Ch.151151. Road School Power Struggle (8)
by fnovelpia
While Rana was following Junon, Adele came to briefly check if the class was proceeding well.
But to her surprise, Junon was nowhere to be seen, and the students didn’t seem interested in attending the lecture.
“…”
Some were using books as pillows to sleep, while others were playing keep-away with a soccer ball at the back of the classroom.
Others passed time playing card games, and some were even playing gomoku on the blackboard.
‘These kids… none of them intend to attend the lecture.’
Still, this was Junon’s class.
Wasn’t Junon the one who had filled the professor’s vacant position and secured the solid position of student teacher?
Though minimal, the conditions for learning were in place.
It seemed wrong that students who had enrolled in a road school to learn magic, even if not at Levrant Academy, would behave this way.
“Come on, this isn’t right, is it?”
Feeling the need to say something, Adele sharply pointed out.
“Huh? What isn’t?”
“What do you mean ‘what’… Didn’t you come here to learn magic? That’s why you enrolled in the road school.”
“Oh, that.”
Adele responded with disbelief, but the students remained indifferent.
“We’re just here to find jobs through the professor. Everyone here has no intention of properly attending lectures.”
“What…?”
“I don’t know about other places, but this place is hopeless. Who would want to study in such outdated facilities? The professors are the same. Since no one wants to learn properly, they tacitly agree. So we just fill attendance hours to receive subsidies.”
It was truly absurd.
What happened to their purpose for enrollment? Looking for jobs through professors…
It was ridiculous to hear they were just filling attendance hours to receive subsidies.
While road schools in other regions showed active participation, here magic had been forgotten, and the school had degraded into a mere place to receive welfare.
“That’s nonsensical…”
“That’s enough, Adele.”
Junon, who had just arrived at the classroom, cut off Adele’s indignant response.
“But Junon… if you do this…”
“I’ll handle it myself. Rana already filled me in, so I understand the situation. Rana, take your seat for now.”
“…Yes.”
As Rana, who had been following behind, took her seat, Junon walked to the center of the podium and addressed everyone in the classroom.
“I heard what you all think. Well, I’m not going to lecture you about it. I don’t have the right to do that, and your freedom should be respected, shouldn’t it?”
Of course, with freedom comes consequences.
“I won’t say anything if you push desks and chairs together to lie down or play outside. Attendance certification? I’ll just give it to anyone who fills the time.”
If they have no will to learn, why point it out?
Junon brought the classroom clock down to the podium and declared:
“But I can’t overlook disruptions. So I’ll give you 5 minutes. Make your choice.”
“5 minutes…? Choice? What do you mean?”
“Whether you’ll stay in the classroom and listen to my lecture, or just receive attendance certificates every morning and leave. Simple, right?”
If they leave the classroom now, he’ll give them attendance certificates without teaching them. If they stay seated, they choose to attend the lecture.
It was a simple choice that didn’t require much thought.
Junon seemed indifferent to their choice as he crossed one arm and checked the lecture material.
However, despite being given permission, the students hesitated and watched cautiously.
Faced with this reaction, their thoughts seemed to freeze.
“Why are you all hesitating? It’s not like listening to a student teacher’s lecture will change anything. I’m leaving first. Please give me the certificate.”
“I figured as much and already wrote it. Take it.”
And so one person left.
“Anyone else? Does that mean the rest of you want to hear my lecture?”
“Ah, no! Give me one too!”
“I’ll be leaving as well.”
“Um… please give me one too…”
Two, three, four.
Soon, more than half, in fact most of the students, rejected the lecture and received their attendance certificates for the day.
Only Rana remained, along with one student sleeping in the corner with an eye mask, lying across connected chairs.
“Does that guy always sleep?”
“…Yes.”
“Then that’s fine. No need to wake him up.”
In a classroom with only two students remaining, Junon began the lecture with an unfazed expression.
‘This will make it hard to score points in the faction battle…’
Adele watched Junon with worried eyes before leaving the classroom.
There was nothing she could do immediately.
Even if she mentioned these circumstances to him as he filled the professor’s position as a student teacher, there was a clause stating this would be treated as a penalty.
***
Ethan always sleeps during this time.
The lectures are meaningless. Once all the students who want to play leave, it creates the perfect environment for sleeping in a corner.
He needs to get attendance certification, so he usually just puts his head down for a bit, and they overlook it.
“────.”
“──────.”
But… why is it so noisy today?
Usually, this time is always quiet since everyone skips the lectures, but is something different happening today?
“───.”
