Ironically, however, the one most absorbed in the lesson inside the lecture hall was not a student.
It was a guardsman standing firm by the rear door of the lecture hall. The soldier holding a halberd far taller than himself was more engrossed in the lecture than anyone else. Of course, his name was Damon.
‘Remarkable.’
From between the visor of the helmet pulled low over his face, his eyes flashed again and again. Those eyes were fixed intently on Professor Droizen’s mouth, as though he were determined not to miss a single word of explanation.
A full month had already passed since Damon began attending the lectures. Thanks to Benitez’s consideration, he had been assigned to guard duty in the faculty lecture halls, and he had immediately been stationed here. Since his duty required him to be inside the lecture hall in order to protect the students from an orc attack, listening to the lectures was not particularly difficult. The only problem was that he could not ask questions, even when there was something he was curious about.
But he did not mind in the least. With the determination to cram everything the professors said into his head, he memorized and memorized with all his might. As a result, Damon came to one conclusion: magic was by no means a field of study that could be learned lightly.
Of course, because the lectures were advanced courses, they were unbearably difficult for Damon, who had no foundational knowledge whatsoever. Moreover, among the technical terms used in magical education, there were countless words Damon did not know. There were times when he could not understand what was being said at all, but even so, he devoted himself to memorization. In any case, Damon could not possibly let go of this hard-won opportunity. He was so zealous that he even refused to be relieved during the shifts that took place every five hours, continuing to listen to the lectures instead.
Naturally, this was welcome news beyond measure to his fellow guardsmen. For guardsmen who had no interest in magic to begin with, five hours of duty had been nothing but tedious. As proof, the guardsman standing duty alongside Damon kept yawning incessantly. It seemed he found it boring to stand there in silence. Damon, however, paid no attention and remained absorbed in memorizing the lecture.
“In magic, a circle refers to the number of times mana is arranged. In other words, when gathered mana is rearranged only once, we call that the 1st Circle. I expect all of you are already aware of this fact. Then let us move on to the next stage.”
The magic trainees gathered here were generally above the 1st Circle level. Rarely, there were even 2nd Circle users, but Droizen was explaining based on 1st Circle masters or experts. Of course, among the children of the nobility, there were also students who knew absolutely nothing about mana, but that was not a problem. They had no interest in the lesson’s content in the first place.
For Damon, however, this was an extremely serious obstacle. Since most of Professor Droizen’s lecture could only be understood with basic magical knowledge, he was merely memorizing it and not understanding the content at all.
In truth, Damon’s comprehension was unrivaled. That much could be seen from the fact that, in only ten years, he had mastered the Heavenly Blood Demon Art as well as the use of the Tiger Claw, which was renowned for its difficulty. Yet even Damon’s exceptional comprehension was not enough for magic. Magic, which had ruled the continent of Truvenia for ages, was a field of study as profound as its long history. Thus, he had no choice but to keep gathering Droizen’s lecture content into his head.
“Generally speaking, the difference between a 1st Circle and 2nd Circle Fireball is not exactly double, but it approaches that. This is because rearranging mana once and rearranging it twice produces an enormous difference in power. If the caster is a 2nd Circle expert, Fireball can be deployed in two ways. One is to form a single Fireball while reducing the casting time, and the second is to create two Fireballs simultaneously. Naturally, if the casting time is extended, one can create and launch even more Fireballs, but this premise is established under the assumption that the enemy will not wait during that time.”
As extremely technical and difficult theories were laid out one after another, the students’ attitudes split sharply. Some focused with frantic intensity, while others simply sprawled over their desks and fell fast asleep. Damon, of course, was also diligently memorizing, his two eyes flashing from between the visor of his helmet. His legs had begun to go numb from standing for so long, but he did not move in the slightest.
In the meantime, Droizen’s three-hour lecture finally came to an end.
“That will be all for today’s class.”
