Magic Academy’s Genius Blinker

Time passed swiftly, and the ten-day preparation period quickly came to an end. While some groups were still indecisive about what monster to face, others had been training rigorously since day one. 

Flame was among the latter group.

This episode was not properly recorded in the original novel, so Flame took it upon herself to sift through the monster encyclopedia and select potential candidates to face beforehand. 

This allowed her to progress smoothly with her training from the very first day.

Special monsters could provide additional points for their abilities, but Flame primarily excelled with normal monsters that had almost no extraordinary properties. Thus, she would have to forego the additional points. Furthermore, as no one had hunted down a special intermediate monster in the original story, Flame boldly gave up on that opportunity as well.

Intent on demonstrating her resourcefulness and adaptability, she focused on the intermediate monsters instead. Despite the challenges she faced, Flame remained determined to give her all in the upcoming monster mock battle.

She decided to take on the challenge just like Ma Yu-Seong did in the original novel. 

Thus, she didn’t need to worry about minor details like elemental affinities. She simply aimed for the highest score possible. 

“Four days might have been short for some and long for others, but I decided this was plenty of time. You may choose your desired monster and practice,” said Instructor Lee Han-Wol, starting the practical assessment for the 100 Class A and 41 Class S students.

Stella Dome was filled with many spectators, including not only professors but also other students from different years, with seats prepared for them accordingly. 

‘Hmm, I hope Eisel does well…’

In that episode, Hong Bi-Yeon pushed Eisel into despair.

Flame initially tried to recruit Eisel as her team member, but to her surprise, Eisel was already working with Baek Yu-Seol.

‘Well, I can rest assured since it’s Baek Yu-Seol,’ she thought.

If Eisel received a high score in the mock monster battle, her bleak future could change significantly.

“Alright, let’s start the performance evaluation now. Group 1, come forward and prepare,” said Instructor Lee Han-Wol.

The students of group 1 stepped forward and arranged themselves in formation. A knight was placed at the front, with three priests in a triangle formation behind. The knight would attract the monster’s attention, one of the priests would immobilize it, and the remaining two would unleash a massive attack.

As soon as group 1’s formation was ready, a bright light shone in front of them, revealing a single monster.

“Oh… It’s a spellturtle?” asked one of the students.

“Yes, that’s right,” replied Instructor Lee.

A spellturtle was a monster that resembled a turtle with a sturdy shell as its armor. However, it had a weakness against the fire attribute, making it one of the medium-sized monsters that could be exploited easily by the mages. 

It appeared that the students, being inexperienced, opted for a relatively easy and non-threatening monster to hunt.

During the battle, group 1 effectively thwarted Spellturtle’s most menacing attack, the spiral blitz, and synchronized their breathing to deliver a coordinated strike, resulting in a flawless victory.

“Excellent job!” exclaimed one of the students, feeling elated with their triumph.

“Whew.”

Even if a student couldn’t kill the monster, they could still get points on the basis of strategies and their execution of the plan.

However, in any case, succeeding in hunting the monster brought a different sense of accomplishment, and the students from group 1 descended from the stage with happy faces. 

Next was the performance evaluation of group 2. 

They seemed unprepared and were unable to take their positions properly. However, when the monster appeared, they hurriedly engaged in the fight. 

The standard tactic would have been to deploy two priests to form a defensive line when there was no knight position available, but perhaps because they didn’t trust each other, they each spread their own defense spells chaotically and fell one by one like fallen leaves. 

As a result, they were completely annihilated without causing significant damage to the monster. 

Although they were also from Class A, indicating excellent individual skills, it seemed there were internal divisions or some other issues.

“What are they doing?” 

“Haha, all the promising rookies from the first year are gathered together, but they turned out to be a bunch of comedians.” 

Some second- and third-year students taunted them, but they had nothing to say in response. 

“… Next, group 3.” 

After the performance evaluations of a few other groups, it was finally Flame’s turn.

“Group 17, come forward,” said the instructor. Taking a deep breath, Flame headed towards the central stage.

As she was walking, something caught her foot, and her weight shifted abruptly, causing her to stumble forward. 

“Aaaah!” she exclaimed, fearing that she might fall. 

Fortunately, someone grabbed her by the nape of her neck, preventing her from hitting the ground.

Confused and embarrassed, Flame found herself dangling from the grasp of a stranger’s hand, causing some in the audience to laugh and make jokes about her height. 

“What’s with her? She’s so cute.”

“What is she, a middle schooler? She’s even smaller than my little sister,” one remarked.

Another commented on the person who caught her, saying, “He’s probably the same age as her.”

