Magic Academy’s Genius Blinker

Late evening.

After finishing Hong Bi-Yeon’s special lecture, Baek Yu-Seol immediately left the academy site and headed for Arcanium.

He had to go to a bookstore.

“Did she really believe all that?”

Thinking about what he had just done, he felt a sense of shame and guilt.

Hong Bi-Yeon. 

She was obviously a good and smart mage, but her disadvantage was that she had a stereotypical way of thinking.

But that did not mean he could have taken advantage of her.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter since she’s a villain anyway.’

Baek Yu-Seol could not help it. Right now, Teripon’s image as a magic sword was hovering in front of his eyes.

He had to convert Teripon into a magic sword as soon as possible to increase his involvement in the academy plot.

‘Let’s stop thinking about it. I have to buy books, too.’

He would need books for his major because he wanted to start taking practical classes and lectures.

As Baek Yu-Seol walked through the streets of the magical city of Arcanium, a panoramic view of the colorful mage tower and numerous magic academies unfolded.

Winged horse carriages and small floating islands dotted the sky. The streets were quite crowded with students, including him, who had come out to purchase books in haste. Men and women could be seen walking around in pairs.

They were truly cheerful.

The streets were beautifully paved, and colorfully lit buildings were lined up one after another. As soon as he entered an alley while looking at the essence of magic engineering, he activated flash to move away.

‘Is it here? I can’t remember.’

In the game, one could simply press “listen to the lecture,” but one needed a major book in reality.

Another absurd thing was that the grades increased depending on the major book used.

At first, he remembered buying books at a fairly famous bookstore in the city. There were many kinds of books and many customers, so he thought it was better.

But he was wrong. The players later revealed that there were hidden books all over the city that added to grades.

In particular, the bookstore where such books were most often hidden was the nameless bookstore. It got its name because its signboard was empty.

After wandering along the alley for a while, Baek Yu-Seol arrived at an unnamed bookstore. It was a pretty old place.

As he pushed open the wooden door of the crumbling bookstore, which looked like it would scare away even ghosts, a smell of musty books greeted him.

An old man was dozing off at the counter. That perverted old man pretended to doze off like that and observed guests with magic detection skills. 

Well, there was always something unique about long-lived mages.

Without hesitation, he walked inside. It was quite old, but it had Maela’s Magic Engineering Notes. This was a person who had graduated from Stella Academy as a top student ten years prior.

He did not know why it was being sold here. However, if one took a magic engineering class with those handwritten notes, they would get a perfect score almost unconditionally.

Baek Yu-Seol’s grades did not concern him much because of the Sentient Specs, but there were hidden recipes stored inside, meaning he could find something useful later.

‘As long as I have that, I can study the rest of it with just plain books.’

After all, Baek Yu-Seol had gotten a perfect score thanks to the Sentient Specs.

‘Let’s see… I think I found it.’

No one had also touched it. Maela’s name was clearly written on the book titled Maela’s Magic Engineering Notes. Anyone else would find the hand stains on it annoying, but he liked it this way. Old books were always preferable.

As Baek Yu-Seol reached for it, a white hand appeared from the other side and grabbed his chosen book.

“…?”

“Oh?”

Baek Yu-Seol turned his head slightly and noticed a sky-blue-haired girl. She was slightly smaller than him and frantically withdrew her hands as if the book were on fire.

He withdrew his hand, completely bewildered upon seeing her.

“Eh, Eisel?”

“What. Do you know me?”

“Huh? Uh, you know you are famous.”

Eisel Morph, also known as the fake female protagonist, looked up at him with an old used book in her arms.

She flicked the strands of her wavy sky-blue hair and stared intently at him.

“Oh, you… The person from the other day?”

“Uhh.”

‘It’s nice that you remember me, but can’t you remember that we’ve met two times?’

Eisel stood like that for a while and then shook her head.

“I enjoyed the discussion. It was quite disappointing that you didn’t explain it to the end.”

Come to think of it, not even Eisel could solve all those problems. While trying to solve the problems, the plot could move in the direction of her building a relationship with Ma Yu-Seong.

“Anyway, it’s nice to meet you,” she said as she turned her head coolly and went to the other side.

Wait a second, why is she in the store that sells used books?

He hurriedly pulled out Maela’s notebook. Since he did not lose this, everything was going great.

Then he took out other books one by one and glanced sideways at Eisel.

She was taking out books one after another, but strangely, she seemed to care about the price tag.

‘Oh, that’s it.’

This bookstore mainly dealt with second-hand books, so people rarely came here unless they were a poor student like him.

However, admission to Arcaneum’s five prestigious academies was only for the truly wealthy. It meant that the few students with his background had to spend all of their life savings from before their parents died to raise their tuition fees.

In other words, coming to this bookstore… would mean she was as poor as he was.

‘It’s a bit sad.’

After her family’s downfall, Eisel had to live far away from her opulent past. She had lost everything in a span of a few months.

