WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 1

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I was pretty sure I was fucked. No, I was definitely fucked.

I brought the mug of beer to my lips again. Even as that sharp bitterness slid down my throat, my stomach somehow didn’t burn. Maybe it was because I was burning more bitterly inside than any beer could manage.

The me who thought I was a genius had his head smashed in ten years ago.

The me who thought I was gifted had his head smashed in five years ago.

The me who thought I was talented had his head smashed in today.

Now I had nothing left.

Right. It was time to admit it. I was nothing but an ordinary guy. It had taken me ten crashes into the same wall to finally learn my limits.

“Maybe the university didn’t reject me. Maybe I’m the one rejecting the university?”

The drunken words came back to me as a lonely laugh. I had reached the point of spouting nonsense. Damn it, the me from twenty years ago would never have imagined this.

Right. Once, I thought I would become an amazing mage.

I raised the mug and poured it straight down my throat.

The dream in the alcohol slowly soaked into my body. It was a special drink said to always give you happy dreams. I had meant to drink it after passing the exam. Damn it.

My body folded over the table on its own. A comfort like someone stroking my head slowly drew me into the world of dreams. A dream, huh. The dream from when I had been happiest.

At that moment, a foul stench began to rise from somewhere. At the same time, something grabbed my foot and dragged me down.

As if I had fallen into a muddy swamp, the dream that had been carrying me toward happiness sank into that stench.

A dream was coming. A dream.

A dream of those days before I became like this, when I had been full of hope.

“Let’s go out to the continent and attend university. Then I’ll become a real mage!”

Along with those damned words I had shouted twenty years ago, I sank into the past.

It was around the time I turned seven.

By order of the household head, all the young children of the clan gathered in the open ground. I was one of them. The clan children sat in a circle around a young man. The young man wore a strange coat made of crow feathers and smiled at us.

The young man introduced himself as Ojo and lit a flame on the tip of his finger. The moment I saw it, I was captivated by the intensity it held. That strange, uncanny power. A law that went beyond the reality I knew.

“Every person has the possibility of magic. But it is only a possibility, and making it bloom is difficult. Under my contract, I will teach you magic. If there is someone exceptional, their seed will naturally bloom. Once one person awakens magic, the rest can learn on their own. I will teach only one person.”

From that moment on, I began learning magic from the mage along with the other children.

Ojo’s stories were fascinating.

He said every mage on the continent grew a tree inside their chest. As he explained this, Ojo taught us the ‘Root-Taking Breathing Method,’ which was said to have been created by an archmage.

It involved imagining that a person’s possibility existed in their chest, then gathering the surrounding magical power there to form a kind of soil. When Ojo personally guided the magical power, I began to feel a strange sensation.

As I kept breathing under Ojo’s guidance, some unknown energy began gathering into my chest from throughout my body. Ojo called this magical power.

“The magical power of this world contains far too many impurities. If you use it directly for magic, the spell cannot withstand it. But if the possibility in your chest can sprout, that sprout will filter this magical power and provide pure magical power. So if you wish to become mages, make your sprouts bloom.”

Mage. What a word that was. I did my best. Whether I was eating or sleeping, I tried to maintain that breathing. At first, the strangeness of this magical power made it hard to move properly, but I slowly grew used to it.

I was different.

That was what I thought as I looked at the children around me. The other children struggled just to keep up the breathing. Some gave up easily and left.

Unlike those thoughtless kids, I excelled in every way. I absorbed magical power so easily that even Ojo was surprised, and I had no trouble keeping up with his theoretical lessons either.

It happened on the day I turned thirteen.

That day was the same as any other. As soon as I opened my eyes, I sat up and practiced the breathing method. It was what I always did before eating. But then something began writhing in my chest. Pain struck without warning, and I collapsed to the floor, clutching my chest.

It was a seed! A seed I had never noticed forming was vibrating inside the foundation I had built through breathing. I could not even breathe properly. When Nanny saw me, she rushed out and called for help.

Ojo came after hearing the commotion. He placed a hand on my chest and sent magical power flowing into me. As Ojo’s magical power seeped into my body, the seed seemed startled and vibrated even harder. Pain. The pain made it impossible to breathe.

“It’s trying to take root. Focus. No matter how hard it gets, don’t lose consciousness. Steady your breathing and gather magical power.”

Ojo spoke firmly. His words helped me regain my calm. Think back to when I first began breathing. How did I breathe then? How had I breathed?

Even though I could not breathe, I expanded my chest as if I were breathing. Then air pushed into my chest and cleared my head, if only a little. Keep breathing. Don’t pay attention to the pain.

At last, the seed stopped vibrating. Then came a moment I would never forget until the day I died.

The hardened seed endlessly sucked in magical power. Then it began growing larger and larger. It felt as if the foundation were drying up completely. The seed pulsed on its own, as if it were alive. It was like another heart had started beating inside me.