Slowly turning her head, she realized that it was Baek Yu-Seol who was holding her. Sweating and blushing, she whispered, “Let go.”

Baek Yu-Seol released her immediately, saying, “Oh, sorry,” 

In response, Flame replied gratefully, “No, it’s okay. I appreciate it.”

Barely managing to regain balance, Baek Yu-Seol let out a sigh of relief and pointed downwards. 

“Can you re-tie your shoe? It’s untied.”

“… Huh?”

Looking down, Flame saw that the lace on one of her shoes was completely tangled. It was perfectly fine earlier when Jecky tied it for her. If she had gone out to fight like this, it would have been disastrous.

“Should I tie it for you?”

“It’s okay.”

Flame quickly sorted out her shoelace and climbed up onto the stage.

Then another question arose.

“Is she alone?”

“It seems like it?”

“No way. How can she do it alone?”

“Last year, there were a few like her who couldn’t form teams because they had no friends.”

“Ah… That’s probably the case.”

The second-year students murmured among themselves and quickly concluded.

“There are always people like that. They judge based on appearance and end up getting bullied.”

“Human relationships are pretty important in the magic society.”

Regardless of their misunderstandings, Flame’s personal evaluation began.

The monster that Flame faced was an intermediate monster with a simple name, a mac giant. 

It was an ordinary monster without any special attributes, but since it was invulnerable to elemental advantages, it was one of the most unpopular monsters in this evaluation.

“Phew…”

Flame firmly gripped a staff longer than her upper body with both hands and took a deep breath. 

“Let’s start.” 

At the sound of Lee Han-Wol’s signal, the mac giant charged towards Flame. Unflinching, she raised her staff high and brought it down with a thud.

‘A whisper of flower petals carried by the wind…’

The rustling of green leaves could be faintly heard, and tough vines sprouted from beneath the mac giant’s body.

Roar!!!

Snap, crack!

The vines couldn’t overcome the giant’s strength and were quickly torn apart, but as they became increasingly stronger, the giant found it difficult to tear them apart.

‘Metal manipulation.’

Grrrgle! Grrgle!!

The vines grew increasingly tough and the mac giant’s movements became sluggish. Flame summoned three clusters of light above her head. 

The small clusters of light, which were summoned in the shape of a diamond, gradually increased in size and fired a laser.

Zii!

As the clusters of light converged into a single point, the brightness of the light increased, and as soon as the mac giant broke free from the tough wooden vines…

Bang!!!

A massive beam of light was fired, piercing through its abdomen.

Kuwoooahh~!!

“Huh…?”

“What just…?”

In just one moment, everything changed. Using only three combined magic spells, the medium-sized monster was dealt a fatal blow.

“Tch, weak.”

However, the wound didn’t seem to be fatal, and the monster was still alive. As the mac giant screamed and charged at her, Flame extended thick vines in all directions and rode atop them. 

Although she couldn’t use power jump since she wasn’t a knight, she had diligently trained her stamina and practiced controlling vines, so monsters like the mac giant without long-range interception skills couldn’t catch up to her.

‘Wave-riding branches.’

Riding the swaying vines, Flame fired a beam of light. Some branches were torn apart by mac giant’s raw strength and she nearly fell a few times, but eventually, the monster with the fatal wound couldn’t last long and fell to Flame’s final strike.

Bang!!!

A thin beam of light pierced through its neck.

“Wow, seriously?”

“A first-year… Oh my god.”

“Does that even make sense…?”

Everyone was amazed and their mouths were left wide open. External officials of the magical world repeatedly took off and put on their glasses, and the second-year students who were mocking Flame were left speechless.

“… Perfect performance. Well done,” Lee Han-Wol acknowledged. Even he felt the situation was ridiculous.

But he was speaking the truth. Flame managed to single-handedly tank, hold, and deal damage. It was indeed a perfect performance.

“Thank you.”

When Flame descended, some first-year students let out a collective sigh.

“We couldn’t even defeat a medium-sized monster properly with five people… That’s crazy!”

The students from classes F to B of the first year were allowed to watch, and they were filled with self-doubt and disappointment as they recalled their own failed attempts. 

“Next group, please come up.”

The next group hesitantly approached the stage, lacking the confidence to take on the challenge. Although they managed to succeed in their attack, their performance was lackluster compared to the other groups. 

Flame’s performance had set the bar high, leaving little room for error.

“Group 31, come up.”

Flame, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly raised her eyebrows when she heard the moderator announce Hong Bi-Yeon’s turn. 

“Eh?” 

Hong Bi-Yeon, who was supposed to be with her six faction members, unexpectedly came forward with Ma Yu-Seong.

“What the hell is that combination?” 

