Chapter 85

Chapter : 85

While living at the Academy, Ian wondered whether this place truly was the wider world. He listened to the professors’ lectures and, in his own way, spent time with the students around him.

But nothing remained.

Among the things the professors talked about during lectures, there were occasionally parts he had not known, but they were peripheral knowledge and had no practicality.

They were not things he needed to put into his head.

Growing by learning something from them was a dreamlike story.

Then what about people?

Ian looked around.

The students admired him or envied him. Some fawned over him to win his favor, and others spoke insincere words with ease.

But none of them were interesting, and the time he spent with them grew more and more boring.

In such a situation, he seriously considered withdrawing from the Academy. There was nothing he could gain here.

What would he do if he withdrew?

Return to the Magic Tower. There, he would teach the members of the Magic Tower and, in his own way, research the magic of the past. Was that enough? Why had Katein left such final words?

‘Because he wanted me to be happy.’

He had vaguely left the environment he had lived in for a long time and was continuing a life without purpose, but perhaps this was enough. Compared to his childhood, this life was nothing but abundant. Still, he had at least enough sense to know that many people envied his life.

‘What would I do if I left the Academy?’

His life at the Academy was not satisfying, but there was no particular reason he absolutely had to quit. More than anything, even if he quit, there was nothing he particularly wanted to do. Travel was troublesome, and there was nothing he desired.

Ian recognized this as his own problem.

He had been born with few desires.

He wondered whether that was good or bad. If this was an obstacle preventing his life from becoming happy, he seriously considered whether he should change it with drugs and magic.

“What do you think?”

“Absolutely do not do that. It is strange, something like that. Is a person a machine?”

Raphael had finished dealing with Agares’s matter and returned to the Academy.

“So what happened at the Auction House again?”

“We fought. There were quite a lot of bastards waiting in advance. Agares always carries a knife for tormenting people, you know? No, seriously....”

After hearing about the Auction House from Raphael, Ian spoke.

“Do not associate with him. That bastard.”

“I know. Something happens every time I am with him. I should cut ties with him someday.”

Ian let out a sigh. He knew all of Raphael’s words were lies.

Katein had been a skilled mage. In Ian’s eyes, when he was still young, Katein had looked like an even more incredible mage.

Even someone like that had died absurdly easily. Ian judged that Raphael could do the same.

People died easily.

Agares treated human lives lightly and did not even recognize ordinary danger as danger.

He was an idiot. Ian thought that if Raphael stayed beside him, Raphael might die too.

“What did that bastard say he would do for you?”

“Why?”

“You would not help that bastard without compensation, would you?”

“He said he would lend me his strength later when I needed help.”

“You trust that?”

“He would not lie about something like this.”

Ian knew Raphael was inexperienced and reluctant when it came to fighting people.

He wondered why Raphael had helped Agares despite that, but no answer came to him. And even if he asked, Raphael would not tell him the truth, so Ian only let out a sigh.

“What will you do after graduating from the Academy?”

At Ian’s question, Raphael narrowed his brow.

“I have not thought about it yet, but I will probably lounge around and rest in my territory. Probably.”

“Do you like that?”

“Doing nothing, lying down to rest, and eating the food I am given?”

“Yes.”

“If someone forced me to live that way no matter what, I think I would hate it, but I like the fact that I could live that way whenever I wanted. That is why I am working hard now to obtain an environment where I can live like that.”

“What should I do when I graduate?”

“You have plenty of time. Think about it.”

After Raphael left, Ian, left alone, traced through the past.

What had Katein lived for? He had lived like a machine. At a glance, it had been a life without purpose, but there was one thing he always said.

The completion of the Mana Core.

The Mana Core. It was a tool similar to a Mana Stone, but though its performance was lower, it was easy to generate. It activated stored magic without a mage’s support at a much lower cost.

If one used Mana Cores, Magic Tools could be created at a far lower price than ordinary Artifacts. Until he had been injured by Dimagen, Katein had worked toward accomplishing that.

‘Should I try it?’

Ian thought that when people died, that was the end. He considered rites and mourning for the dead meaningless.

He wondered what meaning there was in completing something Katein had wanted to accomplish but had not finished. But he had plenty of time and nothing to do, so that was enough reason to try touching it once.

He immediately moved to the Magic Tower and swept up all the research materials Katein had built up until then.

---

I solved Agares’s problem. There were many reasons he had been attacked recently, but if I had to pick just one, it was because he had lost his power.

