Surviving at the Magic Academy

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“Well, today you seem to be looking a bit healthier. That’s a relief.”

“Thank you for your concern.”

I let out a bitter smile and slightly lowered my head. I resealed the Magical Circle I had been examining. I rushed over after hearing that the entrance to the room had partially disappeared, but thankfully, it wasn’t such a big deal.

It was just one of the spells in the Magical Circle overlapping with the door, distorting it.

“The maintenance is complete. It wasn’t a serious issue, so there’s no need to worry. Thank you for informing me.”

“Hehe, since it’s our territory, we should be the ones thanking you.”

Hongryeong smiled as he spoke. I took a quick look around. This was the largest room on the second floor, occupied only by him and his four companions.

Fortunately, no one else was in sight. Perhaps noticing my expression, Hongryeong let out a small laugh.

“Don’t worry. Omon isn’t here at the Tower today.”

“Haha. No, I’m just curious where the others have gone.”

“Is that so? Then I must have misunderstood.”

Haha, Hongryeong and I laughed heartily. I bowed to him and left the room. It was only after closing the door that I realized I was sweating coldly on my back. I let out a bitter smile.

I felt anxious because I owed that group a considerable amount of debt. It wasn’t Hongryeong from whom I borrowed; it was from one of his crew, a young man named Omon.

He was a member of the organization known as the Silent Vault. It was the only organization that engaged in usury across the entire University. A whole city belonged to them.

He lent me money after hearing rumors that I was collecting elixirs and materials. I quickly accepted the money, thinking I could repay it soon. And now, here we are.

The interest was painfully overwhelming. Damn it, it felt like no matter how much I paid back, it never ended. Considering the amount spent on research, it seemed like it would take another ten years to pay off all that debt.

I decided to stop that line of thinking. Continuing with such negative thoughts would surely just drain my mental stamina. It would be better to focus on work instead. I had to go to the next room.

So I continued working while deep in thought for a long time. I moved around, buying various books to dig through.

I was pondering how a self-awareness is formed.

In fact, many kinds of magic often had things with self-awareness easily found. Typically, self-awareness could form at any time as long as there was enough ancient magic.

The principle was similar to how regular animals with magical potency turn into intelligent monsters and how the magic of ancient regions transforms into spirits for similar reasons.

Some of the Magical Circles that had survived for a long time in the Tower even had a faint semblance of intelligence. Things like these, enriched by magic, were bound to have self-awareness someday.

However, the dolls I created were too recent. Shadows lacked many magical properties as well. Naturally, there was no chance of them developing self-awareness.

A somewhat special method was needed.

As I pondered, time flew by like an arrow. My thoughts began to multiply, and even while working, worries started bombarding my mind.

Eventually, nearly all my waking hours were consumed with thoughts about the dolls and shadows.

It had been four months since my last experiment.

I stood before the professor.

“So, you want to skip this class?”

The professor was lying in bed, squirming in a thick blanket, her caterpillar-like form looking up at me.

It could have seemed somewhat amusing, but I was rigidly tense, my face stiff. The moment I finished speaking, her magic that filled the air began to envelop my entire body.

She withdrew her hand from the blanket. Then, the butler, waiting by her side, gently helped her sit up.

The butler neatly folded her blanket, tidied the bed, and began preparing her appearance. He was wearing a dragon’s head, a testament to her personal taste.

Originally a flat human-shaped doll, he had transformed beyond recognition.

This masterpiece was what the professor had pushed me to complete after a week of nagging.

It embodied a harmony of human and dragon features. The parts not covered by clothing glimmered with smooth, golden scales.

Her sharp emerald eyes, akin to the professor’s, gave a distinctly intelligent and keen look to the dragon’s head that could appear furious at a glance.

The formal attire, adorned with black and gold decorations that seemed mismatched, accentuated the dignity of those scales.

I had completely lost track of how much blood I had poured to finish it. Perhaps due to the immense magical power it resided within, it radiated an increasingly antique aura.

Perhaps it could awaken its own self-awareness naturally. That thought crossed my mind.

I bowed my head and waited for her grooming to be finished. Eventually, she sat back up on the bed. The butler brought over a table and prepared a cup of tea.

As she raised the teacup, savoring the aroma, she said, “If there’s a valid reason, I won’t refuse.”

She slowly took a sip of her tea. I, with my stiff, tense mind, tried to come up with several reasons. But if I lied, she’d clearly catch on. It was best to tell the truth.

“I’ve been deeply contemplating my magic and the dolls recently. So, I think I need to undergo some closed-door training, which is why I mentioned this.”

“Closed-door training? You?”

She scoffed with a chuckle. The magic became heavier. I rushed to add more words.

“Yes. I truly apologize. I feel overwhelmed just trying to keep up with the classes lately, so I believe I need to grow a bit more.”

“That’s true. This time, you were the first to drop out.”

