WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 42

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I sat down and slowly looked over the results of my past research.

Looking at them now, they were full of clumsy, absurd guesses and experiments. Some were things I had learned through direct testing, and quite a few were plans I had abandoned. Only because of that messy research had I finally come this far.

The first experiment. Right. Back then, I had even hoped I might overcome this crisis quickly. At the time, I tried overlaying other shadows onto a puppet. The idea was simple. I thought the more shadows I put into a puppet, the more power it would be able to hold.

But the moment the shadows seeped into the puppet, it slipped out of my control. The shadows clashed with one another as they tried to devour the puppet’s substance, horribly warping its form and circuits from within.

In the end, the conflict between the shadows and the puppet’s rejection reaction caused a massive explosion. Puppet, shadows, everything was blown to pieces in the blast.

After repeating the experiment several more times, I realized my approach of treating shadows as simple tools of power was wrong.

So I tried examining shadows from two directions. One method connected only a single shadow to a puppet. The other combined every shadow into one enormous mass.

Both failed.

The attempt to connect a single shadow failed amid the puppet’s violent rejection reaction. No matter how many times I repeated it, the result was the same. Through that attempt, I learned that one being could only have one shadow.

Every puppet had a shadow bound to it. So when I tried to force another shadow over it, the puppet immediately resisted and exploded.

It was completely unexpected. It was also a result that upended my future experimental plans. Every shadow I had prepared held powerful magical power.

I had gone through all that trouble to create those shadows to reduce the puppet’s magical power consumption, only to find I could not use them. Out of lingering regret, I tested it several more times, but the result never changed.

In the end, I had to admit that the very act of grafting another shadow onto a puppet was wrong.

If that was the case, then combining shadows had to move in a different direction too. I withdrew the plan to replace the puppet’s existing shadow and changed course to a method of weaving several shadows around the puppet’s shadow as the center.

Those shadows connected to one another and formed a stable structure, efficiently supporting the puppet’s shadow at the center. Through that connection structure, the shadows emitted even stronger magical power than before.

This had to succeed. That was what I thought. But the moment the puppet and the shadows connected, the puppet’s original shadow instantly became unstable. An imbalance formed inside, and the puppet collapsed because it could not withstand the shadow’s power.

I scraped together the puppet’s fragments to find out why it had happened. Only after investigating for a long time and repeating the same experiment several more times did I finally understand the reason.

It had happened because I had failed to properly grasp the unique nature of shadows.

Every shadow tries to resemble its owner. Because of that, it always tends to keep itself in an imperfect state. That nature also affected the connection structure between the shadows, and in the end, it caused the whole thing to fall apart.

It took five months to conduct and analyze the experiments up to that point.

Based on that, I tried once more. That was the third experiment. I let out a bitter laugh at the painful memory.

First, I tried to make a mana heart only for the shadow. Since I could neither attach several shadows nor use another shadow, I tried making the puppet’s own shadow possess magical power.

This was fairly successful. But once I had made it, the puppet and the shadow rejected each other.

It was because the magical power the two handled had become different. In the end, the shadow lost that mana heart under the puppet’s pressure and turned back into an ordinary shadow.

Next, I tried dividing the shadow into extremely small pieces and mixing it into magical power. I proceeded under the assumption that although the magical power it possessed would be lacking, it could still assist the puppet.

Just as expected, the puppet moved through the shadow’s power and reduced its magical power consumption. It looked extremely successful. The problem occurred when magical power flowed through the puppet’s magic circle.

The moment the shadow encountered the many spells inside the puppet, the spells resisted fiercely. Because of that, the circuits twisted, the magical power and shadow separated, and the puppet itself exploded.

When I told Myra about this, she smiled and said it was an interesting problem.

And now, the next experiment was ahead of me. Just as she had advised, I had seen and experienced many things in the shadow world before returning. I had gained many realizations there.

As I reviewed my past research results, I smiled with confidence. I was no longer the person I had been. This experiment would absolutely succeed. I was sure of it.

