32. Aslan Seminar (4)
“…What?”
Because they had never imagined that even Baek Yuseol would attack Eizel, quite a few people were flustered. Flame and Hong Biyeon were no exception.
‘Why on earth…?’
Baek Yuseol was always the one who treasured Eizel, always shielding and fussing over her. Yet now, instead of helping her, he was suddenly saying he would point out a flaw.
‘…Or is this the only way he can help her?’
Flame knew the original romance fantasy story.
Here, Eizel was supposed to make her presentation with a paper that had not even been properly completed, only to be bombarded with criticism, objections, and rebuttals from everyone present.
And then… she would be saved by Hae Wonryang.
This was also the point where Hae Wonryang’s fandom truly began to form in earnest in the original work.
But before Hae Wonryang could properly show off his full charm and all that, Eizel would be torn apart far too badly in this episode.
Because the criticism hurled at her, criticism that seemed to deny not only her magic but even her very existence, had clearly gone far beyond the line.
Of course, things were very different now. Unlike in the original romance fantasy, Eizel had stepped onto that stage with her paper fully completed.
So Flame had secretly felt relieved.
Thinking that it would go in a different direction from the original.
However, the problem had not been the paper.
It was simply—
this place itself.
Everyone hated Eizel, and everyone condemned her. They berated her with jeers and mockery that had no reason behind them, and with sneers on their faces, they built up their own self-worth.
They were truly a vile, disgusting lot. Could things like that really be called magicians?
“By flaw… do you mean…?”
When Baek Yuseol used his chance to criticize, Eizel stared at him blankly and asked back.
“Yes. A flaw. In your magic circle, there is not a single ‘line’ connecting one mana circuit to another. This is, quite literally, nothing more than a pattern. It’s hard to even call it a magic circle. How exactly do you intend to activate a spell with this?”
Small gasps broke out here and there. What he had said sounded quite plausible—no, more than that, it was a fact attack that struck straight at the heart of the matter.
‘Your magic circle doesn’t even possess the most basic qualifications of a magic circle.’
Baek Yuseol’s criticism was valid, and no matter how anyone looked at it, it seemed like something that could not possibly be answered.
But…
That was only how it looked to other people.
He had completed the final portion of this paper together with Eizel, and he knew exactly which part she had agonized over so deeply.
‘I want to create another kind of magic circle. Something completely different from the existing forms.’
‘If that’s what you say, then I guess that’s what it is.’
‘I’m serious! That’s why I’m agonizing over how in the world I’m supposed to implement it…’
‘I’ve got no idea.’
‘I wasn’t asking for ideas.’
‘Figure it out yourself.’
As for that part, Baek Yuseol had not given her even a single scrap of help. Because he knew that someday Eizel would be able to solve it on her own.
And in reality, Eizel had done it perfectly. Even now, Baek Yuseol could not forget the sight of her coming to him and bragging after perfectly solving, in only a few days, the problem that had tortured her so much.
That was why he had made that criticism.
‘You know how to do that.’
To everyone else, it looked like a fact-driven strike aimed at her weak point.
But from Eizel’s perspective…
it was the best support possible, the first thing that had finally opened her mouth.
“…I’ll show you directly.”
When Eizel raised her staff, everyone in the hall focused on her hand.
Instead of an ordinary circular magic circle, a hexagonal magic circle shaped like a snowflake spread out across the floor, and sleet began to swirl in all directions.
“Oh…”
“What is that? What kind of principle makes that work?”
“What’s going on? I don’t get it.”
It was only a spell that summoned a pillar of ice. Anyone could do that much. But those who possessed a deep understanding of ice-element magic reacted differently from ordinary magicians.
“No, the thing is… there isn’t even an ice point, and there aren’t any lines connecting the mana, so how did a pillar shoot up…?”
“Huh? Now that you mention it, you’re right.”
That’s right.
A magic circle takes a great ‘circle’ as its frame, then links together the ‘points’ that designate the attribute and the ‘lines’ that realize the shape, circulating mana to produce the spell.
But Eizel’s magic had neither a circle nor points.
No matter how one looked at the magic circle, it was impossible to interpret it as an ‘ice pillar summoning spell,’ and yet hadn’t the spell clearly activated?
“…The reason ice crystals are hexagonal is because their substance is water. The mana molecules that compose water are structured around two hydrogens bonded together, and these mana molecules take on their most perfect form when arranged in a hexagon.”
For ice, the most perfect form—
a hexagon.
“There is no need for circuits to connect the mana. I merely matched ice to its most perfect form, and in response to my will, they became ice.”
Until now, humans had forced the elements of nature into forms of their own making and used them that way.
And the thing born for that purpose was the magic circle.
But Eizel had broken free of the frame created by humanity and instead adapted herself to nature itself.
And as a result—
…Clink!
At the tip of her staff, a translucent crystalline flower bloomed.
“Crystal Flower.”
A 4-Class spell that, once upon a time, had required her to gather every ounce of her concentration just to use.
