Ch.20Chapter 20. The One Who Sees Through (2)

Amillion thought her eyes weren’t deceiving her.

She could still clearly see the mana flow surrounding Ryu’s body, and mana scattered around him with every movement he made.

That’s why Amillion was even more surprised.

Compared to other combat spells, teleportation magic wasn’t particularly difficult in terms of calculations or circuit arrangement.

But it absolutely couldn’t have errors.

With other spells, even if calculations were slightly off and mana was misplaced, the results would still be somewhat similar. But with teleportation magic, even the slightest miscalculation would prevent the spell from activating at all.

That’s why Amillion had rated Ryu so highly after watching his entrance exam video.

He had performed perfect calculations multiple times in succession within a short period while demonstrating teleportation magic.

‘This is… could it be?’

After receiving a few more of Ryu’s attacks, Amillion corrected her earlier assumption.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t see it.

Ryu was moving faster than what was visible.

With normal teleportation magic, mana would first gather at the destination, and then the caster would instantly move there using the power of the accumulated mana.

But Ryu’s teleportation magic was the opposite.

She didn’t know how he did it, but in a split second, Ryu would move to a specific location first, and then the mana would spread afterward.

It was natural that Amillion, who could “read” mana, couldn’t predict his movements.

Because Ryu was moving faster than the mana itself.

Whoosh—

The sound of Ryu’s mana-infused fist cutting through the air barely grazed her ear, and Amillion instinctively avoided the attack again.

It had been a very long time.

Since she’d faced attacks this unpredictable.

“W-wait!”

“…Whoa!”

Crash—

“Ughh…”

“I-I’m sorry.”

When Amillion shouted “wait” while dodging Ryu’s punch, he responded with a surprised voice, extended his next punch in the wrong direction, lost his balance, and fell down.

How much force was he putting into those straight punches?

Amillion quickly extended her hand to the fallen Ryu and helped him up.

Just moments ago, she had planned to hit Ryu just once under the guise of counseling, thinking he treated magic merely as a tool. But now her thoughts had completely changed.

This child is a genius.

No, perhaps even the term “genius” might be insufficient.

‘This is definitely…’

“Phew. You shouldn’t tell me to stop so suddenly. I was just getting into the flow.”

“…I’m sorry. I just thought I’d seen enough of your skills.”

“Well… Professor, you really have good instincts. I didn’t expect you to dodge everything.”

Ryu was looking at Amillion with a surprised expression, and Amillion was looking back at him with a completely different gaze than when she started the “counseling.”

As their perceptions of each other changed, Amillion couldn’t calm her racing heart.

Ryu’s fast and perfect calculation skills were no longer the main issue.

“Um… Professor?”

When Amillion said nothing and just stared blankly at him, Ryu thought something was strange and scratched his head as he called out to her.

“Ah! Yes, today was a very informative session. Let’s talk more tomorrow.”

“…Okay. So the report on the inter-grade competition members is done too, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then can I go now?”

“That… Ah, yes. You may go. Today isn’t the only day, after all.”

“Hmm?”

Ryu tilted his head but still said goodbye to Amillion first and left the training hall without hesitation, while Amillion remained standing there in a daze.

‘I’m almost certain.’

Amillion closed her eyes calmly, trying to settle her racing heart.

She slowly recalled the traces of teleportation magic that Ryu had just demonstrated.

His body moving first without any sign, followed by scattered traces of mana.

Amillion had seen this form of teleportation magic exactly once before.

Of course, she hadn’t seen it in person, only in books.

‘It’s so similar to the magic of Emperor Crescen, the founding emperor.’

She hadn’t noticed it when watching the video, but seeing it in person made it clear.

Ryu’s teleportation magic was exactly the same as the magical operation method of “Crescen,” the founding emperor who created the Crescen Empire.

‘And even the black hair…!’

Amillion felt her heart racing more as she thought about it and opened her eyes wide.

Perhaps the black-haired commoner Ryu was an even more remarkable person than she had thought.

“The library…!”

Amillion exclaimed quietly and immediately ran out of the training hall, hurrying somewhere.

The only thing on Amillion’s mind was borrowing a book about the records of the founding emperor before the library closed.

**

‘I was controlling my strength, but she has good instincts.’

