novelraw Chapter 88 : Professor Interview (3)
Chapter 88 : Professor Interview (3)
Chapter 88: Professor Interview (3)
1 minute had passed since the interview began.
For some reason, the three professors did not interfere at all.
The summoning professor looked like she was about to do something, but when Cullem gestured for her to stay still, she only smacked her lips in disappointment.
‘There’s no way they’ll just keep standing around like this.’
It looked like they were deliberately waiting for us to secure territory.
It was an almost arrogant attitude, like they were saying they’d give us a chance, so we should try as much as we liked.
In any case, if we failed to secure 30% of the territory within 5 minutes, we’d be demoted to 1st Class.
Dragging out time wouldn’t do us any good.
“Kiena, Hei. Don’t worry about the outside and just pour in as much mana as you can. I’ll take care of blocking the interference.”
“Yeah……!”
As soon as the interview started, both of them looked quite nervous.
“Close your eyes, shut your ears.”
Following my instructions, the two of them closed their eyes and began pouring mana into the cube.
Fwoosh!
The completely extinguished blue flames flared back up, reaching as much as 60%.
Cullem and Balak looked slightly surprised.
As expected, the mana Kiena and Hei possessed ranked among the top of the 3rd Class.
No, considering what happened the day before yesterday, they might even rank among the very top of all the students in this school.
Once their latent abilities fully awakened, even the upper echelons of the Magical Society would seem laughable.
Just as I synchronized with their focus and injected my mana into the cube—
Fwoosh!
The entire cube was now engulfed in blue flames.
“Alright, we’ll start too.”
As if he had been waiting for this, Cullem made his move.
The first to step forward was the summoning professor.
In accordance with Cullem’s signal, she summoned a flock of birds that covered the entire ceiling of the auditorium.
Tatadadak!
Clack! Tatadadak!
The birds mercilessly pecked at the cube with their beaks and claws.
The resulting noise and vibrations tormented us inside the cube.
“Ugh…….”
“My ears hurt…….”
At the same time, Hei and Kiena’s concentration wavered, and the blue flames instantly dropped to 40%.
To me, it was nothing more than noise, but to Kiena and Hei, it seemed to come across as a painful sound, like fingernails scraping across a chalkboard.
‘They said defense was possible.’
I swept away the annoying flock of birds with Red Rain, the spell I had used in my final sparring match with Russel.
“As expected of Artel. When did he ever master something like that?”
As soon as the birds were cleared, Balak stepped in.
In an instant, thick flames rippled like waves throughout the entire auditorium.
“……Is that Teacher Balak’s magic?”
Hei stared at the spell in shock, unable to close his mouth.
It wasn’t strange for him to be amazed, since Balak had never once shown this in class, but now wasn’t the time to admire it.
“Don’t look—just focus!”
“Ah……! O-Okay!”
As if turning away, Hei squeezed his eyes shut and reentered a focused state.
The thick flames Balak manifested lifted the cube we were in and shook it violently back and forth amid the surging waves of fire.
Boom! Boom!
“Kyaaak!”
“Ugh……!”
The cube rolled end over end, mercilessly shaking our bodies inside.
Because there was no distinction between floor and ceiling inside the cube, our bodies were violently tossed up and down, slamming into all sides.
‘That nasty Cullem. So this is why he said he couldn’t guarantee we wouldn’t get hurt.’
Being inside the cube meant we weren’t directly affected by magic, but if the cube itself was shaken, there was no preventing our bodies from getting scraped or broken.
Eventually, due to dizziness, Hei’s mana injection stopped altogether, and the blue flames were reduced to a mere 10%.
‘As long as I keep the cube intact.’
I checked the hourglass.
About half the sand remained.
It was a length of time that could be called either short or long.
‘If only I could use Flewd, this kind of magic would be nothing.’
Being a Flewd was a secret I had to hide to the very end, at least until I met Etar.
Therefore, the only elements I could use were fire and darkness.
I had to overcome this ordeal using just those two elements.
First, to blind Balak, I spread Dark Space throughout the entire auditorium.
At the same time, I added my magic into the flames Balak had manifested, raising a single pillar of fire and lifting the cube.
At the very least, this was to keep it from being shaken by the raging flames.
“That won’t work.”
Now, Cullem stepped forward.
Cullem turned the flames Balak had manifested into lava and swallowed the cube we had barely managed to lift into it.
“Ah, it’s hot!”
The cube absorbed all of the heat from the lava and began tormenting us inside.
‘Cullem…….’
He should clearly have been without sight.
Yet the reason he could use such precise magic was because he read the flow of mana and easily figured out where we were.
After all, inside the cube we were constantly injecting mana, and all the magic used by the professors was directed at the cube, so everyone’s mana inevitably gathered in one place.
Once that happened, Dark Space became completely useless.
‘A professor really is a professor.’
“Kiena, can you inject mana while summoning a Relic?”
“I think I can!”
The reason I asked this was because a good idea had just come to me.
If I could freely use Flewd right now without filtering it, I wouldn’t have asked Kiena something like this.
But since that wasn’t possible, this was a moment where I needed a bit of Kiena’s help.
“Then summon the Relic you learned second. Just have it lift this cube and fly around stuck right up against the ceiling.”
“Okay!”
Kiena immediately brought out the second Relic she had learned.
Flap—!
The sound of massive wings flapping echoed out.
“……That student could summon that?”
“Huh…… I’ve never seen that Relic in my class.”
“This is going to get tiring.”
So when she said she’d been praised by the summoning professor last time, it seemed she had only shown Pegasus and kept this Relic hidden back then.
