Chapter 22
“Steadfast earth, answer my plea and bare your skin—”
“That’s too long.”
Sion cut off the incantation and immediately taught the most efficient version on the spot.
“Steadfast earth. Plea. Skin.”
“Th-that’s nowhere near enough to replace the calculations, is it?”
“The magic tool on your wrist can cover that much. Just try it.”
At Sion’s confident instruction, the student reluctantly recited the shortened incantation.
And then—
Crack!
With just that simple chant, the ground was gouged out.
Of course, Dig was a basic second-circle spell, but even so, this result was undeniably impressive.
“Th-this actually works…?”
“That’s the power of properly using magic tools. If needed, you can even use incantation shortening to assist the calculations required for spell modification.”
Naturally, being able to utilize magic tools so quickly was thanks to Sion’s guidance.
But regardless of the truth, it was more than enough to ignite the students’ motivation.
The incantation hadn’t been eliminated entirely—only shortened—but even that alone had great value.
Soon, dozens of students were rapidly firing off spells, and the ground was being excavated at a visibly fast pace.
Though mines were known for their solid bedrock, magic had always been a power that displayed such absurd efficiency.
‘No… even considering that, this feels a little too smooth.’
Even while casting spells, Briella found it hard to believe.
Dig wasn’t originally a spell meant to carve out massive chunks of stone like this.
Yet Sion precisely directed the students, ensuring the magic was applied with maximum efficiency.
And so—
By the time the hole had grown deeper than the students’ height—
“Stop.”
At Sion’s command, all the students halted their magic at once.
Before anyone realized it, the students were following Sion’s orders with razor-sharp precision.
It was a surprisingly natural change.
Sion himself acted as though this obedience was only to be expected.
At that moment, Tult cautiously spoke up.
“Um, Instructor… may I ask why we’re digging here?”
“I had a feeling there might be something buried here—something that could be a treasure. If we can take it, we should. Don’t you think?”
Sion casually revealed the reason for digging.
There was no reason to hide it.
“A-a treasure?”
“We’ll find out what it is now. And I doubt anyone here would suddenly get any funny ideas.”
Sion smiled gently as he looked over the students.
Those who met his gaze swallowed hard and nodded repeatedly without exception.
Satisfied, Sion turned his eyes to the excavated ground.
‘This confirms it.’
Now that the earth had been physically removed, the sensation was unmistakable.
Dig just a little more, and the object Akasha had identified as an “ancient relic” would reveal itself.
From here on, more delicate control was required.
He couldn’t be sure exactly what lay below, and if it shattered from a careless impact, that would be disastrous.
So Sion placed his hand on the ground and carefully spread his mana.
‘…There’s definitely something down there.’
The problem was its size—it was far larger than expected.
Frowning, Sion briefly measured the scale of the buried object.
‘What is this…?’
His sense of unease deepened.
It was even more massive than he’d thought.
Carefully, he began excavating with magic.
The solid stone slowly melted away.
And bit by bit, what had been buried beneath began to reveal its form.
“Oh?”
Sion’s eyes wavered for a moment as he recognized it.
A pure white curve emerged as the rock was carved away.
Seeing it, a smile soon formed at the corner of Sion’s lips.
“Instructor, what is that?”
The students tilted their heads in confusion.
Sion answered simply.
“Something good.”
“…Excuse me?”
Seeing their confusion, Sion added one more line.
“Something extremely good.”
“…?”
* * *
“Ughhh…”
At the moment, Lumia was facing the most serious dilemma she’d had in a long while.
‘Should I just run away?’
She stared at the pitifully dismantled upper half of a golem before lifting her gaze quietly to the ceiling.
“Wow… there’s this much moss on the ceiling. We really should clean this…”
Even geniuses weren’t immune to distracting thoughts when studying.
Lumia found herself pondering how to clean the moss clinging to the ceiling.
But escapism was never a solution.
“Lumia… we have to keep going…”
At Serentia’s half-dead voice, Lumia was dragged back to reality.
“H-huh!”
What greeted her eyes once again was the cruelly dismantled golem.
The reason Lumia was staring at a disassembled golem was simple.
It was Sion’s homework.
—You’ve studied diligently, but your direction is wrong.
After reviewing Lumia’s accumulated engineering knowledge, Sion had clicked his tongue.
Honestly, she’d been furious at that moment—but she couldn’t refute him.
