What do professors at a magic department teach?
Naturally, they teach magic.
But with dozens of professors in the department, the subjects and teaching styles varied widely.
So what kind of class did Winter Winslet teach?
I knew the answer from firsthand experience.
Winter Winslet was the main villain of Candela of Judgment, and during the main storyline, there was an episode where the protagonist infiltrates the academy as a student to uncover Winslet’s crimes.
Having experienced his class back then, I could summarize it in a single sentence:
Oh, this professor has absolutely no intention of teaching.
The course Winter Winslet teaches, Theory and Practice of Modern Magic, was the perfect combination of misery. It had a murderous pace and difficulty, unkind explanations, and an absurdly unfair exam structure.
The content itself was already ridiculously advanced, and with the professor showing no intent to actually teach, it was no surprise that barely one in a hundred students could keep up till the end.
At that point, it was a miracle the class wasn’t just canceled altogether.
I could understand Winter Winslet’s perspective.
Even in the world’s leading magic nation of Karaf, he was considered a genius.
It must be unbearably frustrating for someone like him to teach students who were basically newborns in magic.
But I’m not Winter Winslet.
Naturally, my lectures should be structured differently.
I have no twisted hobby of tormenting students, so there’s no need to make the content needlessly difficult.
That didn’t mean I would lower myself to spoon-feed them either.
Instead, I’ll capture the students’ interest—
Easily and effectively.
There’s a method only a seasoned player of Candela of Judgment would know, a way to kill two birds with one stone.
That was by imitating one of the named NPCs from the original game, the most famous top-tier lecturer in all of Karaf.
“Successful mages share seven key habits. Do you know what they are?”
The students’ eyes immediately lit up.
***
“Candela of Judgment” was a game with a high degree of freedom.
You start as a swordsman, but if you wish, you can learn magic too.
And the best way to learn magic was to go to Karaf.
In Karaf, teaching magic in exchange for money was a widespread commercial practice, driven by a private education market formed by medium and small-sized schools.
Large schools that controlled the magic towers weren’t pressured by money.
They only accepted talented individuals and didn’t make their teaching methods public.
But smaller schools that couldn’t afford to be so selective were willing to teach magic to anyone, as long as they could pay the price.
As a result, the plaza in front of Karaf’s Grand Library was crowded with instructors looking for students on most days of the year.
And the NPC I was about to imitate was the star lecturer who proudly held the top spot in that competitive environment.
He was the number one role model for young mages, said to have swept up half the gold coins in Karaf at the time.
His name was Auguste Dondel.
And Auguste Dondel was a fraud.
<Just Knowing This Will Make You a 6th-Class Mage.>
<Seven Habits of Successful mages.>
<I Became an Archmage After Reading This Book.>
<Think Like an Archmage.>
As suggested by his publication list, filled entirely with self-help titles and not a single theory or technique book, Auguste Dondel wasn’t actually qualified to teach magic.
Far from being 6th-class, he was just a 1st-class mage who couldn’t even cast a decent spell.
Still, even dog poop had its uses, and even a fool had something to teach. This con artist was incredibly good at winning over students with words.
In short, he had a golden tongue.
That’s how smooth-talking he was. In “Candela of Judgment”, there came a moment where you had to choose whether to expose the guy’s true identity or let it slide. If you chose to let it slide, Auguste Dondel would go on scamming the public to the very end until he actually founded a legitimate magical school.
In fact, in the epilogue, it was revealed that the students who graduated from that school eventually took over one of the magic towers in Karaf. Life had a funny way of working out like that.
A good mage wasn’t necessarily a good teacher.
What did it mean to be a true educator?
…Of course, I had no interest in philosophical questions like that.
All I cared about was the fame and the scraps that came with it.
So I decided to follow in Auguste Dondel’s footsteps and run my mouth right here and now.
What I planned to say was a rough blend of his most popular lectures, touched up a bit for effect.
“The Seven Habits of Successful Mages. Number one: They never forget their roots. Now then, what are the roots of a mage?”
I gave the students a brief pause before continuing with the opening line.
“Have you heard of the magical city of Karaf?”
Snap.
Jacqueline Dogwood, thinking this was a quiz, cluelessly raised her hand. But I ignored her and kept explaining.
“Karaf is the heart of all magic. It’s the most magically advanced city on the continent… and the world’s only floating city. Karaf, as a city, is itself one massive spell. It casts a gigantic shadow across the land as it floats in the sky. I hope you all get to see that floating island at least once in your lives.”
Karaf, the spiritual homeland of all mages and the literal birthplace of some was a distant land, lying beyond three mountain ranges and five rivers from the Kingdom of Laurencia.
Because of that distance, the travel expenses were quite high. Even during their time at the Royal Academy of Laurencia or after graduation, most students would never get the chance to visit.