And it failed.

The explosion was enormous. If I had not sensed something ominous and activated a protective barrier, I would have been blown away too.

“What’s the problem this time...?”

I sighed and undid the layers of protective magic. I approached the spot where the puppet had been and brushed my hand over the traces of the explosion. Even the shadow had been caught in the blast and vanished without leaving so much as a speck of dust.

Still, I had thought this experiment was going fairly smoothly.

In the previous experiment, I had thought the shadow’s autonomy was what made its combination with the puppet unstable.

So this time, I proceeded in a direction that weakened that autonomy as much as possible. It was an approach I had come up with while watching shadows melt into magical power in the shadow world.

Like that great flow of magical power formed after dead shadows lost their reason and mixed together, I had tried to melt down the puppet’s own shadow and weaken its autonomy as much as possible.

This was quite similar to the direction I had taken in the previous experiment. I had seen potential there.

In that experiment, the shadow had mixed well with magical power and flowed through it. If the magic had not rejected it, I was certain I could have obtained sufficient results.

So I collected the puppet’s shadow and made it into a kind of liquid magical power. Then I put it inside the puppet.

This time, I created a path separate from the route where magical power flowed so it would not directly rub against the circuits. In other words, I made the shadow function like a kind of blood flowing through the puppet’s interior.

But it failed.

The shadow I had liquefied and stripped of its nature as much as possible regained its autonomy in an instant the moment it connected to the puppet.

The shadow left the path I guided it through and tried to make contact with the puppet’s magical power, and then it exploded amid the magic’s rejection reaction.

Why had that happened? No matter how many times I experimented under different conditions, the same result came out. Just like now.

I sighed. Through those repeated experiments, I had realized something. A shadow’s autonomy was, in other words, its dependence on its owner.

The moment a shadow connects to the thing that serves as its source, it rejects everything except that source. No matter what it is. That was why it had such a violent aversion to my magical power.

That meant the “dead shadows” I had seen in that world were things that could not be created in reality. A shadow without an owner could not exist in reality.

The reason it had been possible in that world was because it was a subspace created by Professor Heisen. It was a miracle possible only because its laws and properties differed from reality.

I felt my confidence rapidly fading. I had thought this one would absolutely succeed. I unfolded a scroll and slowly recorded this experiment.

I had used more than ten silver nightflowers to liquefy the shadow. Altogether, they were precious items worth over five hundred points.

Including the other materials, even more points had been swallowed up by this experiment. Why were points never enough no matter how much I earned? Thinking that, I rubbed my face.

There was no time to rest. I slapped my cheeks and focused again.

I had to prepare the next experiment quickly. I had worked like mad for the past month to make this one day possible. I could not waste the precious time I had created by putting off every bit of work I could.

My shadow, which had been waiting in advance, quickly brought the next puppet. It was roughly the size of my upper body. Puppets with the exact same form filled one wall of the workshop.

I placed it on top of the layered magic circles. Those magic circles existed for only one purpose. They were a filter installed to completely block contact with the outside.

No shadow could be seen on the puppet. That was because I had already removed its shadow and stored it separately. My shadow held out a glass bottle marked with the number 25.

Inside, something that looked like fog lay low and rippled. This was that puppet’s shadow.

I ran my fingers over it and gave a bitter smile. Still, I had gained one result from this experiment. A shadow was always connected to its owner.

Then I would discard all existing plans to remove its autonomy. I had to move in a different direction.

There was something I had thought of in advance. I watched my shadow as it manipulated the magic circle and began moving around. It was an approach I had come up with while looking at it.

For that, I first needed to reduce the shadow’s aversion to my magical power. Every explosion had begun with the collision between the shadow and my magical power. If I did not solve that problem, I could not move forward.

I began carefully putting magical power into the glass bottle in my hand. The magical power that flowed out through my Sapling filled the glass bottle at a steady concentration, and that magical power seeped inside along the faint grain held by the shadow.