Both in magic and magitech, Sion was overwhelmingly superior.
She’d once suspected he might be using some kind of trick.
But in the end, she had no choice but to accept it.
Sion was a genius.
No—more than that. Unless it was her own master, there was no one else capable of matching him.
In times as dire as these, he was the kind of transcendent being you had to cling to, even if it meant smashing your head into the ground.
And even more astonishing than his magic or engineering knowledge was his teaching ability.
His lessons just… stuck.
They were easy to understand, and realization came naturally.
And the beneficiaries weren’t just students.
Even Lumia and Serentia, at the sixth and fifth circles respectively, were the same.
“This feels like I’m relearning everything from scratch. And fixing what I taught myself wrong on top of that—it’s really not easy…”
“But you were always good at magic.”
“Magic just sort of… works for me?”
“……”
At those words, spoken without a shred of malice, Serentia quietly shook her head.
This was exactly why geniuses were unbearable.
Anyway, the assignment Sion gave them was simple.
Repair a golem.
Just twenty years ago, the Blue Tower had been one of the Four Great Magic Towers, boasting countless mages.
Naturally, it also owned many golems.
But after the tower’s downfall, those golems had become nothing more than burdens.
Left without maintenance, they had been abandoned and left to rot in the underground levels.
“…To think not being able to sell them because ownership was registered to the main tower would turn out to be a blessing.”
Lumia let out a dry laugh as she looked at the dismantled golem.
The golem Sion had repaired as a demonstration moved astonishingly well.
The power-source issue had been completely resolved by eliminating the mana thieves.
Already, repaired golems were roaming the tower, handling basic cleaning and building repairs.
Thanks to that, the Blue Tower had become noticeably cleaner.
Places once left broken and abandoned were now rare.
The golem they were repairing now was one of the remaining damaged units.
One of the leftover models.
Following Sion’s teachings, Lumia untangled the complex wiring inside the golem.
Unlike magic, she couldn’t be called a genius in engineering—effort was her only path forward.
Still, she possessed a talent that applied even here.
“The third mana conduit… ah, so that’s how it’s untangled. And the part that needs replacing is this rounded section…”
Focus.
Immersing herself once more, she recalled everything Sion had taught her.
She continued the repairs—and before long, her efforts bore fruit.
Whirr.
Light flickered within the golem that had been completely inert.
One arm twitched.
Then it began to move.
“Ah!”
Lumia’s face lit up.
Smiling brightly, she turned to Serentia.
“Unni, it worked!”
“I-it really did!”
Serentia’s eyes widened in shock.
It was only one arm—but to them, it was an enormous breakthrough.
Just as the two embraced in celebration—
“Huh?”
Sensing something, Lumia’s eyes widened and she sprang to her feet.
“Lumia?”
“Sion’s here.”
She immediately used magic to exit the tower.
Sure enough—
From afar, Sion was approaching, leading the students.
But somehow…
“Sion looks fine, but the students look kind of… shell-shocked?”
“Yeah…”
Serentia tilted her head as she followed.
Everyone looked as if their souls had left their bodies.
Sion must’ve done something to them…
“Could this ‘practical lesson’ have been a bit too harsh?”
“It’s possible. He’s not the type to go easy when training.”
They spoke as they approached Sion.
“Oh, did you come to greet us?”
“You’re back, Sion!”
“How’s the homework?”
“That’s not a very beautiful question.”
Lumia quickly avoided his gaze.
Truly an unbeautiful question.
“B-but one arm moved! That’s huge progress!”
“Hmmm…”
“We—we really tried!”
“Oh. I see.”
Sion nodded, clearly dissatisfied.
“It seems I’ll need to increase the lecture hours.”
“……”
“That’s fine. With me around, a lack of talent can be compensated with effort.”
It wasn’t comforting at all—but Lumia decided to satisfy her curiosity first.
“Um, Sion… what happened? The students’ expressions are…”
“Oh, we gained something. As for their faces… think of it as cats who’ve glimpsed an unknown world.”
“…?”
She didn’t understand.
Instead of explaining further, Sion pulled something out of subspace.
“Here.”
Thud!
Something heavy slammed into the ground, making Lumia and Serentia’s eyes widen.
It was a beautifully curved, pure-white bone.
“Th-this is…?”
“As you can see, it’s a bone.”
“A bone? What kind of bone?”
They had never expected something like this.
But at Sion’s next words, Lumia’s mouth fell open—
