Surviving in the Magic Academy - Chapter 11

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 11

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“Would you like some black tea?”

“Uh… sure.”

Butler began pouring tea into the cup in front of Professor. The act of simply pouring black tea might look simple, but the magic inside it was anything but.

It contained the essence of the “Perfect Black Tea” magic I had created after ten months of training, refining it through one round of research after another.

The black tea in the cup began to settle into layers. Each layer had a different temperature and texture. The layered tea then began to gather into one mass. Then it formed a shape. Five shapes in all.

Each distinct shape existed like a tiny point, then bloomed in an instant. A fragrance rose from the tea and filled the air around us. They had blossomed into five flowers inside the clear tea.

It was not enough to brew delicious black tea. I had to capture beauty inside it as well. This was my Perfect Black Tea. Professor placed one of the tiny flowers formed inside the cup into her mouth. Her eyes widened slightly.

“Uh… what is this?”

“It is the magic I completed recently. The Flame Flower and Ice Flower you taught me three months ago, Professor. I was inspired while researching those two spells. When I saw how they made the most beautiful flowers bloom by giving every petal a different temperature, I tried applying those spells to tea.”

Of course, it did not end there. These flowers bloomed and remained intact only at the perfect temperature, so keeping that temperature steady at all times was important. That was why I added magic to warm the cup, allowing it to maintain the optimal temperature until the cup was completely empty.

To complete this single cup, I had researched and dismantled over thirty spells. In the process, the temporary life-granting magic I created to preserve the flowers’ fragrance, texture, and shape made these flowers briefly come alive.

Professor lifted the cup again. A faint smile formed on her lips. Success. I quietly clenched my fist. The living flower bloomed softly and produced a spoonful of honey. It was a flower I had delicately adjusted just for her, since she liked sweet things.

Butler quietly moved behind Professor.

The six hands I had newly added extended from Butler’s back. Butler reached out with them and began gently kneading Professor’s arms and legs. At the same time, the spells built into the puppet’s arms activated.

A very weak lightning spell lightly awakened the body’s muscles, while constant magical vibrations immediately loosened them. Another spell encouraged magical power to flow, scraping away the residual magical power left in the body. This improved blood circulation and guided magical power all the way to the body’s extremities.

This was the secret technique I had trained with all my strength to perfect, massage magic.

How much hardship had I endured to create this optimal massage magic? To test what scale each spell should be used at, I slammed every spell directly into my own body.

Through that pain, I adjusted the magic to the degree Professor would like, tested it on others as well, and completed the “Perfect Massage” magic.

“Uh… this is nice….”

This massage magic was actually a kind of trick. A mage’s body was thoroughly managed by their own tree. It was already as close to an ideal body as possible, lacking nothing.

How could I give satisfaction to a body like that? So I thought, what if I started by weakening that state? Apply a kind of false shock to tense the muscles, then loosen them perfectly to create a state even more comfortable than before. That was the process that formed this massage.

After the massage ended, it helped with stretching. It stretched the fully relaxed muscles beyond their existing limits and guided the body into the most pleasant comfort.

After receiving the massage like that for a long while, Professor slowly opened her eyes. Her eyes, filled with pleasant satisfaction, turned toward me.

“You.”

“Yes, I am listening.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes. Thank you for worrying about me. I have already packed my luggage.”

“Good. If you do what you’ve done for the past year, you should pass. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

Cold sweat ran down my back. Over the last ten months, after going through many things, I had learned that Professor never bluffed. If she said she would hit someone, she hit them. If she said she would kill someone, she killed them. She definitely meant what she had just said about killing me.

“I will do my best to pass, so that everything I learned from you, Professor, will not go to waste.”

“Mm. Of course you should.”

Professor closed her eyes again and sank into the puppet’s hands. A soft purring sound began to leave her nose. When she stayed still like this, she looked just like a very cute girl. But inside her, endless magical power was surely surging.

The spells from just now were already built into Butler’s circuits, so there was no real need for me to remain here. Even so, I did not leave.

How could I entrust Professor solely to the hands of a puppet? She was my lifelong benefactor, the one who had guided me all this time. I adjusted Butler’s circuits moment by moment, trying to create even more optimal movements.

A little more comfortably, a little more pleasantly. I controlled the magic to suit Professor’s small body.

The sun rose, and that sun set again.

Had it been around ten hours since the massage began? Professor slowly opened her eyes. After glancing out the window, where it had begun to grow dark, Professor waved her hand.

“Go. Prepare for the exam.”

“Understood. Then I will take my leave first.”

There were still more parts left to adjust, though. Lamenting that inwardly, I backed toward the stairs. Finally, I bowed deeply to Professor and went down to the workshop.

I quietly cast a locking spell at the entrance and completely cut the workshop off from the first floor. Only then did the tension leave my body.

Over the last ten months, I had learned many things. Magic, circuits, puppets, and even knowledge of the world. I knew just how great an opportunity it was to learn from Professor like this, so I clung to it as if my life depended on it.

