Students began to emerge who successfully built the ice towers one after another.
“Everyone has built one at least once. Now, let’s raise the difficulty a bit.”
Teacher Adelia created a fireball in the center of the classroom.
With the increased difficulty, it was impossible to stack the ice towers three levels or higher.
When attempting to build the third level, the ice at the bottom melted, unable to bear the weight and collapsed.
Eventually, unable to hold back any longer, Max raised his hand.
“Teacher, the ice keeps melting, so it’s a problem to stack the tower.”
“Then, you just need to create ice that doesn’t melt, right?”
Ice that doesn’t melt.
That statement gave me a hint.
The fire and ice I had created with low purity didn’t affect each other at all.
The headmaster’s advice that the higher the purity of the same elemental magic, the greater the advantage.
In other words, I concluded that if I created ice with a much higher purity than the fire that Teacher Adelia made, it would easily not melt.
Without weighing the options, I produced ice with the highest purity possible.
Teacher Adelia watched with a satisfied expression as she looked at the ice I created.
After a while, I completed building the ice tower with the non-melting ice.
“Student Ririan, you pass.”
Once I succeeded, Max, who was next to me, approached and spoke.
“How did you do it?”
“You just need to create ice that doesn’t melt.”
Even though I wanted to share the answer, Teacher Adelia was watching me closely.
Her eyes said she wouldn’t let me get away with giving hints.
As I succeeded and some time passed, other students began to succeed one by one.
However, I noticed something—Teacher Adelia was lowering the mana purity of the fire.
It wasn’t until late at night that class ended.
After Teacher Adelia left the classroom first, the students remained.
“Today’s class was really tough.”
“Yeah, I should be more careful with what I say from now on.”
The student who had complained of boredom seemed to be regretting it deeply.
“Teacher Adelia is usually quite strict. If you provoke her the wrong way, it will be a big deal.”
Max spoke as if giving advice to that student.
“Have you heard the saying that the smiling demon is the scariest?”
“Ah…”
Upon hearing that, the students recalled Teacher Adelia, who had been smiling brightly throughout the class, as they left the classroom.
On the way back to the dormitory, I spotted Teacher Adelia heading home.
She revealed her wings, which hadn’t been visible during class.
One pair of her two pairs of wings was covered in various wounds.
“Oh, Student Ririan. Are you going back?”
“Yes. It looks like you are off work too, Teacher.”
“Be careful since it’s late.”
Step, step.
Unintentionally, I walked behind Teacher Adelia.
“Um, class is over, so hurry and go back.”
“I’m on my way back.”
Thinking that I was following her, Teacher Adelia stopped in her tracks.
“Do you live in the dormitory by any chance?”
“Yes.”
“Then, we are going in the same direction for a while. Let’s walk together.”
While walking together, Teacher Adelia let out a deep sigh and spoke to me.
“Haah. Today’s class was tough, right?”
“A little.”
“My classes are usually quite boring. So I tried to change things up a bit. Was it okay?”
It seemed that her concern about it being boring weighed heavily on her.
“I found it interesting. Honestly, I didn’t expect to immediately apply what I learned from the headmaster the day before.”
“So that’s why you were the first to complete the tower?”
Other students reached success after going through dozens of trial and error.
Had there not been the special class with the headmaster the previous day, I would have likely gone through a similar number of attempts as the others.
“Then I’ll head in this direction, so you be careful going in.”
“Yes, you too, Teacher.”
Leaving Teacher Adelia’s retreating figure behind, I returned to the dormitory.
I realized the door wasn’t locked and opened it.
Inside the room, Jema was talking with the Demon King.
“What’s going on?”
“Just. I feel like I haven’t seen you much lately.”
Lately, I had been so focused on magic class that I hadn’t been able to interact with anyone else at all.
“So, how much have you learned?”
In response to Jema’s question, I conjured fire and chunks of ice to show her.
“Now you quite look like a magician.”
“Can you use it in real situations?”
“I think I can manage that much.”
Certainly, the speed at which I wielded magic had naturally increased while taking classes at the Academy.
Although Teacher Adelia evaluated her own class as boring, the effects were gradually becoming apparent.
“Well then, it’s late, so I’ll head back to my room too.”
Jema, with the Demon King tucked under her arm, left my room.
The Demon King waved at me with a smile as she followed Jema out.
Once I was alone in the room again, I reviewed what I had learned in class today.
Setting fire in the air, I began to stack the ice tower.
During class, it had been the fire created by Teacher Adelia, but when I was alone, I had to cast two kinds of magic on my own.
Just that alone was sufficient training.
Days passed.
During that time, classes in the Academy didn’t change much.
Instead, one day we went to a special location where no one was around to practice wind and lightning magic.
During the wind and lightning practice, Teacher Adelia conducted one-on-one lessons.
While wind-type magic wasn’t very threatening at lower levels, lightning’s difficulty in control was unparalleled.
