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Chapter 109

“Professor Charles Reynolds from the Department of Elements, Professor Rebecca Claudel from the Department of Enchantments, and Professor Lan Fei from the Department of Martial Magic.”

The first was a warm old man with a gentle smile; the second was a graceful woman standing expressionlessly; and the third was a young man looking all worn out by his work.

The identities of the three judges on the stage drew Se-Hoon’s interest.

I expected Charles would be one... but I didn’t see Rebecca coming. Had she come to ensure Lea’s elimination? Or was she simply here to assess Lea directly? He was unable to determine her true motives despite scrutinizing her further.

The announcer continued with the briefing.

“From now on, these judges will be walking around test site three, evaluating the formulas or the Formulaic Armament you\'ve forged that uses them.”

The longer the announcer spoke, the tenser the gazes on the professors became. Every student in the room knew it would be those three who would judge the result of the accumulation of the effort and time they had invested into this competition—it was those three professors who had absolute power in the room.

“Participants, please prepare your demonstrations as soon as the judges arrive at your spot. The rest should wait quietly at your desks for your turn.”

With the briefing concluded, the professors stepped down from the stage and were followed by the screen hovering above, which automatically adjusted its focus.

“A brief introduction of yourself, please,” Charles asked, approaching the first participant’s desk with a smile.

“Uh, my name is Danny Ridley, a second-year student of the Department of Operation Commands. My submission is, uh, a device that enables real-time transformation of mana circuits, allowing a skeleton to use various skills.”

Finishing his nervous explanation about the blue crystal on his desk, he quickly inserted it into a skeleton waiting nearby. Clicking into place, the crystal emitted a blue light that slightly changed the color of the skeleton’s bones to blue.

At the sight, Rebecca asked calmly, “Is this an enhancement spell?”

“Yes. And besides this, there’s also—”

“Let me ask one thing,” interrupted Lan Fei with a weary voice. He was gazing at the skeleton with a tired expression.

“Have you accounted for activation errors caused by external mana disturbances?”

“O-of course, as long as it’s not directly infused....”

Clap.

Before he could finish, Lan Fei clapped lightly, releasing a faint wave of mana that calmly swept over the skeleton.

Crackle-

Affected by the mana, the crystal sparked and quickly lost its light, leaving Danny Ridley wide-eyed.

“What, what happened...”

“What happened is that I recreated the mana disturbance that follows the activation of the intermediate-level spell, Lava Shell. From what I can tell, there seem to be about seventy-two other types of mana disturbances that could deactivate your device. Are you sure you’ve accounted for them?”

“...”

Unable to respond to the sharp question, Danny Ridley remained silent.

At that sight, Lan Fei turned to the other two and asked, “What do the two of you think?”

“Hmm...”

“Hmmm...”

The sight of the two professors pondering gave Danny Ridley a moment of hope.

If they can see the potential in the device despite its weak points then...!

Fervently praying to Charles and Rebecca, professors acknowledged for their amiable personalities, he hoped that they would overturn Lan Fei’s harsh critiques.

“It would be better for you to start over from scratch.”

“This device has only the disadvantages of the transformation formula without any of its benefits.”

Unfortunately, Danny Ridley’s moment of hope was ruthlessly shattered by their evaluations that lacked any mercy.

“It seems that both of you agree with me. You can pack up and head home now.”

“...Understood.”

Leaving behind Danny Ridley, whose face paled as he sadly began to gather his things, the professors nonchalantly moved to the next desk, starting the process again.

“Please introduce yourself...”

For a while, the relentless critiques by the three professors continued. And thanks to the blue screen, Se-Hoon could watch every single one.

So, if the submission is below standard in both completeness and potential, it’s a fail. But if they see some potential in it, they put it on hold. And if it manages to be above for both aspects, it’s a pass.... Is that how it works? Se-Hoon wondered, stroking his chin.

Roughly calculating the numbers, about thirty percent had failed, fifty percent had been put on hold, and twenty percent had passed. But the basic assessment aside, there was another interesting aspect to their assessment process.

“There’s surprisingly a lot of third and fourth-years who either failed or were put on hold,” Luize murmured as she watched the screen.