The second Relic Kiena summoned was none other than a Roc.
It looked similar to a hawk, but its size was enormous.
It was so huge that even an elephant would look like a child’s toy, making it a Relic that could easily lift something like the cube.
Just as I instructed, Kiena had the Roc lift the cube and stick close to the ceiling.
As a result, the cube stopped shaking, escaped the lava, and the heat disappeared.
Having regained stability, Kiena and Hei began injecting mana into the cube again.
Matching their pace, I also injected my mana, and the blue flame’s territory now reached 70%.
“Knock that Relic down.”
At Cullem’s command, Balak and the summoning professor began attacking Kiena’s Roc.
‘Just as I thought.’
The Roc only had a massive body, but it was still, at its core, a hawk.
And hawks are masters of hunting among birds.
As a result, its movements were extremely agile.
Even without Kiena directly controlling it, the Roc flew around, dodging every incoming spell.
Despite that, it held the cube firmly so it wouldn’t shake, allowing us to inject mana comfortably.
‘This isn’t the end.’
Inside the cube, we could also defend against incoming magic.
I decided to take advantage of that.
I manifested a black sphere outside the cube and pushed it with Wave, sending it toward the professors on the ground.
It was the same situation as when I had attacked Melatan before.
Splash!
Cullem raised a lava wall to block the black sphere flying in with the force of the Wave.
“I’ll block the attacks, so you two knock down that annoying bird.”
“Yes!”
“Understood!”
‘Does this mean it’s a fight between Cullem and me?’
Me attacking, Professor Cullem defending.
But Cullem had the tendency to block magic only with magic when it flew at him.
He was completely different from me.
‘Right, even Banshi once asked how I could use such a method. No matter how high their Circle is, they can’t escape the textbook-style methods.’
It was a way of fighting I would never have even thought of if I hadn’t fought Sylarid directly.
The fact that Cullem wasn’t moving his body at all made this a very advantageous fight for me.
I also pushed away all the magic heading toward the Roc with Wave, the darkness-element pulse spell.
“Get a grip! Balak! That’s just a 3rd Circle spell! Why are you being pushed back! Aren’t you ashamed of your Circle?”
“……And what about you, sis! All you do is cling to defense!”
“Have you lost your mind…….”
Perhaps due to their impatience, the two of them lost their composure and briefly showed the 모습 of real siblings.
“That thing’s a complete monster! He’s dealing with you and batting away all my attacks too!”
From inside the cube, I looked down at them and merely showed a relaxed smile.
Thus, the exchange between the professors and me continued.
The blue flame’s territory held steady at 70%.
I glanced at the hourglass—if we could just endure one more minute, it would be over.
“This won’t do. It’s a Relic I didn’t want to bring out…….”
It was the summoning professor, who had been attacking using only the flock of birds, who spoke.
“Is there anything good? We just need to knock that cube down.”
“Of course. That bird’s name is Roc. There’s a Relic that’s an upper-compatible version of the Roc.”
She wore a confident expression.
“Don’t explain while time’s passing—just bring it out!”
When Cullem barked at her, the teacher hurriedly fixed her expression and was about to bring out the Relic.
“Ah! I think I know what Relic it is! But…… I can summon that too.”
It was Kiena’s muttering from beside me.
“……What? You can summon it too?”
The Relics I had confirmed Kiena possessed numbered two.
But if she could summon another one, that meant the number of Relics she could handle simultaneously had become three in the meantime.
“Bring it out! Kiena!”
The Relic called the upper-compatible version of the Roc.
I also knew what it was.
But I wanted to properly confirm whether Kiena could really summon it.
If she could truly summon it and handle it properly, then adapting to the 5th Circle would pose no problem for Kiena at all.
In the meantime, the summoning professor brought out her Relic first.
Its hind legs and torso were those of a lion, its forelegs and head those of a hawk, and it even had wings.
“……Griffin.”
That was the Relic’s name.
The reason the Griffin was called the upper-compatible version of the Roc was simple.
The Roc’s main stage was the sky—its specialty was aerial combat.
But the Griffin, with the body of a lion, wasn’t limited to flying; it excelled in ground combat as well and could even leap from the ground into the sky.
The summoned Griffin secured its footing on the ground and powerfully leapt toward Kiena’s Roc.
“Kiena! Hurry and bring it out!”
“……But if I bring out the Griffin now, it feels like the flame territory will shrink!”
“It doesn’t matter! We only need to maintain 30% anyway!”
The current territory was at 70%.
It was a conclusion made under the calculation that even if Kiena dropped out, it wouldn’t fall below 30%.
“Got it!”
Kiena trusted me completely and immediately summoned the Griffin.
Just before the summoning professor’s Griffin was about to snatch the cube with its beak and massive forelegs, Kiena’s Griffin, which had sprung up from the ground, struck the back of the summoning professor’s Griffin’s neck with a sharp blow.
“Uh……?”
The summoning professor froze in confusion.
At the same time, as her Griffin bled from the back of its neck and lost its balance, about to fall to the ground, I used Wave and sent the Griffin flying toward the professors on the ground.
“Get out of the way! Professor! Teacher Balak!”
“Damn…….”
Cullem hurriedly lowered his body and covered the three of them with hardened lava to protect them.
Kwaaang-!
When the Griffin’s body, falling vertically toward the ground, collided with Cullem’s lava, it erupted with a deafening roar and an enormous cloud of dust, as if a meteor had struck the earth.
Immediately after that, I checked the hourglass.