The Reincarnated Archmage’s Journey

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“You forgot what I told you before already?”

Hei answered with a slightly frustrated expression.

“Since I don’t remember, just answer.”

“……Artel?”

When I, instead, asked forcefully without even twitching an eyebrow, the one who was surprised was Kiena.

Hei’s eyebrow twitched as well.

‘So Artel had always just followed whatever the two students said?’

Otherwise, those two wouldn’t have made expressions like that.

“I’ll tell you again!”

As the atmosphere grew a bit heavier, Kiena hurriedly stepped in to mediate, explaining.

“There’s that rule that if you don’t rise to the next class within five years, you get expelled, from Class 0 to Class 5. Even if we become Class 1 this year, if we don’t become Class 2 within another five years, we get expelled.”

Five years?

From Class 0 to Class 1, five years was a long time, but from Class 4 to Class 5, it was far too short.

Even in my previous life, that was a phase that took students an average of ten years.

“But once you become Class 6, you’re fine. Our teacher said it doesn’t matter how many years it takes to rise to Class 7.”

Three hundred years had passed, but I truly never expected such an absurd rule to come into existence.

“I like the vacation, but I’m scared the second semester is coming. If we get expelled, where are we even supposed to live?”

“Hei, don’t say it like that. Everything will be fine.”

At the word “expelled,” the atmosphere grew even colder.

‘This means if I don’t become a 1st Circle Mage during the second semester after this vacation, I get expelled.’

I had been reincarnated only today.

I had to figure out how many Circles of magic this body could use.

So I stood up.

“Where are you going?”

As expected, no matter what I did, Kiena immediately interrogated me.

“Dorm.”

“To sleep?”

“Yeah.”

I gave a short answer, activated the path to the dorm through Mob, and left the library first. Behind me, I heard the two of them speaking, their voices tinged with worry.

“Hei, Artel…… I feel like his whole vibe changed too much.”

“You felt that too, right? Even the way he talked, and he’s never once looked at me with such a scary gaze.”

“That’s what I mean……. He always thought of you like an older brother, since you’re tall and reliable.”

“Strange, Artel…….”

“Now that it’s vacation, even the school nurse isn’t here. What do we do? They say people act differently when they’re sick. What if Artel is sick?”

“I don’t know…….”

---

A cramped single dorm room.

An old wooden desk and wardrobe.

There wasn’t a single book on the desk.

‘So he was a student who never touched magic studies.’

I even began to doubt whether he actually had any interest in magic at all, or whether he had truly enrolled with the desire to become a mage.

When I opened the worn wardrobe, I found spare uniforms identical to the one I was wearing.

And the bed.

The pillow and blanket were in a messy state.

Seeing the bed’s condition, I could easily guess what kind of personality Artel had.

No doubt he always barely woke up in time for class.

So the blankets and pillow were left completely undone.

He didn’t seem like a very diligent student.

Sitting on the bed, I closed my eyes and began to manifest magic.

I had once been Archmage Archis Eimer, a Flewd Elementalist.

A Flewd Elementalist was the most special, rare, and powerful among elementalists.

A fire elementalist was limited to magic of the fire attribute—that was the limit of an elementalist.

That was why such elementalists were also called “single-element elementalists.”

But a Flewd Elementalist had no such limitations.

The seven elements of magic, including Flewd.

That was because Flewd was the foundation of all elements.

Therefore, a Flewd Elementalist could handle magic of all elements without being restricted by any single one.

‘First, can I properly handle the Flewd element?’

Pop!

I heard the sound that played whenever Mob activated.

I had manifested a single Flewd elemental sphere.

A small, transparent sphere floated lightly in the air.

Others wouldn’t be able to see it, but since I was the caster, I could see and feel it.

‘Even though the body changed, I can still manifest the Flewd element.’

Whoosh!

I could manifest the fire element as well.

I manifested all seven elements of magic as small spheres, and it wasn’t very difficult.