Unlike the top-ranking students of each grade who usually didn’t differ much, the general student body of higher grades had better skills on average.

So the fact that each grade had a similar rate of students that were either put on hold or failed across was quite interesting.

“Maybe it matters in actual combat, but here, there’s not much distinction by grade.”

“Really? It looks like the third and fourth-year students came with better submissions though...”

“The submission’s final quality honestly doesn’t matter much to them—its potential is what does.”

Even if a student had come with a well-made submission, if it wasn’t significantly different from past years’ submissions, then there was no real reason for the Ivory Tower to fund them.

“Potential, huh...? Does that mean you could fail, too?”

Even if the equipment Se-Hoon forged was impressive, the fact that he could still fail if the professors dismissed it as lacking potential filled Luize with the urge to tease him. But in response to her playful tone, Se-Hoon just smirked.

“Do you really think that might happen?”

“...You’re sooooo annoying,” she grumbled, turning her head away.

Meanwhile, Se-Hoon turned his gaze back to the screen to continue scrutinizing the scoring process.

It seems they are quite generous when deciding what could be considered as having potential.... Does that mean Dawn’s influence isn’t as strong as I thought? Or maybe they’re just being cautious...

The fact that Dawn, worshippers of a specific type of magic, allowed such lenient assessments, was very strange. He raised his guard once again, pondering how they would interfere with this competition. In the meantime, the three professors reached his desk.

“I’m Lee Se-Hoon, a first-year of the Department of Blacksmithing, and this is Luize Valente, a second-year of the Department of Martial Magic. She will assist with the demonstration for my submission.”

At Se-Hoon’s introduction, the professors watched Luize nod lightly to them, before turning their attention to the seemingly empty desk.

“Where is your submission?”

Lan Fei had scanned across the desk and Se-Hoon’s body, but he hadn’t found anything that seemed to be the submission.

Without batting an eye, Se-Hoon responded, “My assistant, Luize, has it currently equipped.”

Hearing her cue, Luize immediately activated the device by infusing it with her mana.

Flap!

A black iron plate rose from the choker around her neck and covered her lower face, forming a mask with an X-shaped pattern. It was a surprising development for the professors.

“The device I’ve created is a formula modification unit that suppresses any wasted or excess mana while the user is casting spells.”

“A formula control unit?”

It was easy to make something that amplified or reduced the strength of spell formulas, but creating something that could modify them in more ways was not simple. Even if the structure of a spell formula was fixed, it could still unfold in irregular ways depending on the situation. So how, then, would it define what the correct structure was and modify it?

Observing the obvious skepticism in Lan Fei’s voice and on his face, Se-Hoon was promoted to offer a simple explanation.

“I plan to demonstrate the device shortly, but before that, you guys can take a look at its information message.”

Whoosh!

Bringing up Hati’s information message, Luize turned it around so that the professors could read it. Then, upon reading it, the three professors’s eyes grew larger.

“Hero tier...”

“To think you forged such equipment from Inkstone Ore...”

The information message had genuinely impressed both Charles and Rebecca. If an information message explained the Formulaic Armament’s effect or showed that it existed as an equipment skill, then it effectively served as proof of the equipment’s completeness and potential.

“No wonder it was so difficult to see inside the mask; it was forged from Inkstone Ore. Was it to prevent any external interference?”

“That’s a part of the intention.”

Clap!

Deciding to test that, Lan Fei clapped lightly and reproduced a wave of mana, just like with the first student.

Whoosh!

What was different though, was that Hati did not react at all. Amazed at the lack of reaction, Lan Fei admired it before murmuring, “Impressive...”

Since it was the first time Lan Fei had praised anyone, despite dozens of students having passed the professors’ evaluations, the students still within test site three were all slightly stunned by the praise that echoed throughout the room.

Lan Fei knows how to praise, huh?

I still remember how he once told me to think about whether my assignment should go into the shredder or the trash.

Wondering if they had misheard, the students from the Department of Martial Magic were particularly gobsmacked.

Satisfied by the murmurs across the test site, Se-Hoon smiled and said, “Then, let\'s move on to the demonstration.”

Following Se-Hoon’s prompt, Luize immediately used the incantation she prepared beforehand.