When he declared the lesson over, the students each picked up their books and rose from their seats. Most of them headed to the magic laboratory for practice. There were even students who bolted without so much as a greeting, as if the lecture had bored them to death. Of course, compared to the group that had already run off, they could be considered gentlemen. Watching the various behaviors of the students, Droizen began gathering his teaching materials.
Just as he was about to be the last one to leave the lecture hall, someone suddenly blocked Droizen’s path.
“What is it?”
Realizing that the man was one of the guardsmen protecting the lecture hall, Droizen wore a puzzled expression. After all, there was no reason for a guardsman to have business with him. The guardsman was, of course, Damon. He hesitated for a moment, then opened his mouth with difficulty.
“Um… There was something I was curious about in the lecture, so I have taken the liberty of stepping forward.”
“The lecture?”
Droizen’s eyes widened. He had never dreamed that a guardsman assigned to guard duty would take an interest in his lecture. As if he could not understand it at all, he looked Damon up and down. Of course, there was a reason for his suspicion.
In general, swordsmanship and magic were fields of study that could not coexist. That was because swordsmanship focused solely on physical training, while magic was a discipline intensely centered on mental cultivation. For that reason, the trainees of this faculty were strictly divided according to their training courses. In other words, a student learning swordsmanship in the Knight Faculty could not simply learn magic because he had lost interest.
In that respect, the guardsman’s behavior was utterly absurd to Droizen. For one thing, a guardsman was a position assigned only to swordsmen who had learned a certain level of swordsmanship, and that meant he must surely be ignorant when it came to magic. A swordsman who had devoted himself to the single path of the sword would have no reason to take an interest in such a difficult magic class. Droizen nodded with a very amused expression.
“Very well. Then tell me what you are curious about.”
Damon opened his mouth with an expression of great relief.
“Yes. What I am curious about is the method of rearranging mana. Also, what is the procedure for gathering mana that possesses each attribute?”
A hint of disappointment appeared on Droizen’s face. The guardsman was asking about basic common knowledge that any trainee would know. However, pleased that someone had shown interest in his class, Droizen decided to explain it to the guardsman. In any case, his attitude of wanting to learn was admirable, and it could not be ignored that Droizen’s antipathy toward the students who had fallen asleep during class played a large part in that decision.
“Very well. I cannot explain everything due to time, but I will give you a brief explanation.”
Droizen explained in detail the points Damon had asked about. Of course, that was because he had grown curious about this unusual guardsman who was interested in magic. Fortunately, there was time before his next class, so he was able to devote quite a bit of time to resolving the guardsman’s questions.
Though the amount was like a speck of dust compared to the vastness of magic, Droizen’s unexpected kindness became an opportunity for Damon to gain at least a little understanding of magic. After receiving a little over an hour of private instruction, Damon expressed his sincere gratitude.
“Thank you very much, Professor.”
“What for? If someone says he wants to learn, what else can I do? However, among the professors here, there are almost no mages who would explain things to you. In particular, Professor Garfield, the dean, is an extremely strict old man, so it would probably be best not to ask him questions. If you have something you are curious about, observe the situation and ask me. I will teach you as long as time permits. Understood?”
Droizen, now in a good mood, even gave Damon detailed cautions.
“I understand.”
Damon bowed his head respectfully once more, and Droizen left the lecture hall with a satisfied expression. The other guardsman, who had watched the entire process, was staring at Damon with eyes that said he truly could not understand him. A guardsman interested in magic. There was no other way to describe him but as an oddity.
Time passed steadily, and before long, another month had gone by. The time for the orcs’ great offensive was drawing near, but Damon seemed to have no interest in the war and remained immersed in studying magic.
On days when there were lectures, he stood duty without missing a single day, and he gathered every bit of the professors’ lecture content into his head without leaving anything out. But as time passed, Damon’s frustration only grew.
Without foundational knowledge, studying the discipline of magic through nothing but overheard knowledge was simply beyond him. It had already been two months since he began learning about magic. Yet he was still in a state where he could not even grasp the concept of magic. In other words, magic was truly too difficult a discipline to master with stolen knowledge alone.
