Episode 449
Episode 449
The atmosphere among students studying in a professor's workshop varied greatly from one to another.
Some were warm and close-knit, while others maintained a dry, businesslike environment where everyone simply focused on their tasks.
And Lee Han had no problem with the latter.
'Honestly, even if they're seniors, it's hard to trust Professor Verdus's students.'
Lee Han still vividly remembered Professor Verdus visiting his family home during vacation and acting suspiciously.
If there were seniors among Verdus's students who took after their professor, the number of people poking around during vacations would multiply.
That absolutely could not happen.
"Come this way."
Anpagon led him to the twelfth lecture hall on the west side of the main building's first floor, stacked desks to form makeshift stairs, and then knocked three times on a red carving embedded in the ceiling.
Swoosh—
A hidden passage revealed itself. Lee Han diligently took notes as he watched.
'So there was a place like this.'
"Where is this?"
"My workshop."
Anpagon replied with a yawn. Among the various races, humans weren't particularly known for poor stamina, but they weren't exceptional either.
As such, Anpagon, being human, couldn't help but feel exhausted from overwork.
Lee Han pulled out a thermos filled with coffee from his bag and handed it over. Anpagon accepted it with a brief word of thanks.
And then felt puzzled.
'...How does a first-year have coffee?'
"You work in a workshop instead of a private room."
"Yeah."
By their second or third year, most Einrogard students scoured the school to set up their own workshops.
Because...
"First-years can practice in their dorm rooms, sure. But..."
"Soon enough, the scale becomes too large to practice in a dorm room."
"!"
Anpagon glanced at Lee Han with slight surprise.
He hadn't expected a first-year junior to know this already.
"Right. How did you know?"
"Ah. Well..."
Lee Han recalled the spells he had practiced.
The countless Skeleton Warriors.
The Lightning and Fire Elements, along with other destructive elements that wrecked the surroundings.
Not to mention the dangerously volatile reagents and spells from other schools of magic.
Frankly, there were too many things that were a bit... much to practice in a dorm room.
A single mistake could turn the lounge into chaos.
"...I've also felt inconvenienced while practicing magic and had to find a new place."
Anpagon mentally raised his evaluation of the junior.
As expected of someone the Skeleton Principal had personally assigned—even as a first-year, his progress seemed quite advanced.
"Can you handle second-circle spells?"
"Huh? Uh. Yeah."
'He knows how, but he's not confident yet.'
But that didn't matter.
Just being able to handle second-circle magic as a first-year was impressive enough.
Most of the work would fall on Anpagon anyway—he wasn't foolish enough to dump everything on a first-year junior.
"Here. This spot."
Anpagon stopped at the entrance of the workshop, which resembled an attic.
Then, he pulled out a long coat hanging on the nearby wall—a full-body cloak with an attached hood.
"Put this on."
"What is this?"
"Protective gear. It prevents accidents that might occur during artifact crafting."
"Ah. Do upperclassmen wear these during lectures?"
Lower years didn't need them since the risk was minimal, but as artifact complexity increased, so did the amount of mana and the danger of the spells involved.
Wearing such equipment during work wasn't surprising.
"No. We made these ourselves. The professors usually say, 'Why would you need this? Just don't make mistakes.'"
"......"
In Lee Han's mind, he could hear Professor Verdus's voice, innocently asking, 'Why would you need this? Just don't mess up!'
"Take a seat."
"Yes."
Anpagon took out crates filled with reagents and tools, lining them up on the table before turning on the attic light.
The makeshift lantern, crafted by engraving a magic circle onto a magic stone, flickered weakly before dying out.
Anpagon clicked his tongue in disapproval.
"It's reached the end of its lifespan. I should work on this first..."
"I'll do it."
"Are you sure?"
While conserving mana was necessary considering the tasks ahead, Anpagon was concerned whether a first-year junior could properly engrave a new magic circle onto a magic stone.
Though the <Light Enchantment> spell was relatively low in difficulty, it was a different story for a first-year.
Moreover, the makeshift lantern Anpagon had made was small, meaning the magic stone embedded in it was equally tiny.
Naturally, engraving a magic circle onto something so small would be even more challenging.
"Light, arise!"
"......"
Yet instead of holding the magic stone and engraving a new circle, Lee Han simply summoned a sphere of light inside the lantern.
Anpagon was speechless.
'Seriously...'
Fundamentally, Anpagon—and indeed, all of Professor Verdus's disciples—were among the least sociable individuals even within Einrogard.
As such, he had no idea how to respond when a first-year junior made such an adorable mistake.
Summoning a light sphere directly would last, at best, a few minutes...
'...Pointing it out is too bothersome. I'll just redo it myself once it fades.'
Rather than wasting time now, Anpagon decided he would simply redo the work himself once the light sphere dissipated.
"The exam shouldn't be too difficult."
Calling it "creating an exam" might sound grand, but it wasn't as hard as one might think.
After all, it wasn't a test of creating something from nothing.
As a third-year student, Anpagon still remembered the exams he had taken in his first and second years, and this exam would simply reuse one of those.
The only hassle was the preparation.
"See this artifact?"
Anpagon pulled out a small metal rod artifact.
With a single swing, the tip of the rod glowed white-hot and spat out flames. It was an artifact from the Flame Creation series.
