Yeowoo, Sia, and I took individual tests to determine our educational levels, and I proved that mine wasn’t low enough to require special lessons.
Naturally, I assumed Yeowoo and Sia would happily hold hands and take the special lessons together, but Sia passed just like I did.
It seemed Sia had done quite a bit of advanced studying at home too.
In the end, Yeowoo had to study alone until she was fully prepared to follow the Academy’s first-year curriculum.
It wasn’t anything particularly elaborate, though.
She was simply given a tablet PC and took a different lesson by herself while everyone else attended the regular class.
In the same classroom.
Right now, we were having English class.
Yeowoo wore earphones and concentrated on the teacher displayed on her tablet PC.
In contrast, I opened my mouth wide and yawned.
It felt as though spring fever was setting in.
At the front of the classroom, a blond foreigner from the United States was rattling away in English about how wonderful his country was.
“America is a great country. Of course, Korea is impressive as well. But everyone, listen carefully. We are protecting Korea. You there. What do you think?”
The student he singled out flinched and lowered his head before answering in clumsy English.
“Ah, um…… Nice Country.”
“Hahaha!”
What kind of teacher spends the whole class bragging about his own country?
Most of the students didn’t seem to understand his English, but I understood every single word that foreigner was saying.
And that teacher’s level was truly low.
Low enough that it didn’t suit the reputation of Korea’s finest Academy.
The native English teacher happened to meet my eyes.
Smiling, he pointed at me and started rattling away in English again.
“Oh, young mage. Let me ask you something. Why do you think America is so great?”
An ordinary student would probably hesitate or try to escape the situation with a short answer.
But I’m not ordinary.
I should give that big-nosed foreigner a little jab and make him stop bragging.
I stood up and answered calmly.
“Because of its location. America’s real estate is basically a cheat. You don’t have a single enemy nation nearby.”
“……Oh. I-I see. That is certainly an interesting perspective.”
When I answered his question with flawless English pronunciation, the native English teacher looked visibly startled and flustered.
I didn’t stop there.
“Teacher. Everyone already knows when a country is truly great, even if its people don’t boast about it. As a citizen of a first-rate nation, I hope you’ll learn to be a little more humble.”
“……Thank you for the advice, young mage.”
The native English teacher’s face ripened like an apple.
I snickered and sat back down.
Tap, tap.
Yeowoo tapped my shoulder.
Apparently, she had taken out her earphones when I stood up and watched the entire exchange.
When I turned around, Yeowoo was staring at me in shock while giving me two thumbs up.
“Why are you so good at English?”
“I learned it in kindergarten.”
“……That’s crazy.”
Sia was also staring at me like a statue, her mouth hanging open.
Their reactions somehow made me feel embarrassed, so I lowered my eyes to my textbook.
After that, the native English teacher stopped bragging about his country and continued the lesson properly.
However, the confidence he had shown earlier was nowhere to be seen.
He stumbled through the lesson with a rambling voice and a flushed expression, then bolted out of the classroom the instant the bell rang.
“Hyunwoo, did you live in America?”
Once class ended, Sia moved closer to me with a surprised expression.
I smiled and shook my head.
“No. I learned it by myself when I was little.”
“You learned it by yourself when you were little?”
Sia tilted her head and muttered to herself.
“You’re still really little now, though.”
“Ooh~! Our little mage really did something impressive, huh?”
Apparently, the fact that I had given the teacher a verbal jab in fluent English had been rather entertaining to the other students as well.
Moon Mujin, who ranked first overall among the first-years, approached with a grin and clapped.
“I don’t know exactly what you said, but that native teacher looked totally flustered.”
“It wasn’t anything special.”
Several female students also approached me wearing expressions similar to Sia’s.
“Hyunwoo, that was amazing. I thought you were just a little kid, but you’re actually an elite.”
As the girls stroked my head, Yeowoo’s expression gradually darkened again.
Feeling strangely conscious of her gaze, I stood up.
“I’m going to the bathroom.”
“Oh. Want me to come with you?”
Mujin naturally took my hand and led me toward the bathroom.
***
The regular combined classes we took together with the Martial Arts Department ended, and the specialized classes attended only by the Magic Department began.
This wasn’t our usual classroom, but a building reserved for the Magic Department.
It was a wooden building with a strong vintage atmosphere, and the man teaching the class had a beard that reached his chest and introduced himself as a Fourth Circle mage.
“Nice to meet you, children. My name is…….”
“Ooh!”
The children’s eyes widened as they exclaimed at the letters that appeared in midair.
Words had appeared in empty space like a hologram.
Even I watched them with a slightly surprised expression.
Earth’s magic seemed to be somewhat different from the magic I knew.
“As you can see floating in the air, my name is Kim Namwoo. I’m a professor, and I’ve studied magic for nearly thirty years.”
Professor Kim Namwoo pulled a wand from inside his clothes and showed it to us.
Yeowoo’s eyes immediately grew even brighter.
“And I’ll be teaching you General Magic Studies for the next year. Since this is our first meeting, I’ll show you something interesting by applying existing magic.”
Professor Kim Namwoo swept his wand through the air with the flourish of an orchestra conductor.
Then sweet music filled the classroom.
“Wow~!”
Has Earth developed this kind of showy magic?
I watched Professor Kim Namwoo with sharp eyes.
There were many things about this that felt strange for magic.
Whenever magic was used, mana inevitably moved along with it.
Yet I couldn’t see any flow of mana at all.
That meant Professor Kim Namwoo was either such an extraordinary mage that even the eyes of a Ninth Circle Archmage couldn’t see through his magic……
Or he was using a trick.
“Haha! Fooled you, didn’t I? This isn’t magic!”
Professor Kim Namwoo laughed heartily and waved his wand toward an electronic device in the corner of the classroom.
