Episode 681
Episode 681
Since it was clearly his own doing, Lee Han handled the countless handshake requests he received all by himself.
"Are you an Einrogard student?"
"Yes."
"Are you a third-year?"
"No."
At Lee Han's answer, people nodded knowingly.
Then he must be a fourth-year!
Only after listening to several mages introduce themselves and receiving invitations to collaborate on research did Lee Han finally manage to sit back down.
Suddenly remembering something, Diret asked,
"Wait. Where's Yukveltire?"
"Professor Verdus... I mean, Senior Yukveltire—why are you looking for him?"
'Did I almost say Professor Verdus just now?'
Diret was slightly bothered, but since that wasn't important, he let it slide.
"If you'd seen him just now, you could've proven how smart you are. Where is he? You must've seen him."
"Um... He's over there preparing, but I don't think you'd have noticed him."
Lee Han spotted the senior talking with a few other mages in a corner and answered.
The senior was a typical Professor Verdus-type mage—completely absorbed in his own magic, oblivious to whatever presentation was happening behind him.
"Ah, seriously!"
Diret sighed in frustration.
Unlike Coholti, this junior had a perfect opportunity to prove he was genuinely clever!
"I'm fine, Senior Diret."
"Well, I'm not!"
Diret glared at his oblivious junior, who'd been making tactless remarks all this time.
"Now that I think about it, this is infuriating. Junior, even if they tell you to stay put at school, you dive headfirst into every absurd situation imaginable."
"It's not that extreme..."
Lee Han tried to argue that it was never intentional, but Diret ignored him.
"Then why do you stay so quiet and well-behaved in front of Yukveltire? Show off your skills!"
"Well, he is my senior..."
Fundamentally, Lee Han tended to hold back around people he could learn a lot from. The mere fact that Professor Verdus was still alive was proof enough.
Professors aside, you never knew when or how you might need a senior's help in your second year, so acting arrogantly wasn't an option.
"I'm your senior too, you know? Junior. Consider this your senior's first order—give Yukveltire a good hit."
Diret, now fully rebellious, gave the command in a tone that brooked no refusal.
Of course, from Lee Han's perspective, this was an extremely troublesome request.
"Umm. Even if you say that, I don't have the ability to... Wait, would attacking Senior Yukveltire from behind count?"
"......"
"It was a joke."
"...Don't joke with that face of yours..."
Yukveltire turned his head at the commotion behind him.
He could tell the reactions were more heated than usual.
Mages were excitedly discussing the magic that had just been demonstrated, waving their hands in the air as they explained the motions.
It was the kind of reaction you'd expect from an exceptionally impressive spell.
'What's going on?'
Naturally, having seen the Exchange Meeting's catalog, Yukveltire had a rough idea of what magic would be presented.
None of them should have elicited such a reaction...
"Senior Yukveltire. The preparations are complete."
"Good."
Yukveltire checked the artifact she would use for her presentation.
It was an intricate and complex artifact, requiring a lengthy preparation process.
"Truly remarkable. I never thought I'd witness such magic..."
"It's still incomplete. Are you flattering me now?"
"Ah, no, of course not."
The mages who knew the Princess's temperament coughed awkwardly and straightened their clothes.
But the artifact before them was genuinely extraordinary.
Outwardly, it appeared to be an ordinary pendant, but inside, hundreds of spells were meticulously woven together.
And every single one of these spells was arranged for a singular purpose—
Creating an artificially isolated dimension from scratch!
Summoning power or summons from another dimension connected to reality was a well-known method in magic, hardly surprising. But Yukveltire had taken it a step further.
What if you could artificially create that dimension?
Of course, practical limitations meant only a very small dimension would be possible, but for a skilled mage, that alone was more than enough.
It was as if a world where a mage could temporarily establish their own rules had fallen into their hands.
While contacting existing dimensions required all sorts of complex searches and negotiations, this eliminated the need entirely.
If one could create something like a "dimension overflowing with vast mana" and successfully stabilize it...
That artifact could potentially draw out nearly infinite mana!
"An Artificial Dimension Artifact!"
"Ooh, are they really unveiling it today...?!"
"?"
Before the surrounding mages could even begin murmuring, Lee Han wondered what was going on.
Diret closed his book and began explaining Yukveltire's work.
"...It's roughly like this. Honestly, it's such a difficult and unstable field of research that it won't be as convenient as I just made it sound. If it were a dimension spewing vast amounts of mana, maintaining it and creating a stable pathway would be just as challenging. But even considering that, this is truly groundbreaking research. I was actually worried whether Yukveltire would be able to present it here this time. Seems like my concerns were unfounded."
Seeing that his friend's work had reached a level worthy of presentation, Diret let out a sigh of relief.
Yukveltire had always been deeply interested in dimensional studies and had continuously attempted to integrate them with Enchantment Magic to produce new results.
Given how high the difficulty of such research was, Diret had been concerned, but...
"Junior. More importantly, don't you see anything to nitpick?"
"Huh?"
"You have to nitpick. If Yukveltire presents it, you have to find some flaw and point it out!"
"......"
Friendship was friendship, but Diret was determined to repay the humiliation the Black Magic faction had suffered—separately from that.
"How am I supposed to find flaws in such an advanced piece of magic?"
"Junior?"
"Yes?"
"You're more than capable. Hurry up and look for one."
"But..."
Lee Han felt wronged.
He had no idea why Diret thought so highly of him.
Lee Han was just a first-year junior!
Still, since his senior told him to, Lee Han pretended to scrutinize the artifact.
