Chapter 48: Ancient Questions (3/4)

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Hey, it’s ChickenBakuba tling this time.

-Chapter 48, DGM-

Link returned to the river valley inn, Link tossed a bag of copper coins (~30 coins) to the innkeeper. Under the astonished gaze of the innkeeper, Link beamed, “3 pieces of oat bread with butter, and a cup of cow’s milk. Send it to my room, thanks.”

Link had around 300 gold coins in his bag, and it was time to have a good well-deserved meal. However, he did not need a lavish feast as this body of his did not need to eat much. Eating just a little would be enough to fill his belly.

“Link, did you have a windfall?” The inn assistant teased him.

Link laughed back without providing any explanation. He returned to the attic. As he waited for the food to be delivered to the attic, he pulled out the parchment of his thesis from his space pendant. He reread it for any mistakes.

His thesis was pretty good; the basis of his thesis did not seem to have any blunders, and every part was elegantly and fluently phrased. When read through, it seemed to carry a sense of aesthetic beauty that was hard to explain.

Even Link, the original creator of his thesis found it slightly incredible as he read his own thesis. “Did I really write this? Or perhaps the ruler of light took over my hand to write this out?”

It was possible, but of course, Link had said that in jest. It was silly to compare himself with such a high existence.

The food was delivered in a jiffy. As Link took a huge bite, he immediately felt his energy recover. He took out new parchments of paper and began to continue deducing the equations.

Perhaps the mission had helped his brain in some sort, but as Link began to write, he realised that ideas or inspirations seemed to pop up in his mind faster than ever. Within a moment, he had became totally absorbed in his thesis.

This time, Link had sufficient gold coins and he did not have anybody to interrupt him. His days passed with him writing his thesis and improving his magic.

A week later, Link had improved 3 level 0 magic spells, namely ‘Earth spike’, ‘Light’ and ‘Swamp’.

After modifying the three spells, Link had dubbed them as: ‘Spiral Rock Thorn’, ‘Flash’ and ‘Mud’. The mana consumption of these three spells had also turned into 1 mana, and their power had also reached the power of level 1 spells. With Link’s control over magic, these spells would be able to demonstrate an extremely formidable might.

However, after modifying the three spells, Link’s interest towards level 0 spells had been sated. These spells were too simple for his liking, and posed no real challenge. What he needed now was a deeper and more powerful understanding towards magic.

He began to thirst to enter eastern valley magic academy even more now.

Although his thesis had not been settled, Link was a guy who carried things through, and had extreme determination and control over himself. He continued writing his thesis. However, when he wrote letters to Elliot in his free time, the questions about magic in his letters became increasingly abstruse.

Link did not know of this, nor was he aware that his questions had far surpassed the scope of a beginner student in magic.

While Link was fully devoted to writing his thesis, Elliot had received Link’s mailed letters. Scratching his head in puzzlement, he realised that out of all the questions on magic Link had sent, he only understood what one of them was asking. As for the rest, they were unintelligible.

“Screw it, let’s ask teacher.” Elliot copied the questions onto a different parchment of paper before ascending the spiral staircase of the magic tower. He eventually reached his teacher’s room at the top of the tower.

His teacher Moira was a pleasant and quiet individual. Other than anything pertaining to studies, she did not like to be disturbed. This was what all the apprentices in the magic tower thought. Except for Elliot.

He could find Moira anytime to ask her for any questions. Although Elliot was not used to it at first, he had grown used to it after Moira’s repeated assurances.1

Once he had a question, he would ask. Today was no exception.

Reaching the door, Elliot lightly knocked on the wood. “Teacher, are you free now?”[/footnote]Am I disturbing you now?[/footnote]

Before his words finished, a clicking sound of something unlocking rang out as the magic runes on the door glowed. The magic door opened by itself.

This meant that the teacher allowed him to enter.

Stepping into the room, the door clicked behind him as it closed by itself. Elliot had long became used to this door.

Behind the door was walls. Drawn on the wall was a colourful mural. The two passages which curled around the wall led to the room behind the wall. Elliot followed a passage, and was met with a circular room with a diameter of more than 15 meters. Luxurious timbre chair and tables were set in the room, and the floor was covered with velvet camel carpet. Many windows were framed around the room. Where the glass of the window should have been was instead replaced with a special transparent crystal.

Light streamed in from the windows, illuminating the room. Beyond the windows, one could overlook the beautiful landscape of the eastern valley. At the sides of the room, a few bookshelves stood there quietly, their framework filled with numerous books. A female magician in her thirties set in front of one of the bookshelves, reading a magic book.

This was Elliot’s teacher, Moira.

Moira, Level 5 magician, age 35, was the dean of the academy, Anthony’s proud disciple. She was the most talented genius in eastern valley magic academy.

This woman had splendid blond hair, with the heavy odour of magic around her body. She wore a dark blue and silver-lined magic cheong sam,2, half lying and half sitting down on the chair while quietly reading her book. The gentle sunlight passed through the crystal windows and glowed on her face, giving her an indescribable sense of gracefulness.

Of course, Elliot was unaffected by any of it. He only had magic in his heart. He respectfully saluted, calmly addressing her. “Teacher.”

Moira nodded, putting down the book in her hand onto the table. She glanced at the parchment in Elliot’s hand, smiling. “What question is it this time?”

