Chapter 357: Technomagic Department

Even though it was now incredibly obvious that Solomon was the undisputed winner of the teaching mission, and he had been officially declared as such, Solomon didn’t give up on the class. He actually took a strange sense of pride in teaching the proper mechanics of swordsmanship, and he absolutely refused to leave the lesson half-assed for no reason.

He gathered the twenty ’qualified’ students he had selected and told them that they could leave the arena anytime they wanted to, and he wouldn’t stop them. Naturally, after enduring a few hours of his grueling drills, most of the nobles threw in the towel and trickled out of the training hall one by one.

By the late afternoon, only five students remained behind. Elizabeth, Maximus, and Arthur stayed, alongside another royal boy named Donel and a quiet noble girl named Laufey.

Solomon trained the five of them for several more hours. They took short water breaks in between the intense sparring sessions, but unlike Solomon, they didn’t possess an infinite stamina pool.

While Elizabeth, Arthur, and Maximus were somewhat used to his brutally rough training methods from their time in the Eastern Realms, they were still completely exhausted. By early evening, the five students finally packed up their gear and called it a day.

Once everyone had left, Solomon remained alone in the silent training arena.

He let out a tired sigh, looking down at his hands. "This is not nearly enough," he muttered to himself, clenching his fists. "Swinging a wooden stick at exhausted novices does nothing for me. I desperately need some actual training."

He seriously debated whether he should just sneak back into the Eastern Realms without his broadcasting owl to hunt some high-tier monsters. But he quickly dismissed the idea. "Living without the owl hovering over my shoulder feels incomplete somehow. I miss the chat."

Just then, the proxy professor strolled back into the arena. He stopped near the entrance, watching Solomon continuously swinging Eden’s Penance in repetitive arcs.

He was performing the foundational physical steps of the Eden Imperial Sword Arts, though to the untrained eye of the professor, it just looked like a series of incredibly basic, heavy swings.

"Why are you still in here?" the professor asked, adjusting his clipboard. "The schooling hours have ended. You should return to your dormitory and rest, or head over to the cafeteria to eat."

Solomon stopped his swing, resting the massive blade against the mat. He raised an eyebrow. "When do I get the mission reward?"

"The fifty thousand points should have already been added directly to your streaming account," the professor responded. He glanced around the empty space above the boy’s shoulder. "Where is your broadcasting owl, by the way?"

"There was some kind of data issue, and the technomagic team is currently trying to solve it," Solomon replied.

The professor looked confused. "I am actually a senior technician from the Technomagic Department. I will pull up your service ticket and check it out myself."

The professor pulled a glowing crystal tablet from his robes and tapped the screen rapidly. "Ah, yes. A high-priority ticket has already been raised by the Grandmaster’s office. Come with me to the Technomagic Department. I will ask the lab for a direct update."

"The two technicians who came to the office earlier told me it would take a minimum of a week to fix," Solomon pointed out, sheathing his greatsword.

"That is just their standard, bureaucratic dialogue," the professor scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "They use that generic timeline because they are usually swamped with minor repairs and like to take their sweet time solving issues. But since I am officially off duty and on break right now, I have the free time to diagnose the root issue properly."

Solomon wanted to argue, intending to explain that the delay was due to his original bronze owl getting completely destroyed in a dungeon, but his curiosity got the better of him. He was interested in seeing the inner workings of the Technomagic Department and discovering how the academy’s complex streaming infrastructure operated.

Thus, he followed the professor out of the arena.

They navigated through the sprawling campus until they reached the Technomagic wing. The architecture here was a fascinating blend of classic fantasy aesthetics and highly advanced modern engineering.

The hallways were illuminated by vintage-style wrought iron lanterns that housed glowing, self-sustaining magical orbs instead of candles.

The stained-glass windows depicted ancient magical runes, yet the glass itself doubled as interactive, translucent digital displays scrolling with live data streams.

Thick, brass pipes hissed with pressurized steam, running alongside sleek, fiber-optic cables pulsing with blue mana. The doors slid open automatically with a soft, magical chime, powered by intricate gear mechanisms visible behind clear crystal panels.

It looked like the absolute perfect and seamless fusion of a medieval wizard’s tower and a futuristic corporate laboratory.

They entered a specific sub-wing dedicated to resolving active diagnostic tickets. The professor walked straight up to the main reception counter, requested the physical file matching Solomon’s ticket number, and then disappeared into a secure back room to fetch the actual silver owl.

A few minutes later, the professor returned carrying the dormant silver drone. He gestured for Solomon to follow him into an empty, glass-walled diagnostic compartment. They both sat down at a metal workstation.

Solomon watched the professor connect a glowing, runic cable from the drone to his crystal tablet.

"Why is someone from the advanced Technomagic Department working as a basic proxy professor for a special class?" Solomon asked, leaning his elbows on the table.

"That is what being a ’proxy’ means," the professor replied, his eyes scanning the rapidly scrolling code on his tablet. "I was on my break and off duty today. I just wanted to do something different to clear my head, so I accepted the supervision mission from the faculty board. Just like you students, the professors also receive optional missions and earn points. Although our faculty points are a completely different currency than your stream points. We use them to purchase advanced research materials or rare magical components from the administration."

Solomon raised both of his eyebrows in surprise. "So it is basically just paid overtime and a bonus incentive?"

The professor chuckled. "Exactly. It keeps the faculty motivated to—"

The professor stopped mid-sentence. His eyes widened in shock as he stared at the diagnostic results on his screen.

He slowly put the tablet down on the metal table.

"What happened?" Solomon asked, pretending to be merely curious, although he already knew the reason the two technicians had given him earlier in the Grandmaster’s office.

"Solomon," the professor said, his tone entirely serious. "Your academy account is currently pending administrative authorization for the second-year curriculum. That is the sole reason the silver owl is not booting up."

Solomon frowned, genuinely confused this time. "I was told by the technicians earlier that it wasn’t working because they needed to manually transfer my corrupted data from the cloud since my first-year bronze owl was destroyed."

The professor shook his head firmly. "The service ticket definitely mentions that data transfer issue as the primary cause. But I just performed a deep, root-level diagnosis on the drone’s actual hardware. The data transfer is completely fine. The actual issue is an active, manual administrative block. Your account lacks the final authorization signature to officially classify you as a second-year."

Solomon failed to understand how that was even possible. "But the Grandmaster literally told me to my face this morning that I was officially promoted to a second-year student. He handed me the new uniform himself."

The professor tapped a few runes on his tablet. "I just pushed a formal request for the final authorization through the network. The Grandmaster will have to manually verify and approve it on his end. Although, the best way to fast-forward this bureaucratic process would be for you to visit the Grandmaster’s office right now and ask him to approve the prompt."

Solomon stood up immediately, grabbing his greatsword. He thanked the professor for the diagnosis, and bolted out of the Technomagic Department.