At first, it was difficult to distinguish mana due to the sheer number of mages and spells in the surroundings, but after a while, he began to roughly differentiate them.
'Ah, I see. This far is the mana emitted by the mages in the audience seats. From there onward, that must be the artifact's mana.'
Lee Han distinguished the spatial mana with a sensitivity that would have shocked the surrounding mages had they noticed.
Once he could isolate only the artifact's mana, Lee Han carefully examined it.
'Incredible!'
The artifact's structure reminded him of a rocket, where propellant is continuously ignited to gain acceleration.
The mana accelerated by the first magic circle was further accelerated by the second, then again by the third...
In this way, the power of mana was amplified to an extreme degree, providing the necessary force to create an artificial dimension.
To craft such an artifact, one not only had to link these magic circles in sequence but also calculate the resulting shock and heat generated in the process.
Compared to all that, the spell formula for actually creating the dimension afterward seemed almost easy in comparison.
Without realizing it, Lee Han muttered aloud.
"How could someone like Professor Verdus make an artifact like this...?"
"......"
Diret looked at Lee Han with a complicated expression.
Hearing his junior say that about his friend stung a little.
"Ah! Senior Diret. I think I found a flaw."
"Oh? What is it?"
Diret perked up, delighted.
This was the perfect opportunity to prove his junior's brilliance right in front of Yukveltire.
"Following the mana flow inside, I made a simple prediction—from a certain point onward, the magic circle is slightly warped, forming an ellipse instead of a perfect circle."
"...?"
Diret was bewildered, unable to comprehend how his junior had sensed the mana of an artifact so far away.
And not just any mana—the flow inside the artifact!
"Junior, how did you sense the mana flow inside the artifact? It's so far away! Not to mention all the other mages around..."
"I concentrated."
"...Ah. R-right. Concentration. Concentration is important..."
The textbook-perfect answer left Diret at a complete loss for words.
Well, of course you'd need concentration to sense mana!
"Wait. That's not the important part right now. I am curious how you even projected the mana flow to make predictions... but junior, you're saying it'll complete as an ellipse?"
"If I keep layering and drawing the flow, it seems it'll end up elliptical."
Diret's expression turned grave.
Having assisted Yukveltire with this magic from the sidelines, Diret knew exactly what outcome awaited if the spell completed as an ellipse.
Instead of creating a small artificial dimension, it would tear open a dimensional rift connecting to some unknown, unstable dimension.
If it linked to a relatively safe dimension, that'd be fortunate—but connecting to a dangerous one could spell serious trouble.
"We have to stop this."
The moment Diret rose to his feet, the artifact activated. He shouted in shock.
"Why's it starting already?! There should still be time left!"
"We requested it!"
The mages standing at the front answered with beaming smiles.
Such a magnificent spell deserved every extra minute they could give it. How else would the attending mages learn as much as possible?
Of course, from Diret's perspective, this was infuriatingly unhelpful kindness.
"Yukveltire, stop it! It's not a perfect circle—it's elliptical!"
"!"
Yukveltire turned to stare at her friend with wide, shocked eyes.
This wasn't something to take lightly.
"What absolute nonsense!"
"We checked it thoroughly. There were no abnormalities whatsoever!"
The mages overseeing and inspecting the Exchange Meeting's presentation spells cried out in disbelief.
Not only had the Princess's submission undergone rigorous monitoring, but they'd performed one final check right before activation.
So when some hooded mage suddenly claimed there was a problem, it was downright absurd.
"Don't ruin the Exchange Meeting—sit down at once!"
"Wait, this is a safety issue. Isn't this going too far?"
When Lee Han expressed his disbelief, Diret sighed.
"Mad mages keep picking insane fights over nothing, so the Magic Towers and guilds are all on edge these days!"
"......"
As Lee Han fell silent upon learning this truth, Yukveltire asked:
"Diret. What's your evidence? You haven't touched this artifact in days, have you?"
"This junior sensed it. Said the mana flow develops a slight deviation partway through."
"......"
"......"
The atmosphere instantly turned icy, and Diret realized his mistake. 'At least I should've said I noticed it myself...!' In his eagerness to prove his junior's brilliance, he'd blurted it out without thinking!
Had he claimed to have caught it himself, Yukveltire might have believed him.
"Diret... I truly don't understand why you'd go this far just to prove your Black Magic juniors right. It only seems to confirm my point."
"N-no, I'm telling you—he really did notice it! And that deviation is real! Stop it now!"
Even the mages who'd praised Lee Han earlier now wore expressions of uneasy doubt.
"No matter how skilled the mage, that just sounds utterly implausible..."
"Could it be exaggeration? Thinking back, that earlier magic was rather unbelievable too."
"Is such a thing even possible?"
'This is madness!'
Diret felt like a two-eyed man who'd stumbled into a land of the one-eyed.
Too exceptional to be believed—what irony!
"O spirit, sing forth thy thunder."
"?!"
He turned to see his junior calmly reciting an incantation.
Utterly indifferent to the surrounding mages dismissing his words as impossible lies or empty boasts.
"By storm and lightning! The bell-keepers of fallen kingdoms fear thy name, as do the lighthouse watchers guiding lost ships across vast seas."
As a spirit—one whose power defied comparison to ordinary spirits—began tearing open a dimensional rift to manifest, the gathered mages sensed its presence and recoiled in shock.
Simultaneously, the artifact emitted an eerie noise and malfunctioned. The mana circle within the pendant visibly warped further into an ellipse.
"!!"
"That—that thing...!"
"One bound by pact now calls thee forth by rightful claim!"
The instant Perkuntra manifested, Lee Han lunged forward.