One Look Was All It Took
My hand tightened involuntarily around the doorknob. Cold sweat trickled down my spine. It was over. This time, it was truly the end.
Yesterday, at least it had only been her. But today she had dragged the chief examiner of the kingdom’s Magic Academy along with her. I could almost hear the sound of my peaceful reclusive life collapsing around me.
I took a deep breath and slowly opened the door.
“Master! I’m here!”
The moment the door opened, Elysia greeted me with a bright smile. The desperate girl from yesterday was nowhere to be found; her eyes sparkled like jewels.
“I don’t recall ever becoming your master......”
“I hadn’t been acknowledged as your disciple yet, so I planned to call you that only in my heart... but it slipped out before I knew it.”
Elysia clasped her hands together. “I’m sorry, Master!”
Her face didn’t look sorry in the slightest. I pressed a hand to my throbbing temple and shifted my gaze sideways.
There stood a middle-aged man with neatly combed hair and sharp eyes. Leonhardt Beil—one of the five strongest mages in the kingdom and chief examiner of the Magic Academy—was staring straight through me.
“Pardon the intrusion. You must be startled by this sudden visit.”
Leonhardt bowed his head with perfect courtesy. His eyes, however, were another matter. They gleamed as though they refused to miss even the slightest twitch of my fingertips or a single breath.
“It’s fine. I was just about to send a reply declining the professorship anyway. You may return as you came.”
“I would like a brief word, if possible. There are many questions I wish to ask you about the magic Elysia demonstrated.”
He showed no intention of retreating. If I closed the door on him now, the principal himself might show up tomorrow. The thought alone was horrifying. In the end, I let out a sigh and gestured him inside.
“...Come in. We’ll only talk. Nothing more.”
The moment Leonhardt stepped into the cottage, he froze. His eyes slowly swept across the shabby dining table, the half-eaten potato soup, and the pile of firewood tossed carelessly in the corner. Whatever he had expected, it clearly had not been this.
I pointed to an old chair.
“Have a seat. I have no tea. The only thing I can offer is plain water.”
I set a wooden cup filled with lukewarm water on the table with a dull thud. Elysia sat down beside me as naturally as if she owned the place.
“Why are you sitting here? Go over there.”
“This spot is most comfortable. I can feel Master’s mana the strongest here.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Leonhardt watched the exchange with keen interest. The genius of the Rowen family—the girl hailed as a prodigy—was practically wagging her tail like a puppy beside a countryside recluse. It must have looked utterly bizarre.
Is this truly a master-disciple relationship? Or is it all in the girl’s head?
His gaze clouded with suspicion. He drew a scroll from his robe and spread it smoothly across the table.
“Let us speak plainly. This is one of the problems twelve academy professors have labored over for more than half a year without success. We failed to raise its efficiency by even a single percent.”
I scanned the unfolded formula. The mana pathways were tangled like a maze without exits, the lines twisted in a dizzying mess.
“Our ultimate goal is to increase efficiency by more than twenty percent. I would like to hear your thoughts.”
This was no casual conversation. It was an outright test. He wanted to see for himself whether I truly possessed the ability to teach Elysia.
The moment I saw the formula, I frowned. Not because it was complex—because it was so strangely crude. There were far too many unnecessary embellishments. The core essence had been buried beneath bloated, forced additions.
“No. Why are you showing me something like this?”
“Master, please just look at it once. My head nearly burst when I first saw it too.”
Elysia tugged at my sleeve from the side. I firmly pulled her hand away and looked back down at the formula.
Just once. I’ll point out a couple things and they won’t bother me again.
I picked up a quill and tapped several spots.
“Why are the academy people so fixated on this?”
Leonhardt’s eyebrows twitched.
“What do you mean by that?”
“This part, this one, and here.” I indicated three points with the quill’s tip. “These have zero effect on the actual flow. They’re just decorative flourishes forced in to make the formula look more complicated and impressive. Why waste time trying to interpret them?”
I slashed through the two unnecessary sections in a single stroke. Leonhardt’s face went deathly pale. Those were the exact points the academy professors had spent sleepless nights debating as the most critical variables.
“Wait—that linkage is the axis maintaining the entire formula’s balance. Removing it recklessly will cause the mana flow to collapse.”
“You created the formula to let mana flow, so why are you blocking the entrance so tightly? Cut out this connection and it will flow on its own.”
I pointed at the center of the core circle. It wasn’t profound insight. It was the instinctive understanding of someone like me—someone who had always lacked mana and therefore obsessed over efficiency simply to survive. Use less. Draw out more. That was how we lived.
Leonhardt stared blankly at the lines I had crossed out.
“...Are you saying we were obstructing the flow?”
“Exactly. You tried to control it so perfectly that you sealed every breathing hole. Mana is like a river. Force it into a container and it stagnates, then bursts. Just open paths for it to flow naturally.”
I genuinely couldn’t understand it. Why did these so-called geniuses always complicate everything? Probably because they had never truly failed. Someone like me—who had blown up countless spells—could smell exactly where and how a formula would explode.
“If what you say is true, can you demonstrate it yourself?”
Leonhardt’s voice trembled faintly.
“No. It’s troublesome.”
“Master, I want to see it too! Please!”