The music stopped, and the floating letters disappeared as well.
“Huh?”
“It’s science, which is even more amazing than magic. What do you think? Fascinating, isn’t it?”
Unlike Professor Kim Namwoo, who burst into hearty laughter, the children looked disappointed.
Yeowoo’s expression in particular was badly twisted.
I knew it….
Setting aside how pathetic Professor Kim Namwoo seemed, I did agree with what he said.
Science was a field of study even more fascinating than magic.
And more impressive, too.
After Professor Kim Namwoo rambled about stories from his past that none of us wanted to hear―mostly about how impressive he supposedly used to be―he finally moved on to the main subject.
The topic was how close a mage needed to become with mana.
“No matter how talented a mage may be, if they cannot control mana properly at the right time and place, they can never become an outstanding mage! Therefore, I would like to suggest a fun little game for all of you.”
The children had been staring at the professor with deflated expressions, but the moment he mentioned a game, their eyes began regaining focus.
Professor Kim Namwoo grinned at their reaction and explained the game.
“It is a game called Mana War. Now, as for how you play it…….”
Professor Kim Namwoo’s ‘Mana War’ was simple.
Two people played against each other, and whoever drove the opponent’s mana out of a designated area won.
He added that the main purpose of the game was to test how efficiently one could control mana and how much mana one could operate at once.
“It would be a bit much to grade you on this from the very first day, so just think of it as having fun. Now then, shall everyone begin playing with the person beside them?”
The main battlefield was the desk space between seatmates.
The classroom desks were connected in one long U-shape.
“Hyunwoo! Play with me!”
It was Yeowoo.
When I looked at her, however, her gaze wasn’t actually on me but somewhere beyond me….
Here we go again.
Feeling a headache coming on, I turned to the side.
Sia nodded.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I can play with the person next to me.”
Oh.
I thought they were about to have another huge battle of nerves.
I nodded and began Mana War with Yeowoo across the desk.
Yeowoo narrowed her eyes with all her might and gathered her mana together.
But she was clumsy.
No, calling it clumsy was too generous.
It was completely unruly.
It felt like watching a child who didn’t know how to draw wildly swing a brush across a blank sheet of paper.
That was only natural.
Yeowoo didn’t properly know how to control mana yet.
Before making us play a game like this, Professor Kim Namwoo should have taught everyone how to control mana properly first.
Clicking my tongue inwardly, I crushed Yeowoo’s crude lump of mana.
Yeowoo’s patchwork mana army couldn’t put up even the slightest resistance before my precise mana army drove it back…….
Yeowoo seemed able to sense, however faintly, that she was losing, because she narrowed her eyes even harder.
But putting more force into her eyes wasn’t going to make her any better at controlling mana.
“Ah, what……? Why isn’t this working?”
Yeowoo became flustered.
The mana she possessed no longer listened to her commands.
Because it had all defected to my side.
I considered invading all the way into Yeowoo’s body, but that seemed a little too merciless against a child, so I stopped after occupying only the desk.
“I won.”
Yeowoo apparently couldn’t accept it.
She strained with all her might to overturn the situation, but nothing changed.
The professor wandered around the classroom, casually observing the matches, before deciding on the spot to declare a tournament.
“Now. Everyone who won against their partner, stand up and compete against the other winners! Those who lost should likewise compete against the other losers and study how to improve their mana control!”
Yeowoo pouted and began a match with the student beside her.
As for me, Sia had just defeated her own partner, so the two of us competed.
Of course, Sia wasn’t a match for me either.
That professor might be about the minimum level required to challenge me.
After defeating Sia with ease, I went on to win match after match against the other children.
Eventually, even the professor called me forward.
“Oho. Impressive, Lee Hyunwoo. You defeated all your older classmates and made it this far.”
“Thank you.”
The professor smiled with satisfaction before looking at the students.
“This time, I’ll play this game against Hyunwoo. Everyone, watch carefully and observe how the match develops.”
Professor Kim Namwoo was probably planning to defeat me with his years of experience and use the match to teach the students how to control mana properly.
He likely hadn’t even imagined that he might lose.
Hmm.
Still, with my body in a pristine state without even a single Circle engraved into it, I couldn’t defeat a Fourth Circle mage.
At best, I could probably put up a decent fight.
But then…….
“Now. Hyunwoo doesn’t have a Circle, while I have four of them, so Professor should have some restrictions, right? Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair.”
“Yes?”
“I won’t use my Circles or any of the mana stored inside my body. I’ll use only the mana floating around the classroom, so let’s give it a try. Would you stand at the opposite end over there?”
“Uh…… Yes.”
Standing at one end of the U-shaped desk, I looked at the professor and thought.
If I play this well, I might actually win.
“You may begin first.”
“Yes.”
If that’s what you want…….
A strange competitive spirit began rising inside me as I gathered mana.
I began seizing control of the mana floating throughout the classroom as well as the mana held inside the children’s bodies, taking it for myself.
After spending an entire minute without attacking the professor’s mana…….
“Hyunwoo? Aren’t you going to start?”
The professor finally spoke, apparently tired of waiting.
I nodded in response.
“I’ll start now.”
I poured the enormous mana army I had gathered into the professor’s territory all at once.
With this much mana, there was no need for control.
All I had to do was issue an attack-move command and let the sheer mass crush everything on its own.
The difference in volume was simply overwhelming.
“……Huh?”
The professor also sensed that something was wrong.
Startled, he tried to block my mana army, but faced with the overwhelming difference in mass, his precise control gradually began to collapse.
Using sheer human-wave tactics, I drove away all the mana around the professor.
And when every bit of mana except what lay dormant within the professor’s Circles had fallen under my influence……
Professor Kim Namwoo stared at me in horror and abruptly ended the game on his own.