But now, it had become something she could activate at any time…
so long as she wished it.
“Waaah…”
“That’s… magic…?”
The magic Eizel sent soaring all the way to the ceiling was closer to art than to aggression, and people stared at it in a daze.
In order to show that magic to everyone in even greater detail, she took a step back and looked toward Selien.
“Earlier, you pointed out that ‘a hexagonal magic circle is inefficient.’ Was… this enough of an answer?”
A magic circle had to be circular?
Eizel did not bother making some formal verbal rebuttal to that.
She simply answered by displaying a perfect spell, one that no great ice-element magician had ever been able to show.
Logic? Theory?
Magicians were a race that conversed through magic.
Eizel turned to look at Keika Dromian, the one who had criticized her second.
“Putting eighteen ice points into a magic circle… the Dromian family really is impressive.”
Then, pointing at the magic circle drawn beneath her feet—a beautiful hexagonal shape resembling a snowflake crystal—she said,
“But because ice points consume so much mana when they burn, it’s actually more efficient to have none at all.”
“That…”
Keika gritted his teeth and desperately searched for something to refute her with.
“A hexagonal magic circle isn’t suitable for modifying trajectories. How exactly do you intend to alter each and every ‘trajectory line’?”
Rather than answering with words, Eizel answered by directly transforming her magic circle.
“Ooh…”
“That’s… unusual…”
The hexagonal magic circle, shaped like a snowflake crystal, changed its internal patterns in accordance with Eizel’s will as if it were alive, something impossible with an ordinary circular magic circle.
It would not have been wrong to say that conventional magic circles merely moved the already-drawn lines around while preserving their shape, but in a hexagonal magic circle, the size and thickness of the trajectories could be altered freely.
‘That can’t…!’
No, he could not allow himself to understand it.
Keika Dromian shouted again.
“But then the time it takes to inflict freezing would be far too slow!”
“Can you even freeze a designated target? Without ice points, won’t it just freeze allies indiscriminately too?”
“A hexagon’s mana circulation rate has to be worse than that of a circular magic circle!”
Keika made an enormous number of criticisms, and every one of them sounded valid and incisive to anyone listening.
No—
they only seemed that way.
“Is that so? Then… would you like to compare the efficiency with your proud magic?”
But Eizel proved every last bit of that efficiency.
Not one point left out.
And she did it while deliberately comparing it to Dromian magic.
“Urgh…”
“Would you like to come up here and prove it yourself? A magician who uses a chance to criticize may also demonstrate their magic in person.”
Eizel said it to Keika directly.
‘If you’ve got a problem with it, then bring Morf magic and Dromian magic face to face and compare them yourself.’
But he could not do that.
Because he had absolutely no confidence that he could demonstrate magic superior to what she had just shown.
‘Th-this isn’t right…!’
It had been a mistake to compare Dromian family magic circles with Eizel’s in the first place. If he had simply kept quiet, then eighteen ice points would have remained a tremendous achievement in their own right, but because the performance of the two had ended up being compared…
it had now been made known to everyone that Dromian magic was inferior to Morf magic.
All because of him.
“Th-that magic circle…”
Keika tried to make one more criticism, but he could not even bring himself to say it. Eizel stared directly at him without even turning her head.
With an expression that clearly said,
‘If you have more to say, then say it.’
But after hesitating for a long while, Keika finally lowered his head, and Eizel delivered the finishing blow.
“It seems… you don’t have anything more to say.”
That was the end of it.
Dromian magic?
After today, it would surely remain in history for a very long time.
Not as the greatest ice-element magic in history, born with eighteen ice points—
but as proof that the singular magic circle newly defined by Eizel Morf was even greater.
Keika Dromian collapsed back into his seat with a hollow expression, and once he had retired, Eizel calmly turned her head and made eye contact one by one with the magicians who had criticized her.
Most of them avoided her gaze, and even the questions that still came flying at her out of wounded pride could no longer block Eizel’s voice.
Why was she suddenly able to answer the things she had not been able to answer before?
Had Eizel Morf suddenly grown smarter in that brief span of time? Had some mysterious knowledge seeped into her head?
No. That was not it.
She had simply realized something.
‘…Not everyone hates me.’
It was a very strange thing.
Eizel had thought she was used to being ostracized like this.
But for some reason… after visiting the Library of Stars the other day, an almost bizarre loneliness had begun to spread through her chest.
It was a side effect.
What she had experienced back then.
Baek Yuseol, standing alone against the Black Dragon…
As the price of seeing that sight, Eizel had ended up absorbing a little of the feelings Baek Yuseol had felt at the time.
The feeling he had probably felt then was loneliness.
If one thought of it simply, just receiving a little bit of loneliness should not have been enough to make her this intimidated.
But that emotion overlapped with the countless condemnations, hatred, and exclusion Eizel had endured up until now, and it all came crashing down at once like a wave of trauma.
But now, it was all right.
Even in this lonely space filled with people who loathed her, hated her, and wanted to tear her apart…
there had still been someone who stood on her side.
