Chapter 20
Amilion thought her eyes weren’t failing her; she could still clearly see the mana flow surrounding Ryu’s body, and each time Ryu moved, mana scattered into the air around him. That was why Amilion was even more shocked.
Compared to other combat magic, teleportation magic didn’t require complex calculations or intricate circuit placements. Instead, it demanded absolute precision.
With other magic, even if the calculations were slightly off, the result would still roughly resemble the intended effect, but with teleportation magic, even a tiny miscalculation prevented it from activating at all.
That was why Amilion had highly evaluated Ryu after watching his entrance exam video. In a short period, Ryu had flawlessly performed numerous consecutive calculations to demonstrate his teleportation magic.
‘Is this… possible?’
After deflecting a few more of Ryu’s attacks, Amilion revised her initial thoughts. It wasn’t that she couldn’t see Ryu; Ryu was simply moving faster than she could perceive.
With standard teleportation magic, mana would typically gather at the location where the caster intended to teleport, and the caster would move there instantaneously using the accumulated mana.
But Ryu’s teleportation magic worked the opposite way. Somehow, he would already be at the target location before the mana even started to coalesce there, with mana trailing in his wake.
Naturally, Amilion, who could “read mana,” couldn’t anticipate Ryu’s movements—Ryu was moving faster than mana.
Whoosh—
Ryu’s mana-infused punch whizzed past Amilion’s ear, narrowly missing her as she instinctively dodged the attack. It had been a long time since Amilion had encountered attacks that defied her predictions like this.
“W-wait a moment!”
“…Ah!”
Crash—
“Ugh…”
“S-sorry about that.”
When Amilion dodged Ryu’s punch and yelled “Wait a moment!” Ryu, startled, aimed his next punch elsewhere, lost his balance, and fell over. It was clear that he had put serious weight into that punch. Amilion quickly extended a hand to help Ryu up.
Moments earlier, Amilion had planned to disguise his intent as “counseling” to get back at Ryu for his dismissive attitude toward magic. But now her view of Ryu had completely changed—this boy was a genius, or perhaps even more than that.
‘Could it be…?’
“Professor, you shouldn’t call ‘stop’ so suddenly. I was just getting into it,” Ryu complained.
“…I apologize. I feel I’ve seen enough of your abilities for now.”
“Well… but honestly, Professor, your reflexes are impressive! I didn’t expect you to dodge everything.”
Ryu looked at Amilion with surprise, while Amilion, in turn, was looking at Ryu with an entirely new light. With both of them seeing each other differently, Amilion couldn’t suppress the excitement stirring inside her. Ryu’s quick, precise calculations were now a secondary consideration.
“Um… Professor?”
When Amilion stared at him silently, Ryu scratched his head and called out to her.
“Oh! Yes, today was truly an enlightening session. Let’s discuss further tomorrow.”
“…Alright. So, the Class Competition lineup report is complete now, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then, can I go now?”
“That… ah, yes, go ahead. Today won’t be the only day.”
“Hmm?”
Though Ryu tilted his head in confusion, he politely excused himself and left the training hall without a second thought. Amilion, still standing there, was lost in thought.
‘I’m almost certain.’
Amilion took a deep breath, closing his eyes to steady his excitement. Slowly, he recalled the unique traces of Ryu’s teleportation magic he’d just witnessed. Ryu’s body moved first, followed by mana scattering in his wake—a style of teleportation magic that Amilion had only seen once before, not in real life but in a book.
‘It’s almost identical… to the Crescent Emperor’s.’
Seeing it firsthand was vastly different from the video. Ryu’s teleportation magic was eerily similar to the technique of the first Emperor of Crescent, the founder of the Crescent Empire.
‘Even the black hair…!’
The more Amilion thought about it, the faster her heart raced. There was a chance that this commoner, Ryu, with his black hair, was an even more extraordinary figure than Amilion had first assumed.
“Library…!”
Muttering softly to himself, Amilion immediately left the training hall and headed somewhere with urgency. Her only thought was to borrow every record about the first Emperor of Crescent before the library closed.
