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Chapter 18
After Aris and Lionel left, I lay alone on my bed, staring at my status window.
“…I still don’t get it.”
I looked again at the race section:
[Race: Dragon, ???]
Even now, it felt absurd. I was a dragon?
‘I can’t even process that I’m a dragon… but why is there still a “???” after it?’
That part was even more confusing.
‘Wait… could I be a half-breed?’
Maybe I wasn’t a pure dragon—maybe I was half dragon, half something else. That would explain the “???” part.
But… could dragons even have children with other species? I remembered the principal saying they couldn’t.
Something like, “Dragons can’t crossbreed, so they’re basically extinct.”
If that was true, then I couldn’t be half anything… unless there was some miracle? Like in fantasy stories where a god blesses the love between different races?
No—that didn’t fit. The gods here aren’t the romantic type.
I had no idea. The information I had completely conflicted with what I was seeing now.
‘So… is my current body just a polymorphed form?’
No. If I were under polymorph, Rozarin would’ve noticed when she checked my magic veins.
That meant… this human body was my real body.
Which meant my other genetic half was strong enough to hide most of my dragon traits.
If I looked human, my other half must be a humanoid race—maybe one equal to or stronger than dragons. That narrowed it down to two possibilities: spirits or demons.
Demons always have horns, though. I touched all over my head. No horns, no bumps. So, not demon.
That left one option: spirit.
‘So… I’m half dragon, half spirit?’
Spirits live in the spirit realm and don’t have solid bodies. They’re born from spirit trees, not from… well, mating.
So could a dragon and a spirit even produce a child? I had no clue. My head hurt. What was I?
The next day
Rozarin called me to her private lab.
“I’m here.”
“Oh, you’re here? Sit and wait a moment.”
She was drawing something on paper—looked like a magic circle, but not round.
‘She’s really good at drawing…’ I thought. The lines were crisp, perfectly symmetrical, and done without any rough sketching.
“Amazing work,” I said.
She smirked. “I knew you’d notice right away. This is my greatest masterpiece.”
“I figured you drew things like this all the time.”
“Nope. Even I can’t just churn these out casually.”
She finished her final pen strokes and looked over her work with a bright smile.
“Perfect. As expected of me.”
“Planning to submit that to some art contest?” I asked.
She laughed. “Of course! Well… not in this exact form. I’ll refine it further first. I can still improve its efficiency and shave off 0.1 seconds from its casting speed.”
…Wait. Efficiency? Casting speed?
She went on, “Normally, this new octagon magic circle would guarantee first place. But I have strong competition this time, so I’m polishing it more. That’s why I called you—to help me.”
So it was a magic circle. An eight-sided one, not round. I’d never seen her use anything like this in the game.
“Wanna see it?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” I said immediately.
She grinned, held out her hand toward a scarecrow in the corner, and an octagon-shaped magic circle appeared in front of her palm—glowing with her magic like ink.
The spell transformed into light and shot toward the scarecrow.
‘That’s…’
I knew this spell: Eraser, one of her original and signature spells—fast enough to be called an instant-cast.
“This is my original mid-tier light spell, Eraser,” she explained. “By using an octagon instead of a circle, I made the trajectory more stable. The speed’s a bit slower, but aiming is much easier now.”
I stared at it, feeling annoyed. This… was not how Eraser was meant to be used.
Why ruin a perfect spell like that? Was it my knowledge of the real Eraser, my dragon instincts reacting to flawed magic, or just disbelief at a genius like Rozarin making this mess?
Either way, it irritated me.
“Don’t just stare—say something,” she said with her arms crossed.
I stepped forward, raising my hand toward the scarecrow.
“You want my honest opinion? Here it is.”
I formed a magic circle similar to hers but based on the original design.
“It’s just flashy wrapping on an empty, impractical spell.”
“…What?” Her brow furrowed in anger.
“There’s a saying: Magic won’t smile on those who forget the basics.” That was something she would say in the future.
“What you just showed me looked impressive to the untrained eye, but it lacked the fundamentals,” I added.
I fired my own Eraser—pure, precise, and deadly accurate, striking the scarecrow’s forehead perfectly.
Rozarin’s eyes trembled in shock.
“Someone once told me: Magic is a mirror reflecting the mage’s heart.” Another line from her future self.
“I understand now. Your magic carries your feelings… so, Rozarin-senpai—what are you running from?”
Her pupils shook violently.
I left her lab shortly after, telling her, “Let’s put our research cooperation on hold. We both need time to think.”
Alone, Rozarin replayed my words over and over:
“Just flashy wrapping…”
“Magic won’t smile on those who forget the basics…”
“What are you running from?”
All infuriating. She wanted to yell at me for acting like I’d mastered magic after barely learning it. But… she couldn’t deny it.
I’d hit the mark. She was in a rush—desperate to achieve something big, to prove to her parents that money wasn’t everything, and to restore their warmth from before their personalities changed.
Her “masterpiece” Eraser really was an empty showpiece.
She leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling. “But… how can I not be in a rush?”
Yesterday morning, the maid “Lea” (Yodala in disguise) had brought a message from her parents:
If you don’t achieve results we approve of by graduation, come home immediately. If you refuse, we’ll block your path until you give up—using all the resources of the Genek Trading Company.
To win their acknowledgment, she’d need to achieve something revolutionary in the field of magic.
“…Life’s tough,” she muttered.
Later
After leaving Rozarin’s lab, I sat in a quiet garden—and gained unexpected new info.
[Your Mental EX Rank fully awakens the “Dragon’s Instinct” sleeping deep within.]
[As the First of Dragons, you can see and recreate any magic circle.]
It hadn’t been there before visiting her lab.
So it only appeared after I both confirmed I was a dragon and used magic as a dragon. The system clearly waited until those conditions were met.
Figures—this game always required multiple conditions to unlock hidden info.
I hadn’t expected my EX-ranked mental stat to tie into this. But apparently, the synergy between being a dragon and having that rank had awakened this ability.
If it could work for my dragon side, maybe it could also awaken abilities from my other, still-hidden racial half.
If so, I might be able to figure out what my other bloodline was by testing abilities linked to various races.
‘Alright—library trip to research nonhuman races it is…’
Just as I stood up, a voice came from behind me:
“Sir Jian.”
It was a voice I’d heard just yesterday—a voice I should not be hearing now.
“I’m sorry to disturb your rest, but may I have a moment of your time?”
I slowly turned.
“…Yodala?”
She was still in her disguise as the Genek Company maid, “Lea.”
‘Didn’t she leave after the job yesterday? What’s she still doing inside the academy?’