Then cracks began forming in the seed. I writhed at the pain, which felt as though my organs were actually splitting apart. Magical power began leaking through those fine cracks. The amount of magical power gradually increased, and at last the seed split completely in two. At that moment, I felt as if I had been split in two as well.

Nanny later told me I had actually died. She said I had vomited blood and stopped breathing. But at the time, I felt more vividly alive than ever before. My mind, separated from my body, remained inside my chest.

As the seed split, the vast magical power inside it poured out with tremendous force. Within it, I controlled my breathing. The magical power followed my breath and seeped into the foundation. The magical power pierced through the half-collapsed foundation, hardened, and formed a kind of root.

The shock shook my whole body, and blood surged from my mouth. As the me that had split in two joined back into one, pain returned to me, who had existed as only a mind. So this was what taking root meant. My senses blurred under an agony I had never felt before.

I was half out of my mind, but Ojo kept saying something beside me. The words could not remain inside me and brushed past like a passing wind. Still, a few of them stayed and woke me up again. I had to take root. Following that, I began putting down roots almost by instinct.

The roots began devouring the foundation. The magical power I had gathered over six years was far too little for this seed. The foundation collapsed completely, and the seed writhed wildly. Breathing. The only thing I could trust was my breathing.

I sucked in external magical power and handed it straight to the seed. But it must not have been satisfied, because the seed even stole my breathing and began using me as a kind of passage. I was no longer breathing only through my nose and mouth. My whole body began to breathe. Magical power seeped in through my entire body.

After sucking in magical power to its limit, the seed broke free of the foundation and sprayed magical power into the empty air. That magical power hardened in an instant and drew a single line.

Magical power piled up again and again, and the line grew thicker. At last, when the line had grown thick enough to be called a stem, a few leaves began to bloom. At that moment, it began devouring magical power even more fiercely than before. Not only magical power, but even the life force of my body began gathering into my chest.

My whole body burned hot. The sounds of bones cracking and muscles tearing echoed inside me.

“Always stay calm. Slowly. Forget the pain of your body. Remember only what you have learned so far.”

Ojo said. The Root-Taking Breathing Method was a simple way of breathing that let you build up nutrients and put down roots.

Everything I had known before was nothing but shallow knowledge. A true breathing method was this: drawing in magical power through the entire body. Through my breathing, I guided the roots to spread deeper and wider.

First, I had to keep my body alive. In place of the emptied life force, I stretched the roots straight out. My drying body met the roots and regained a little vitality. The roots, now able to touch the outside directly, also pulled in external magical power with tremendous force.

In this way, under the guidance of the breathing method, the roots gradually changed my body into something like a tree. During this process, the seed gradually began to reduce the amount it absorbed. The leaves had finally become complete.

Soon, all the pain vanished, and a refreshing feeling washed over me, as if I had been born anew. My mind was terribly exhausted, but my body felt as if it could soar into the sky at any moment.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Nanny looking at me with a worried face. Ojo stood beside her with his arms crossed. When I smiled weakly, Ojo nodded. Every sensation felt clearer than ever. Even with my eyes closed, I felt as if I could sense the shape of the room.

“I didn’t expect the seed to stir so violently. You have quite a bit more talent than the other clan members.”

“Do… other people become mages like this too?”

Ojo nodded. This was what it meant to be a mage? I had almost died. And that pain, too.

“For a person to become a mage means ascending beyond their species. Deaths are common. Just as you would have died if I hadn’t been here.”

He was right. If Ojo had not kept waking me up during the process, I would have died on the spot without forming a sprout. I bowed to him in gratitude. Ojo waved his hand and stopped me.

“From now on, you will experience pain even worse than this. When a mage crosses a realm, they transform into a completely different being.”

Pain worse than this? I could not imagine it at all.

“Today, calmly observe your body. Put down more roots. Build your foundation again. You must bind the foundation tightly, as if gripping it with your roots. If the foundation shakes, your magic will also fail to become complete.”

Following his words, I focused on feeling the strangeness inside my body. It felt as if a new organ that had never existed before had formed. No, should I really call this an organ? It felt more like I had abandoned my old body and switched to a new one.

Ojo soon left, and Nanny laid me back down on the bed. I sent Nanny away with a glance, since she kept worrying beside me. If she stayed at my side, we would both be distracted. I closed my eyes as I was and focused completely on the inside of my body.

I could feel the roots burrowed deep into my body and the magical power flowing along them. As I had learned, this magical power was different from the magical power that existed around me. It had the comfort and naturalness of my own hands and feet.

I quietly drew it outside and moved it around. I tried floating my body in the air, and I also lifted a cup filled with water. The movement came naturally, as if I had always been using it.

Excited, I moved the magical power here and there, but I soon had no choice but to stop. The magical power held in the roots had almost run dry. As if irritated, the roots sucked in a great deal of the surrounding magical power. Mm, just as Ojo said, I should restrain myself. Today, I should do my best to stabilize this sprout.

That was how, at thirteen years old, I became a mage. It was my most brilliant time.

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