She put heavy importance on this half-elf, because she had seen his strong affinity with magic. Elliot was extremely similar to her when she was young.

Elliot walked to her, handing her the parchment.

Moira took the parchment and diligently read it over. However, after looking through it, her eyes were slightly filled with doubt as she suspiciously asked, “Has your improvement been this large to reach a stage like this?”

As a level 5 magician, she only needed a glance to figure out the level of the questions. For someone to ask this level of questions, he needed to have an extremely solid foundation in magic theory. Furthermore, this line of thinking was extremely unique.

There were 6 questions on the parchment in total. As she skimmed over it, she realised she could only answer two of them. As for the other four, she needed some time to think to answer.

“What a good question,” Moira praised.

Moira placed emphasis on whether a student was diligent in studying his magic theory, because if one was not diligent, then it would be impossible for him to become her apprentice. She could tell the level her apprentices through their questions.

It was only through hard work that after learning and thinking, one would be able to form a good question. The questions on this parchment were all extremely good questions. Furthermore, the perspective from which the questions were asked were also unique, and carried an intellectual spirit that was hard to put into words.

The fact that Elliot could ask these questions made her very satisfied.

Elliot’s face was somewhat hot. This was the second time his teacher had praised him, but the heavens knew that these questions were not written by him. He had not even studied magic for a month, and did not understand even a bit of the questions.

Before, Elliot had not explained that these questions were not written by him. But now, he knew that he had to set things straight, or the misunderstanding would grow greater and greater. When the misunderstanding blew up, it would be trouble.

Organising his thoughts, Elliot said, “Teacher, actually… these questions were asked by someone else of my generation.”

“Hm?” Moira’s eyes flickered to Elliot, unperturbed as she gazed at her handsome disciple. “Who is it?”

“My friend, he’s the same age as me, 17. However, his magic talent is low, and he could not enter this academy. Hence, he is now self-studying. I…the reason why I could afford the academic fees were due to him.”

“Say the details, don’t hide anything.” Moira urged, interested.

Staring at the deep blue eyes of his teacher that seemed to be able to see through his entire facade, Elliot did not dare to speak any lies. He explained everything about his encounter with Link in full detail, including the letters that they had exchanged. Nothing was left out.

Moira listened attentively. She asked a few questions from time to time. When Elliot was done, she sighed, asking, “Then he should be in river valley town writing a thesis about his insights in magic?”

“Yes. This is how it is, teacher.”

“Do you roughly know his thesis’s content?” Moira asked.

Elliot nodded. “Link had talked to me about it for a bit. He was attempting to explain the question of why a thrown rock would definitely fall to ground…to be honest, I’ve thought about this question for quite a while now, but I’ve been unable to even explain the outlines of the question.”

Moira froze for a second upon hearing Elliot’s words. She repeated Elliot’s words in a mutter, “Why would the stone fall? Why would it fall? What an eccentric question. I’ve never heard anything of the like before. But indeed, why would it fall?”

She had attempted to use her knowledge in magic theory to explain this seemingly intuitive question, but after a dozen seconds, she gave up. Unexpectedly, her knowledge was not enough to explain a simple phenomena seen in the everyday world.

After a long while, she sighed. “This is indeed a weird, but also good question. For him to even ask such a question has already proved his insights in magic.”

She had taken an extreme interest in this young man called Link.

She held up the parchment of paper on the table, “The viewpoint of these questions are extremely interesting, and I need some time to explain them. Tomorrow then, tomorrow I’ll hand the answers back to you.”

“Many thanks, teacher… teacher, aren’t you angry at me for doing this?” Elliot carefully asked.

“Why would I be angry? My disciple is an honest person, I should be happy instead.”

Elliot heaved a sigh of relief, but he was still concerned about whether Link would be able to enter the school. He asked, “Since this question already proves my friend’s insights in magic, teacher, can my friend enter the academy to study?”

Moira thought for a while. “The academy’s established regulations cannot be broken. Let’s do it this way then; let your friend Link complete his thesis, before passing it to me. When I hand his thesis over to the dean, I trust the dean will agree.”

“Thank you teacher!” Elliot rejoiced. His teacher was the dean’s proud disciple. If she had promised her words, as long as Link wrote his thesis, it did not even require a thorough answer to the question. As long as he wrote it finish, he would be able to enter the academy.

“No problem.” Moira smiled. She had accepted Elliot as her disciple not only for his magic talent, but also for his nature.

After thinking, a magic book flew out from her bookshelf into Moira’s hand. “Your friend is not a bad magician like you. After looking at his question, he probably requires this book to guide him. Tomorrow, when you come back to take the parchment of paper, also give this book to him. The magic book is precious, and cannot be lost halfway. You need to run to deliver it, I guess. He can only read it for a day. After a day, you must return this book to me.”

“No problem!” Elliot was delighted.

-Chapter 48, end-


Tler’s notes:

For those reading on aggregator sites like novelplanet or readlightnovel, it’s better to read on isohungry since you’re missing out on a good half of the story — edits, footnotes and the like.


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5 thoughts on “Chapter 48: Ancient Questions (3/4)

  1. Oh I wish there’s a night mode to this site and the comments section should be corrected. Even for me its hard aligning that in my eyes.

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