As the two characters had no connection even in the original novel, Flame became more and more confused.

A monster was summoned in front of Hong Bi-Yeon. 

As soon as the identity of the monster was confirmed, cries of surprise erupted from all around. 

“A water king fish…?”

“Oh my god, that’s a special intermediate monster!” 

“They dare challenge a monster that hard to suppress…?” 

“Wait, don’t they have opposite attributes?” 

“This is insane.” 

Some of the professors and mages quickly took out magic charts to search for Hong Bi-Yeon and Ma Yu-Seong’s attributes. 

Many teams had challenged special intermediate monsters, but all of them had failed and most had only attempted it with the right elemental attributes. 

However, they had completely lost the elemental advantage. It was an obvious attempt to skew the scores in their favor. 

“But isn’t that only if they succeed?” 

While everyone expressed doubt, Lee Han-Wol signaled for the match to start.

At the same time, the water king fish howled and soared high into the sky.

The monster was an extreme opponent with a tough exterior, the ability to manipulate water, and even the power to fly! 

However, it was highly susceptible to ice magic, which placed it on level 3 on the danger scale. 

Without that, it would have been at least a level 4 or 5.

“Let’s begin,” said Hong Bi-Yeon, slamming her staff down. Ma Yu-Seong spun his wand, which was shorter than his forearm and backed away.

“Why is the knight retreating behind the priest?” 

“What’s going on?” 

Thump! 

As the mages watched with round eyes, Ma Yu-Seong did a power jump and leaped diagonally into the air.

“Wow… For a first-year, he’s got an impressive power jump.”

“But he can’t reach the monster with just that. After all, you can’t use power jump in mid-air.”

“What’s he trying to do?” 

As if to quickly dispel their doubts, Ma Yu-Seong summoned a square rock platform beneath his feet.

Right after that, with perfect timing, Hong Bi-Yeon launched a fireball precisely at the base of the rock, propelling Ma Yu-Seong’s body forward once again. 

He reached an incredible speed, resembling a rocket!

“Ah…!”

“At maximum range, he planned to leap twice in a row and reach the target at once!”

As they had anticipated, Ma Yu-Seong, who had reached the top of the monster in an instant, summoned a giant rock fist in the air. It was called the Titan’s fist.

Kuwoong!!!

A tremendous physical impact caused the monster’s shell to crack, and its bulky body fell to the ground. 

Without missing the chance, Ma Yu-Seong used the earthbind skill to tie up the monster’s body. 

Although he was not a binding-type mage, he gained enough time while the monster was temporarily immobilized.

Hwarruruk!

Hong Bi-Yeon, who could be called the strongest first-year student in terms of firepower, finally completed her spell.

A huge fireball, which appeared like a small sun, was unleashed upon the monster, and an enormous explosion engulfed the stage.

“Oh my goodness…”

“That’s a Class 3 magic spell.”

“I can’t believe it…”

Although the water king fish’s mucous layer had the effect of withstanding fire-attribute magic, it was useless against overwhelming firepower. 

As the layer melted away and its skin started to burn, the water king fish screamed in agony. 

However, its protective layer was stripped away, and with its shell also peeled off by the physical force of Ma Yu-Seong, it was no longer a threatening monster.

With Hong Bi-Yeon’s fireball exploding inside the shell, the water king fish was finally defeated. 

A moment of silence ensued. 

Then, cheers erupted.

“Woah!!!”

“They’re crazy. This year’s freshmen are really crazy!”

“That freshman who killed a medium-sized monster alone was impressive, but those guys are no joke either.”

“Yeah! Looks like they’re as strong as ‘that senior’ in Class S of the third year.”

“Wow, seriously? He’s a genius.”

The performance evaluation showed how impressive it could be when those with overwhelming talent had a competitive spirit. 

After the evaluation, Hong Bi-Yeon looked around and saw the seats where Eisel and Baek Yu-Seol were sitting. 

Just as he was about to meet her eyes, Hong Bi-Yeon turned her head abruptly, avoiding eye contact.

“Heh, they can’t beat it, can they?”

Feeling immensely confident, Hong Bi-Yeon returned to her seat and puffed out her chest, her shoulders held high. 

Perhaps the afterglow of the previous round had not yet faded, but even though Baek Yu-Seol and Eisel had taken the stage for the next round, nobody paid them any attention.

Hong Bi-Yeon felt a great sense of satisfaction in that situation. A perfect sense of victory.

‘No matter what Monster Baek Yu-Seol chooses, there’s no way his performance can beat mine,’ she thought.

“Please summon five monsters.”

As if a freezing spell had been cast, silence instantly enveloped the crowd.