Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

“I simply predicted it.”

Lee Han looked at the senior with disdain.

He had respected this senior for showing outstanding ability in divination magic, but this was a truly unsightly display.

“Prediction is both the foundation and the end of divination.”

The golem senior answered that way and stood up.

At the same time, Lee Han casually walked to the room’s door and took control of the exit. It was to prevent any possible second escape attempt.

This bastard?!

The golem senior could not help being amazed by the junior’s seasoned response.

In a situation like this, blocking the exit first was something at least a third-year would think to do.

To think a mere second-year knew to do such a thing...

“A true divination mage knows how to glimpse the future without relying on magic.”

“Senior. Are you trying to distract me and then run away?”

“...Fine. Fine. I will not run away, all right?”

Being in a heavy golem body made escape difficult anyway. The golem senior gave up on fleeing completely.

Of course, even after that, Lee Han did not lower his guard. Not only did he block the exit, he also checked again to see whether there were any routes he had missed.

“I said I will not run away.”

“I understand. I was just looking around because the room is pretty.”

“You really are going to become a fine divination mage.”

“If this is a scheme to make me lower my guard...”

“It is not.”

That last comment was sincere.

An excellent divination mage, like a high-level chess player, knew how to predict and prepare for hundreds of possible futures. A suspicious mage like this junior had the right qualifications.

Even compliments were met with suspicion...

“But why were you trying to run away?”

“Well. 【Refuge to the Shadow Fortress】 is quite a difficult spell. Even I {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} need to borrow the power of the Wizard Board to cast it. And now I have to teach it to a mere second-year student, so I felt an ominous premonition.”

“What? No, is that not an overreaction? Just because I am learning one difficult spell...”

Lee Han was bewildered.

If seniors were going to distance themselves from him just because he was learning one difficult spell, the number of seniors Lee Han knew would have been reduced to about one-fifth.

No matter how much of a divination mage the senior was, was this not a persecution complex?

The golem senior answered the junior’s criticism coldly.

“For a second-year junior who went around with the Principal’s insane duplicate and a dragon last semester, then made Professor Paserlet run away this semester, it is not really an overreaction.”

“...”

Lee Han was struck so hard by those words that he could not even retort. The blow sank all the way to his bones.

Ugh.

“...But those were all just coincidences and misunderstandings. If you give me time, I can explain.”

“In the divination magic school, they say to avoid anyone who brings coincidences with them. Anyway, fine. There is no one else to teach you, so I will have to do it.”

“Ah. Do the other seniors not know this spell?”

“It is less a matter of skill and more that they are all busy right now too.”

The golem senior pulled back the curtain. Lee Han prepared for a possible escape by the opponent.

Fortunately, it was not an escape. When the curtain was drawn, three other students could be seen in the adjacent room, fast asleep with celestial globes set up beside their beds.

“They are still dreaming.”

“Prophetic dreams? Are they performing divination through dreams?”

“That’s right.”

“Is there something that requires three people to combine their powers for divination?”

Lee Han was puzzled.

Were they already divining the midterm exam questions?

“They are doing that because their friends asked them to divine when the inspector will leave.”

“...Let us start the magic!”

It was a statement meant to change the subject, but the golem senior agreed as well.

“If you have been practicing, you must know what kind of spell 【Refuge to the Shadow Fortress】 is, yes?”

“Yes. It is a spell created from the tale of an excellent mage, the Young Prince, who fled to a fortress to escape pursuing death.”

“...Ah, no. I was not asking about the spell’s origin. Was that the origin of this spell?”

The golem senior was flustered.

The senior had simply learned the spell from a divination magic book and from the professor, and had never thought about its origin.

Was that really the origin?

“Anyway, since you know the origin, you must know what kind of spell it is.”

“No.”

“...This spell increases your evasion rate.”

Instead of asking more questions, the golem senior decided to finish teaching the spell as quickly as possible.

Then, after performing some ritual to ward off bad luck, the senior might somehow be able to escape this ominous fate.

“Skilled thieves think they will not be caught if they hide their appearance and erase their presence. But truly excellent thieves know that is not enough. So before stealing anything, they obscure their fate.”

Powerful divination magic could pierce through invisibility spells and all manner of illusion magic to find an enemy’s location.

Moreover, if one was on the defending side, even stronger magic could be prepared in advance. If one mistakenly entered a place where divination magic had been arranged like a maze, one might voluntarily walk into an underground prison.

The spell 【Refuge to the Shadow Fortress】 temporarily twisted the mage’s fate and helped the caster avoid encounters with enemies.

There were more ways than one might think to avoid enemy eyes, and there was not always a need to use high-difficulty divination magic. However, this spell shone when facing other divination magic.

To avoid invisible and uncanny forms of tracking, an equally mysterious spell was needed.

“Amazing, amazing! If I had this spell, I could steal from far more varied and difficult places!”

“The thieves were just a metaphor.”

The golem senior spoke in a reluctant voice.

Some inexplicable unease was coming from the junior’s response.

“Mine was a metaphor too.”

“Right... I understand. Wait. If you do not even know what kind of spell it is, how have you been practicing?”

In response to the golem senior’s question, Lee Han took out a violin and sheet music.

The golem senior was horrified upon seeing the violin, imbued with ominous magical power, which the Skull Principal had recommended.