The academy professor was certainly worthy of her position.

It was hard to understand why Professor Amillion had taken him to the training hall under the pretext of counseling and suddenly suggested a sparring match, but he just went along with it.

After all, he had seen countless humans behaving in incomprehensible ways before.

Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to know the skill level of an academy professor.

So he approached the match with the intention of mixing in some sincerity and landing a hit on the professor, but in the end, he couldn’t land a single blow.

‘Ouch, it stings.’

He just ended up falling and getting a wound on his elbow for nothing.

Professor Amillion lived up to her title of “The Discerning One,” showing remarkable skill in reading her opponent’s movements.

Of course, she didn’t seem to see through his spatial movement, but her instincts were still excellent.

Even though he had controlled his strength, he was impressed several times by Amillion’s animal-like instincts as she dodged his attacks.

‘I hope she didn’t notice anything.’

He was slightly worried because Professor Amillion had such good instincts, but he soon dismissed his concerns.

Today he had deliberately leaked more mana than during the previous exam, so even Professor Amillion wouldn’t have noticed anything suspicious.

Even Erika had once said that my “disguised teleportation magic” was completely convincing.

“Hmm.”

The sun had already set and it was dark, so there were hardly any people walking around inside the academy.

The night was definitely more comfortable and pleasant.

Looking at the academy shrouded in darkness gave him a strange feeling, as if he should visit the headmaster’s secret warehouse again to see what was there.

‘Ah, I wonder if they moved it.’

I think I heard somewhere that they moved it after I broke in that one time.

‘But…’

Even though all regular classes had ended and it was dark, I had only encountered one person from leaving the lecture hall until I almost reached the dormitory.

That one person was a student I saw right after leaving the lecture hall.

Since then, I had walked quite a distance to the dormitory, but there were strangely few people in the academy.

I thought students would naturally be more active after classes ended, but apparently that wasn’t the case at this academy full of nobles.

Perhaps they all rush back to their homes as soon as classes end.

“Hmm.”

There are indeed many things in this world that are hard to understand.

In such cases, it’s easier not to try to understand and just accept things as they are.

The dormitory building was in sight and no one was around, so I was tempted to teleport directly to my room, but I restrained myself and walked into the dormitory.

It never hurts to be careful.

‘Today was a long day.’

I should take a half-body bath before going to bed tonight.

**

“W-what is that?”

“Um… well…”

“Is that a student?”

“It seems so…”

Two people wearing white robes pulled up over their heads couldn’t take their eyes off the male student entering the dormitory.

At a glance, it looked like just a student returning to the dormitory after finishing classes, but the two people knew how impossible that should have been.

“Did he… go out?”

“Yes… he just went out…”

“How is this possible…”

“…”

The two people watched in silence as a student walked out of the lecture hall, passed through the barrier they had set up without any resistance, and then walked right back out of it.

They had successfully made other students and even academy professors turn back when encountering their barrier, so they thought they had finally succeeded this time.

“Is this another failure…?”

“It seems so. Sigh. We’ll have to recombine everything from the beginning.”

“It was working perfectly until now, how could this…”

“Siiigh.”

The man who appeared to be the leader reached out and retrieved the barrier they had spread across the center of the academy while looking at the dormitory where the black-haired student had entered.

No movement of mana could be detected in that action.

Even if Amillion had been watching, she wouldn’t have noticed anything.

“I thought we had finally perfected it this time.”

“It seems we’ll have to report to the Elder again.”

“I suppose so… Sigh, and the atmosphere has been tense lately.”

The barrier the two were testing was one of the essential barriers for an upcoming operation.

It was a barrier that linked illusion magic and control magic to naturally block people’s approach without seeming artificial.

The principle was simple.

When someone approached the barrier, it would emit mana that was 99% identical to the person’s own mana, secretly mixing into their body, and then naturally controlling their mind to make them turn back.

When they first created the barrier, they found that students who had rarely used mana were occasionally unaffected by the barrier, so they revised the formula again and again, thinking they had finally perfected it.

“Sigh. Let’s go back.”

“P-perhaps that student was just an ordinary person!”

“Stop talking nonsense and let’s get back to work.”

“Yes…”

With those final words, the two people in white robes disappeared instantly from that spot with a whooshing sound.