She nodded. I bit my lip slightly. She was right. Recently, during the treasure hunting exercise, I had often found myself swept away without being able to do anything.

The peak was the last class, which took place in a submerged city. I got dragged away by monsters without a chance to do anything. As she’d said, I was the first to drop out.

As students’ skills increased, the traps and monsters’ levels had risen along with them. I had been growing gradually, yet it still paled in comparison to others. Combat was simply not my field.

She fell into silence, sipping her tea. That silence lingered until she drained the second cup.

“Well, do as you please. I kind of have an idea of what you’re up to anyway.”

She said. I beamed and bowed deeply.

“Thank you!”

“But, there’s a penalty if you don’t succeed.”

She laughed, saying she’d extract my soul and bind it to the Tower for ten years. I couldn’t help but swallow hard.

Did I say too much? But those words had already slipped out; it was impossible to take them back. So, I had to do my best to accomplish it.

She gestured for me to leave. I cautiously bowed and stepped back. Then I turned and slowly descended the stairs.

On the fourth floor, once I reached the workshop, I finally relaxed. My legs nearly gave way, threatening to make me collapse into a heap.

Yet, I had successfully managed to skip class, somehow gathering a week’s worth of time. It was precious time I had earned through many sacrifices to resolve this burden filling my head.

I needed to start my experiments. I hurriedly entered the workshop.

First, I checked the shelf hanging on the wall. Inside were the materials I had gathered over time, neatly stored.

Thousand-Year Tree, Hundred-Year Thunder Stone, Dreamfang, and so on. These had naturally accumulated magical circuits due to the many years of magical energy built within them. Since I had been hoarding such materials, I hadn’t been able to think about paying back my debt.

There was only one reason I had gathered these.

To create self-awareness in a shadow. Many texts confirmed it. Self-awareness can emerge from ancient magic. If that’s the case, an ancient shadow could also create self-awareness, couldn’t it?

That was the thought that drove my gathering of these items. Natural relics that, while holding immense magic, would lead their shadows to emit powerful magical energy.

I first pulled out the Thousand-Year Tree. Among what I had collected, it contained the strongest magic. Moreover, it was the best material for crafting a doll, undoubtedly aligning perfectly with my experiment.

I carefully took it and approached the crafting table. My shadow was already there, having completed all preparations. Gently, I placed the wood on top.

Along with my shadow, I cautiously began to carve the wood. The wood displayed a beautiful but rugged grain.

As I carried on, I carefully extracted the form contained within, transforming it into the shape of an owl. I aimed for a minimum of manipulation, only capturing the essence of the material.

The shadow of the owl mirrored its form, changing shape identically.

I delicately detached that shadow and placed it into a vial. The owl-like shadow flapped its wings inside the vial, searching for its master. But soon it began to fall into a dormant state from the weak sleep magic contained inside.

Then, as I had done before, I infused my magic to form the Magical Heart. The Magical Heart created for this doll was greater and more potent than any shadow I’d seen so far.

Up until this point, everything was very stable. It was only natural, considering I hadn’t failed with the last experiment.

I took the owl doll and shadow to the pre-installed Magical Circle. The Magical Circle that was about my upper body size was intricately woven with seven overlapping spells, creating a complicated design.

I placed the vial within the Magical Circle. Then, I cautiously injected magical energy to activate the circle. The magic became murky, darkening the interior as it began to dye it black.

Noticing the shadow within the vial reacting to the magic, it began to awaken gradually. It was a virtual area crafted to resemble the shadow world as closely as possible.

I had gathered materials from the shadow world little by little to create this and studied its magical properties. This was an attempt to create an artificial awakening environment to stimulate self-awareness.

The shadow soon slipped out of the vial, starting to look around. It was an instinctive movement to seek its master. However, the connection between the shadow and the owl was already severed by the layers of magic building up.

Eventually, it began to half meld into that world. It grew faint, gently wavering. Before long, it became barely visible around the Magical Heart.

I swallowed at that sight. Right, that was the form my shadow had first taken. The atmosphere was one that seemed like it could disappear at any moment. It was within that, it blossomed.

I couldn’t pull that shadow out of the Magical Circle. It could only exist within and would surely dissolve and vanish the moment it was drawn out.

So, I carefully pushed the owl doll into it. At that moment, the connection between the doll and the shadow was restored. Once the shadow confirmed its master, it leaped to nestle at its feet.

Did I succeed?

However, the instant the shadow connected with the doll, it began to consume it. It merged with the doll’s form, twisting in an unstable manner.

Then it broke free from my influence and began rampaging within that tiny world. It had become an uncontrollable monster. It was more akin to a rampage than acquiring self-awareness. Ultimately, I had no choice but to pull it out of the Magical Circle and destroy it.

All conditions had seemed perfect; why did this outcome occur? I began to ponder in front of the shattered shadow. Was it an issue with the materials or the shadow? I still had no idea.

The only option was to conduct more experiments.

With that mindset, I began pouring in other materials to create more dolls.