“It seems I can still use magic just fine.”

What magic required was imagination and mana.

These two resources were stored not in the body but in the mind, so even if my body changed, my soul was still Archis Eimer, meaning I could use them without issue.

I wanted to try casting a higher-circle spell.

But if I used such magic inside this cramped dorm room, the whole room would definitely disappear.

“Is there no training ground?”

The Magic Academy had a separate training hall for students to practice magic.

But when I searched for the training hall using Mob, all I got was “Cannot be found.”

“Cannot be found?”

I inspected Class 0 facilities in greater detail through Mob, but the training hall didn’t exist anywhere.

Etar’s school didn’t have a training hall for Class 0 at all.

“This is definitely strange.”

If they expelled students for not advancing to the next class within five years, why was there no training hall to practice magic?

Class 0 was literally an introductory stage, meaning extensive practice was necessary.

Students didn’t yet know whether they were elementalists or summoners, so they needed to train in various ways.

The intensity of training was lower compared to other classes, but purely in terms of total training hours, Class 0 had the highest proportion.

Headmaster Etar couldn’t possibly not know that—so why hadn’t he built a training hall on the Class 0 floor?

To anyone, it would look like he was desperate to expel them.

“Do the other classes have training halls?”

I was about to use Mob to inspect the Class 1 floor.

—Access denied.

“So I can’t inspect other floors, huh.”

If you were Class 0, Mob only allowed you to view the Class 0 floor.

I had no choice but to manifest 1st Circle–level magic that I could use inside the room.

Fire Ball, Lightning Ball, Water Ball, and so on.

They were truly basic-level spells.

I could manifest all seven elements as easily as if I were reading a book.

“At this level, Class 1 is guaranteed.”

Lying on the bed, I activated Mob and checked the second-semester schedule.

I worried that maybe I wouldn’t be able to see the schedule yet because the semester hadn’t started, but Mob eased that concern by displaying the second-semester timetable.

It was July 1st, the start of summer vacation.

The second semester would begin on September 1st, two months later.

The winter vacation would start on January 1st and end on March 1st.

The exam for rising to the next Circle was listed on Mob as a “Student Ability Evaluation.”

One exam on the Monday of the second week of October, and another on the Friday of the last week of December, right before winter vacation began.

The fact that there were two exams seemed to follow the same system used by the main school where I had once been Headmaster in my previous life.

Students who passed the first evaluation were free for the rest of the semester.

They didn’t have to attend classes and could enjoy their time freely.

Then, when the semester ended, they would move to the next class together with the students who passed the second exam.

“In the end, waiting really is the only answer for now.”

Since I had reincarnated into Artel’s body, I was no longer an Archmage.

At the very least, as a student, I had to follow the school’s established system.

“Etar…… now that three hundred years have passed, what kind of mage have you become?”

He brought over most of the operating methods from the Magic Academy where I had once served as Headmaster, yet he added an unreasonable expulsion rule, and there was no training hall for Class 0.

Etar’s behavior was something I couldn’t be certain about in either direction.

Or maybe this rule had been set by the current Archmage, Tylant?

No matter how much I mulled it over alone, no answer came to mind.

“By the way, Etar is a fire elementalist, so what if a student’s element isn’t fire? Do they get transferred to another school?”

As my future plans began to take shape, the associated problems also began to reveal themselves.

Besides, didn’t the book I read in the library say that the reason the main school had been created was “more specialized training”?

That was why students seemed to go to the school fitting their type of elementalist.

But that was only my assumption.

I wanted to know for sure, but it was vacation and there were no teachers I could ask.

No matter which school it was, the Headmaster would be my Disciple, but the Disciple who had witnessed my death and followed me the most faithfully had been Etar.

I needed to meet Etar.

As I debated whether I should return to the library to look into this, Mob’s contacts list came into view.

[Friends]

1. Kiena

2. Hei

Especially Kiena.

She was the student who kindly answered whatever questions I asked.

