even methods he hadn't spotted.
Each problem she solved forced him to admit: This one's a genius.
And he grew expectant.
Maybe she'd solve his magic equations too.
Even one would do.
Any approach would pass.
Topping the others for first place.
If so, he'd drop all prejudices.
More: recruiting such computational talent as a research student?
Family's secrets would unlock faster.
Come on. Crack my challenge, claim top score...
But Yumia's face suddenly weirded out.
She started acting bizarre.
Flipping, opening, folding the paper.
...What?
Karnaroff stayed composed amid confusion.
Soon she checked the front last, smiled brightly at him.
Then face-planted.
He couldn't process it.
After some measures, concluding she was just sleeping—
Veins bulged on Karnaroff's face.
"Kuh, kuhehehe. Kuhehehehe... I see."
He understood her smile.
Some formulas she used—he didn't know them.
So she declared: no more showing off.
No one solved magic problems properly.
He gave points for valid or novel approaches.
One solve? Written top.
Overall top even.
Reinhardt: empire's top school.
Top honor unimaginable.
But she kicked it away and mocked him.
Karnaroff chuckled quietly.
"Prepare yourself. My tuition is rather steep."