WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 43

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“You look much healthier today. I’m glad to see it.”

“Thank you for your concern.”

I gave a bitter smile and lowered my head slightly. Then I sealed the magic circle I had been inspecting. I had rushed over after hearing that half the room’s entrance had disappeared, but thankfully, it was nothing serious.

One spell from the magic circle had simply overlapped with the door and laid a distortion over it.

“The maintenance is finished. It wasn’t a major problem, so you don’t need to worry. Thank you for letting me know.”

“Heh, this is our area, so we should be the ones thanking you.”

Hongryeong smiled as he spoke. I glanced around. It was the largest room on the second floor, a space used only by him and the four people in his party.

Thankfully, I saw no one but him. Perhaps he noticed me looking, because Hongryeong let out a small laugh.

“Don’t worry. Omon didn’t come to the tower today.”

“Haha. That’s not it. I was just wondering where the others had gone.”

“Is that so? Then I must have misunderstood.”

Hongryeong and I laughed loudly together. I gave him a wordless bow and left the room. Only after closing the door did I realize cold sweat had soaked my back. I smiled bitterly.

I owed that group so much that I couldn’t help watching my step around them. I had not borrowed from Hongryeong. I had borrowed points from one of his group, a young man named Omon.

He was a member of an organization called Mookgeumgo. It was the only loan-sharking organization that operated across the entire university. They even owned a city.

After hearing rumors that I collected elixirs and materials, he lent me money. I thought I could pay it back quickly, so I accepted it right away. And that led me here.

The interest hurt down to the bone. Damn it, no matter how much I paid back, there was no end to it. If I included the money spent on research, it felt like it would take ten more years to pay off all that debt.

I stopped that line of thought there. If I kept dwelling on negative thoughts like this, it would only drain my mental strength. I might as well get back to work quickly. I had to go to the next room.

As I handled my work, I kept thinking for a long time. I even went around in person, bought various books, and searched through them.

I was trying to find out how an ego was formed.

In truth, things with egos could be found quite easily in many kinds of magic. An ego could usually form whenever old magical power existed.

Ordinary animals absorbing magical power and becoming intelligent magical beasts worked on the same principle, and the magical power of old regions changing into spirits happened for the same reason.

Even some of the tower’s magic circles that had endured for many years without breaking possessed faint intelligence. When magical power pooled in one place like that, it was bound to gain an ego someday.

But the puppets I made had not existed for long. Their shadows could not hold much magical power either. Naturally, there was no hope of an ego forming on its own.

I needed a somewhat special method.

As I kept thinking, time flew by like an arrow. My thoughts only grew, until they started surfacing even while I was working.

Before long, almost every waking moment was filled with thoughts about puppets and shadows.

Four months had passed since the previous experiment.

I was standing in front of Professor.

“So you want to skip this lecture?”

Professor was lying in bed, wriggling. Wrapped tightly in a thick blanket like a caterpillar, she looked up at me.

It might have looked a little funny, but my face was stiff, and I was tense all over. The moment I finished speaking, her magical power spread through the air and began wrapping around my whole body.

She pulled one hand out from under the blanket. Then Butler, who had been waiting beside her, gently helped her sit up.

Butler neatly folded her blanket, made the bed, and began grooming her. Since Butler fully reflected Professor’s tastes, it had a dragon’s head.

Originally, it had simply looked like a flat humanoid puppet, but by now, its old appearance was no longer visible at all.

After Professor saw me decorating other people’s puppets, she spent a week pestering and pushing me until I completed this masterpiece.

It combined the features of a human and a dragon in perfect harmony. On the parts not covered by clothing, smooth golden scales glowed faintly.

Its sharp emerald eyes, similar in color to Professor’s, also gave the dragon head, which might otherwise have looked fierce at first glance, a very intelligent and keen air.

The formal clothes decorated in black and gold matched its scales and made its dignity stand out even more.

I couldn’t even remember how much blood I had coughed up to finish that thing while putting all other work aside. Maybe because it lived inside this tremendous magical power, it gave off a more refined aura with every passing day.

At this point, I even wondered if that thing might naturally awaken an ego on its own.

With my head lowered, I waited for Professor’s grooming to end. Soon, she sat on the bed again. Butler brought a table in front of her and prepared a cup of tea.

She lifted the teacup, savored its fragrance, and said,

“If you have a reasonable reason, I don’t see why I can’t allow it.”

She slowly took a sip of tea. With my head stiff from tension, I thought of several reasons. But if I lied, she would definitely notice right away. Telling the truth was the best method.

“Recently, I’ve been thinking more and more deeply about my magic and puppets. So I thought I might need secluded training, which is why I came to ask.”

“Secluded training? You?”

She gave a small laugh. The magical power grew heavier. I hurriedly added,

“Yes. I’m truly sorry. Lately, even keeping up with the lectures has felt difficult, so I felt the need to develop myself a little more.”

“That’s true. You were the first to be eliminated this time.”