While checking the shadow’s reaction as it accepted the magical power, I carefully added more. The magical power inside the glass bottle gradually built up until it began to flow. I guided all of that flow into the shadow.

Magical power filled the inside of the shadow and slowly formed a specific flow. During that process, a natural circuit began to be carved inside the shadow.

This circuit looked like a tree hanging upside down. The magical power concentrated in it mixed with the shadow and began to give off an independent life force. It was almost identical to the circuit my shadow had possessed when it first developed an ego.

Whew, it was a success. I relaxed my tense body and breathed out a sigh. I had designed it in theory, but this was the first time I had put it directly into practice.

It was the result I had continued supplementing and refining through the past several experiments. Thankfully, it was maintaining its form very stably.

I opened the lid of the glass bottle and carefully placed it at the puppet’s feet. The shadow, which had briefly been unable to find its way inside the bottle, soon sensed its owner and quickly pooled beneath the puppet’s feet.

I swallowed. This was where it mattered. I carefully injected magical power into the puppet. Its mana heart beat strongly, scattering magical power throughout the puppet’s entire body. Carefully, I controlled it.

One step, two steps, three steps.

No matter how many times it moved, nothing went wrong. The magical power circulated normally through the puppet’s circuits, and the shadow showed no abnormalities either.

Was it a success? A smile slowly began to form on my face.

Still, it was too early to relax. The reason I had tried to combine a shadow and a puppet was so the shadow could control the magical power consumption.

I carefully flowed the puppet’s magical power into the shadow. Then the shadow began to react. It climbed up along that magical power and began putting down roots in every corner of the puppet.

After confirming that the connection had stabilized, I moved the puppet again. It was a success. The puppet barely consumed the magical power contained within it. Instead, the shadow began moving it with its own magical power.

What I had dreamed of was happening right now!

And then it exploded.

Magical power flowed backward in an instant, climbed up through that connection, and affected me as well. I spat out a mouthful of blood. My Sapling also shook after taking a slight shock.

What in the world had happened? It had clearly succeeded. Unable to understand it at all, I placed another puppet down and reproduced the exact same process from a moment ago. The puppet exploded again and was blown to pieces.

Was magical power the problem? Thinking that, I tried adjusting the amount of magical power. I tried adjusting the puppet’s magic too. Was the puppet’s circuit the problem? Thinking that, I even made a new puppet and experimented on it.

But the result was the same. The shadow suddenly burst apart and broke the puppet.

Only after checking those countless reactions did I finally realize it. The mana heart the shadow had formed could not be maintained and was naturally collapsing.

It came from the shadow’s instability. It was happening because the shadow was a being without form.

I looked at my shadow. Then how had this thing managed to maintain its circuit? I kept trying, hoping to grasp the difference.

Only after blowing up the thirtieth puppet did I get a sense of it. My shadow must have had this instability too. It probably still did.

But it had an ego. It had the most basic source needed to hold onto and maintain a mana heart. Centered on that ego, it devoured my magical power and built its own form.

That was how it became something that resembled me, but was different from me. It was something an ordinary shadow without intelligence could not do.

I spat blood and sank down where I stood.

Only now did I finally understand what made my shadow special. This was exactly why upperclassmen flocked to Professor Heisen’s lecture.

This shadow was different from other common shadows. This shadow, born by the professor’s hand, was practically an independent lifeform with its own ego.

Even so, it still had the traits of a shadow. It was always connected to its owner and grew together with them. For mages who believed in no one but themselves, gaining a familiar like this had to be an extremely precious opportunity.

Yes, it was an incredibly precious existence.

So much so that I would not dare create one myself.

I had to form an ego in the puppet’s shadow to succeed in this experiment. But how was that supposed to be possible? If I could do that, I would have already used it when making puppets.

And so the experiment failed again, and today’s experiments ended here. Starting tomorrow, I had to handle all the work I had piled up.

I did not know when I would be able to make time again. I let out a long sigh.

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