‘Damn it.’
As Ethan grimaced and got up, he realized an unfamiliar person was giving a lecture in front of him.
‘A lecture…? Oh right. Professor Zirbeng… got in trouble and left.’
The professor had changed. Moreover, there were only three people in this classroom. Excluding himself, just two.
Come to think of it, this season was approaching the start date of the faction battle.
That made sense. But the fact that a student was teaching other students instead of a professor… The man gathering them didn’t seem much older than them. He must be the student teacher.
‘How foolish. Looks like they’re trying to make us participate in the faction battle somehow.’
Maybe he should bring earplugs next time. With that thought, Ethan yawned widely.
Things probably wouldn’t be much different from before. Even if the lecturer was from Levrant Academy, teaching alone.
Ethan decided to watch, thinking that if it wasn’t good, he’d tell them off, saying he could do better.
It wasn’t a boast, but he knew quite a bit about magic.
He wasn’t terribly deficient in theory, and while his written grades weren’t top-tier, they were at least above average.
As someone who was once a sorcerer in the lower ranks at Levrant, he could judge this immediately.
“S-so I should flow mana along the Alphaid line here?”
“Yes. Since fire magic basically focuses on firepower, you need to fill the Alphaid line first.”
“Into the skeletal Alphaid line…? How do I do that here…?”
What Rana drew was… the basic fire magic circle. Fire.
In practical terms, it’s a utility magic that just lights fires. Basically just for lighting cigarettes.
But filling the Alphaid line with mana first?
‘As expected. Just a superficially impressive person.’
The Alphaid line is the most important line forming the skeleton of a magic circle. As such, it’s common sense that mana is injected last.
At the very least, one should start with the base circle, move through the outer formulas, and fill the Deltis and Gammut lines before mana reaches the Betrinne and Alphaid lines. No one has ever instructed to inject mana from the inside first.
In other words, this person doesn’t understand the basics.
“Hmm. First, draw out your mana. I’ll inject it to show you.”
It seems he’s planning to demonstrate using Rana’s mana and circle, and Ethan planned to speak up when he deployed it.
He would deploy the magic circle for Flame Strike, a fire spell three levels higher, to put him in his place.
This was the price for disturbing his sweet sleep time with a meaningless lecture in front of a sleeping person. Let him go back to his dorm in shame and kick his blankets!
As Ethan began drawing the Flame Strike magic circle…
-Whoosh!
“Wow, w-wow…”
Ethan’s half-closed sleepy eyes were forced wide open.
“…!!!”
What? What just happened? What occurred right before his eyes?
It seemed like he touched Rana’s magic circle, and then spread mana from the Alphaid line outward to deploy the circle? Is that even possible?
Why is the deployment speed of fire magic, typically slow, like that, and the qualitative difference is too great for the same mana.
That Fire spell was comparable to the Flame Strike he was about to deploy.
“How did this happen…?”
Like Rana, Ethan wanted to ask the same question.
How on earth did that happen!
“The Alphaid line is the inner skeleton at the very center of magic. You know that, right?”
“Y-yes… I know that much…”
“Why do you think such an important inner skeleton is filled with mana last?”
“Um…? I’m not sure?”
Like Rana, Ethan couldn’t answer. He had simply tried to fill the Alphaid line last because it was at the center, without questioning why.
“Generally, people try to wrap from the outside in. Due to anxiety that mana might leak out. Because of this anxiety, they pass through complex formulas and three more lines before reaching the Alphaid line, and by then, the initial mana barely reaches the Alphaid line, which is like the nucleus. That seems to be the problem.”
Insane. What is he saying?
“This is why if you flow just a little mana into the Alphaid line, the entire circle breaks, all formulas are cut off, and the most important line core becomes a weakness…”
“W-what? What are you saying…? I don’t understand at all…”
Even Rana, the only one attending this lecture, asks again in a daze.
Ethan, who woke up in the middle and is now fully focused, feels the same way.
In response, Junon drew diagrams to explain and tried different approaches, but by the end of the lecture, neither of them understood the content.
It was too alien for the two students to comprehend.
-Ding dong.
“Ah, the bell rang. I’ll teach you the rest tomorrow.”
But one thing became clear.
Although they didn’t understand the lecture at all, it’s unlikely anyone will be lying down sleeping in the classroom tomorrow.
‘That person is… real. Undoubtedly genuine.’
Ethan, who had been expelled from Levrant due to causing trouble and enrolled in Sirah Road School.
Ironically, his skills would have earned him quite decent grades if he had remained at Levrant.