She nodded. I bit my lip slightly. She was right. Recently, during the Treasure Hunt, there had often been times when I got swept away without being able to do anything.

The peak of that was the last lecture. The setting was a submerged city, and I was swept away by magical beasts before I could do anything there. Just as she said, I had been the first one eliminated.

As the students’ abilities kept improving, the level of the traps and magical beasts had risen along with them. I had also grown little by little, but I was nowhere near the others. Combat really was not my field either.

She stayed silent for a while as she drank tea. That silence continued until she emptied her second cup.

“Well, fine. Do as you like. I know roughly what you’re doing anyway.”

When she said that, my face brightened, and I lowered my head deeply.

“Thank you!”

“But if you don’t succeed, you’ll be punished.”

“I’ll pull out only your soul and bind you to the tower for ten years,” she said with a smile. I swallowed dryly despite myself.

Should I not have said anything? But the words had already spilled out of my mouth. It was impossible to pick them back up. Then I had no choice but to do my best to make it happen.

She waved her hand. It meant I should leave. I carefully gave her a wordless bow and stepped backward. Then I turned and slowly descended the stairs.

Only after reaching the workshop on the fourth floor did the tension leave me. My legs nearly gave out, and I almost collapsed on the spot.

Still, by succeeding in skipping the lecture, I had somehow managed to gather a week of time. It was precious time I had created by sacrificing many things to solve the question filling my head.

I had to begin the experiment. I quickly entered the workshop.

First, I checked the shelf hanging on the wall. Inside it, the materials I had collected all this time were neatly stored.

The thousand-year tree, hundred-year thunderstone, dream maw, and so on. They were things that had accumulated magical power over many years and naturally held magical circuits inside them. Because I had kept buying things like this, paying off my debt had been nothing but a dream.

There was only one reason I had bought them.

To create an ego for a shadow. I had confirmed it in many texts. Egos arose from old magical power. If so, could an old shadow not create an ego too?

That was what I had been thinking when I bought these. They were old natural objects that had absorbed plenty of magical power, so even their shadows gave off strong magical power after their owners.

First, I took out the thousand-year tree. Among the things gathered here, it contained the strongest magical power. On top of that, it was also the best material for making a puppet, so it was definitely the best fit for my experiment.

I took it and carefully headed to the workbench. My shadow had already finished all preparations and was waiting there. I carefully placed the wood on top.

Then, working in harmony with my shadow, I carefully began carving the wood. The wood displayed a very rough but beautiful grain.

I followed that grain and carefully drew out the form contained inside it, and soon, it changed into the shape of an owl. It was the result of applying only the bare minimum of manipulation, so that it would contain only the material’s nature.

The owl’s shadow took on its form and changed into the same shape.

I detached that shadow and carefully moved it into a bottle. The owl-like shadow flapped its wings wildly inside the bottle, searching for its owner. But soon, under the weak sleep magic inside the bottle, it fell into a state of suspended animation.

Then, as I had done before, I inserted my magical power and formed a mana heart. The mana heart it gained that way was larger and stronger than any shadow I had ever seen.

Up to this point, everything was extremely stable. Of course, that was only natural, since I had not failed at this part in the previous experiment either.

I took the owl puppet and shadow and headed to the magic circle I had prepared in advance. It was about the size of my upper body, and it was wrapped in a total of seven layers of magic, forming an extremely complex pattern.

I placed the glass bottle inside the magic circle. Then I carefully injected magical power and activated the magic circle. The magical power grew murky, darkened, and began dyeing the inside black.

Perhaps the shadow inside the glass bottle sensed that magical power, because it slowly began to wake. This was a virtual zone I had created to resemble the shadow world as closely as possible.

To make this, I had gathered bits of matter from the shadow world and studied the nature of its magical power. Through that, I had attempted to create a kind of artificial awakening environment and make an ego awaken.

The shadow soon slipped out of the glass bottle and began looking around. It was moving to find its owner. But the connection between the shadow and the owl had already been cut off by the layered magic.

In the end, it began to half assimilate into that world. It grew half faint and began rippling weakly. Soon, only a tiny part centered around the mana heart was visible.

I swallowed at the sight. Yes, that was the form my shadow had first had. That air, as if it might vanish at any moment. From inside that, it had bloomed.

I could not take that shadow out of the magic circle. It was in a state that could only be maintained inside there, so if I took it out, it would surely melt away and disappear on the spot.

So I carefully pushed the owl puppet inside. At the same time, the connection between the puppet and the shadow was restored. The shadow, which had grown extremely faint, threw itself under its owner’s feet the moment it confirmed the owner was there.

Had it succeeded?

But the moment the shadow connected to the puppet, it began eating into the puppet. It fused with the puppet’s form and twisted unstably.

Then it escaped my influence and began rampaging inside that small world. It had become an uncontrollable magical beast. Rather than acquiring an ego, this looked closer to going berserk. In the end, I had no choice but to take it out of the magic circle and destroy it.