When I first opened my eyes in the classroom, Kiena had been sitting next to me, and I vaguely remembered her book being filled with all sorts of notes.

She seemed like a hardworking student.

If it were Kiena, she might know.

So I contacted Kiena through Mob.

—Yeah! Artel! I thought you were going to sleep? Can’t sleep because you’re hungry?

I could feel motherly energy overflowing just from her reply.

“No, I just had something I wanted to ask.”

—Yeah! What is it, tell me! What’s going on today? You never ask me anything normally!

Kiena greeted me with an unusually cheerful and happy voice.

“The Headmaster of this school is Ed Etar, and Ed Etar is a fire elementalist.”

—Yeah! That’s right!

“But if we’re elementalists, and if our element isn’t fire, do we get transferred to another school?”

—Huh? No? We don’t transfer.

Kiena’s voice sounded as if she were asking what nonsense I was suddenly talking about.

“This is the fire-element branch school, so I wondered if someone with the light element would be sent to the Rus branch.”

—No. They told us that even in Class 1, there’ll be a teacher who teaches elemental or summoning magic anyway.

That meant that whether a student was a summoner or an elementalist, each floor had a teacher suited to them…….

But was that really true?

I was a Flewd Elementalist.

Unless it was a hereditarily inherited trait, it was so rare that it was considered impossible to possess.

In other words, although it wasn’t rare for a commoner to become a standard single-element elementalist, even then, becoming Flewd was considered impossible—an established truth in the Magical Society.

Because of that, as someone who grew up without parents, I sometimes wondered if my master and I perhaps shared the same parents.

Who had I been born from to become Flewd? I had tried to seek that answer long ago but eventually gave up after failing to find it.

My master had been the same.

That was how rare and extraordinary a Flewd Elementalist was.

Aside from me and my master, there were no mages who came to mind immediately.

‘Ah, there was one more.’

The Emmet Family.

They were also Flewd Elementalists, and like me, they didn’t know whose bloodline they came from.

The difference was that they had established a family of their own.

But they carried a fatal flaw.

They couldn’t manifest magic above the 7th Circle.

Because of that, single-element elementalists didn’t consider them true Flewd Elementalists.

From the start, compared to single-element families, the influence and number of members in their family were significantly small.

And most decisively, among high-ranking mages, there had been a corrupt standard that considered only 8th Circle and above as true power.

Thus, even though they were rare Flewd Elementalists, their name never spread properly.

Therefore, when people heard the term Flewd Elementalist, they would undoubtedly think of me or my master.

‘Should I hide the fact that I’m a Flewd Elementalist……?’

I was rare and special, so there was no way a teacher suited for me existed in Class 1.

No—who would dare teach a former Archmage?

If anything, I should be teaching them.

“I see.”

—Did that answer your question?

“Yeah, thanks. Good night.”

I was about to end the call.

—Artel!

“What?”

—Uhmm…… you’re not sick or anything, right?

This time, Kiena asked something completely out of the blue.

“Sick? Why would I be sick?”

—Well, you suddenly collapsed today. And you’ve been like that often since you were young. So Hei and I were really worried.

Maybe because they were orphans who had enrolled together.

The three of us seemed to share a relationship closer than friends—more like family.

“No, I’m fine.”

—Then that’s a relief! Good night! Artel!

After ending the call, I fell into thought.

They created branch schools for more specialized training, yet they didn’t transfer students to schools matching their element……

It didn’t add up at all.

I couldn’t even begin to guess what they were thinking.

And another problem appeared.

‘What should I do about those two students?’

For me, this was a fairly serious concern.

They were with me now, but I wasn’t Artel—I was Archis Eimer.

For the sake of what I had to accomplish, I would soon have to part ways with them.

Thinking that I had to coldly abandon them made a sharp ache pierce my chest, the kind of pain felt when sadness welled up.

As if the original owner of this body, Artel, were pleading with me not to do that…….