Chapter 35
Unexpected Confusion
Professor Nide appeared at the center of the dueling grounds.
‘Let’s hurry up and start.’
As she swept her gaze once around the 2nd-floor elental seats, she discovered sitting at the Darkness Elent seat, and her eyes stopped.
Her expression wasn’t all that pleasant.
‘Why? Did she have sothing planned that fell apart because I ca to the Darkness Elent?’
Strangely, the mont our eyes t, that thought ca to first.
It was because she had intentionally helped Vir, the Water Elent student and a mage of the Lamik Family, during the last duel.
Nide didn’t avoid my gaze. After staring at for a few seconds, she left an unreadable smile and spoke to the supervising teachers.
“Now, is there any subject that wishes to step forward first?”
With her statent, the curtain of the duel rose.
At the sa ti, the eyes of the teachers in charge of each elent moved busily.
Among them, the one who appeared the most impatient was Ever, the teacher in charge of the Fire Elent.
Ever said sothing to Banshi, and when Banshi nodded, he raised his hand high.
“Professor! The Fire Elent will step forward first!”
‘He did this last ti too. Is he that desperate?’
I couldn’t really understand why he was so aggressively eager just for his performance evaluation.
And the reason Ever could so confidently step forward first must have been because, even if I wasn’t in the Fire Elent anymore, he had the reliable card that was Banshi.
Banshi had spent five years in 1st Class and had shown nothing but good performance.
anwhile, Walfis wore his usual stern expression, arms crossed, simply staring at his food.
‘He should be in the sa circle as Ever. Does he not care about his evaluation?’
His stern expression practically said as much.
Even though I was sitting in the Darkness Elent seat, Walfis didn’t seem to have the slightest thought of stepping up first.
‘Co to think of it, he wasn’t interested in going first during the last duel either.’
For what purpose did he even beco the Darkness Elent teacher for 1st Class of the Ed Branch School?
Even during his usual lessons, there wasn’t the slightest hint of passion. What I felt most strongly was that he conducted classes simply because he had no other choice.
Generally, teachers of the Magic Academy were the last hope of dropouts who had failed to enter 6th Class.
Most had imnse desperation, so passion naturally seeped into their teaching—but Walfis alone lacked that entirely.
“Professor! We will step forward!”
At that mont, the Summoning teacher, who had been gauging the reactions of the other subjects, raised her hand.
“Oh? Summoning stepping forward again? Is that how confident you are?”
Nide also showed interest.
Only by stepping forward first and winning would the supervising teacher receive bonus points.
It wasn’t sothing to do with an “if we win, great; if not, oh well” attitude—you needed certainty that you could truly win.
“Of course!”
Kanyu, the Summoning teacher, answered confidently.
It seed she had so form of certainty that they could win no matter who was drawn from the Fire Elent, even if it was Banshi.
‘They’ve been quiet up until now, and even placed last in the previous duel. Why are they suddenly so confident this ti?’
There had undoubtedly been so kind of change within the Summoning subject during the past month.
At least during this duel ti, the student’s skill beca the teacher’s skill as well.
And that confident expression ant she had gained a student she could believe in during this past month.
My gaze naturally stopped on Kiena.
‘Certainly—she’s a genius of understanding.’
Last month, after going out with Banshi, Kiena had shown the miracle of summoning a Divine Artifact despite being a 1st Class student.
She had surely shown off that talent plenty during class, and thanks to that, she had likely taken 1st place in yesterday’s teacher discretionary evaluation and escaped her negative points.
In other words, Kanyu acknowledged her talent.
With Kiena’s current skill, she believed Kiena could defeat Banshi, who was officially the second strongest in 1st Class after , the double caster.
“No need to delay. We’ll begin the draw imdiately.”
Nide summoned the sa drawing urn as last ti.
The results were one draw from the Fire Elent and one from the Summoning subject.
[Nohill Hapert]
[Kiena]
‘Oh-ho, this might be interesting.’
The mont the results ca out, both Ever and Kanyu broke into wide smiles.
Ever hadn’t gotten Banshi, whom he wanted, but since he knew the average ability of the Summoning subject, he wore the confident expression of soone certain that Hapert, the mage of a noble family, would be more than enough to handle things.
Naturally, Kanyu had the sa confidence.
Soon, the two stepped down with their respective staffs.
Coincidentally, their staffs were identical.
But the attitudes of their owners were not.
Because Kiena had shrunk back.
It wasn’t her first duel, but perhaps because her opponent was a mage of a noble family, she seed to have taken such a posture.
“No matter what, I can’t lose to a re commoner. I’m a mage of a noble family.”
‘That “mage of a noble family” nonsense. I’m so sick of it.’
Hapert’s words clearly ant that although performing well in the duel didn’t matter to him and he would rather lose on purpose, he still refused to lose to a commoner.
The determination to thoroughly show the difference between a commoner mage and a noble family’s mage was clearly embedded in him.
When I had subdued him with magic, he had known I was a double caster born after 500 years, so it wouldn’t have damaged his pride too severely.
But what would happen if he lost to Kiena?
Strangely, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Kiena would absolutely not lose in this duel.
If that happened, Hapert would end up looking like a corpse with its soul cleanly sucked out.
‘Sohow, that stuck-up pride of his looks like it’s not just going to snap today—it’s going to shatter completely.’