The crimes he had committed all this time were great, and he had earned many grudges, but the reason he had been able to live peacefully was thanks to the power he possessed. With power no one could dare touch, he had pressed down things like retaliation in advance. Now that he had restored his power to some degree, there was no longer any need to worry.

If it had been last week, this dawn would have been short on time because I was dragging Agares around. I went out to the drill ground and moved my feet. I practiced Footwork as Katarina had taught me. I felt the technique gradually settling into my body.

Physical conditioning was science. Unreasonable training caused Overtraining and became worse than doing nothing at all. But polishing technique was different. As long as one maintained enough of a body that one’s posture did not collapse, one improved as much as the time invested.

My clothes were soaked with sweat and clung to my skin. It was autumn, so the dawn wind was subtly chilly, but long training made sweat pour from me. When I looked up at the sky, the sun was rising. And then there was an explosion brighter than the sun.

BOOOOM—!

A blue flash erupted from the rooftop of the Magic Tower and announced the morning. If that explosion had happened even a little earlier, the students living in the dormitory would have been full of complaints.

The culprit who caused the explosion was probably Ian, but I decided not to show interest for no reason.

The old me would have run straight toward the direction where the incident occurred, either curious about what happened or worried that something serious had occurred. Now, I was different.

It was troublesome.

If something had happened, it would resolve itself somehow.

There were no consecutive explosions, and it ended after one, so I figured it was nothing serious and focused on what I had to do. After training like that, washing, eating breakfast, and attending my Academy classes, I asked Ian what that explosion had been.

“I failed during an experiment.”

He said he intended to make a Mana Core. I knew what it was, and I had a rough idea why he was making it. When I quietly accepted it, he spoke.

“You are not going to ask what a Mana Core is?”

“Ah.”

One beat late, I asked him what it was, and he explained. Since it was something I already knew, I responded appropriately and pretended to understand.

It was not a field I could help with. I had merely read that such a thing existed, so I knew nothing.

After that, Ian became absorbed in experiments. Jefrin left the Academy. Agares was busy with various issues related to the power he had replenished. Last was Navier.

“I will be going to the Imperial Palace for a while.”

Judging by how bright her expression was as she said that, it seemed the engagement was going well.

“Is it what I think it is?”

“Haha, probably?”

She said she would bring back a gift when she returned, then left the Academy.

For the first time in quite a while, the amount of time I spent alone increased. I invested that time directly into Footwork, and the results began to show. Now, if I did not hold a weapon and focused only on moving my feet, I could use the techniques Katarina had taught me exactly as they were.

I did not stop there and practiced moving my feet while swinging a sword. Merely holding a sword shook my balance and made it difficult to assume the posture, and when I swung it as well, the difficulty jumped sharply. Like that, time passed without any particular incident.

“I half-succeeded. Look at this.”

Ian brought a light bulb. He connected the light bulb to a sphere made of a bundle of thin wires linked together and turned on the light. He had operated a Magic Tool using a Mana Core.

The Mana Core was easy to produce, but it had several drawbacks.

First was output. The amount of energy it could produce at once was small.

Next was its stability. Even if it did not explode like the accident Ian had caused before, it broke from even a small impact.

Pretending to be surprised, I clapped and widened my eyes.

“That is amazing. It has not been long since you said you would make a Mana Core, but you already made one?”

“It was fast because I did not do it alone. There was someone who had researched it before, so I used those materials.”

“Ahh. What will you do with it now?”

“That, I do not know yet. I just made it because I wanted to.”

Usually, someone would first think about how to earn money with that technology, but he really was unusual. Thinking that, I nodded. He held the light bulb out to me.

“I will give it to you.”

Whenever someone gave me a gift, I had a habit of smiling brightly. Like a machine, I smiled at him and received the light bulb with both hands.

A thought came to me that later, when Mana Cores became widespread, this object, as the first item to apply the technology, could be sold for quite a lot of money. I hated myself for thinking such a thing while receiving a gift.

A gift contained a person’s heart, so it was right to be grateful without weighing its use or utility, but that did not come easily.

“Thank you. I will keep it well.”

Still, judging by Ian’s expression, it seemed my acting was decent. He looked quite satisfied with my reaction.

“Do not throw it away. I will check later to see whether you still have it.”

Well, yes.

Gifts like this, which had no function except as ornaments, were the first things to throw away when moving.

“I know. I will not throw it away.”