She was looking through the price tags of old books at the bookstore. She was used to cutting costs for every meal and did not have enough money to buy a proper book.

Furthermore, even in the original novel, she had a tragic ending. Much less, in this world where Flame had taken over the role of the protagonist. She was doomed to die before she even reached a tragic end.

Ultimately, this woman would be unhappy for the rest of her life and perish before everyone’s eyes.

‘Eh, I don’t know.’

As Baek Yu-Seol chose the books he wanted at the bookstore, more than ten books had piled up.

He placed them on the countertop. The old man opened his eyes in surprise when he put them down.

‘Huh?’ 

Even when his eyes were closed, Baek Yu-Seol could feel his gaze.

“Eh? How did you get those over here?”

“I… carried them?”

Looking to the side, Eisel kept her distance and with narrowed eyes, carefully examined the textbooks he had chosen.

“Why?”

Baek Yu-Seol tried to say something, but Eisel unexpectedly spoke first.

“No, it’s just… I thought you picked a fascinating subject.”

‘I think you’re just trying to insult me.’

“Like what?”

“Like everything. Why would you listen to Advanced Sealing Theory?”

“Ah, this? It’s a subject with few prospects.”

Sealing was an ancient magic that expressed magic based on objects, such as staffs. However, as enchantment technology was created through the development of alchemy and magic engineering, this technology was lost naturally.

It was even said that its only achievement was the invention of the staff.

The magic government cut off support for sealing studies, so while scholars were losing their jobs, few students offered to take this course, and naturally, the course was on the verge of being abolished.

But he knew that the subject would not be abolished and would survive till the end. One could spend less time on it compared to any other subject and still get a high score.

“You know this is a dead-end subject. So why…?”

She looked at Baek Yu-Seol with an expression that said, “You know this is nonsense, right?”

Baek Yu-Seol could not say that he saw it in the game. After all, it was embarrassing.

“Everyone thinks like you. So it’d actually be easier to get good grades.”

“Anyways, I should get going.”

It was difficult to continue the conversation, so he dashed out of the bookstore, looking back to find Eisel staring at the Introduction to Sealing Studies with a curious expression on her face.

Her expression did not seem promising.

The next day.

In the truest sense, this was the first day of class.

‘The first class…’

Eisel checked the timetable and found that the first lecture at the Stella Academy was on “How to Look into the Void.”

Rumors had it that it was easy to get good grades there, so even though it was a non-mainstream class, she hurriedly applied for the course.

“Are you in the void class too?”

“You too? Oh… I’m doomed. You study better than I do.”

“Did you come here to get grades too?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I thought only some familiar friends would know about this, but there are a lot of people. I’m doomed from the first semester…”

However, as word spread that getting good grades was simple, a large number of students gathered. 

Furthermore, students who did not receive scholarships because they could not reach the top of the list were compelled to decide.

‘Hmm… It’s difficult.’

It was not very good for Eisel, who always had to stay at the top to get a scholarship.

‘I have to work hard on other subjects.’

Time was short, and there was a lot to study. There was no time to regret the past.

Eisel was striding along the hallway when she suddenly overheard the students crowding around and talking about the lunch menu.

Her stomach rumbled, a signal that it was screaming for food. She took a bundle of 60 academic tickets out of her pocket.

With this ticket, she could eat at the academy 60 times, but there was no way she could survive with this for the whole semester, so she had to save it over and over again.

‘Today’s lunch doesn’t taste good, so I’ll have to buy some bread at the cafeteria.’

Of course, she could barely buy plain bread, which cost only 1,200 credits. Eisel started walking to the cafeteria for a quick meal, but she abruptly stopped while passing by a lecture hall.

This was the lecture hall for Introduction to Sealing Studies, which was chosen by the student Baek Yu-Seol, whom she met last night.

She sneaked a peek inside just in case and noticed Baek Yu-Seol in the distance. He was listening to the teacher with a blank expression on his face. He had transparent, black eyes that seemed mysterious and hazy.

Eisel looked at the other students.

‘Huh? Why are there so few students?’

The number of students was such that the lecture could barely be sustained, and perhaps as a result, the professor was biting his nails and conducting the lecture with an anxious expression.

Furthermore, the students who came to take the course were also in turmoil.

‘What if… if I also applied for Introduction to Sealing Studies?’

‘… I could improve my grades without spending too much time on this subject.’

‘And if I studied other subjects with the time I saved, maybe I could rise in rank and receive more scholarships?’

‘Did he really know that this course was easy to earn grades?’

Eisel looked at Baek Yu-Seol. His look confused her even more. She could not comprehend his intention or thought. 

Was he sleepy? 

Was he meditating?

Could it be that he had his own carefully crafted course registration strategy?

Various thoughts flashed in her mind, but Eisel quickly shook her head to disperse them.

‘What am I thinking? It must be a coincidence.’