Episode 47
Episode 47
Only then did Thunderstep recall what Professor Garcia had told him last time.
-"Lee Han has an extraordinary amount of mana."
-"Enough for you to say that? How much exactly?"
-"Try drawing a big circle with both arms."
-"Wow. That's quite a level."
-"And that's after subtracting...?"
-"......"
He'd heard the kid had insane amounts of mana, but he never expected it to be this much.
If even after drinking a mana potion he couldn't feel his reserves recovering, there was no need to say more.
"My apologies, Professor."
"...No. It's fine. Anyway, you did well. I'll give you praise. Here! We have a student who's perfectly brewed a potion."
"Wardanaz...!"
"As expected from the Wardanaz family."
Rather than being shocked by Lee Han's performance, the other students reacted with comments like 'Well, it is Wardanaz' or 'Not surprising for a genius of that caliber.'
At their murmuring reactions, Lee Han felt slightly flustered.
'What? Why is the hype so inflated?'
Lee Han was objectively assessing himself.
Lee Han himself was no genius. He'd just rolled around in labs for so long that he was more experi... no, just more accustomed to student life than others.
But being treated like a genius made him somewhat embarrassed.
When did it come to this?
"As expected of Wardanaz. Truly genius."
Ashan, who was transferring a slightly hazy blue potion into a flask, sighed in admiration.
While Ashan's potion was quite decent, the truth was that compared to Lee Han's, its completion level seemed lacking.
"That Siana from the Phoenix Tower made a pretty good potion too, but it's still not as good as yours. Look over there."
"!"
Lee Han turned his gaze.
A snake beastman student in priestly robes was holding a distinctly vivid blue potion.
'The Flemeng Order?'
Yoner had explained it before, so Lee Han recognized it immediately.
The Flemeng Order, a religious organization that worshipped alchemy.
Naturally, the priests of the order were all outstanding alchemists.
So it was only natural that a student named Siana would brew an excellent potion.
Swish—
Siana walked over to Lee Han and Ashan and extended her hand.
"You're from the Wardanaz family, right? Pleased to meet you. I'm Siana."
"Nice to meet you. Feel free to speak casually. I'm Lee Han."
Lee Han took her hand and shook it. Perhaps because she was a snake beastman, her hand was cold and cool.
"I never expected to meet such an outstanding alchemist. Did you learn from the Wardanaz family?"
"Hey. Enough chatter now."
Professor Thunderstep cut in. Unnoticed, the professor had returned to the front of the lecture hall.
"By now, you've all attempted brewing a <Lesser Mana Recovery Potion>. Some of you might have done well even though it was your first time, while others might have fumbled. But don't get too caught up in these results. This is just the beginning of alchemy. Ahead of you lies the vast and mystifying world of alchemy, full of complexity and wonder."
'Professors really do have a talent for killing students' motivation.'
"I'll assign you homework for next week. Brew a <Lesser Spirit Affinity Potion> and bring it. You'll be testing it yourselves with what you've made, so you'd better put some effort into it."
The students diligently scribbled notes with their quills.
Fortunately, Professor Thunderstep provided the recipe for brewing the <Lesser Spirit Affinity Potion>.
At least he didn't tell the freshmen something like 'Figure out the recipe yourselves through research.'
"Professor. There's no Spiritbloom Herb here... Where is it? Is it upstairs?"
Students who couldn't find the ingredient in the shelves and drawers asked in confusion.
Thunderstep echoed their confusion with his own question.
"What are you talking about? You're the ones who have to find it."
"Oh. Is that so? We'll go look for it then."
At Thunderstep's words, the students stood up to search around.
"No. No. Not here."
"??"
"Over there."
Thunderstep pointed out the window.
Beyond the main building, a dense mountain range greeted the students.
"......"
"......"
"You'll have to go and find it. I trust you all remember what I said during the first lecture."
The students' faces twisted with despair and fury.
And Thunderstep wasn't the only professor starting to show his true colors.
The professors at the magic school seemed to be competing over who could assign the most homework, piling on insane amounts of work for each of their classes.
"Take these books, read them, and find at least five logical flaws within them."
"Professor, there aren't enough books. We'll need more if the students are going to share them."
"What nonsense? That's the amount for one person. Lift all the books. More will appear underneath."
"......"
The students were horrified by what looked like at least a dozen books per person.
"Professor, carrying all this is..."
"No need to worry. I've cast a weight-reduction spell for you. Now hurry up and take them."
The <Basic Imperial Language and Logic> lecture left some White Tiger Tower students genuinely on the verge of tears.
"This is a magic circle design proposal I submitted to the empire in my youth. Calculate the total cost based on this document. You don't need the exact answer, but the students with the furthest-off answers will be punished."
Even Ashan, from the imperial chancellor's family, ran his hands through his hair in despair during the <Basic Imperial Geometry and Arithmetic> lecture.
"You shall love and unite with one another. What? You don't want to? Your opinions don't matter. You must love and unite. To that end, I'm assigning you a task. Students from each tower must retrieve the banner hanging in the freshman lounge of the tower I designate by the next class. It's an embroidered banner."
At this point, even the <Basic Magic Character Education> felt more like instigating fights than teaching morals.
With each lecture, the students grew paler.
"How are we supposed to get the White Tiger Tower bastards' banner?"
"Why did it have to be White Tiger Tower? There's no way those guys would listen to reason."
To make matters worse, the Blue Dragon Tower students' target was White Tiger Tower.
If it had been Turtle Tower or Phoenix Tower, they might have negotiated and borrowed the banner peacefully.
But given their bad history with White Tiger Tower, they'd definitely just scoff if asked.
