Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

A mage named Gawon, from Plaher City’s Daylily Mage Tower.

Gawon was the kind of person with fierce pride.

Honestly, among mages, it was rare to find someone with weak pride. Stepping into a discipline that bends reality to one’s will wasn’t something just anyone could do, and it required inborn talent.

So it wasn’t strange for mages to think of themselves as chosen.

Even half-baked mages who never found a proper teacher and learned magic from a grimoire picked up off the road were treated like something special, so how much more would a mage affiliated with a mage tower be?

A mage like Gawon couldn’t help but be proud.

But there was always another sky above the sky.

There was someone the name “Daylily Mage Tower” didn’t work on, and that was Einroguard.

The Empire’s true line of magic!

“Thank you for lending it to us. I’m Lee Han.”

“P-please, make yourself comfortable. I’m Gawon, from the Daylily Mage Tower.”

“Thank you!”

Gainando collapsed straight sideways. Lee Han kicked Gainando in the back. Gainando sprang up at once.

“Everyone looks… What happened to all of you?”

“A few things happened.”

Lee Han answered with a bitter expression.

Too many things had happened in the Bitong Mountains.

But Gawon seemed to understand Lee Han’s expression in a different way.

“It sounds like you were doing dangerous, difficult magical research… I won’t ask any further.”

“That’s not it.”

“Yes. Let’s go with that.”

“……”

Lee Han caught the scent of someone who only said what that person wanted to say.

It wasn’t surprising. Poor communication was one of the traits mages tended to share.

“By any chance, are you all attending the exchange gathering this evening as well?”

“What exchange gathering?”

“The mage tower exchange gathering. The one being held in Plaher City this year.”

Magic was an endlessly vast discipline with no visible end, and no matter how much of a genius someone was, it wasn’t easy to dig into it alone.

That was why mages formed guilds and built mage towers, honing themselves together.

And it didn’t end there—there were gatherings where they shared and exchanged the knowledge and visions they had gained.

That was an exchange gathering.

It wasn’t the massive scale of a grand conference where the Empire’s magical schools gathered by faction, but exchange gatherings hosted by nearby guilds or mage towers happened more often than one might think. This one seemed to be held in Plaher City.

“Ah. No. We weren’t invited.”

“Invitation doesn’t matter! It’s an open gathering. If you’re students from Einroguard, you should be able to attend as much as you like.”

Gawon spoke with real sincerity.

It wasn’t such a rigid occasion, and no one would claim Einroguard students were unqualified just because they showed up.

They could attend comfortably.

“I heard another Einroguard student is attending as well.”

“Really?”

Lee Han was puzzled.

Einroguard wasn’t a local guild or mage tower in this region.

“As I said, it’s open. If you’re interested and you meet the requirements, you can visit as much as you like. That person must be interested in the magic being presented at the gathering, don’t you think?”

‘Another upperclassman?’

Lee Han thought it wouldn’t be bad to talk if an Einroguard upperclassman was attending.

A new term was about to start, and Lee Han would be meeting various upperclassmen anyway, so there was no harm in getting familiar beforehand.

“I’ll think about ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) it. By the way. Do you have a presentation tonight?”

At Lee Han’s question, Gawon answered with an expression mixed with pride and confidence.

“Of course.”

“Oh. What are you presenting?”

“Ahem. Would you look at this?”

Gawon layered three magic circles on the floor of the carriage, placed reagents, and began reciting an incantation.

Watching from the side, Lee Han spoke as if it were interesting.

“You’re using water-element magic to maintain a spherical form, then granting additional properties. Classifying and amplifying mana…”

“Khk, k-ckh.”

In the middle of the incantation, Gawon choked and coughed.

Gawon hadn’t expected the boy next to Gawon to recognize the spell instantly, without even an explanation.

“H-how…?”

“Yes? I’m a mage too.”

‘This is why mages from Einroguard are…!’

If “being a mage too” was enough to do that, then there was no reason for Gawon to be struggling like this.

Gawon almost laughed in disbelief, but held it back. Making an enemy of a mage from Einroguard could be something to regret for the rest of one’s life.

“Even if you’re a mage, you can’t identify a complicated spell like this all at once.”

‘It doesn’t seem that complicated…’

Compared to the Skull Principal’s magic or the professors’ magic, what Gawon was preparing was simple and easy to read.

Of course, saying that outright would be rude, so Lee Han softened it as much as possible.

“I think I recognized it quickly because I’ve seen similar spells before. And I got a bit lucky.”

“H… hahaha. Is it perhaps too simple?”

Gawon watched Lee Han’s reaction.

This spell called forth a sphere of water in midair, then turned it into a device that filtered and amplified mana.

It was practical and well-received inside the mage tower, but Gawon worried it hadn’t advanced much beyond <Ota’s Radiant Prism>, a spell presented five years ago.

Once a similar spell existed, the later presenter had to show something fresher and more impressive to earn praise.

“I don’t think what matters is whether a spell is complex or simple. What matters is what effect it produces, isn’t it?”

“Right?!”

Gawon’s face brightened.

Confidence surged at an Einroguard student’s encouragement.

“But from what I see, you can remove this part of the magic circle.”

“What? That section stabilizes the shape of the left-side plane—”

“Even without it, it’ll be fixed in place by the force from the other side.”

“W-wai—”

Before Gawon could stop it, Lee Han cut away part of the magic circle.