“Spin Ball.”

Whoom!

A sphere the size of a head formed in midair.

From a distance, it would appear as a simple solid sphere, but on closer inspection, one would notice it was spinning at a very high speed.

“As you all probably know, maintaining rotational motion without dispersing its form is a very challenging task. The slightest of distractions can easily have a large effect on its rotation, and a minor misalignment in mana can easily disrupt it.”

Having captivated the full attention of the professors, Se-Hoon placed his hand on Hati and abruptly infused his mana.

Whoom!

With the infusion of Se-Hoon’s mana, the mana of two different people began colliding inside Hati, causing it to emit light. It was a very risky thing to do since it could result in a mana surge and backflow if not controlled properly.

Swoosh-

However, none of the risks occurred and the two wildly clashing types of mana naturally assimilated inside Hati. And since the rotating sphere maintained its perfect form without any disruption the entire time, it proved that Luize had not interfered with the calming of the surging mana at all.

Whoom!

In fact, the sphere was now rotating at a faster speed despite her inaction, which left Lan Fei spellbound.

To think the device could handle the mana surge while also accelerating the rotation of the sphere further by figuring out the exact limit of the cast spell...

How exactly had Se-Hoon designed the spell formula to produce such a flexible piece of equipment? Aside from that, what amazed Lan Fei—even more in fact—was the demeanor of the two.

They didn’t even blink an eye when the mana surge occurred.

The absolute conviction evident in their expressions, giving the feeling that they didn’t have a single doubt that the equipment they forged would perfectly control the situation, told the whole story. And having witnessed that firsthand, Lan Fei was able to give his impression.

“This is absolutely marvelous.”

[A bond has been successfully established with the subject ‘Lan Fei’.]

Hmm. I didn’t expect that. The truly unexpected establishment of a bond caught Se-Hoon’s interest.

Lan Fei then turned to the other professors and asked, “Although I do think that everyone shares my thoughts, how did you guys find this device?”

“I feel the same. You can just speak for us.”

“Same here.”

With the unanimous agreement, Lan Fei nodded at Se-Hoon.

“You passed. And we’ll skip the verification process for your device, so just work on any improvements on your own.”

Normally, the professors would conduct a verification process based on the scoring results to probe for vulnerabilities and instability in the submissions that passed once the preliminary rounds concluded. However, they skipped that step completely for Se-Hoon, advancing him directly to the main competition.

It meant that they couldn’t even think of or discover a single vulnerability in Se-Hoon’s submission beyond the universal truth that “it would break if one hits it.”

“I look forward to it.”

“Well done.”

Following Lan Fei and Charles who moved on to the next desk, the screen shifted, prompting Rebecca to glance back and glare at Se-Hoon.

“Were you the one who fixed Lea to the top of her desk?”

“Yes. She tried to hide under the desk, so I simply placed her on top.”

“That girl is always such a handful...” Troubled by Lea’s behavior, Rebecca sighed and then composed herself.

“If I see even the slightest sloppiness in her submission, she’ll be disqualified. That device is just as dangerous as that,” she warned Se-Hoon.

Quickly figuring out that she was speaking purely as a fellow enchanter, without personal sentiments, Se-Hoon nodded calmly.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay... good job today.”

Leaving those final words, Rebecca moved on to the next desk, concluding Se-Hoon’s preliminary examination.

Flap!

Reverting Hati back to its choker form, Luize looked toward the professors moving away, particularly at Charles, with a peculiar expression.

“He didn’t even say hi to me....”

“Hm, you’re right.”

Even though Luize was supposedly his cherished student—his closely inspected test subject in reality—Charles had shown little reaction when he passed by.

I thought he’d at least pull off some tricks...

Like the device that stimulated eroded mana, Dawn could have messed with Luize at any time if they had wanted to. Se-Hoon had known that so he had prepared a device capable of countering any external interventions.

Perhaps Charles doesn’t wield that much power then... or maybe he’s just being quite cautious of me.

With Ludwig and various other high-ranking heroes showing interest in Se-Hoon, even groups that were as radical as Dawn hesitated to directly interfere with him.

Then, just as Se-Hoon decided on how he should proceed—

Whoosh-

The test site went pitch black.