Chapter 20: The First Step

The world was beautiful, and the sunlight was blindingly bright.

Everything seemed so clear, as though it had been bathed in a new light.

The scenery of this shabby slum looked as if I was seeing it for the first time, and there seemed to be a hidden beauty in everything.

The main street of the slum was crowded with people.

Maybe because it was the day the exam ended, many people were walking around.

I walked down the street with light steps, waving at everyone I passed and greeting them.

A smile spread across my face.

People stared at me with confused expressions, but I didn’t mind.

I just wanted to share this refreshing feeling and joyful heart with these unfortunate people.

My body felt as light as a feather, and my mind seemed to be walking on clouds.

Mmm-mmm, a little tune came out on its own.

It felt like I had been freed from all the worries and fears I had long suppressed.

The frustration that had built up every time I failed the exams, the blood, sweat, and tears of 11 years of effort.

It felt like all that time had been for today.

Even the junkies lying on the street looked almost cute, like a single flower.

And so, I passed through the slum, feeling as if I was flying.

How could this path I had walked so many times be so beautiful? Why hadn’t I noticed its deeper meaning before? It must have been because I hadn’t had the time to appreciate it.

Using magic, I picked a wildflower from the ground and smelled it.

A light sweetness lingered at the tip of my nose.

Hmm, it’s an attractive scent.

I closed my eyes and took in that fragrance deeply.

But then, at some point, a sour, pungent smell began to push the sweet fragrance away.

“Looks like you’ve finally lost your mind.”

It was the swordsman, Evan.

He was looking at me with a face full of regret.

A strong smell of iron came from him.

For a moment, I almost scowled, but I softened my expression and smiled.

Hmm, even this foul odor surely has its own kind of beauty.

I just couldn’t sense it.

“Are you alright? You didn’t take some drugs because you failed the exam, did you?”

Evan waved his hand in front of my face.

‘Drugs, huh? Well, you could technically call it that.’

It was the elixir of my life.

I swatted his hand away and spread my arms wide.

The sunlight embraced my whole body.

“Fail? Of course I passed.”

His eyes widened as though he had heard something he shouldn’t have.

After a brief moment of digging into his ears, he asked in disbelief, “Passed?”

I nodded.

He blinked in surprise and stared at me.

He pulled a piece of paper from his chest and waved it in front of me.

It was my acceptance letter, protected by all the defensive spells I knew.

The proof of my acceptance into university, the result of years of hard work.

His eyes followed the letters on the paper, and disbelief filled his face.

After staring at it for a moment, he stammered, “Well… Congratulations.”

“Hm, yeah.”

I smiled and nodded.

Seeing his expression brought me deeper satisfaction.

In fact, I had stopped for a moment here just to see his face.

Now that I had gotten the reaction I wanted, it was time to leave.

But then, I stopped in my tracks.

Thinking about it, I realized I owed him a debt.

I was about to leave for university, and I should at least give him a gift.

‘What should I give him?’ I began to think, and suddenly my shop came to mind.

It was the place I had stayed for the past 10 years, my home.

When I left for university, I would have to vacate it.

It would be better for someone I knew to take care of it, rather than a stranger.

Turning back to Evan, I said, “I’m leaving for university soon, so I’ll leave the shop to you.”

“My shop, you say? Wait, that’s our land, isn’t it? You’ve been squatting there all this time.”

He protested.

‘What was he talking about?’ After staying there for 10 years, it had become completely mine.

I shrugged and smiled.

He seemed to want to argue but stopped.

After a moment, he reluctantly nodded.

“Well, I suppose I’ll take it then.”

I thought to myself that I would just take it back once I was done with university.

With that thought in mind, I started walking again.

Evan, standing idly, scratched his head and turned around.

I left the slum center and headed towards my home.

***

Soon, I saw the empty lot I had tidied up.

In the middle of it stood my shop, welcoming me.

The sign reading [Evron’s Crafts] shone warmly in the sunlight. I walked closer and ran my hand over the sign.

