Yuri sat down on an empty chair near the waiting room.
Whispers floated over to him.
“Isn’t that Yuri Briol?”
“Wow, looks like the third prince from that rumor actually showed up…”
“Did he come for a lecture?”
“Without any notice, too.”
“He’s so cool.”
“His hair really is black…”
Though the wizard was the one standing on the podium, Yuri drew far more attention.
Some students in the back even stood up just to get a better look at him.
The wizard’s face twisted in irritation.
[Everyone, attention! Silence!]
An artifact attached to the podium amplified his voice loudly.
Calming the students, the wizard resumed his lecture.
His voice was sharp and clear, but the content was painfully dull.
Yuri began to regret coming out.
“Hmm…”
At least, he had a job to do.
He ordered Roland and Jared to corner Edran, who was sitting quietly in the corner. Edran looked lost at first, but when he saw Roland and Jared approaching, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
Now, there was no way Edran could leave the auditorium, even if he wanted to.
[What I’ve developed this time is…]
The wizard’s voice continued.
Each speaker had an hour, so the wizard’s lecture still had a long way to go.
He spoke about his magical achievements, but there was nothing the students could really learn from it. It almost seemed like he was deliberately using jargon to confuse them.
As the students began to nod off,
[You, third row from the back, red hair.]
The wizard’s amplified voice echoed through the hall.
The dozing student barely lifted his head.
[Which department are you from?]
“Huh?”
The student, still dazed, finally caught on, scratched his head, and stood up.
“Department of Swordsmanship.”
[Good. Come up here.]
The student hesitated briefly, then stepped onto the stage.
The wizard raised his staff.
[This is the most basic defensive magic: the shield.]
A translucent barrier appeared.
When the wizard tapped it with his staff, a dull thud echoed.
[Now, I will overlay my enhancement spell on this.]
Chanting another incantation, a blue glow shimmered over the translucent shield, which now radiated a faint azure light.
[I’m researching a universal enhancement spell that increases the efficiency of all magic. It’s still in its early stages, but the shield research is nearly complete. I doubt anyone here could cut through it.]
He glanced at Yuri as he said this.
[No one, that is.]
Yuri caught his meaning and smirked.
So he liked to brag—and wanted to provoke Yuri to boost his own status.
But Yuri had no intention of playing along.
When Yuri didn’t respond, the wizard snapped irritably.
[Red hair. Try cutting it. If you can.]
The student, clearly riled up, immediately raised his sword. The form of his sword energy was sharp and clear—he was skilled.
But his powerful strike was stopped by the shield. The rebound even knocked him backward.
The wizard burst out laughing.
[See? This is the power of my enhancement magic.]
Judging by the magic alone, it was impressive.
A spell that enhances other magic had great potential. For example, if you layered it over a fireball, it would become a massive, more powerful fireball.
Yuri wanted to call Hernando immediately and have him learn it.
The wizard continued to call students up to test the shield.
No one could break it.
Considering the wizard’s age and level, this was expected.
With the shield holding firm, the wizard blatantly turned his attention to Yuri.
[Hahaha, Your Highness. How about you try it yourself?]
He was petty, to say the least.
All eyes focused on Yuri. He sighed and stood up.
Yuri was very popular among the empire’s younger generation.
When he stood, a small cheer rose among the Academy students.
Yuri raised his hand and waved, encouraging their support.
Jealousy flickered in the wizard’s eyes.
Yuri said, “Keep going if you want.”
[Thank you for stepping up yourself. But I must admit, I’m a bit worried that if the hero of the Alliance Army fails, it might tarnish your reputation. You don’t have to do this.]
If they were on equal footing, it was natural that a knight couldn’t break a shield painstakingly crafted by a wizard.
In real combat, a knight could strike before a wizard finished casting, so their strengths and weaknesses differed.
But he seemed determined to pick a fight with Yuri.
Yuri chuckled.
“Not bad. It’s a well-made spell.”
[Already making excuses?]
Ignoring the wizard, Yuri calmly examined the shield. The magical energy was tightly woven, more solid than usual.
“Hmm…”
Meanwhile, the Academy students watched him with burning interest.
If Yuri backed down now, it might hurt their feelings.
He made a wager.
“How about a bet?”
[A bet?]
“From down there, your lecture looked pretty boring…”
The students chuckled.
As laughter spread, the wizard’s face flushed.
“If I break this, you stop the lecture and let everyone rest.”
Yuri’s proposal sparked cheers again.
This time, the entire auditorium erupted in support, no longer holding back.
The wizard’s face twisted in frustration.
[Alright, fine. Let’s do it. But!]
He twitched his lips and added,
[If you fail, I get to use your lecture time. How about that?]
The hall murmured.
It was basically a declaration of torture.
But Yuri nodded.
“Deal.”
The students knew it was nearly impossible for someone Yuri’s age to break the shield, so whispers spread.
[Very well. Heh heh…]
The wizard smiled lowly.
He had confidence.
Through countless experiments, he knew exactly how durable his enhanced shield was.
