I Studied Mainly Textbooks! Chapter 18

There were three days until the mid-term exams. Unlike Loki and Abel who were practically at leisure, Ian was trembling in nervousness.

“Hey! Aren’t you guys worried at all? This is our first test! Oh, this is not the time to be doing this… I can’t even go to the sparring hall because of dorm rules… Isn’t there a place I could practice?”

He couldn’t swing his sword inside the living room.

“Hm? A practice room? Should I make one for you?”

Abel said that as though he was cooking instant ramen.

“M, make what? Is that even possible?”

Mages seem to be able to do curious things, but make a practice room? Was that even possible? Ian was full of doubts.

“This bro will do it for you. Just wait a moment.”

Abel went to his room and brought back his calculator. He inputted the coordinates and started tapping away.

Tap tap tap.

“…Another s.p.a.ce!”

Abel created a discrete s.p.a.ce.

Although it was an overlapping s.p.a.ce with the dorms, it was a completely independent s.p.a.ce. It was a 4-dimensional s.p.a.ce that stemmed from subs.p.a.ce magic. It’s the ‘chamber of secrets’ that couldn’t be seen with the 3rd-dimensional eye.

“…? Nothing changed.”

When Ian said that, Abel replied back.

“It’s a chamber of secrets that not anyone can enter. I set it so that you have to say the pa.s.sword to enter.”

“A pa.s.sword? What’s that?”

“You see that mirror there, right? Go up to it and say this. ‘Wow, I look handsome as always’.”

Really, such an embarra.s.sing pa.s.sword.

“Hahaha, you’re teasing me right? Nothing will happen even if I say ‘Wow, I look handsome as always’, see…”

Fwoosh.

Ian disappeared.

“Whoa!”

Loki’s jaws gaped after seeing Ian completely disappearing.

The chamber of secrets that Abel made was a cubic s.p.a.ce that was 50m high, wide and long. It was quite large, so it was suitable to practice the sword, or even magic.

Moreover, it was a simple s.p.a.ce-creation magic, so it didn’t consume that much mana either. It could even be self-supplied with the mana from the air. In other words, this s.p.a.ce could be maintained without Abel’s maintenance.

It was different from the ‘room of spirit and time’. It was just, a simple s.p.a.ce.

Fwoosh.

Abel followed Ian inside. Seeing Ian at a loss, he started boasting.

“Wow, my magic skills… it’s awesome.”

“Yeah… I admit.”

“With this, I might be able to use it for magic practice.”

“Then help me out with practice. You cast magic on me, and I’ll block. If we just do a one vs one, then a swordsman will naturally win, so.”

His words were reasonable. Originally, it is impossible for a mage to win a 1:1 battle against a swordsman. This was because they would be defenseless during long casting times. To cover for this, battle mages usually worked in a group of 3.

They would switch casting between the three. That allowed them to cast magic continuously and dramatically lessened the danger.

As such, high-rank mages above 6-circle usually had a guardian knight that accompanied them. As they cast wide-area effect magic of insane scale, they had to be protected while they were casting.

However, Abel was a common-sense destroyer. He could cast in a single second, so he didn’t need to switch between people. As long as he had sufficient mana, he would be able to cast infinitely.

“I can help you out, but I can’t agree that a swordsman will win against a mage. Since we’re here, let’s try it out.”

“Huh? You might get injured.”

Seeing Abel so confident, Ian found it absurd and tried to scare him a little.

“We’ll know if we try. …Fireball!”

As soon as he finished his words, Abel cast his magic.

Clang.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Ian panicked, but he blocked Abel’s magic with his sword.

“Hey! How can you cast magic instantane-“

“…Lightning shock!”

Before Ian could even finish his words, Abel cast yet another magic.

Claang.

Ian inserted mana into the sword and deflected the magic.

“Ouch, that p.r.i.c.ks!”

He could avoid a critical damage, but couldn’t help the p.r.i.c.kling sensation.

Tah.

Abel dashed forward towards Abel thinking that he shouldn’t keep still. He exerted mana through his legs and instantly decreased the distance.

Fwoos.h.!.+

This time, Ian’s sword approached Abel before he could even cast something. Worried that Abel maybe hurt, Ian attacked with the flat of the blade.

“Caught you!”

Ian was confident.

“…s.p.a.ce distortion.”

Fwoosh.

He definitely had Abel, but the sword strangely cut empty s.p.a.ce.

“Wh, what the heck?”

“I just distorted s.p.a.ce. You think that you swung straight, but you actually attacked right above me.”

“……!”

Ian was very shocked. This kind of magic was unheard of.

This was a magic that Abel, the s.p.a.ce-time mage, had created. There was no way he had experienced this before.

Although it was just distorting the s.p.a.ce, it would later be possible to switch out s.p.a.ce! At that point, no one would be able to do a thing to him unless it was a swordmaster or something.

Right now, Abel had reached 5-circle in terms of spatial magic, and 3-circle in others.

“I, I give up!”

Ian GG’ed.

“Wow, that’s crazy…. I’ve never seen a mage who spams magic like that. Anyway, I’ll just practice alone.”

Ian lost his will to fight seeing Abel’s frightening skills.