And so the duel between the two began.
The mont the duel started, Kiena imdiately summoned her Divine Artifact.
Hiiiiiing!
‘It grew over a single month.’
The mont I saw the Divine Artifact, the countless grueling hours of training she must have endured flashed through my mind like a revolving lantern.
When Kiena first learned how to summon a Divine Artifact, it had been a newborn Pegasus, eyes not even open.
Yet in just a single month, the Pegasus now stood firmly on all four legs, its once-small body grown large enough to nearly match Kiena’s own height.
Perhaps because of the Divine Artifact’s appearance, Kiena straightened her shoulders, and confidence welled up even in her expression.
Now her lips were smiling.
Just like any mage, the mont she manifested magic, she beca a different person—a perfectly normal reaction.
The mont Kiena displayed her summoning magic, not only the students but even Ever from the Fire Elent seat couldn’t hide their shocked expressions.
So surprised, in fact, that his eyes widened as round as full moons and he jumped to his feet.
A subtle glance to the side showed Walfis’s pupils trembling as well.
‘Of course they’d be shocked—she just displayed summoning magic between 1st and 3rd Circle.’
“What’s that winged horse?”
On the other hand, perhaps because he was from a family of elentalists, even though he was a noble mage—
Hapert seed completely ignorant about summoning magic.
It made sense, considering that while I didn’t know how many years Hapert had spent in 1st Class, this couldn’t have been his first duel against a summoner.
But the summoning magic previous summoning students had shown would have been nothing more than summoning a few animals, like Kiena back in Class 0.
“And what’s with that proud face? You’re still just a summoner, way weaker than an elentalist.”
Kiena made no reply, maintaining a blank expression.
“Arrogant.”
Hapert imdiately manifested a 1st Circle highest-level spell, Fire Shroud.
And the action he followed it with left bewildered.
‘Oh? That’s…….’
Hapert began to condense the manifested Fire Shroud into a round sphere on his palm.
It was the magic I had shown him yesterday.
‘You look down on commoners, but you want to imitate their magic? Cute.’
A guy who was so tightly wrapped in pride over being from a noble family was copying my magic as is……
Was my magic really that impressive to him?
If he hated commoners, then it would’ve been natural to despise and belittle magic perford by a commoner—but apparently not.
He looked like an overly cunning student whose attitude shifted depending on which way the wind blew.
But he didn’t have the talent to copy a magic he saw once.
The barely condensed Fire Shroud shot toward the Pegasus.
Flutter—!
With a single flap of its wings, the Pegasus effortlessly deflected Hapert’s magic.
Thud!
“Guh!”
The magic deflected by the Pegasus struck Hapert square in the chest, knocking him back several steps until he fell on his rear.
That miserable feeling of being hit by your own magic—
Hapert was probably feeling that for the first ti today.
And hit by a commoner mage he so thoroughly looked down on, at that.
“So, you want to do this the hard way?”
With killing intent rising sharply, Hapert once again manifested Fire Shroud and began condensing it.
‘He has no mastery at all. At this rate, firing a few Fire Balls would be far more effective.’
No matter how powerful a newly learned spell was, its strength varied dramatically depending on mastery.
If we quantified mastery up to 10—
Hapert’s Fire Ball mastery would already be at 10, since he had manifested it chanically for class even if he disliked it.
But that altered Fire Shroud he was trying to imitate from the one I used on him yesterday wasn’t even at mastery level 1.
Stubbornly clinging to that spell only made his loss more certain.
“Uaaagh!”
As I expected, every spell Hapert manifested was lightly deflected by Kiena’s Pegasus with a single flap of its wings.
‘Mastery matters, sure…… but this is even simpler. Hapert is guaranteed to lose. Most importantly, he has no idea how to fight a summoner.’
That was the conclusion I reached while watching the duel.
Even if Hapert switched to a spell he was confident in now, he still wouldn’t be able to beat Kiena.
The biggest reason summoners were considered weaker than elentalists—
Their primary weakness wasn’t the Divine Artifact, but the summoner’s unprotected body.
No matter how powerful the Divine Artifact summoned, if the summoner’s body was struck down, it beca useless—a chronic flaw inherent to summoners.
Compared to elentalists, they had very limited ans to protect their own bodies.
Yet Hapert, overwheld by the shock of his magic not working, was pouring every spell at Kiena’s Pegasus alone.
‘If this keeps up, only Hapert’s mana will keep draining while Kiena stands and watches from behind. A summoner’s weakness is the summoner themselves. Ignore the Divine Artifact and attack the summoner.’
Of course, since they were still in 1st Class, it wasn’t impossible for him not to know how to deal with a summoner even as a noble mage.
Elentalists viewed other elentalists as their real competition.
If Hapert had received any education from his family, all those techniques would’ve been suited for fighting elentalists—but they were completely useless against Kiena, a summoner.
“Huff… huff….”
About three minutes passed after Hapert unleashed spell after spell.
His eyes began to glaze over, beads of sweat gathered on his forehead.
Clear evidence that he had used his mana nearly to the limit.
‘It’s over.’
Hapert attempted one last desperate spell, but right before he could manifest it, Kiena’s Pegasus slamd its hoof down toward Hapert’s asuring device.
Crunch!
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