I remembered when I first put it up.

At the time, I never imagined I would stay here for so long.

And now, 11 years later, I could finally see the fruits of my labor.

I gently opened the door and entered the shop.

The scene that greeted me was not much different from two weeks ago.

Well, except for the fact that the professor was lounging on the table.

Instead of a table, there was a sort of massage bed in its place.

It was something I had never seen before.

‘Was she sleeping?’

I approached cautiously.

The professor was deeply buried in the bed, softly snoring.

The servant next to her was carefully massaging her limbs, almost like playing an instrument.

Perhaps sensing my presence, the professor opened her eyes slightly.

They were heavy with sleep.

She yawned and stretched her body.

“Did the exam finish already?”

I nodded and pulled out the paper I had been bragging about earlier.

I handed it to her.

She took it with two fingers and looked it over.

‘Finally, I had passed under her guidance.’

‘She must have been happy for me.’

A smile crept onto my face.

But then, something shocking happened.

In an instant, I was slammed into the wall.

I blinked in confusion, and pain followed quickly after.

The professor’s intense magical aura was palpable.

She had certainly hit me with it.

Trembling, I looked at her.

‘Why? I had passed, so why’—

“This score… What is this? You barely passed.”

The professor waved the paper in front of me.

I hadn’t expected this.

My pupils shook.

‘She was hitting me over a low score?’

Suddenly, I snapped back to reality.

Until now, I had been lost in a flower field.

I should have predicted this, given the professor’s personality.

I quickly straightened up and stood at attention.

“I’m sorry!”

I quickly bowed my head deeply.

I could feel the professor’s magic lingering above me.

If I had been even a moment slower, I would have gotten another hit.

Sweat began to trickle down my back.

“Well, I guess it can’t be helped. I wasn’t expecting much from you anyway.”

The professor said, yawning again.

The servant quickly handed her a cup of tea, which she accepted and took a sip.

Her gaze turned toward the window, as if checking the time.

The servant pulled out a watch and showed it to her.

She frowned when she saw it.

“Woke up too early, huh.”

She stood up from the bed and put her feet on the ground.

I quickly stood up beside her.

She looked at me sideways and said, “So, how does it feel to have passed the exam? Does it feel like the world is yours?”

The word “passed” made me smile involuntarily.

Once again, I felt lighter.

I tried to shake off the happiness, but it was impossible to erase the feeling.

The professor must have noticed my state and smirked.

“You better wake up from this dream. Passing the exam is not the end of your struggles, but the beginning.”

I bowed politely and listened to her words.

I already knew that passing university wasn’t the end.

But how could I hide the excitement and anticipation? No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to suppress.

The professor ignored my state and said, I unfolded the acceptance letter I had been holding.

“Mm, twelve thousand people. Quite a lot passed this time.”

She smiled.

“How is it? There are more successful applicants than you expected, aren’t there?”

The professor was right.

To be honest, I had been so focused on passing that I hadn’t cared at all about my rank.

But as I thought about it more carefully, just as the professor said, there were so many successful applicants.

The university was full of rumors, but there was very little information circulating outside.

The mages who graduated from the university said that a kind of taboo was placed on the stories inside, preventing them from being leaked to the outside world.

So, unless it was the Empire, which directly conducted the exams, others couldn’t easily figure out how many people actually entered the university.

I had only expected a few thousand at most.

But so many people had passed.

If this many people passed every year, how many mages would that mean there were in the university? The number was beyond my comprehension.

She clicked her tongue when she saw my face.

“The university may be the dream of many mages, but that’s only for rootless wanderers like you. For many mages, this is just a rite of passage.”

She cast a simple illusion using magic.

In the illusion, countless people were falling through a huge sieve.

But only a few of them actually made it through.

The rest were struggling desperately to get out of the sieve.

“You’ve just barely made it through the filter that sifts out countless mages. In that sense, you’ve only just reached the starting point.”

The professor erased the illusion with a frown, crossing her arms.