His specialty magic was also fire attribute, explosion type.
He wouldn’t be outclassed anywhere, and since the faction battle was announced, everything he heard seemed boring and didn’t resonate with him.
But today was different.
In fact, he understood almost nothing.
He barely grasped one thing from the occasional simplified explanations, leaving him with just a vague feeling.
Could he not do what Rana couldn’t? He tried, but injecting mana into the Alphaid line first was no easy task.
He failed countless times in the process.
If you just shove mana in, the concentration difference disrupts the balance and the magic circle won’t activate.
If you focus on spreading mana evenly, the deployment direction becomes inconsistent and the formula breaks.
Meanwhile, you must also be wary of your own power. If mana down occurs, that’s the end.
It truly requires precise mana control. It’s only possible if you minimize the margin of error…!
Before long, practicing this overloaded his mana circuit. From then on, he couldn’t even practice.
Injecting mana from the Alphaid line requires satisfying three elements: mana concentration, deployment speed, and stable activation of formulas and magic circles.
This alone proves he’s the ‘real deal’.
It makes one wonder how much more he knows, filling one with anticipation.
Anyone learning magic should not miss this opportunity.
“Oh, Ethan’s here. Why are you so late?”
“We thought our necks would break waiting for you. You usually wake up right away when we make noise.”
“No, no, maybe the lecture was so gentle that Ethan could sleep soundly?”
“Hahaha!!”
Everyone is laughing, but Ethan’s face doesn’t look very happy.
“…Hey, what’s wrong?”
“He seems strange today.”
Ethan, who usually laughs and enjoys with them, now wears a serious face.
“…You guys, attend the lecture from tomorrow.”
His words seem completely out of the blue.
“What? Attend the lecture…”
“Are you joking with us? Right?”
“Oh, I heard members of the Tembris party came to the next class. Are you telling us to attend that lecture?”
“I’m not joking. Listen to Professor Junon’s lecture. He’s not like the minnows you’ve seen until now!”
Ethan adds sharply with a serious face.
However, the others have no such intention.
“Come on. Have you lost your mind too? Nothing changes by listening to that.”
“It’s much better to hunt weak magical beasts together as usual, earn money, and save up to request positions like guards.”
“Even if we perform well in the faction battle, it’s the same, right? We won’t get into Levrant anyway.”
“Besides, I don’t think we’re your lackeys who have to listen to you.”
Others chime in with “That’s right, that’s right,” and some even show hostility. They were those who never liked Ethan’s arrogant demeanor.
“Looks like Ethan doesn’t want to hang out with us anymore~ Let’s let him go.”
“…You’ll regret this.”
“Regret what? You’re the one who’ll regret it and come looking for us. We won’t let you back in.”
And so, they kicked away their last chance and left in a group.
“You’ll regret it one hundred percent.”
You idiots.
***
Day 2 at Sirah Road School… or rather, my first day as a student teacher.
Anyway, I’m heading back to the dorm after finishing it.
The lecture was, well, a failure.
I tried to break things down for Rana to understand, but it didn’t seem to work well.
“Still, one more student.”
That guy Ethan, who came running so urgently his face was drenched in sweat.
Including him, that’s two students. I thought he wasn’t interested since he was sleeping, but I was surprised when he even bowed his head asking to be taught.
That aside.
“How should I teach them…”
For now, two people. If Rana and Ethan focus on participating in individual and captain battles and achieve a certain level of performance, that would be enough.
“Of all people, I’m a half-wit who can’t explain things.”
I draw the same “Fire” magic circle I used to explain to Rana.
With basic formulas. Without any applications, I draw it as is and then flow mana from the Alphaid line.
The deployment speed isn’t much different. However…
The circle is rejecting the mana. I don’t understand why it’s not working for me when it’s a magic with nothing different.
Since Rana’s mana and the circle she created activated normally, it’s not a theory so wrong that ordinary people can’t use it.
In the end, what I created is pitifully just enough to light a cigarette or a candle.
“Still, I have to teach this way.”
How could I, who doesn’t know how to handle magic, teach magic in the same way? I only remember what I’ve experienced physically.
In the way most people learn? According to theories commonly known to the public?
That’s impossible.
All I have is experience. Breaking and destroying.
Thoroughly targeting the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the magic my opponents use, breaking their magic circles and destroying their cores.
Only the experience and intuition based on that is all I can pass on.
That’s why I was planning to be a bit serious about this faction battle.
To find the answer to the question of whether I was right.
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