Of course, I was not foolish enough to think Professor was teaching me without some purpose of her own. Who would invest an entire year? Especially in someone like me, with no background and no ability.

There was definitely something. But I did not know what it was. I looked at the contract text on my wrist.

“If I receive Irian’s teachings and pass the university exam, I promise to serve Irian until graduation.”

If I passed this exam, what would Professor make me do? Whenever I saw this contract text, anxiety rose inside me. Was there anything at the university that needed someone like me? Would my body and soul be taken the moment I arrived, turning me into a slave?

“I should still be grateful.”

I muttered to myself. Knowledge was more precious than a thousand gold pieces. There were some conditions, but the fact that someone willing to teach me magic had appeared at all was a miracle.

I sat on the bed and sank into thought. Professor was always cold and forceful. When I failed to meet her expectations, punishment worse than death came down on me. I learned from Professor what it felt like for a soul to split apart.

When someone like her smiled after seeing the magic I had made, I felt truly proud in that moment. It felt like I had improved by my own efforts, not simply in the sense that my realm had risen, but that I had grown as a person.

I reached for the magic book on the desk. It was my own textbook, created by binding together the lessons from the last ten months. I turned through it page by page and looked back on that time.

The first class, and all the puppet blueprints Professor had dumped on me. I still shuddered when I thought about them. I still did not understand them all. To throw something like that at me in the first lesson. It was definitely homework she had given me from the start just to crush my spirit.

Each sheet of paper held a day’s memories. The days I failed again and again while researching Perfect Black Tea magic, the moments I got beaten by Professor and crawled around half-dead, even the memories of growing through that process. Every moment was a great asset to me.

“I’m still lacking.”

I muttered softly. I really wanted to pass the exam. I looked into the magic book. I had to become even a little more perfect. Even if only to avoid being killed by Professor, and more than anything, for myself.

I wanted to bring the fruit of this short miracle to completion.

I sipped the tea. A flower melted in my mouth and released a thread of sweetness. A faint smile formed at that mood-lifting sweetness. He had created this with magic. It was quite surprising.

“Let’s see what he’s doing.”

I narrowed my eyes and focused my magical power. My magical power pierced through the crude protective magic that kid had set up and looked through the basement. The child was clutching a book and struggling. I stroked my chin as I watched.

“Mm, I didn’t think he would go this far.”

The puppet the kid called Butler began the massage again. I tried putting magical power into the puppet’s body. It was still full of inefficiency. Even so, it showed another level of completion compared to yesterday. That child had grown step by step like this.

To think he could reach this point in ten months. I knew that child’s clumsy talent well. He was exactly the most outstanding among those who could not pass the university exam. I had not expected a child like that to grow this quickly.

Could it be that I had incredible talent for teaching? Was that why, a thousand years ago, the former president forced me into a professor position? I snickered at the thought. There was no way. I knew myself well. I was the kind of being who could not teach others.

I made the puppet stop the massage and pour tea again. The puppet took a teapot from its chest and began pouring black tea. Several flowers bloomed inside the cup again. When I took a sip, a pleasant fragrance and warmth soaked into my body.

“Mm, he is commendable.”

How could I not understand the meaning contained in this magic?

It was magic adjusted only for me. He had called it Perfect Black Tea, hadn’t he? I could easily tell that the title “Perfect” had been attached because the “perfection” that child spoke of was perfectly matched to me.

The kid probably knew that too and deliberately gave it the name “Perfect” to get on my good side. I did not dislike that slyness. A quick-witted mage lived long.

That child had made plenty of strange spells besides this. Last week, it was a spell called Perfect Cushion. They were spells I found hard to imagine. I had told the kid to learn things like this, but I did not expect him to go this far.

Magic meant only to assist others. These spells gave me a pleasant shock, since I had only ever thought of a mage as an individual, as a single complete being.

The human great families were said to employ hundreds of servants like this, weren’t they? I had never understood why they did something so inefficient, but when I thought back on the last ten months, I naturally nodded. It was a comfort I had never felt in five thousand years of life.

These strange spells, when combined with that child’s puppetry, had developed into something far beyond what I had imagined, just like this. Well, no one could expect combat strength from them.

“Still, he is an interesting child.”

I had been worried because I would have to remain at the university for the next hundred years, but if I kept that child by my side, it felt like time would pass quickly. At first, I had raised that child simply because I urgently needed a mage to use. Since he would never graduate before dying of old age anyway, I had planned to use him as a slave for life. But now, my thoughts had changed a little.

He had become a mage who would look quite fascinating to others. The old folks at the university would like him if they saw him too.

Even without me, that kid probably would have passed the university someday. If he studied for roughly another thirty years or so, that was. Thanks to me, he could pass in just one year.

Now that I thought about it, that child was the first human I had taught in this life. For no particular reason, I tapped the puppet. The puppet began the massage again. This was the reason I had chosen that child. This comfort. This pleasant ease wrapped around my body.

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