Everyone struggled with the lightning category, but it was somewhat different for me.
The lightning was under my control as if I could manipulate it freely without much difficulty.
Teacher Adelia was very surprised that I had such a good affinity with lightning.
After realizing I was compatible with lightning, I devoted my free time to it.
And then came the first weekend since enrolling at the Academy.
A guest visited my room.
Since I already knew who it was, I opened the door after finishing all my preparations.
“Did you work hard for a week?”
“A bit.”
I had learned and realized some things about elemental magic.
The lightning magic, which was compatible with me, could be cast much faster than other spells.
I judged that this was sufficient to utilize in real situations.
“Have you told the others? You will probably be away for quite some time.”
“Only Jema knows. She’ll explain things, I guess.”
It had been difficult to meet Dahlia and Catherine even after classes ended.
I hadn’t seen their faces properly these days, perhaps because Minwoo had introduced them to a good job.
Unlike Jema and me, those two had to earn money for their Academy tuition.
It was not entirely true that no students worked separately to pay for their Academy fees.
Illegally, Max was also earning money by participating in underground fights.
“Well then, shall we go?”
“Yes.”
I followed Aila out of the dormitory.
It was still a very early hour, before even the sun had risen.
We boarded a bus and moved to an area I had never been to before.
The place we arrived at was the basement of a small building.
As we entered, a somewhat eerie atmosphere surrounded a teleporter adorned with blue flames around the altar.
“This is a teleportation device.”
“Aren’t you not allowed to use it within the city?”
“You can use it with the manager’s permission.”
I didn’t know who the manager was, but it seemed like something simple for Aila.
Once we stepped onto the teleportation altar, Aila gently grabbed my hand.
With a buzzing sound, the teleportation device began to emit light.
My body reacted first to the change in the surrounding air.
The hairs all over my body stood on end, and a chill as cold as ice enveloped my lungs.
“We’ve arrived.”
“Where is this?”
“Jerasi. It’s a city located north of Roran.”
As we left the room with the altar, we found several thick cloaks hanging on the walls.
“First, wear this.”
“Aren’t you cold, Aila?”
“I’m not affected by the cold.”
When Aila opened the door, an immense cold seeped through the thick clothing and into my bones.
Even facing the dangerously cold wind, Aila didn’t furrow her brow even once.
Snow had fallen, blanketing the surrounding buildings.
“We will cross into Latnia by today.”
“Is it that close?”
“The Sevia we are heading to is close to the northern border.”
The southern border is a flatland suitable for mutual checks.
In contrast, the north is populated with barren land and mountains, making it a dangerous area.
“Is Sevia this cold too?”
“I’ve heard it’s warmer than here, but I don’t know since I’ve never been there.”
The places I had traveled with Aila were areas she was somewhat familiar with.
The thought of heading into a completely unfamiliar area made me a bit anxious.
“Well, don’t worry too much. Just hold onto this.”
Aila handed me a fake identification card.
An ID to show in case I got questioned in Latnia.
“Where did this photo come from?”
“A secret.”
The ID photo showed me as a girl when I had taken the potion incorrectly.
Before I knew it, we had left the city and entered the mountains.
The scene of cliffs covered in snow looked quite picturesque, but there was no room for complacency.
A misstep could send me plummeting off into an abyss.
That was a fact I didn’t want to know.
Had I not had wings, I would already have been a dead man.
In that moment, I felt grateful for the wings on my back.
Aila expertly navigated through areas where I couldn’t properly assess the surroundings, hidden under the snow.
“I fell once, so how can you not have fallen at all?”
“That’s because I’m light.”
“Hmm.”
I slowly scanned Aila from head to toe.
“Don’t stare too much.”
“Sorry.”
After climbing for quite some time, we discovered a cave.
“Do you think it connects to the other side?”
“Let’s take a break here and then go.”
The inside of the cave looked a bit spacious.
I used ice magic to block the cold wind entering from the cave entrance.
Then I levitated fireballs the size of two fists in the air, warming the interior a little.
“Ririan, come look at this.”
Aila was peering at something deeper inside the cave.
As I brought the flame closer, the object slowly revealed itself.
Two old candles and one mural.
“Looks like someone performed some ritual here.”
I lit one of the candles and handed it to Aila.
“Thanks.”
The mural depicted a man with a grotesque appearance.
Around him were all sorts of monsters bowing their heads before the man.
It was an extremely unsettling picture.
“Is this some kind of cult?”
“It seems that way. They must worship that person.”
He had multiple heads—each one of a human, demon, and monster.
He had one wing of an angel and one wing of a demon on his back, along with various tails from different races, making him look quite bizarre.
As we ventured further inside the cave, we found traces of habitation.
There were remnants of some kind of hide used as bedding.
The condition of the hide wasn’t bad, so Aila and I decided to cover ourselves with it for a while.
