Ch 6 The Test

Asterion raised an eyebrow at that remark.

Honestly, whether he got expelled or not didn’t matter to him in the slightest. What were they going to do, kick him out of a school he didn’t even go to? Oh no, the horror.

The real problem was…

Drag me to the Dean’s office?

Going to the Dean’s office meant crossing paths with the Academy Dean. And the Dean would likely be even more skilled, or at least more perceptive, than the one standing in front of him.

If Asterion’s true identity was discovered, things would get incredibly annoying, incredibly fast.

The entire continent would be in an uproar over him coming back from the dead, and if that happened, he could kiss his peaceful slumber goodbye; he might just end up spending the rest of his life laboring away in a research lab!

Even before he went to sleep, endless hordes of mages used to cling to him, begging him to teach them just one thing, anything at all.

“Master Asterion, please review my thesis!”

“Master Asterion, how do you invert a gravity matrix?”

And how could Asterion, soft-hearted as he was, possibly turn away all those earnest pleas?

He took a moment to pity himself before returning his mind to cold calculation.

But if he just ran away right now… an investigation team would be dispatched to look into who exactly breached the academy’s fortified wards, which was its own kind of headache.

Ultimately, the most efficient way to end this was to just show them a standard [Fireball] and get it over with.

“Now, stand here, Ivan,” Professor Eckert said, pointing a stiff finger at the center of the elevated dais.

Asterion trudged up onto the dais. Glancing sideways, his eyes landed on a polished mahogany nameplate resting on the professor’s desk, intricately engraved with gold magical runes.

[Department One Head Professor: Sylvaine von Eckert]

Eckert?

Asterion briefly rummaged through his dusty memories. A hundred years ago, there might have been an apprentice mage with that last name who copied down a few pages from Asterion’s basic grimoire.

Is he one of his relatives? Wow, that family really moved up in the world. To think an Eckert became a head professor in magic.

Asterion skimmed the eight-step formula written across the entire chalkboard and clicked his tongue internally.

…What is this? If you’re going to plagiarize my grimoire, you should have done it right, Eckert!

Furthermore, shooting a target with a [Fireball]? If Asterion were teaching, he would never conduct a class this way.

This was exactly why he had avoided interacting with other “professional” mages in the past.

Because the frustration of watching them overcomplicate simple things felt like it was going to physically kill him.

“You do remember the eight steps, don’t you, Ivan?” Professor Eckert asked.

At those words, Asterion slowly opened his mouth. He looked the man dead in the eye.

“Professor Eckert.”

“…Speak,” Professor Eckert replied, clearly suppressing his boiling anger.

However, Asterion’s next line was more than enough to completely blow the final fuse of the professor’s patience.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I can’t do the eight steps.”

“What?” Professor Eckert whispered, blinking behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“I can’t do the eight steps,” Asterion repeated slowly, as if explaining something to a toddler. “Because I only know until step two.”

Professor Eckert’s thought process temporarily crashed.

He had just threatened Lenia with expulsion for trying to reduce the eight steps down to four, but two steps? This went far beyond mere ignorance of modern magic.

“Two? Are you concussed?”

At this point, the student standing before him didn’t even seem sane.

Had his internal mana circuits in his brain gotten tangled and fried from a botched practice session?

A brief flash of genuine, educator’s concern crossed Professor Eckert’s eyes behind his glasses.

But as soon as he saw the boy standing there completely fine, looking utterly bored and shameless, his judgment immediately swerved back to “rebellion.”

A thick vein throbbed like a trapped earthworm on Professor Eckert’s forehead.

“It seems Lenia’s arrogance is contagious. Have you even read the Introduction to Basic Arcanology before coming to this lecture hall!”