Actually, Abel didn’t have that much mana, and he would be able to grasp victory if he held on for a bit more, but there was no way Ian knew that.

“Should I call Reina then?”

“How? Isn’t she in the girl’s dorms?”

“There is a way.”

A portal magic would do the trick.

It would be possible If he opened a portal tunnel that connected the chamber of secrets to Reina’s room. Theoretically, that is.

“Can’t you change the pa.s.sword?”

Reina frowned. The pa.s.sword was definitely not to her liking.

In the end, Abel had created a pa.s.sage to the window in Reina’s room.

“Wow… it really works…….”

Ian exclaimed once again.

He resolved to himself that he wouldn’t be surprised no matter what Abel did anymore.

“Then do your best at practice!”

Fwoosh.

He finished his words, and just left through the pa.s.sage on the wall.

“Let’s see… Loki’s obviously first… and the magic department… what the!”

The mid-terms ended, and the four were standing in front of the scoreboard.

Ian was shocked after seeing the list.

“Abel is first in the magic department?”

Shrug.

Instead of replying, Abel held up his shoulders. His expression was asking Ian what was so surprising.

“Re…ina’s first too? What the h.e.l.l? You guys are all first except me!”

Ian didn’t like his middle-of-the-road grades.

“Hey, you were complaining about how hard everything was a few weeks ago. So that was all an act!”

“Haha, I just tried hard.”

Abel made a smile towards Ian who had no idea about his cheat key.

Abel also looked at the scoreboard to see the rest.

‘The magic department… 2nd is Cain and 3rd is Sibel?”

He knew that Cain was good, but Sibel was unexpected.

(T/N: Sibel = Sibelius)

Well, he took the top spot, so it didn’t matter.

‘Looks like I don’t have to go to the room of spirit and time for a while.’

Abel felt light now that the exams were over.

Although he used a cheat, he did definitely put a lot of effort in. He was satisfied.

Clang!

A flying(?) cup hit the wall and shattered into pieces.

“Aaack! 2nd? F*ck! Why am I 2nd!”

Tremble… Boom.

Cain hit the table with his fist in rage.

He hit so hard, that blood flowed from his ripped skin.

“Abel… I’ll make you my side. If you reject… I can only erase you…….”

If anyone saw Cain like this, then they would be shocked. This was Cain’s true face.

Abel had followed Cain to the clubroom for MARIO. As Cain told him that they wanted to speak alone, the two were the only ones in there.

‘Well, I did come since all he wanted was to drink some tea…….’

It seemed as though he wanted to join him.

“First, congratulations on getting 1st! Haha. I’ll definitely catch up to you next time!”

Cain laughed heartily to loosen the mood.

“It was only a slight difference… I was just lucky.”

Replied Abel.

“I didn’t know you were so good. What’s your secret?”

A secret huh…….

“You just need to study mainly textbooks.”

Abel gave the common reply of all top rankers. He couldn’t possibly say that he distorted time.

(T/N: People who get full marks in college entrance exams always say “I mainly studied texbooks” even though most people go to cram schools….)

“Haha, interesting fellow. Now that I know your skills… why don’t you join me?”

Cain went straight to topic.

“Hmm, the club MARIO huh… it sounds alright…….”

He did feel that it would be more comfortable if he had friends researching into the same topics. Moreover, he was considering taking Luna with him as well. She always walked around alone, after all.

Seeing Abel hesitate, Cain spoke again.

“At this opportunity, I’m going to throw away all those maggot trash and I’m planning to go with a small, elite force. If you join me, then I’ll let you work under my father later. And I’ll give you 20 gold a month starting tomorrow for research funds. How about it?”

‘Maggot trash?’

That’s not nice. This was getting slightly strange.

Abel realized that something was up. He decided to probe Cain a little.

“You mean the commoners?”

“Yes! Are you also a n.o.ble? Now, that makes it a lot easier. They’ll be working under me once they graduate. I can’t stand having them treat me like a friend anymore.

Actually, why don’t you come to my city once? We have a ball every weekend, and only the top 1% can attend. I’ll take you along.

Don’t miss this opportunity! This is the last chance you can work for me.”

So as expected……. He was different on the outside from the inside. A total sociopath and hypocrite.

‘This guy isn’t normal either…….’

This was one of the most problematic types of people out there. These kinds of people cannot be looked down upon just because they were a student. Among his seniors that pa.s.sed the teaching license exam, there was someone who was expelled thanks to a sociopathic student.

And Abel had to say something about that.

“I don’t think that’s fine with me. I hate superiority complexes…. We’re friends, we aren’t under or above anyone… And I’m the top student, shouldn’t you be coming under me? Thanks for the tea, see you later.”

Abel sipped the rest of the red tea.

Tap.

Then he placed the teacup on the tale and left.

Tremble.

Cain trembled in frustration after hearing that from Abel.

“Aaaaaaaaaargh!”

Clang.

He threw the teacup that was on the table.

Smash, smash.

His frustration wasn’t vented yet and he started kicking the shelf on the wall.

“I won’t let this go, Abel…….”

Cain gritted his teeth. His fists trembled violently due to anger. His nails dug into his palms.

However, he didn’t even know what kind of person Abel was.