Episode 725
Episode 725
"Isn't the Floor Too Slippery? Should I Help Clean It Up?"
As the seniors kept slipping and falling, Lee Han asked in bewilderment.
Professor Verdus glared at the floor in irritation.
"Why is this damn floor so slippery? It keeps getting in the way!"
"Didn't you just leave it messy after your experiment, Professor?"
At Lee Han's suspicion, Professor Verdus protested as if the idea was absurd.
"The students cleaned it up!"
"......"
The professor's refusal to outright say "No, I didn't" made Lee Han shake his head.
"Seniors, let me help—"
"We're fine!"
"Wardanaz. Do we look like idiots who can't handle a slippery floor to you? Or do we seem like Baldrogard students to you?"
As the seniors snapped at him, Lee Han was slightly dumbfounded.
Hadn't they just fallen over twice already?!
If it had been Gye-nan, his staff would've been the first to fly out with a "Stop talking nonsense."
"Yes... Understood."
"Good, good, good. Ignore that. Just cast the Mana Absorption Enchantment already."
Professor Verdus impatiently stomped his feet, urging him on.
They'd already wasted 58 seconds because of that trashy floor.
"By Vible's decree, let mana be absorbed."
Sneak, sneak
—While Lee Han and Professor Verdus had their heads bent over the workbench, the seniors quietly scooted their chairs closer.
Could this junior really have mastered Vible's Mana Absorption Enchantment?
"No matter how talented he is, that's just... Doesn't make sense, right?"
"Honestly, I still don't believe he learned Vible's Mana Emission Enchantment either."
"Sieunting. You're from the Enchantment Magic faction. What do you think?"
A third-year dwarf student with geometrically braided beard stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Then he spoke.
"Hmm. I don't really pay attention to other students, so I wouldn't know."
"......"
"......"
'Trash bastard.'
Students from other factions shot him disdainful looks.
Of course, they weren't exactly stellar at looking after their own juniors either. Just keeping up with lectures, assignments, and research kept them busy enough.
But the Enchantment Magic faction took it to another level.
A faction where disciples often forgot their professor's name, and seniors occasionally forgot their juniors even existed.
From the outside, one might wonder why they were even called a faction.
'Aren't they just doing their own thing separately?'
"Vible's Mana Absorption Enchantment is a difficult spell, right? I'm not mistaken?"
"That's about right."
There was a reason the students in the lecture hall were shocked when they heard the spell's name.
Vible's Mana Control spell series was a massive wall for students who didn't major in Enchantment Magic.
Surprisingly, even those who didn't major in it often learned one or two spells out of necessity.
Thanks to its unique versatility, Enchantment Magic attracted a fair number of students from other factions to its lectures.
In fact, weren't there quite a few non-majors in this very lecture?
Of course, without specializing in the faction, mastering high-difficulty spells was tough—but most students didn't aim that high anyway.
What students from other factions wanted were spells that were easy to learn, highly versatile, and useful for applying to their own faction's magic...
—Here, everyone take this. It's Professor's Vible's Mana Emission Enchantment. Far superior and more convenient than traditional mana attribute conversion spells.
—Wow, you're just handing these out?
—The professor doesn't even care. Anyway, what you guys want is probably in here somewhere, so figure it out yourselves.
—Thanks...
Wait. Is this even learnable?
Superior and more convenient than traditional spells, yes—but they required memorizing far more intricate and complex movements while understanding their underlying principles.
Students not majoring in Enchantment Magic had no choice but to bounce right off.
Even those who did major in it often failed to learn a few and got bounced out themselves.
"So it really is impressive. Starting with mastering dispersion and then absorbing it that quickly."
"No. The question is whether that's even possible. Sigunting. I know you're not interested, but what do you think by your standards?"
Sigunting remained silent. The students, puzzled, grabbed and shook him.
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
"Ah. My apologies. I was just thinking about what favor to ask that junior after today's lecture."
Thud thud thud!
The seniors shoved Sigunting aside.
As Lee Han raised his head, the seniors shouted first.
"The floor is perfectly fine now!"
"Even if you roll an oiled carriage wheel here, it won't stop, so don't worry! Focus again!"
"It's fine. I've already finished all the work."
"...?!?!?"
While the seniors were making noise in front, Lee Han assisted Professor Verdus and additionally mastered amplification, augmentation, acceleration, explosion, curvature, and illusion magic.
Excited by the unprecedented work speed, Professor Verdus, riding the momentum, shouted.
"Next task!"
"Stop talking nonsense, Professor."
Professor Verdus grumbled that his student showed too little interest and passion for magic, but Lee Han ignored him.
Now, Lee Han also had to prepare for the lecture content.
'It feels like I've exhausted all my energy before the lecture even started.'
Just in case, he checked the chair and floor (the lecture hall seemed unusually slippery today) before sitting down.
As suggested by the lecture title <Staff Materials and Magic Amplification>, a wand's performance varied capriciously depending on how its materials were combined.
For example, if the wand's frame was made of Bluewater Wood and embedded with fragments left by the Grand Duke of the Deep Sea, it would become an extremely water-element specialized wand.
If the frame was crafted from demonic metal and inscribed with a pattern using demon blood, it would provide advantages when casting demon summoning magic.
'Something easy enough for me to make, yet with decent performance.'
The wand Lee Han currently used was one crafted by the Talking Oak.