***
‘She’s got good instincts, even though I held back.’
Amilion certainly was an academy professor. Though Amilion’s decision to conduct “counseling” by bringing Ryu to the training hall and suddenly initiating a duel was a bit much, Ryu let it slide. After all, he’d encountered countless people whose behavior was far harder to understand.
It wasn’t a bad idea to gauge the skill level of an academy professor. So, mixing in a bit of sincerity, Ryu approached the duel intending to land a solid hit on the professor—but ultimately, he didn’t land a single blow.
‘Ah, that hurts.’
All he managed to achieve was a bruise on his elbow from falling awkwardly. True to his title, “The All-Seeing,” Professor Amilion displayed a remarkable ability to read her opponent’s moves.
Although it seemed she couldn’t see through Ryu’s spatial movement, her instincts were sharp. Ryu was genuinely impressed by how Amilion dodged his attacks with almost animalistic reflexes, even though Ryu was holding back.
‘Could she have noticed?’
For a moment, Ryu felt uneasy due to Amilion’s sharp instincts but quickly dismissed the thought. Today, he had deliberately been extra cautious to leave traces of mana wherever he moved. No matter how perceptive Amilion was, she likely wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual. After all, even Erica had once called Ryu’s “disguised teleportation magic” practically flawless.
“Mm…”
With the sun fully set, the academy was practically deserted. Ryu liked the quiet of the night; there was something about watching the academy draped in darkness that felt oddly thrilling, almost as if he should visit the Headmaster’s secret storage again, just to see what might be there.
‘Though… they may have moved it.’
After the last time he raided it, he vaguely recalled hearing it had been relocated.
‘But…’
Even though all official classes had ended and night had fallen, Ryu encountered only one person on his way from the academic building to the dorms, and that was a single student right as he exited the building.
Even though he had walked quite a distance, the academy was eerily empty.
Ryu had assumed that students would naturally become more active once classes ended, but perhaps it was different in this noble-filled academy. Were they all in a rush to return home as soon as classes were over?
“Hm…”
Indeed, the world was full of things difficult to understand. When faced with such things, it was usually easier to just shrug and accept them. Though he was tempted to teleport straight to his room with no one around, Ryu resisted and walked into the dorm building as a precaution. It never hurt to be careful.
‘Today was a long day.’
He thought he’d treat himself to a nice bath tonight.
***
“What… what is that?”
“Um… uh…”
“Is that a student?”
“It appears so…”
Two figures in white robes, hoods pulled low over their faces, were staring intently at the male student entering the dorms. At a glance, it looked like just another student returning to the dorms after classes. But the two figures knew how improbable that was.
“Did… did he just pass through?”
“Yes… he walked right through…”
“How… how is that possible?”
“…”
The two observed in stunned silence as the student casually walked through the barrier they had placed around the academy building without resistance, then exited the barrier just as casually. They had assumed their barrier was successful since it managed to keep back other students and even academy professors.
“Failed again…?”
“It seems so. Haah, we’ll have to go back to the drawing board.”
“It was working fine until now. How did this…?”
“Sigh…”
The black-haired student entered the dorms, while the man who seemed to be in charge extended his hand to dismantle the barrier surrounding the academy. There was no visible trace of mana in his actions, so subtle that even Amilion would not have detected it.
“I thought it was flawless this time.”
“We may need to report back to the Elder.”
“Yes, we should… Sigh, and with the atmosphere lately being so tense.”
The barrier they had been testing was essential for an upcoming operation. It was a type of barrier that combined illusion and control magic to subtly prevent people from approaching without it feeling unnatural. The principle was simple. If someone came close to the barrier, it would release mana identical to 99% of the individual’s mana, merge invisibly with the person, and subtly manipulate their mind to turn them away.
Initially, there had been instances where some students, who had barely used mana, weren’t affected, so they had repeatedly revised the formula, believing it finally perfected.
“Sigh… back to the start.”
“M-maybe that student was just an ordinary person?”
“Enough nonsense. Let’s get back to work.”
“Yes…”
With that, the two figures in white robes disappeared from sight with a soft popping sound.
—
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