The Mage Who Went to High School: Chapter 10
It was three in the morning. Kevin's room was quiet, but the air within was still buzzing with the faint, lingering heat of the night. On the desk, an empty pizza box, soda cans, and a mess of textbooks and reference books were scattered like the remnants of an all-night battle.
I was lying on the futon on the floor, my temporary bed, with my eyes closed. But I wasn't asleep. I was feeling the very faint magical flow recovering within my body. My magic core, which had been shattered into pieces by Belloc's curse, was emitting a faint light as its fragments slowly, very slowly, tried to find their way back together. The mana concentration in this world was so low that natural recovery was almost impossible, but the positive emotional bonds I had felt with Kevin, his family, and Sora last night seemed to be affecting my mental state and promoting a very subtle healing.
'Emotions... affect magic recovery?'
It was a foreign concept to me. Magic had always been a product of rigorous training, knowledge, and will. But now my body was responding to uncertain and whimsical emotions like "joy," "bonding," and "a sense of belonging." Maybe the rules of this world were fundamentally different from what I knew.
Above me, in the bunk bed, Kevin's soft breathing could be heard. He seemed to be in a deep sleep, exhausted. I quietly opened my eyes. Even in the darkness, my vision could clearly distinguish the outlines of objects. I looked at the pile of books on the desk. The bizarre ritual named "the exam." The center of all this chaos surrounding me.
I thought to myself. Could I really win? If it were a simple matter of knowledge, no one could rival my 500 years of learning. But this world's "exam" wasn't just about the quantity of knowledge; it was about the understanding of certain "rules" and "right answers." That was the most foreign territory for me.
'It doesn't matter.'
I closed my eyes. Win or lose, once this fuss was over, I would go back to my original goal. To find a way back and get revenge on Belloc. That was my only mission. I reminded myself once more that everything in this world was just a passing illusion. But in my mind, the faces of Kevin and Sora, smiling brightly as they ate chicken, flickered like afterimages. A troublesome, warm afterimage that grew clearer the more I tried to push it away.
Sunday morning, the three of us slept in as if we had planned it. It was the after-effects of last night. Seeing the three of us gathered at the table with tired eyes, Kevin's mom clucked her tongue but still made us some warm pollock soup for a hangover cure.
"Ugh, you kids. Are you studying or having an all-night party?"
Her nagging was filled with worry and a hint of pride.
"Are you going to the library again today?"
"Yeah. We have to work extra hard today."
Kevin answered with a solemn expression. Day two of "Operation: Create the Arcane Legend" had begun.
The atmosphere in the library reading room was a little different from yesterday. Now we had clear roles and a system. I would read a specific chapter from a textbook and explain my "real knowledge" about the content, and Kevin and Sora would listen with interest and then summarize the "right answer for the test."
"Alright, today is chemistry. The periodic table."
Kevin dramatically unfolded the periodic table. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium…
"I cannot comprehend this. The criteria for the arrangement of the elements is too artificial. The origin of all matter is naturally divided into the four properties of elemental power: fire (ignis), water (aqua), wind (ventus), and earth (terra). This table of yours merely lists phenomena, but it doesn't explain the essence."
I countered him seriously. I was also a master of alchemy. My knowledge of the transmutation and creation of matter far surpassed the chemistry of this world.
"Dude, forget about the elements and just memorize it! H, He, Li, Be, B, C, N, O, F, Ne, Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, Cl, Ar, K, Ca! Come on, repeat after me!"
"...I have never memorized such a bizarre incantation."
"It's not an incantation!"
In the end, Kevin spent the entire morning sweating, trying to convince me that alchemy and the periodic table had nothing to do with each other.
After lunch, Sora pulled out an English workbook.
"Okay, next is a grammar question. What is the correct relative pronoun for the blank?"
I didn't even look at the question and answered.
"That."
"Wrong! The answer is 'which.' Because there's a comma in front of it. You can't use 'that' in a non-restrictive clause."
Sora explained triumphantly. But my expression was one of disbelief.