Maybe a few, supported by nobles or taking a pilgrimage later in life, might go see it someday…
But that wasn’t the point.
“Let me ask you a question then. Does anyone know when Karaf became a floating city?”
“It wasn’t a floating city from the beginning?”
Jacqueline asked in surprise.
I ignored her again and glanced around the lecture hall.
Since no one volunteered an answer, I called on the one person who was likely to know the most about Karaf.
“Shannon Quinlivan, why don’t you answer?”
Shannon, who hadn’t seemed particularly eager to reveal that she was from Karaf, finally opened her mouth.
“Karaf became a floating city in the year 611 of the Imperial Calendar.”
“And do you know why the mages made the city float?”
“To protect it from military invasion.”
“Correct. Altitude is the ultimate wall. The mages of Karaf understood that, and without any help from architects, they constructed a perfect fortress. Now for the next question… who made the mages feel the need to build such a fortress in the first place?”
This time, Stephanie Wells, a senior sitting in the back row, raised her hand and answered.
“I learned that the Empire once attacked Karaf. The bad blood from that conflict still lingers today, right, Professor?”
The academy’s general curriculum included the continent’s history, so this much was to be expected.
“In Imperial Year 591, General Orun, under the command of Emperor Valdidantro, led an army of 400,000 troops to lay siege to Karaf. That’s because the Great Library of Karaf houses the Preservation Archives. These are records of all history across the continent, and among them was said to be a memorandum that could cause a massive scandal for the imperial family.”
It was the kind of minor lore detail only fans of Candela of Judgment would bother to look up and remember. I hadn’t expected it to come in handy like this.
I continued my explanation, now fully in history lecture mode.
“The Emperor feared that the contents of that memorandum could challenge his authority, so he demanded that Karaf hand it over. And the one who stood in his way was Frederick, the director of the Great Library…”
“He refused the demand.”
Shannon suddenly cut in with the answer.
I looked over at her, slightly surprised at the interruption, and she blushed a little under my gaze.
She wore an expression that seemed to reflect a clash between pride in the history of her homeland and a touch of embarrassment for not being able to suppress it.
I nodded.
“That’s right. Director Frederick chose to uphold the value of a tradition that had endured for centuries. And in return, the Great Library of Karaf suffered a horrific arson attack that went down in history.”
Gulp.
Someone swallowed dryly.
Most likely Jacqueline.
“The fire which was started under the Emperor’s orders consumed the archive where the memorandum was stored. Unfortunately, the flames spread quickly. The scholars of Karaf threw everything they had at it, be it their magic and the city’s firefighting systems, but the fire wouldn’t die down. In the end, they even threw themselves into the blaze. Only through the sacrifice of hundreds of great scholars could a single archive be saved from the greatest fire Karaf had ever known.”
“This is the incident we now refer to as the Scholars’ Grave. It’s the reason diplomatic relations between the Empire and Karaf remain strained to this day, and also why the Empire, despite surpassing its rivals in nearly every other field, remains excluded from the great magical powers of the world.”
“After the Scholars’ Grave, the surviving scholars of Karaf felt a need to protect both their city and themselves. So they began to arm themselves.”
“They taught their students lethal magic. They crafted great spells to lift the city into the sky. And now, 200 years later, no one dares to threaten Karaf….no one but themselves.”
“What’s important to understand here is that mages were originally closer to scholars than to engineers. But the Scholars’ Grave shifted their values from simply pursuing magical knowledge to placing greater importance on wielding it.”
“So now ask yourselves, what are you learning at the Academy? What meaning does it hold? What is your purpose in learning magic?”
Flash.
Another hand shot up.
It was Jacqueline again. She had been fidgeting with anticipation for some time, eager to give an answer herself.
When I nodded to give her permission, Jacqueline raised her index finger and said,
“Um… Since the mages of Karaf used magic to protect their city, maybe we’re learning it to protect the kingdom?”
“What a ridiculous notion. Protect the kingdom from what, exactly? Laurencia hasn’t been invaded in the past 200 years.”
There was that time we dispatched troops during a civil war in a neighboring country, but still.
Jacqueline pressed on stubbornly.
“Even if it’s not an invasion, there must be something, right? Like bandits, or magical beasts, or maybe… barbarians?”
“Jacqueline, barbarians disappeared from our lands over 400 years ago.”
Rita Ridge, the model student sitting next to her, gently corrected her. Jacqueline flushed and closed her mouth.
I added,
“And as for bandits or magical beasts, the border guard and rangers are already handling them. When it comes to national defense, the role of mages is limited. Because this isn’t Karaf, where the majority of the population are mages.”
“Then why does the kingdom even teach us magic?”
Jacqueline asked the question earnestly.
So I gave her the cruel truth.
“Because the kingdom needs mage slaves.”
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