Despite being a professor, she seemed to have many complaints about the structure of the university.

“Now that you’ve passed, I’m telling you this: lower your stance. Things will be much more competitive. Only those who are superior to you will be there.”

“Yes.”

I answered, filled with tension.

The professor’s words were true.

I had been too excited about passing the exam.

When I thought back on the process, I realized that I hadn’t passed on skill alone.

I had used tricks.

The scores proved that.

So I needed to engrave my score deep in my heart.

Just as the professor said, I had to approach everything with the mindset that I was the weakest in that place.

When the professor moved her fingers, a sound like space splitting filled the air.

From the rift, she pulled out a heavy book.

After lightly slipping my acceptance letter inside, she handed it to me.

“Since the entrance ceremony is a month away, this is your homework until then. Use it to modify this doll further before you enroll.”

She gestured to the butler standing beside her.

I carefully took the book.

The professor then quietly lay back on the massage bed, quickly falling asleep and starting to snore softly.

The butler resumed the massage.

I bowed my head in greeting and left the room.

As I descended the stairs to the workshop, I let out a wry smile.

I hadn’t expected to be scolded as soon as I arrived.

But thanks to that, my mind was fully awake.

***

The workshop, which I hadn’t visited in a long time, was spotless, with not a speck of dust in sight.

I headed straight to the workbench in the center.

I placed the book on it.

There was no writing on the cover of the book.

It was simply wrapped in luxurious leather.

I had never seen this type of book before.

I carefully turned the cover.

Neat handwriting listed a simple table of contents.

I began to read it slowly.

Soon, my hands began to tremble uncontrollably from the unbelievable content.

This was a magic book for performing spells on others, specifically, servant magic.

Moreover, it was a very special magic that had been inherited and developed over a long period of time.

Now I understood why there was no writing on the cover.

This was not a book for public circulation.

It was a secret, shared knowledge passed down through some ancient family.

As proof, the book was filled with magic that had been passed down and improved over generations, specifically designed to assist mages.

I wondered where the professor had found this.

‘Had she dug it up somewhere while collecting treasures?’

As I thought about it, I slowly turned the pages.

Each spell had a deep history, and the delicate techniques designed over countless hours of research and experimentation were clearly present.

The most impressive spell was the Environmental Optimization Magic.

This spell, which manipulated the surrounding airflow to always keep the environment comfortable, was explained in great detail.

It required a very minimal amount of magic power, something almost anyone could use.

But the flow of that magic was quite peculiar.

The magic circle required to perform this spell could only be perfectly completed using the intricate circuit structure written in the book.

If even one part was out of place, the result would quickly fail.

Finding the optimal flow was not something that could be achieved by talent alone.

It was a magic spell born from long hours of experimentation, with a great deal of research and effort invested into it.

If one used this spell, the entire space would be optimized to suit the preferences of the target, maintaining a comfortable state at all times.

I shuddered.

Such a magic existed.

Other spells in the book also formed beautiful and intricate magic circles like this.

As I looked at them, I felt deeply embarrassed.

I recalled the magic I had called “perfect” until now.

Some of it was named that simply because it suited the professor’s taste, but in part, I had thought it flawless after countless improvements and revisions.

But in front of this book, my magic felt utterly insignificant.

I had thought I was the only one who could create such magic, that I was special.

But here, there were mages who had created magic that was more advanced and profound than mine.

The world was much larger than I had imagined, and there were countless gifted individuals out there.

The families with a rich history would be standing at the top.

As this book proved, even in such a humble domain as servant magic, you could feel the immense history of those families.

The professor’s words were always right.

I was nothing but a bug.

A bug who had just entered the university.

The joy and excitement of passing had finally faded.

In its place, anxiety filled me.

Passing the entrance exam was just the beginning.

Now, I had to think about surviving there.

The entrance ceremony was in a month.

As I looked at the magic book, I realized that the month the professor had given me felt too short.

I began slowly studying the spells.