Originally, most trainees who wished to learn magic would enter the tutelage of a high-ranking mage and learn magic thoroughly through private instruction. This was the method that had long been established in Truvenia to cultivate mages.
In that respect, the method of gathering several students together and lecturing to them as they were doing now could not possibly be very effective. Of course, the leaders of the Icarotte Empire knew this well, but they had no choice. Most mages were fighting on the battlefield, so there was an extreme shortage of personnel who could teach. For that reason, the progress of the trainees educated in the Magic Faculty was painfully slow. Naturally, there was bound to be even less progress for Damon, who was relying solely on stolen knowledge.
Then, one day, an incident occurred that left Damon unable to even listen to lectures any longer. The incident began when Professor Garfield, the dean of the Magic Faculty, personally took charge of a class.
“Today is the time to study Lightning Bolt, an electric-type spell. Of course, I expect all of you are well aware of who I am.”
The old mage spoke with an arrogant expression. From his sharp eyes, it was not difficult to tell that he had an extremely exacting personality. He was Garfield, the dean in charge of the Magic Faculty. The dean, who oversaw the major and minor affairs of the faculty, was personally giving a lecture. Of course, given the situation, there was no helping it, but Dean Garfield was not particularly pleased with the current state of affairs.
‘Damn it. Why should I, the dean, have to lecture students?’
But there was nothing he could do about it. Not long ago, many professors had been conscripted as War Mages, so the number of people available to teach the students had fallen drastically. Thanks to that, even Dean Garfield had no choice but to step into the lecture hall. In truth, he was a mage of extraordinary ability. As a 7th Circle expert on par with the court mage Benitez, he could be considered a top mage who had risen to the ranks of the archmages, of whom there were fewer than a hundred across all of Truvenia. And yet Garfield, with such power, had ended up instructing students who were floundering at merely the 1st Circle. But since he did not want to be conscripted, Garfield erased those thoughts and began the lecture.
“Lightning Bolt is an offensive spell that selects only mana possessing the electric attribute from among the various types of mana distributed in the atmosphere, rearranges it once, and then fires it. Naturally, it is fundamentally classified as a 1st Circle spell, but it can be called a powerful offensive spell whose might increases more and more as one’s circle rises. As proof of that, the process of deploying Chain Lightning, a 2nd Circle spell, is no different from Lightning Bolt. The difference in power arises merely from rearranging mana twice within the same amount of time.”
At the back of the lecture hall, Damon was still standing motionless, listening to the lecture. He had already been secretly listening to lectures for two months, but not a single student paid any attention to him. Of course, part of it was because he wore his face guard pulled down so low that his appearance could not be discerned, but because he had lived so quietly, his presence was rarely noticeable.
Damon was listening to the lecture with even greater enthusiasm than the students. But today, the content of the lecture was especially difficult. In the two eyes visible through his helmet, deep perplexity was evident.
‘How frustrating. Not only can I not rearrange mana, I cannot even gather it.’
Of course, Dean Garfield’s lectures were already famous for being difficult even under normal circumstances. Even students whose abilities mostly exceeded the 1st Circle could not properly understand them, so it was nearly impossible for Damon, who had no foundational knowledge, to comprehend. Even though he tried not to, his impatience gradually welled up.
He had already reached the limit of simply memorizing things. Somehow, he had to understand the concepts before he could apply and match them to the knowledge he had memorized. As if unaware of Damon’s impatience, Dean Garfield continued the lesson without a care.
“The most important aspect of Lightning Bolt is concentrating destructive power on a single point. Commonly used offensive spells such as Fireball or Magic Missile place their emphasis on attacking multiple unspecified targets—in other words, broad-range targets. But Lightning Bolt is different. The purpose of this spell is only one thing: to intercept enemy commanders or important figures and render them unable to fight. Now, I will explain the method of rearranging the mana used in Lightning Bolt.”
As had been the case with Professor Droizen, a considerable number of students among those present were doing other things, as though they had no interest in the class.