"Yes."
"Now, this thing—"
BANG!
Anpagon swung the rod and slammed it into the wall, bending it slightly in the middle.
"—this is how you break it. Do you know why we're breaking it?"
"For repairs?"
Anpagon grinned, baring his teeth.
Living as an Enchantment Magic student in Einrogard meant fewer occasions to smile, so this felt like the first time in a while.
"Correct. The repair is the exam."
A skilled Enchantment mage needed to know not just how to create artifacts but also how to repair those made by others.
One might assume creation was always harder than repair, but repairs came with their own unique challenges.
Since the artifact was made by someone else, the first step was figuring out how it functioned in the first place.
And that was trickier than expected.
Even artifacts with the same effect could be made in wildly different ways by different mages.
Some prioritized stability, reinforcing the durability of the mana circuits in the magic circle, while others favored firepower, pushing the limits of the mana output.
And then there were those who ignored efficiency entirely, dumping massive amounts of mana into their creations as if showing off...
Understanding these nuances and pinpointing exactly what needed fixing made repairs a challenge in ways that creation wasn't.
"To break it, we first need an artifact."
"I'll make it."
"No. I'll make it."
Once again, Anpagon found this junior a little odd.
Who in their right mind would assign this to a first-year?
"You just need to inspect it."
"Are you really sure about that!?"
Lee Han was startled.
Anpagon answered, baffled.
"Of course I'm sure."
"Understood."
"There are pre-made artifacts in that chest over there. Start by checking those first."
"Yes."
Lee Han opened the chest and began taking out the artifacts one by one.
Meanwhile, An Pagong picked up his tools and started crafting additional artifacts.
Given the sheer number of students, even if they started now, they might have to work through the night to finish everything by today.
Click, clack, clatter!
Thud, thud, thud—
For a while, the attic was silent.
No words were exchanged—only the sounds of their work echoed through the space.
"Um. Senior."
"What."
An Pagong turned his head, his voice tinged with slight irritation.
He had thought this junior was exceptional, but was he really calling him over because he couldn't even handle artifact verification?
'He better not have been bribed by the Skeleton Principal.'
"I've finished."
"......"
An Pagong blinked.
At first, he thought his junior might be lying, but the residual mana traces on the artifacts clearly showed that Lee Han had indeed tested each one.
"Al... already?"
"Yes. Should I help with the crafting now?"
"...Fine."
An Pagong handed the tools to Lee Han.
At this point, he was genuinely curious to see what this junior was capable of.
"See this magic circle pattern here? Complete the mana flow and activate it."
"Yes."
Upon inspection, the amplification and maintenance circuits were missing.
Since these were just test artifacts rather than permanent ones, Lee Han boldly removed the maintenance section altogether.
Then, he overcharged the mana to activate the magic circle's pattern.
"Done."
"???"
Less than ten seconds after Lee Han spoke, An Pagong turned his head in shock upon hearing that the artifact was already activated.
"Already?"
"Yes."
To his astonishment, the artifact was indeed functioning.
An Pagong was startled when he saw the pattern Lee Han had modified.
Instead of constructing a complex circuit, he had stripped away unnecessary parts and replaced them with raw mana.
This was the kind of work only a professor—confident in both the quantity and quality of their mana, as well as their control—would attempt.
What was even more surprising was that there was no noticeable distortion or cracking around the pattern.
Inexperienced mages often failed to account for the side effects of such modifications, ruining the artifact even if they completed the magic circle. Yet this junior showed none of those flaws.
It was as if he had repeated this exact process hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
An Pagong bent his head lower and lower, inspecting the artifact repeatedly as if he might bury his face in it.
Then he glanced around suspiciously.
"Are you looking for something?"
"No. Nothing."
For a moment, An Pagong wondered if the Skeleton Principal was hiding nearby, playing a trick on him.
Ever since An Pagong had secured a large budget for an experiment, the Headmaster had scolded him every time they crossed paths.
"Well, if it isn't An Pagong, Einrogard's Golden Extortionist! After swindling my gold last time, you still haven't produced any results?"
"......"
"What? Want to take more? Didn't you secretly submit a research proposal to His Majesty the Emperor last time too? Begging to use the gold from my secret vault!"
"...My apologies..."
But the Skeleton Principal was nowhere to be seen.
An Pagong had no choice but to accept that this junior had genuinely crafted it himself.
'This is truly astonishing.'
Students studying Enchantment Magic rarely paid much attention to one another.
An Pagong himself didn't particularly care what the new second-year juniors were interested in or what they were making.
What mattered was his own projects—not those of seniors or juniors.
But this junior had forcibly grabbed his attention.
"How is it?"
"Excellent. But..."
"?"
"We can't use this."
"Huh? Did I make a mistake somewhere?"
An Pagong nodded.
"If it's made like this, it won't break."
"......"
Magic circle patterns and circuits were more prone to malfunction the more complex and intricate they were.
By simplifying and reinforcing the structure as Lee Han had, it became nearly impossible to induce a failure.
Since they needed artifacts that would malfunction, they had to make them less durable.
"I-I see. My oversight. As expected of you, Senior."
"...Is this really something I should be praised for?"
An Pagong asked back, genuinely baffled.
If anything, the praise should have gone to the junior for what he had just made...