Even knights of considerable skill couldn’t break it.
Knights and wizards were different disciplines.
Given time and the right environment, no knight could match a wizard’s pure magical power.
No matter how talented the third prince was, unless it was ten years from now, breaking the shield at his age was impossible.
The wizard grinned triumphantly.
No matter the hero of the Alliance Army, he was still young. Provoking his pride, he didn’t realize he was walking right into a trap.
[Show me quickly. Heh heh heh…]
The wizard urged Yuri, who stood still.
Yuri didn’t respond.
He had already entered a world no one else could see.
His vision faded, everything rendered in shades of black and white.
The wizard’s shield now looked like a faint gray weave.
Yuri examined its structure in detail.
He realized what he had to do.
Returning his vision to normal, he drew his sword, Guilty.
A cold gleam spread, and the watching students swallowed hard.
Inside Yuri, his mana method began to flow.
The slow waves grew larger, rippling along the ley lines.
Finally, the wave reached Guilty.
It traced an infinitely repeating fractal spiral.
“Uh…”
“The sword…”
Everyone sensed something was happening.
At first, it looked like a faint crack, but the spiral expanded beyond the blade.
Yuri’s First Step Technique.
The Rotating Whirlwind Sword.
It was being cast right now in the Academy auditorium.
Through his training, Yuri had refined it further.
Instead of blindly releasing power outward, he condensed the rotation inward, harnessing far more destructive force.
At a glance, it seemed like a faint sword aura, but its power was incomparable.
Yuri literally held a storm in his hand.
The energy of the rotating whirlwind tingled at his fingertips.
He was ready.
“Here goes.”
Yuri slashed at the shield with all his might.
A heavy, explosive sound echoed through the hall.
And then—
“Ah…”
Something unbelievable happened.
The shield didn’t just break or collapse—it was shredded in every direction.
Countless spirals seemed to sweep through it from all angles.
“Whoa…”
In the end, the shield was reduced to a pitiful skeleton, as if torn apart by a pack of wolves. But it wasn’t completely destroyed yet.
The wizard, who had been frozen like a statue, suddenly brightened.
“Th-This isn’t broken, so this is my victory…”
But before he could finish, the shield collapsed entirely.
If only he had waited a moment longer—his rushed words only made him look more ridiculous.
[Victory…]
The shield shattered into pieces, scattering across the floor.
The wizard fell silent.
Only the fragments evaporated, returning to mana.
Yuri raised his hand.
“My victory.”
At his declaration, everyone applauded and cheered.
Yuri bowed to each of them, acknowledging their praise.
While he basked in the applause, the wizard on the podium bit his lip, swallowing his humiliation.
Yuri said to him,
“Thanks for the lecture. You can leave now.”
He extended his hand, clapping as if to urge him off the stage.
The students joined in with their applause.
The wizard glared at Yuri for a moment, then quickly slipped down from the podium as if to escape. Without stopping by the waiting room, he left the auditorium immediately.
Watching his retreating figure, Yuri shrugged his shoulders.
“Why did he have to pick a fight for no reason…?”
In any case, since Yuri had won, he now had to take over the wizard’s allotted time, meaning a long lecture lay ahead.
Yuri climbed up to the podium where the wizard had been standing.
Instantly, countless eyes followed his every move.
Since the Academium was a higher education institution, most of the students were around Yuri’s age or older. Perhaps because of that, some of them still looked at him with skeptical eyes.
The stories about his exploits on the battlefield must be made up.
That was the unspoken doubt Yuri sensed.
Facing the various expressions, Yuri gripped his voice amplification artifact.
“Ah, ah.”
He cleared his throat a few times to get a feel for it, then spoke in a moderate voice.
“Thanks for sticking through the boring lecture.”
A few chuckles rippled through the crowd.
“I’m Yuri Briol. The third prince of Briol, and a former member of the Allied Forces.”
He paused briefly.
“To be honest, I hadn’t decided what to teach yet…”
The students laughed again.
“Thanks to the wizard who went before me, I got a hint. I’ll start the lecture first, then take questions freely afterward. Now, here’s a question: what do you think I’m going to talk about?”
Yuri directed the question to a red-haired student from the Swordsmanship Department—the same one who had caught the wizard’s attention earlier.
“Hey, you—the one who got on the wizard’s bad side.”
Laughter bubbled up among the students again.
“Y-yes?”
“Take a guess. What kind of lecture do you think I’m going to give?”
“Uh…”
The student thought for a moment before answering.
“Hmm, stories and lessons from your time in the Allied Forces? Or maybe life advice?”
A sharp one. If he’d followed Roland’s advice, he would have seen right through it.
But Yuri shifted the direction of the lecture.
He didn’t consider himself someone great enough to dole out advice to others.
Pretending to know something would only be a story limited to himself, not something universally applicable.
So instead, he prepared a more practical lecture.
“Wrong. What I’m going to teach you is this.”
Yuri drew his Guilty sword from his waist and raised it high.
Mana swirled around it.
“The secret technique I just showed you—the Whirling Tornado Blade.”