“What is that instrument!? Why are you carrying around an instrument with that much bad luck clinging to it?”

“The Principal recommended it to me.”

“Of course.”

The golem senior immediately understood.

It was indeed the kind of thing that would be recommended by someone like that.

Lee Han suddenly felt a little uneasy and asked.

“I heard it was an ominous object, but does it actually have bad luck attached to it?”

“Do not worry about it. There is not much difference between ominous magical power and bad luck. They cannot affect you before they materialize. A mage born with strong fate can even subjugate them.”

The golem senior recalled that this junior had made a contract with a star spirit.

Come to think of it, when the senior had heard that fact last time, had the senior not tried to run away immediately, only to be caught by this guy?

No. I am sure I resolved myself back then, but I forgot about it and got caught off guard like this!

The golem senior reflected deeply.

When the senior was caught last time, the senior had resolved, I will not be caught again. I will run away in time, but now the senior had been dragged in again while hesitating and going, “Uh, uh.”

Perhaps it was because of this junior’s attitude.

Despite dragging a terrifying fate behind him, Lee Han always politely called the senior “Senior” on the surface, so the senior unconsciously lowered guard and ended up talking with him.

“Senior?”

“Ah. Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”

“What?”

“Why I resolved not to get involved with you, then forgot about it...”

“...”

Lee Han made a slightly hurt expression.

Is that not too much?

Of course, Lee Han had been a nuisance last semester, asking the senior to decode Akseong Arna, decode the Lesser World Basilios, and so on...

“Seeing as you forgot, perhaps that was not really your true feeling, Senior.”

“Be quiet before I carve it into my rock. Anyway, how are you planning to use that instrument?”

“It is Music Magic.”

“You mean what Senior Ileg of House Chagla is researching? I did not know you were doing it too. Well, I suppose. You did say it is a mage’s mission and duty to attend all schools of magic.”

“...I never said that.”

Lee Han’s expression grew serious.

It was something he had ended up learning by chance, so what was with this slander?

“If it is Music Magic, then certainly...”

The golem senior nodded.

Having spoken with Senior Ileg of House Chagla several times, this golem student knew well what sort of magic Music Magic was.

Was it not magic close to primitive magic and incantation magic?

Such magic had the potential to succeed regardless of difficulty.

“But you still have not cast it?”

“Yes. I practiced other pieces first, and this piece seems difficult, so my mana would not move.”

“Hmm. Music Magic is not my specialty. Let us try practicing it through Music Magic first, and if that does not work, we will learn it again the traditional way. Now. I will show you how to cast it.”

The golem senior took out a Wizard Board artifact. Lee Han followed close behind, worried the senior might run away.

This board, made from demon bones and blood, provided great assistance when casting high-difficulty divination magic.

“Offer a sacrifice and... wait a moment. Hmm. It seems displeased with this.”

“...Senior. Is this not a living demon?!”

Lee Han was startled as he watched from the side. The golem senior nodded.

“Of course it is. ...Ah. Are you asking why I am offering sacrifices to a demon I have already subjugated? That is very much like House Wardanaz.”

“No...! I was purely surprised! Sealing a demon and turning it into an artifact...”

“Junior.”

“Yes?”

“I am more amazed that you freely controlled the Principal’s projection, so be quiet.”

“...”

Lee Han cursed the senior inwardly.

The golem senior slowly chanted incantations while moving the letters on the Wizard Board.

Each time the letters aligned correctly, the golem senior recited new sentence incantations beginning with those letters, and each time, the demon powerfully emitted divination force and amplified the spell’s power.

“...A fortress shrouded in shadow hides fate, making it difficult for anyone to find...”

The golem senior stopped after casting only half of the spell.

Although the senior did not sweat in golem form, the voice sounded as though it had been wrung out several times over.

“Phew. Let us stop here for now. If I cast it completely, the consumption will be too severe. Do you have a sense of what kind of magic this is?”

“Amazing. I had no idea it was this kind of magic.”

“Divination magic is quite different from the other schools, is it not? It has strong uncertain and mystical aspects.”

It would not be an exaggeration to say that, among the schools of the Imperial Magic Academy, divination magic had a form closest to primitive magic.

Lee Han thought deeply about the magic the senior had just demonstrated and the explanation he had heard.

Ultimately, it is about distorting fate around the mage with powerful magic. Creating a distortion field that divination magic cannot detect.

What flashed through Lee Han’s mind was the great duel between the Manifestation of Ambition and the Skull Principal.

That battle between mages had been far too high-level for a mage of Lee Han’s caliber to fully comprehend, but thinking back on it now, an advanced duel of divination magic had been unfolding beneath the surface.

They had tried to twist each other’s fate and bind each other with chains of certain hit.

The movement of magic he had just seen and heard, the magic the archmages had shown, and finally the musical score he had read and practiced hundreds of times...

As Lee Han’s instrument moved, mana flowed, and fate began to tremble just as it had for the golem senior.

And the parallel dimensions that divination magic was originally meant to read, those dimensions that hinted at the future, sank deep into the curtain of shadow where no outsider could decipher them.

Feeling the joy of something finally working, Lee Han shouted.

“Senior! I think it is working!”

“No, wait. This is not that kind of magic...?”

The golem senior was flustered by the magic surging far more intensely than expected.