Why had the result turned out like this when all the conditions were clearly perfect? I began thinking in front of the shadow that had already shattered to pieces. Was it a problem with the material, or a problem with the shadow? I still could not know.

I had no choice but to conduct more experiments.

With that mindset, I began pouring in the other materials and making puppets too.

And every one of them failed again.

“Damn it, my precious points.”

Looking at the wreckage piled across the floor, I had no choice but to mutter that. Half of them had already broken apart. The same went for the rock hardened by being struck by lightning for a hundred years, and the maw that had held dreams over the long span of a thousand years.

No matter how strong they were, the moment they touched that shadow, they transformed horribly. It was a result different from what I had expected.

Still, I could understand the reason. These old natural objects already possessed strong magical power and their own circuits. Because of that, in most cases, they clashed with the shadow’s mana heart that I had forced into existence.

Even when they combined without a rejection reaction, I confirmed that they rejected the shadow’s magical power because they had already formed at least a little of their own tendencies.

With the puppet and shadow clashing like this, it became hard to maintain the combination, let alone create a new ego. In the end, the balance between the two broke and led to failure.

Those expensive materials had all vanished into thin air.

But I did not despair. I had never thought I would succeed this easily. I sent a signal to my shadow. It brought over the shadow and puppet I had prepared in advance.

This was a shadow that had been steeped ahead of time in strong magical power. After two months of concentrated exposure to the workshop’s magical power, the shadow contained chilly magical power in its body.

This single shadow was the only one created over those long two months. The other shadows kept with it had failed to withstand the magical power and either broke apart or transformed.

With this, maybe this would work.

Tense, I placed that shadow inside the magic circle.

And it failed.

I knelt in a daze before the shattered fragments of the puppet.

Every process had been perfect. The puppet connected with the shadow.

The harmony between magical power, shadow, and puppet was perfect.

But strong magical power did not necessarily create an ego. This excessive concentration of magical power slowly ate away at the puppet’s internal balance and made it unstable.

That uncontrolled encroachment eventually dyed the puppet completely black. Hoping against hope, I took it out of the magic circle, but the puppet only burst apart on the spot.

Damn it.

In the end, I understood. Simply shaping the environment like this could not form an ego for that shadow.

The same thing happened even after a few more attempts. I had been too optimistic.

Of course that was true. If an ego could be granted easily to objects with such a basic structure, would this world not already be full of artificial intelligence? Creating such a being required more than simple physical combination or the injection of magical power.

Then what method was I supposed to use?

I looked at my shadow, which could be called the only successful result. Receiving my will, it slowly changed its form.

After melting away my shape, it became a kind of large mist. It looked as if I were gazing at the night sky. Inside it were tiny stars shining here and there. Those were the egos that made it up.

It was a sight I had observed again and again over a long time. I could feel resonance with myself from every one of those stars.

Watching this, I had prepared this experiment. My shadow fundamentally reflected my will, and as a result, it had gained high intelligence and independent magical power. Within it, egos were nothing more than tiny seeds like those stars.

That was why I had thought that, if I prepared the structure, those stars would naturally appear. But every part of that process had failed.

Then shouldn’t I change the way I thought?

In other words, what made up an ego did not originate from that magical power. If so, the results of this experiment made a little more sense.

No matter how strong the target’s magical power was, these results appeared because the more important core did not exist.

Then what was that important core?

I looked at the stars glittering toward me. Maybe it was that. After experiencing all those failures, I could see the special quality those stars gave off.

It was filled only with feelings directed at me. It was probably the direction Professor Heisen had planted in it when he created it. It moved for me and thought for me.

Its reason and purpose for existing were focused entirely on me. When I looked at it that way, the outer garment called shadow that it wore was ultimately nothing more than a connector of will. The amount of magical power was not what mattered. What mattered was the will contained inside it.

Was that why I had kept failing until now? I had only tried to modify the shadow. I had tried to somehow create an artificial environment. I had expected an ego to naturally appear inside it. I had not thought all that deeply about the traits an ego had.

Then the direction of my research had to change from now on too. What I needed now was not expensive materials or a shadow with great magical power.

I needed something connected to me, something with will and purpose, and something that contained magical power.

If I had that, I was certain any shadow could form an ego.

But did such a thing even exist? If it were a dragon heart that existed only in legends, it might be possible. Of course, that was an item I could never dare to obtain.

I recorded all the experiments so far into a scroll.

Looking down at them, I began thinking for countless hours.

I searched through many books and bought a great deal of information. I even stopped taking requests for a while. Even the work of filling puppets with magical power. Because of that, my losses piled up like a mountain.

But I paid no attention to it, and I half neglected lecture preparations and even tower management. A strong instinct told me that solving this question would become a very important turning point for me.

Like that, I thoroughly isolated myself and continued exploring the essence of my magic and shadow.

I repeated many experiments. I examined puppets, checked my magic, and inspected shadows. Like that, I poured everything I had into continuing my research.

One month passed that way.

I was able to grasp one very thin thread of possibility.

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