"That's sophistry. There is no problem with the meaning of the sentence, so you're saying it's grammatically incorrect just because of a single comma? Language is like a living creature. What's important is the delivery of meaning, not the adherence to rules. In ancient High Elven…"
"STOP! STOP! No more High Elven talk!"
Sora frantically cut me off. She realized that teaching the rules of this world to me was as difficult as putting a saddle on a free-spirited wild horse.
A week passed by in a blur. "Operation: Create the Arcane Legend" Headquarters operated 24/7, moving between Kevin's room and the public library. We fought, laughed, and debated every day as we studied for the exam. I cut down on my sleep to devour the textbooks of this world. My sponge-like learning ability was astonishing. In just a few days, I had absorbed all the knowledge of the high school freshman curriculum.
The problem was that this knowledge was clashing with my 500-year-old "real knowledge," creating a bizarre hybrid. I would now explain the 'law of universal gravitation' by adding that it was a "sub-par version of gravity control magic," and when talking about the principles of 'photosynthesis,' I would compare and analyze it with "the life-force absorption method of the Dryads."
Kevin and Sora were first horrified, but they soon became so accustomed to my outlandish explanations that they were completely engrossed. A strange phenomenon also occurred where their grades started to rise as well. My explanations, which pierced to the very essence of the subjects, breathed life into the dry, textbook knowledge.
As time went on, a strong bond formed between the three of us. We were no longer just classmates. We were "comrades" running toward an impossible goal together, and a strong "team" that filled in each other's shortcomings.
I also felt that change. I no longer considered Kevin and Sora as mere "subjects for information gathering." Without even realizing it, I had begun to think of them as "friends." Annoying, loud, but somehow deeply caring beings that I had found for the first time in 500 years.
Finally, the night before the midterms arrived.
In Kevin's room, the three of us were doing a final review. The room was filled with tension and a sense of camaraderie from the past week we had spent together.
"Alright, let's solve this last mock test and go to bed early today. It's important to manage your condition."
Sora handed out the last mock test. I picked up a pen and started solving the problems. I no longer cared about "implied meanings" or debated the "truth of history." I had become a machine that sought the "right answer for the test," and I wrote down the answers at a breathtaking speed.
When the test paper was all filled out, we began to grade it.
"Literature 92… Sociology 95… History 98!"
"Math 100! Science 100! English 100!"
The results were shocking. My mock test scores were so overwhelming that I could aim for the top of the entire school. Of course, there were some mishaps, like getting points deducted on a short-answer question for calling the poetic speaker a "mentally unstable person," and on a history question for mentioning the "Dragon's Tear," but my accuracy on the multiple-choice questions was almost 100%.
"...Holy cow."
"...This is insane."
Kevin and Sora stared at the test paper, speechless. They had a feeling that the impossible operation might actually succeed.
"At this rate... we might actually have a chance." Kevin said with an excited voice.
"We can easily beat Tyler! Maybe… even get first place in the whole school?"
Sora's face was also filled with hope.
Under the hopeful gazes of the two of them, I just silently looked out the window. My heart was strangely calm. The test score itself meant nothing to me. But the sight of their faces, smiling brightly as they looked at me, created a small ripple in my heart.
I thought to myself. Maybe winning this insignificant exam was, just a little bit... meaningful after all.
That night, the three of us went to bed early for the first time in a while. I lay on my futon, replaying the past week in my mind. It was a chaotic week. The loudest, most illogical, and most... enjoyable week in my 500 years of life.
And finally, the morning of the decisive battle arrived.
I walked through the school gate with Kevin and Sora. The morning sun poured down on our shoulders. The school grounds were filled with a mix of tension and energy from the students preparing for the exam.
"Dude, don't be nervous! Just think of it as a mock test."
"Yeah, Arcane! We believe in you!"
Cheered on by the two of them, I headed toward the classroom. Tyler was already sitting at his desk. Our eyes met in the air. In his eyes, there was still the same hostility, but a hint of uneasiness also flashed through them.
I sat down at my desk without a word. And I waited for the bell to ring, signaling the start of the exam.
The first midterm exam in the life of Archmage Arcane.
The curtain on that magnificent(?) saga was now rising.