“Does anyone have any further questions?”
In a tranquil tone, Eizel rebutted the magicians’ criticisms point by point.
By around this time,
not only the young magicians attending the Aslan Seminar, but even the magicians sitting among the audience, had all come to the same realization.
‘All the ice-element magic that has existed up until now… is going to be overturned.’
‘Not just ice-element magic. The very definition of a magic circle is going to change.’
From now on, the ice-element magic of this world would be newly defined by Eizel’s magic.
And because of the ‘non-circular magic circle’ Eizel had displayed for the first time, every elemental spell in the world would begin to change into diverse forms.
— Read only on MugenCodex —
Today, in this very place, Eizel had all but begun a revolution in the history of magic.
“Damn it…”
“That makes no sense. There has to be some flaw somewhere…”
Everyone felt that truth in their bones, but the magicians could not accept it.
There were quite a lot of geniuses here from prestigious families that specialized mainly in ice-element magic, and they could not bear to accept that their own magic was inferior to the magic of the ruined Morf family.
‘That can’t be right.’
‘Magic circles have to be circular.’
They struggled however they could to find a gap in Eizel’s magic, but every time her logic was attacked, it only grew more beautiful and complete.
The participants broke into even colder sweats and tried in every possible way to crush her, but…
when that kind of thing goes too far, it only starts to look ridiculous.
Beep! Beep-beep!
The moment five minutes had passed since the last question, the sound of buttons rang out here and there as people tried to use their chances to criticize.
But the moderator could not pick out any one person and instead looked toward someone.
The Princess of Adolevit, Hong Biyeon.
She too had used her chance to criticize.
With her silver hair hanging loose, Hong Biyeon lifted her chin slightly and wore an arrogant expression.
That expression seemed to say, ‘I’m the one going to criticize her. Are you lot really going to do it? Go ahead, if you dare,’ and the magicians quietly withdrew their chances.
‘Tch, what a bunch of idiots.’
Hong Biyeon found herself feeling strangely displeased. Because she had realized from very early on that Baek Yuseol had created this entire situation and atmosphere.
Once again today, Baek Yuseol had turned his mind for Eizel’s sake and helped her in an astonishing way.
No third party could help during the presentation itself, so she had to resolve everything on her own—but who could have guessed that he would use a ‘chance to criticize’ like that and completely turn Eizel’s momentum upside down?
Because Hong Biyeon had a habit of carefully observing Baek Yuseol’s actions and thinking deeply about them, she was able to understand his behavior faster and more accurately than anyone else.
“…Go ahead and speak.”
When the chance to criticize was given to Hong Biyeon, Eizel quietly met her eyes.
That cold Eizel, crushing every magician’s criticism and answering with clean precision, looked like an entirely different person from the Eizel who had not even been able to say a single word earlier.
Probably…
even if the magicians continued to cling to her and attack her from here on, it would only make Eizel shine brighter.
Hong Biyeon did not want Eizel to completely seize control of the situation like that and swallow the Aslan Seminar whole.
Because she too had prepared thoroughly for this seminar.
So she tossed out some random question that would bring Eizel’s paper presentation to an end.
“That’s enough. Just tell us the name of that magic.”
A magic presentation ended with the announcement of the name of the new spell.
In other words, Hong Biyeon had just announced the end of this tedious battle of refutations.
“…The name of this magic is.”
Eizel too thought that it was about time to end it, and promptly accepted Hong Biyeon’s question.
“‘Morf Crystal.’”
“Mm!”
“Ahem…”
At the name of the spell, several people coughed awkwardly as though uncomfortable.
Eizel had not put her own name into it.
She had put in her family name.
That meant Eizel Morf was not declaring that she would start over as one individual named ‘Eizel.’
It meant she would rise again as the eldest daughter of the Morf family.
Even so, to give up on that magic of Eizel’s…
a magician’s curiosity and intellectual hunger would never permit it.
Probably
many magicians would begin to desire that magic bearing the name ‘Morf,’ and Morf magic might slowly begin to spread through society.
Exactly as Eizel wanted.
That could not be stopped.
It was a truly bizarre thing.
Nothing like this had ever happened before,
and nothing like it ever would again.
In magical society, betrayal to black magic was counted among the gravest of sins, the sort of thing destined to be buried in history. Who could have imagined that a family of such ‘traitors’ would be able to have life breathed back into it once more?
It was, in the most literal sense, making the impossible possible…
a concept that stood at the complete opposite pole from the very definition of magic.
“…Interesting.”
While everyone else sat speechless, unable to shut their open mouths, the presiding chairman, Aryu Moon, looked at Eizel with eyes that were half-lidded yet still gleaming.
“I like people who charge toward the impossible. I hope you keep going, Miss Eizel Morf.”
Bang! Bang!
As if a vote was unnecessary, Chairman Aryu Moon personally struck the gavel of judgment.
With that, it was declared that Eizel’s new magic had been approved.
