Three Years of Theory Hell
Three years after that.
A whole three years.
Unbelievably, I was still stuck grinding through this godawful studying.
I had turned ten, yet I remained trapped in this damn academy. My clever little scheme to study less had backfired spectacularly, resulting in three horrific years of one-on-one tutoring.
The fact that I was the only student in the entire Spirit Magic department created the perfect conditions for intensive management.
And Iel was an incredibly meticulous and enthusiastic instructor who seemed determined to teach me absolutely everything he could.
My cheeks, puffed up with resentment, felt like they might burst at any moment.
“I hate theory!”
“Jeanie. Getting angry is bad for both mind and body. Please compose yourself. Calmly, and…”
“Why! You promised to teach me how to form a contract, so why is it theory again! You’re a liar, Teacher!”
I’d thought his personality was gentle and relaxed, but Iel had spent a full three years teaching me nothing but theory.
Starting from what exactly a spirit was, he had me deeply analyze the flow of mana, how it accumulated in the human body to manifest power in the material realm, the history of spirits, their individual properties, the proper conduct expected of a Spirit Master, and why all of it mattered. On and on, without end!
“I did intend to. However, it seems you’re still not ready, Jeanie. There is an order to all things.”
From the insight I’d gained across ten years of utterly useless theoretical classes in my previous life, I knew all this theory was largely pointless when it came to actually contracting a spirit.
Studying was the same no matter where you went.
Still, I had hoped that this year I would finally contract a spirit and escape this endless theory hell. Even that, it turned out, wasn’t going to be easy.
Yes, it was all my own miscalculation.
I had underestimated how complicated Spirit Magic truly was.
“You’ve told me you’d teach me next week at least ten times!”
“To be precise, it has been six times.”
“Same thing! I don’t care! Teach me! Teach me right now!”
For me to demand instruction this passionately was something that might happen once in a lifetime, if that.
Even when I clung to his leg throwing tantrums, making threats, and occasionally pleading, Teacher Iel simply kept repeating “No.”
Despite his gentle appearance, Iel Roenin—an intermediate wind spirit master—was actually quite stubborn.
He wasn’t the pushover I’d expected, and it frustrated me to no end.
No matter what he was like inside, on the outside I was an adorable young beauty. How could he so casually dodge my ultimate tear-filled attack?
“You said you’d teach me today! You’re a bad teacher! You troll butthole!”
When he refused to listen, I prepared to fling myself onto the classroom floor.
To be clear, I was only ten years old.
“Sigh. Jeanie? I certainly promised to teach you the spirit contracting method, but that was under the condition that you attended classes diligently for the entire week.
One week… of which there are only five school days. Yet out of those, you skipped a full three. Does that sound reasonable to you!”
Teacher Iel snapped the thick book shut with a loud thud. The look in his eyes said a full lecture was incoming.
I whipped my head away.
“Tsk! That’s because you keep repeating the same thing every single day!”
“…Jeanie! It is not ‘tsk’! As both a spirit master and a noble, you must maintain proper dignity!”
“What do you expect from a child!”
“At ten years old, you are already old enough to be engaged! Why can you not behave with more modesty, Jeanie!”
“Does modesty put food on the table? You’re spouting outdated nonsense. Well, this is an outdated era, I suppose…”
When I openly grumbled like a delinquent, Teacher Iel clutched the back of his neck.
His personality had grown noticeably worse since becoming my teacher. I was apparently the only one who refused to believe it was my fault.
“Why do you grow more crooked with each passing day! You were not like this in the beginning. You have changed, Jeanie!”
“That’s because I didn’t know it would be this painful. And you’re the one who changed, Teacher. You used to be so patient at first.”
“…You were the one who smiled like an angel in the beginning, yet now…”
“What? I seem like a devil now? I’ll take that as a compliment! I’ve always preferred devils over angels anyway.”
“Good heavens. How can you utter such dreadful things! The priests would faint if they heard you! This is exactly why all the other teachers fled and only I remain!”
Teacher Iel tormented me in a tone that practically screamed I’d rather go back to my family estate!
As the sole instructor of the Spirit Magic department, he had become the dedicated tutor for its only student—me.
It seemed he had only recently realized why he had been able to become a teacher at the Royal Drike Academy at such an unprecedented pace.
Because no one else had wanted to take me on.
I wasn’t the most notoriously problematic child, but I was certainly one of the most difficult students to handle.
In other words, Teacher Iel had been somewhat scammed. That was what happened when a person was too naive.
“It was you who said you wanted to learn spirit magic, Jeanie! In that case, shouldn’t you attend the lessons with more sincerity?
I acknowledge that you train diligently in mana, but with everything else you listen with one ear and let it pour out the other!”
“Mana training is just sitting and meditating anyway…?”
“Jeanie! Mana is not the only thing required to summon a spirit!
You need solid mental strength, of course, but also a firm grasp of spirit magic theory, the behavioral patterns of spirits, ancient spirit history, and…”
“Tsk.”
Putting aside how boring Iel’s classes were, they were painfully basic—aimed at children far younger than my mental age. They were excruciatingly dull.
It was like being forced to sit through middle school lectures when my intellect could handle university courses.
I knew my own level.
I was a survivor of the royal academy’s early childhood division, a place that gathered only geniuses. In other words, I was a gifted student.
Not a true genius, but certainly smarter than average.
So when I suggested we skip the basics and just move on to teaching me how to contract, Teacher Iel had thrown a fit.
“You are taking contracts far too lightly, Jeanie. Learning the method does not guarantee you will be able to form one. You are simply learning the process.
Spirits will not appear if they do not align with the summoner’s heart, mental strength, and affinity.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“If summoning spirits were easy, the entire world would be full of spirit masters! You are certainly an intelligent student, Jeanie, but you are still too young to contract with spirits. That implies insufficient mental strength, which means the spirits would not respond to you in the first place…”
As usual, his lecture stretched on. I tuned him out and began quietly devising another plan.
Since Teacher Iel clearly had no intention of teaching me, I would have to figure it out myself.
“Spirits are the very essence of pure nature itself—like nature given consciousness.
They are not beings that bend easily to human will. To handle entities akin to nature, one must possess strong affinity and powerful mental strength…”
“Just a moment.”
“Yes?”
To focus on my scheming, I mentally muted Teacher Iel’s voice.
Like a lightning strike, I recalled the exact day I first decided to become a spirit master. The book I had seen that day was titled Super Simple Spirit Contract Method.
And inside, the method for contracting spirits had been written in an easy, straightforward manner.
Exactly as the title promised!
“Teacher! What were the materials needed to contract a spirit again?”
“Pardon?”
“Fairy Powder and… yes, the contract circle! That was the most important part. There was something crucial about drawing the contract circle, right? What was it again?”
“Where is this coming from? If it’s that, I’m certain we covered it in class two weeks ago.”
Did we?
I don’t remember at all.
Did he teach it on a day I was absent?
Ah, that’s right. I’m the only student in the spirit department.
And I’m the kind of kid who does everything well on her own!