His first basic wand, made by Einrogard, was nearly perfect in form and balance but lacked any particularly strong power or dormant magic.
-Quick, steal it while the professor's distracted and run!
-You bandits! You're stealing legally protected property under imperial law!
-Professor, who else but you flouts imperial law so brazenly while invoking it?!
Though noisy sounds came from the side, Lee Han ignored them to focus.
The wand made by the Talking Oak housed a tree spirit.
On top of that, there were the Frost Giant King and the Spatial Teleportation Fragment.
The wand's body contained the tree spirit, while its tip was embedded with the Frost Giant King's blue gemstone and the Spatial Teleportation Fragment's ore.
'Moving them is possible, but I'll have to account for them in the design.'
Forcing overly powerful energy into a wand beyond its limits wasn't beneficial.
At worst, the wand could crack or shatter.
-Oh my god! He really mastered it! Look at this!
-It's a miracle of Einrogard!
-How is this even possible? Wait. Is this amplification? Did he do amplification too?
-Give it back! You bandits!
Crash!
-Damn it! He's back already! Everyone scatter! Buy time!
Lee Han hastily drew a simple magic circle and prepared a summoning spell.
When he first received this wand, he could barely cast a few spells, but now, after spending time at Einrogard, his repertoire had expanded considerably.
The spell he intended to use now was a second-circle <Lesser Spirit Conversation>.
A spell from the summoning school, it allowed the caster to attempt a few questions with spirits not yet under contract.
Lee Han hadn't had many opportunities to interact with spirits, so he hadn't used it much, but he had practiced diligently.
'Good thing I learned it. Magic never goes to waste once mastered.'
Lee Han cast the spell to pose a question to the tree spirit within his wand.
"O spirit. Please answer my question."
The spell was cast perfectly, yet no answer came from the spirit.
'What's going on?'
Wondering if he'd made some mistake, Lee Han felt perplexed.
Having never tried this before, it was hard to pinpoint what might have gone wrong.
"Senior... Senior, what happened here?!"
Only then did Lee Han look around and notice his seniors limping with bloody noses.
"It's nothing."
"Were you trying to learn Professor Verdus's magic again?"
"Well... you could say that."
"You're amazing."
When the junior sent them admiring glances, the seniors felt pangs of conscience.
They couldn't bring themselves to say, We were fighting because we bet on whether you'd actually learned it or not.
"You're the amazing one. I've never seen a student capable enough to assist Professor Verdus."
"?"
Lee Han didn't understand.
Sure, he had some unique advantages in certain aspects of Enchantment Magic, but the Enchantment Magic department undoubtedly had seniors more skilled than him.
"Aren't there seniors in the Enchantment Magic department?"
"Ah. Those capable of assisting Professor Verdus usually don't help him—they focus on their own magic instead."
"......"
Realizing anew the bleak interpersonal dynamics within the Enchantment Magic department, Lee Han felt bitter.
'Come to think of it, if the seniors had taken on Professor Verdus's work, I wouldn't have had to struggle like this.'
Unaware that his mana traits would have forced his participation regardless, Lee Han thought this way.
"Senior. Could you check if there's something wrong with this spell?"
"Enchantment Magic? If it's Enchantment Magic, you're probably better than me."
"Haha. You're exaggerating too much."
"I'm not joking."
"Understood. Thanks for the compliment."
"No, I'm seriously not joking..."
The senior, though exasperated, checked the issue Lee Han mentioned.
It was a staff imbued with a wood spirit, yet even after casting <Lesser Spirit Conversation>, no answer came.
"You cast it correctly. I don't see any problems."
"Is that so?"
"Let me try casting it again."
The senior swung the staff and cast <Lesser Spirit Conversation>.
Watching this, Lee Han suddenly felt uneasy.
'...'
Could it be that the spirit didn't answer because it was afraid of me?'
"O spirit. Are you listening?"
A symbol of affirmation briefly appeared before the staff, then vanished.
"It works? How strange. What could be the reason?"
The senior fell into thought.
Since this spell only allowed yes-or-no answers, the questioner had to pose somewhat sharp questions.
"Senior. Could you ask if it didn't answer because it was afraid of me?"
"What kind of nonsense is that?"
The senior burst out laughing at Lee Han's words.
"Hey. Of course you might seem intimidating to Einrogard students. I've heard stories from every department."
"......"
Lee Han glared at the senior with a sour expression.
"But spirits don't get scared of things like that."
"Just try it."
"Fine, fine. O spirit, did you refuse to answer because you feared this mage here?"
Surprisingly, the answer was no.
Lee Han gasped, grabbed the senior's shoulders tightly, and shouted.
"Senior. Look!!! The spirit says it's not afraid of me!!!"
"Y-yeah. Congrats. Not sure why you're so happy, but could you loosen your grip? My collarbone's still sore from when Professor Verdus broke it earlier."
"My apologies."
Freed from the iron grip, the senior rubbed his shoulder and fell into thought again.
"Hmm. I really don't get it."
"I wanted to ask a few things about remaking the staff..."
"Well. No choice then. Let's just ask everything we can think of."
The senior pulled out a spirit summoning magic book from his pocket and began firing questions one after another.
"Did you make a contract with an evil entity?"
"Ugh."
"Did you engage in an excessively dangerous battle?"
"Urgh."
"...What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
"No. Please continue."