Academy Entrance Exam (6) — Mana Regression
After driving out the teacher who had been proctoring the exam, Loralyn stepped up onto the slightly elevated platform and called out to the examinees in a clear, carrying voice.
"From this point forward, I am your written-exam proctor. Simply follow my instructions."
The examination hall erupted into a buzz at her sudden appearance.
"All right, everyone — silence."
And just like that, the commotion settled with a single word from her.
"I am Loralyn, professor of the Magic Department. There was a brief disturbance due to an issue with the previous proctor, but for the sake of proceeding with the exam without delay, I ask that you remain quietly in your seats."
The examinees gazed up at the woman who had just introduced herself as a Magic Department professor with nothing short of open admiration.
The Imperial Academy was not limited to the Magic Department alone, but the Empire itself had secured its superiority over other nations precisely through the advancement of magic. In an Empire where the class divide between commoner and noble was absolute, the one path that could overturn that difference was to enter the Academy's Magic Department and rise through its ranks. And at the very end of that tech tree sat the Magic Department professors — the absolute top of the magical hierarchy. Admiring them was only natural.
That said, becoming a professor was nearly impossible. No — even for a commoner to simply enroll in the Magic Department was a formidable challenge, given how much early childhood training influenced magical growth beyond raw talent alone.
A rigid class system, huh… Even as I thought that, Louise came to mind — our young lady. Fallen nobility or not, the way she was treated made the whole system look like little more than convenient hypocrisy.
Loralyn glanced at her watch and addressed the students.
"The exam will begin shortly. Remain quiet, and do not leave your seats."
Not long after her words, a bell rang out through the hall.
"We will now begin the third subject examination. Each examinee, please check the paper placed beneath your desk."
Paper?
Following her instruction, I reached into the space under my desk and felt something catch against my fingers.
This is… paper?
Not the parchment made from monster hide that was commonly used, but high-quality paper that took ink beautifully. As expected of the Imperial Academy, I suppose. The Kingdom's Academy had written exams as well, of course, but every single test sheet there had been parchment crafted from the hide of large monsters. Parchment wasn't exactly cheap either, but—
As I was thinking that, text appeared across the blank sheet as if responding to the bell.
So this is how they do it. I had assumed it was just paper for writing out solutions, but seeing it with my own eyes made it unmistakably clear just how many times more advanced the Empire was than the Kingdom.
The examinees around me, having already sat through the first and second subjects, began reading the problems as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I had known the Empire's magical scholarship was advanced, but I hadn't expected it to excite me from the very first moment.
My heart was pounding.
As I slowly looked over the problems with that thought in mind, Professor Loralyn spoke to me.
"Is something the matter?"
"No, I'm fine. I'm just a little excited."
She smiled at my answer, as if finding it unexpected, and murmured under her breath.
"Excited, is it… How interesting."
Well then, let's take a proper look at how this is structured. I flipped through the pages, examining the problems one by one.
Ten questions in total… Most of them were magical formula problems using Imperial-style incantations. Every single one was a form of equation I had never seen before.
My own fundamental mana reserves were so meager that I couldn't put such things to practical use — but my master had always insisted that knowledge itself was power. That was why, from childhood, I had drilled the fundamentals of mana manipulation into my bones, from pure theory all the way through practical application.
In the end, a magical formula was nothing more than a methodology — a question of how to combine mana in order to handle it more efficiently. The methods might differ, but they were all saying the same thing. And so, whatever else the written exam might throw at me, the magical formula problems at least all looked easy.
Not that they were below standard… but even the Empire's problems seemed a little insufficient to truly excite me.
Is this really all there is…
I was flipping through the pages with a look of disappointment when one problem caught my eye.
There was no mistaking it. This was the hard problem — the structure of the formula refused to resolve itself at a glance.
My heart started racing again. This was interesting.
My score on this exam was irrelevant to me anyway. I had only been curious about the Empire's hard problems, so I carefully began working through it.
Watching me, Loralyn passed by my side with an intrigued expression, murmuring to herself.
"Oh… challenging the hard problem, are we? What a novel approach. Wrong, though."
What the hell is this woman on about? I'm right. Why is she walking up to a perfectly functional examinee and spouting demoralizing nonsense?
I ignored her and returned to the magical formula, but a hard problem was a hard problem after all. It wouldn't yield easily.
Of course it wouldn't. It was a hard problem precisely because even multiple scholars working together couldn't solve it. The point was never to produce an answer in the first place — it was about how one approached it. Difficulty was only natural…
But the deeper I went into interpreting the formula, the stronger the sense of déjà vu became. I had heard that the Empire's hard problem changed every year. So this should have been the first time I was seeing it…
I've felt this before. I'm certain of it…
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I found myself plunging into the hard problem with mad intensity, writing out formulas in a frenzy.
And then, before long, what appeared was no longer a magical formula at all — but a pattern composed of lines and strange geometric shapes.
This wasn't just some pattern. It was writing. Writing I knew far too well.
Mana Regression Formula — %$!p
Hangul. Crystal clear. The very script I had known and used in my previous life.
A searing headache hit me, and my vision began to blur.
Through a field of sight clouded like black fog, a place I had never seen before — yet one that carried a strangely familiar sense of déjà vu — came into view.
This is… the Imperial Academy…?
A sound filtered through like static, too garbled to make out.
"…leave… here…. next time… lose… need… formula…"
I couldn't understand any of it. Lose mana…?
What was certain, once again, was that the voice was not someone else's. It was unmistakably my own.
With another surge of blinding pain, the scenery of reality began to reassert itself.
"Hah… hah…"
The examinees were still working through their problems. Nothing about the scene had changed. A few nearby students merely shot irritated glances my way at the sound of my breathing.
On the paper before me, the Hangul I had clearly written with my own hand was gone.
What the hell just happened…?
Loralyn looked at me as I gasped through the headache and asked,
"You don't look well. Are you all right?"
"My apologies… I'm fine."
Hearing my answer, she started back toward the platform — then her eyes fell on the formula written across my paper. They widened slightly in surprise before she quietly murmured to herself.
"Is that so. Oh… what an interesting solution."
What she had seen on the paper was no answer — only the working-out of the formula remained.
As I steadied my breathing and calmed down, I noticed a status window floating before my eyes.
It showed up again without being called… so it's that, then?
Magic Resistance: Mana Circulation
Mana Binding Release. Mana (Status) — Partial Regression.
So it was this again, just as I thought. Exactly as expected — the Lord of Darkness count had risen to 2/100.
So devouring people wasn't the trigger after all? I had been planning to put that bitch Celine in the 2/100 slot. A shame it didn't work out that way.
I'll have to put her in at 3/100, then…
More striking than that, though, was the change that stood out most of all — mana had appeared on the status window. Something that should have always been there, yet never was.
I had written it off as simply being born with effectively no mana at all… but honestly, the fact that mana had appeared meant I was several steps closer to my revenge. I was more confident in my ability to handle mana than anyone. But mana of 10…
Water was a natural-attribute skill and such a low-grade one that it could be used without any cost… but a value of 10 was disappointing. It wasn't as though I would have been practicing something like Water in the first place.
The phrase "Partial Regression" nagged at me. Partial… meaning if I fulfill some condition, I can increase it further…?
From solving the hard problem to mana appearing on my status window — everything that had happened was nearly impossible to make sense of.
But no matter how little of it there was, the fact that I now had mana was a stroke of luck. I could put it to use in any number of ways…
…
Right now, only one thing was certain. Like it or not, once I threw some more feed to the Lord of Darkness, I would find out soon enough.