"The White Tiger Tower guys have our banner as their target too. Should we try proposing an exchange?"
"How can we trust them? You've seen the kind of dirty tricks they pull. They're barbarians with no sense of honor."
"I already asked—they flat-out refused."
"Ugh. Let's just drop it. It's a waste of time."
The Blue Dragon Tower students grumbled in frustration.
Assignments should be manageable enough to motivate students—when they're this impossible, people just give up.
Why did it have to be White Tiger Tower?!
'This isn't good.'
Lee Han was taken aback by his friends' defeatist attitude.
No one who casually threw away a course's credits would ever amount to much.
Especially in this magic school—a den of chaos where you never knew which insane lecture might give you insane rewards.
They couldn't afford to give up already.
He wouldn't care if it were just his own grades, but Lee Han was tied to them—he'd lose points too.
"Wait! Don't give up yet!"
"!"
"Wardanaz!"
"Do you have a plan?"
"I knew it. I knew you'd have something."
It took about three seconds for the students' reactions to shift from surprise → curiosity → certainty → blind faith.
Lee Han was speechless at how easily swayed they were.
"What's your idea, Wardanaz?"
"Wait. I think I know."
Ashan smirked confidently and answered for him.
"What is it, Dalkard?"
"He's planning to infiltrate White Tiger Tower in secret. I'd bet 95% odds on it."
"Ooh...!"
"Brilliant! Count me in!"
"Me too! Let's teach those White Tiger Tower bastards a lesson!"
"Wait, what's happening?"
"Instead of begging White Tiger Tower, Wardanaz is saying we should break in and take the banner ourselves!"
"Now that's more like it!"
In no time, the Blue Dragon Tower students had a plan. Then they turned to Lee Han.
"Wardanaz! Lead us."
"There's no one else to lead us but you, who came up with this plan from start to finish!"
"......"
Lee Han opened his mouth to say something but gave up. It was already bothersome enough.
'Well, I suppose we do need to infiltrate the White Tiger Tower.'
Even if Lee Han were a White Tiger Tower student, they probably wouldn't just hand over their flag.
Not after they'd all been subjected to group punishment because of him...
From the start, brute force had been the only option.
"Fine."
"Wardanaz! Wardanaz!"
"Just you wait, White Tiger Tower bastards! We're coming for you!"
'Is this really supposed to help with character education?'
Lee Han began doubting whether the headmaster's lectures actually fostered proper character.
The more they did this, weren't they just deepening the rift of resentment between them?
When evening finally arrived,
Lee Han called Dijiling over and, just like last time, tricked her into eating dinner through underhanded means.
As Dijiling sipped her soup, she noticed Lee Han's oddly satisfied gaze and tilted her head in confusion.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Heheh. It's nothing."
Dijiling briefly wondered if the boy before her was this pleased simply because he'd used clever rhetoric to make her eat dinner.
'Must just be my imagination.'
He was a boy from the honorable Wardanaz family.
Even now, the only reason he'd come to feed her dinner was out of a sense of duty—both as a priest's request and as a promise from a high noble.
There was no way someone like him would grin like a villain over such a trivial matter.
"Fancy meeting you here, Wardanaz. I was just looking for you."
"!"
Siana from the Flemeng Order, whom Lee Han had met in alchemy class, greeted him.
She wasn't alone—students from other towers had gathered as well.
"What's going on?"
"As you know, due to the assignment from alchemy class, we all need to brew a <Lesser Spirit Affinity Potion>, right? Since individual efforts have their limits, I thought we could gather materials together as a group."
"That's a great idea."
Lee Han brightened at the suggestion.
He'd actually considered that exact approach before...
...if only students from other towers weren't so terrified of him.
'Damn it. Is it the priest robes that make them listen? I have priest robes too.'
"Then could you gather the Blue Dragon Tower students and join us? Let's collect materials together."
"Sure. Sounds good."
After finishing the conversation, Lee Han saw Siana off.
The students beside her whispered among themselves as they retreated—things like "We survived," "Did you see his eyes? I thought my heart would stop," and "He was surprisingly polite, though."
Lee Han felt unfairly aggrieved, even though he knew why they acted that way.
When he returned to his seat, Dijiling tilted her head curiously.
"What's wrong?"
"Well... It's about Priest Siana from the Flemeng Order."
"Yeah. We take alchemy class together."
"...It's nothing."
Dijiling clamped her mouth shut after hesitating.
There were two ways to frustrate someone—one was to start speaking and then stop...
'Textbook-level teasing, huh?'
Of course, Lee Han was well aware of how particular priests could be.
She probably didn't want to risk it being seen as unnecessary gossip if the subject wasn't present.
But Lee Han couldn't care less about that.
'Who cares? I'm curious.'
Instead of confronting her directly, he decided to take a roundabout approach.
He took out a Prisinga Order prayer cross and placed it on the rock in front of them.
"?"
Dijiling blinked in confusion.
"Speaking ill of someone behind their back is wrong, but confessing your worries in prayer is perfectly acceptable."
"...Are you seriously trying to play dumb right now...?"
"I think I heard something, but I can't be sure. I'm in the middle of prayer."
"......"
"Last time, I nearly died because White Tiger Tower students ambushed me. If Priest Siana is the type to scheme like that when we head into the mountains together, I might really die this time. But surely the gods will watch over me."
"......"
Dijiling sighed and stood up.
Then she knelt beside Lee Han, bowing her head as if in prayer before the cross.
"Prisinga. These words are not meant to slander or accuse anyone."
"Thanks."
"I think I heard something, but I can't be sure. I'm in the middle of prayer."
"......"
Dijiling had a subtle bite to her words too.