With Elysia’s sparkling eyes joining the plea, refusing became even harder. In the end I stood, gathering mana at my fingertips, and lightly traced the revised formula in the air. I had boldly stripped away all unnecessary decoration, leaving only a concise structure that emphasized flow.
When the formula activated, a soft blue light began to circulate. It looked successful. But in that instant—
Kwaaaaaang—!
The mana suddenly swelled and went berserk. The entire cottage shook violently as though struck by an earthquake.
“It’s dangerous! Stand back!”
Leonhardt turned ashen and hurriedly cast a defensive spell. Elysia leapt up from her chair in alarm. But I simply watched the rampaging mana. The point where it had tangled. The cause of the sudden outburst. It was a sight as familiar to me as breathing.
“Ah. I forgot to calculate the output.”
I lightly touched the center of the rampaging mana with a fingertip. Then, with the smallest twist, I unraveled the knot of tangled power.
Whoooosh—.
The wildly thrashing mana subsided as if it had never been out of control. Where the explosion had threatened, only a gentle blue light remained. The completed formula glowed quietly, maintaining perfect balance.
Leonhardt stood with his mouth half open, speechless. His expression showed he could not process what he had just witnessed. Far from fearing the berserk mana, I had subdued it with a single finger as casually as soothing a sulking child.
The academy professors had spent months obsessing over structural perfection. But I had looked at the flow instead. Leonhardt finally understood that they had missed something enormous.
“The formula we struggled with for half a year... solved so easily......” Leonhardt muttered.
He turned to Elysia.
“Elysia, since when have you called that man your master?”
His voice no longer held any trace of suspicion—only a heavy reverence that had not been there before.
Elysia answered without hesitation.
“Since the day he saved my life.”
I took a sip of the plain water in the wooden cup and listened quietly. I had never saved her life, yet the girl’s exaggerations were growing worse by the minute.
“Everyone told me to give up. That my talent had crumbled and I should live an ordinary life. I even heard the terrible words that I was a disgrace to the Rowen family.”
Elysia’s voice sank low.
“But Master alone told me it wasn’t so. He saw instantly that my problem wasn’t a lack of talent.”
No, it was simply that you had sealed your magic circle too tightly. It was the kind of mistake anyone would notice after blowing up a spell once or twice.
“That is why he is my one and only master. When the entire world denied me, he alone showed me the correct answer.”
Elysia turned to me with a radiant smile.
“I will definitely earn his acknowledgment one day. Even if I am rejected a hundred times, I will never give up. No matter where Master hides, I will find him to the end.”
I really wish you would give up. But those sparkling eyes told me it would be impossible for the foreseeable future.
Leonhardt looked at me again. His posture had become far more respectful than before.
“Are you truly uninterested in the academy professorship? A talent like yours rotting away in a remote corner like this is too great a waste.”
“I decline.”
“Then what about a consultant position? You would not need to attend in person—occasional advice by letter would suffice.”
“No.”
“Special research fellow...”
“Not happening.”
I cut him off sharply. Leonhardt asked again, visibly frustrated.
“Why do you refuse so strongly? We promised to guarantee whatever honor and wealth you desire.”
I answered calmly.
“It would require me to work. I retired because I wanted to rest. What would be the point of taking another job?”
A heavy silence descended. Leonhardt remained speechless for a long moment. In his mind, my words were being reassembled into an entirely different meaning.
Well, of course. To someone who has reached such heights, an academy professorship would be nothing more than a bothersome chore. He is not the sort of person who can be bound by shallow wealth and honor.
The moment I saw his expression, a sense of foreboding washed over me. That was definitely not the face of someone who had understood me correctly.
When I glanced sideways, Elysia was clutching her hands to her chest and gazing up at me with shining eyes.
To reject even the academy’s extraordinary offer so decisively... It means my skills are still far too inadequate to stand beside Master! I must train even harder!
Stop it. Please stop looking at me with those sparkling eyes.
I swear—truly, honestly—I just want to laze around and do nothing.
“...Anyway, I’m not doing it.”
I hastily ended the conversation. If I let it continue, this uncontrollable misunderstanding would swell beyond repair.
Inside the carriage returning to the Magic Academy, Elysia pulled an old wooden cup from her belongings. It was the very cup that had held the plain water earlier. She gently stroked its rim with her fingertips.
“Next time I will definitely earn his acknowledgment, Master.”
Leonhardt, seated across from her, said nothing about her strange behavior. He was lost in deep thought.
He could not deny it. That man was different from ordinary mages. His bizarre insight that shattered common sense and his terrifying mana control were undeniable. Yet certainty still eluded him. Would the man become a blessing to the kingdom, or a disaster that devoured everything?
Leonhardt struggled to maintain the cold judgment of a verifier. But he already knew the truth: he had moved far closer to the side that wanted to believe in the man than the side that suspected him.
At the same time, in the principal’s office of the Magic Academy.
The principal remained silent for a long time after hearing Leonhardt’s report. He gazed out the window and murmured quietly.
“We are too late.”
“What do you mean, Principal?”
“It means that if he possesses such absurd talent, there is no chance our academy was the only one to catch his scent.”
On the wide desk sat two unopened sealed letters side by side. One bore the seal of the Magic Tower’s highest echelon. The other carried the emblem of the kingdom’s most prestigious family.
The scale of the game had grown. This was no longer a recruitment battle a mere academy could handle.