And again, they all failed.

“Damn it, my precious points.”

Looking at the debris piled on the floor, I could only murmur that. Half had already shattered. Both the rock, hardened by lightning over a century, and the Dreamfang, overflowing with dreams after a millennium, met the same fate.

No matter how strong they were, the moment they encountered that shadow, they were horrifically transformed. The results were nothing like I had anticipated.

Yet, I figured out the reason. Those ancient relics already bore strong magical powers and their own circuits. So, most of the time, collisions occurred with the magical heart of the artificially created shadow.

Even if they had merged without rejection, these relics already had a semblance of their own tendencies. Thus, they displayed a resistance against the shadow’s magic.

With the doll and shadow colliding, not only was the new self-awareness absent, but maintaining their union became difficult. Ultimately, this led to the balance between the two being disrupted and resulted in failure.

These expensive materials had thus oxidized into nothingness.

But I didn’t despair. I hadn’t expected to succeed so easily. I signaled to my shadow. It brought over the prepared shadow and doll.

The shadow had been steeped in strong magical energy in advance. After two months of intensively charging the workshop with magic, the shadow now possessed a chilling aura of power.

This shadow, produced over two months, was the only one that had succeeded. The other shadows I had added crumbled or deformed under the pressure of the magic.

This, perhaps, could yield success.

With bated breath, I placed the shadow inside the Magical Circle.

And failed again.

I knelt in despair amid the shattered remains of the doll.

Every step of the process had been perfect. The doll had connected with the shadow.

The harmony of magic, shadow, and doll was flawless.

Yet just because there was strong magic didn’t mean self-awareness would emerge. The excessive concentration of magic had slowly eroded the internal balance of the doll, making it unstable.

This unchecked erosion ultimately turned the doll completely black. Out of a glimmer of hope, I pulled it out of the Magical Circle, only for it to explode right there.

Damn.

Eventually, I realized. I couldn’t simply shape the environment and expect the shadow’s self-awareness to form.

Even after numerous attempts, the same outcome prevailed. I had been far too optimistic.

Which I honestly should haveexpected. If it were that easy to endow objects with self-awareness using such basic structures, this world would be filled with sentient beings by now. Creating such entities required more than just simplistic physical unions or infusions of magic.

So what method should I then utilize?

I gazed at my one successful work, my shadow. It began to change shape, reflecting my will.

The amalgamation of my form became a huge mist. It felt like gazing at the night sky. Within it twinkled small, shining stars. Those were the seeds of its self-awareness.

Error-prone, this sight was one I had observed many times over the passing years. I could feel an kinship with myself from all those stars.

But this was the focus of my current experiment. My shadow essentially reflected my will, resulting in it possessing high intelligence and independent magic. Within it, self-awareness was merely little seeds like those stars.

Therefore, I thought that having a proper structure would result in those stars naturally appearing. But every attempt had led to failure.

So it warranted a shift in my thinking.

That is, self-awareness doesn’t arise solely from magic. This realization lent understanding to the experiment’s results.

No matter how strong the magic of the subject being observed, if a crucial essence is absent, such undesirable outcomes arise.

The question was, what exactly was that essential essence?

I gazed at the stars sparkling toward me. Perhaps that was it. After all those failures, I finally recognized the particularity that emanated from those stars.

It was filled entirely with a sense of direction solely towards me. Surely, the professor, Heisen, must have implanted that direction when she created it. It moved for me, it thought for me.

The reason for its existence and purpose aligned solely with me. Viewing it in that light, the shadow it wore was merely a conduit of will. It was irrelevant whether there was much or little magic; the essence contained within that will mattered far more.

Thus I wondered if I had been continuously failing. I had simply tried to modify the shadows. Attempting to assemble an artificial environment, expecting self-awareness to naturally arise within it. I hadn’t considered in depth the traits self-awareness possessed.

If that were the case, then the direction of my research must change from this point forward. What I required now weren’t expensive materials or shadows imbued with abundant magic.

I needed something intertwined with me, possessing desire and purpose, and holding magic. That was essential.

If I could find that, any shadow would surely form self-awareness.

But could such a thing truly exist? Perhaps the heart of a legendary dragon could fulfill that role. A treasure I could hardly dream of acquiring.

I gathered all my previous experiments into a scroll.

As I looked down at it, I began to delve into countless hours of contemplation.

I researched numerous texts, gathering vast information. For a moment, I even halted requests. I paused even on filling the magical energies into the dolls. The losses had piled up like mountains.

But I continued undeterred, half abandoning preparations for my classes and the maintenance of the Tower. A strong intuition told me that resolving this predicament would be a significant turning point for me.

Thus, I thoroughly isolated myself and continued to explore the essence of my magic and shadows.

I repeated numerous experiments. Inspected the dolls, examined my magic, checked the shadows. I poured everything I possessed into my research.

And thus, a month passed.

I was finally able to grasp a sliver of faint possibility.

 

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