And astonishingly, the spell held steady anyway.

“!!”

“And the mana along this edge doesn’t seem necessary either.”

“That’s absolutely not true! You have to amplify and secure the mana required for the spell—”

“You can just compress the mana into this side instead.”

Lee Han redrew part of the circle traced in Light-Spirit Ink, and compressed mana into Black-Shadow Sand in an instant.

It was a simple adjustment that didn’t even take a second, but it reduced the mana required for the circle by a full third.

Gawon blinked in shock.

‘E… Einroguard…!’

Terrifying!

*****

“Alshicle. Will you come with me?”

“Mm. You should go. You’ll learn a lot.”

Alshicle heard about the exchange gathering and strongly recommended it.

For mages, the more other mages one knew, the better.

“What about you?”

“I hate it.”

“You don’t have to eat sardines.”

“…It’s not because of sardines. It’s because of my research results. If I go there, people will start asking how the research is going.”

Alshicle shuddered like the thought alone was unbearable. Lee Han looked at Alshicle with sympathy.

It wasn’t just Alshicle. It was a future Lee Han might face someday too.

‘If professors ask every time they see me how the spell I’m practicing is coming along, I might actually lose my mind.’

“So, how were the Bitong Mountains?”

“I met unicorns.”

“What? Really?”

Alshicle was startled.

Professor Thunderstep was a skilled explorer, sure, but unicorns weren’t exactly any less rare.

Meeting them required luck, no matter what.

“Wow. Congratulations. Did you at least get a strand of unicorn hair?”

“I got hair, horn fragments… and Einroguard decided to raise them.”

“…What?? Why?!”

Alshicle had been lounging at an angle, but jolted upright.

Unicorns rarely made a home anywhere with lots of people around.

What on earth had happened?

“Well, we found the missing professor, and that professor was taking care of the unicorns.”

“Ah. That cra— Professor Bendozol?”

‘That name’s famous, isn’t it?!’

Lee Han was surprised Alshicle recognized Bendozol immediately.

“And since there wasn’t just one Do Cheol, but several, the unicorns were in danger—”

“Damn.”

“The Skull Principal came, took Professor Bendozol away, and moved the unicorns to Einroguard.”

“…Wait. Hold on.”

Alshicle listened, then got dumbfounded.

What was this, some ancient stage play where the Skull Principal suddenly showed up at the end, solved everything, and that was it?

“It feels like you skipped a lot in the middle…”

“Ah. Alshicle. I have to go.”

“S-sure. Go and come back safe. And don’t forget—you have to tell me the full story next time.”

“It wasn’t anything.”

“Which part of what you just said was ‘not anything’?”

Alshicle grumbled, but still saw Lee Han off.

The others were sprawled out from mana sickness and exhaustion, so no one even came outside. Even Eandurde was groaning.

‘Is it here?’

Lee Han headed toward the location Gawon had mentioned earlier, and a worn, shabby mansion came into view.

It was small, the garden was overrun with weeds, and just looking at the exterior, there were broken portions here and there.

Normally, Lee Han would have wondered if Lee Han had come to the wrong place, but the mana Lee Han felt from that mansion told Lee Han it was the right one.

‘There’s magic on the inside.’

To a mage capable of expanding space, an outer appearance like that didn’t mean much.

Lee Han looked around.

People who seemed to be mages were each carrying luggage into the mansion.

And among them, a familiar crow beastkin mage with a hat pulled low over the face…

“…Upperclassman Diret?!”

“Who is it?!”

Diret flinched and turned around, wings fluttering on Diret’s back. Thankfully, it was a familiar underclassman.

“Underclassman. What are you doing here?!”

“I’m on break too, so I was resting. I got invited to the exchange gathering by coincidence.”

“Ah… Right. Sure.”

Diret found it odd that Lee Han, who had only just finished first year, would be invited to an exchange gathering.

It was an open, relaxed kind of place, but first-years usually didn’t get invited.

‘No. If it’s this kid, it’s possible.’

Not long after, Diret finished convincing Diret.

This underclassman seemed more than capable of getting invited.

“Are you hiding your identity?”

“I-it’s not that grand… I just don’t want anyone to recognize me.”

“Is your research stuck lately…?”

“?!”

Diret jumped.

How did Lee Han know?!

“How did you know?!”

“I heard that if research gets stuck, people don’t participate in gatherings like this.”

“Yeah. You’re sharp. I wore the hat because I didn’t want questions.”

“If it were me, I think I’d just not attend at all…”

“I got invited. I can’t not even leave my name in the guestbook. And these gatherings are actually useful. I thought I might get inspiration.”

Diret let out a sigh, then changed the subject.

“Underclassman. What did you do over break? Don’t tell me you only worked again.”

“Don’t worry. Recently, I chased unicorns in the Bitong Mountains with a professor.”

Lee Han felt pleased, thinking it sounded pretty respectable even to Lee Han.

“Khk.”

Diret coughed and nearly dropped the hat.

“Why with a professor?”

“Because there was a bounty?”

“On unicorns??”

“No. On Professor Bendozol.”

“…?”

Diret wanted to ask what that was even supposed to mean, but the bell ringing from inside made it clear it was time to go in.

“Follow me. Tell me that story again later.”

“Yes.”

“…Did you find the unicorns?”

“Yes. The Skull Principal took them to Einroguard.”

“……”