Chapter 4

Episode 4: Going to School

As the morning sun began to rise, casting a faint light into the once pitch-black sky, Shion Kurosaki, having just finished his basic training of repeatedly practicing beginner-level magic of various attributes, drank a mana recovery potion and took a five-minute break. He then picked up the sword he had brought from his dorm room.

It seemed that today, he was going to try out a new method he had thought of for the magic he had been experimenting with after reading through academic books for the past few days.

Holding the sword horizontally with his right hand, Shion chanted a spell while deploying a magic circle with his left hand toward the sword.

“Lightning Magic Enchantment.”

Immediately after the incantation, the magic activated, and a pale blue lightning bolt crackled along the blade of the sword, accompanied by a faint plasma sound.

The attribute-enchantment magic he had just activated was supposed to enhance the weapon’s power or grant an advantage against monsters or other magic based on the attribute.

However, the lightning crackling along the blade of Shion’s sword only gave a slight static shock upon contact. It neither boosted the sword’s power nor provided any advantage against monsters or magic.

From the perspective of the magic’s original purpose, the spell he had activated was utterly useless, a complete failure.

“…Hmph.”

Despite this, Shion, who had successfully applied lightning magic for the first time today, looked quite satisfied.

Because a sword wrapped in lightning was just plain cool.

Staring at the pale blue lightning crackling along the blade, Shion wore a blissful expression, muttering, “Oh… Hehe.”

His face relaxed to the point where he looked like he might drool, grinning like a dangerous deviant.

After successfully applying the lightning magic, Shion experimented with changing the color of the lightning, making the plasma sound louder, and even practiced swordsmanship with the lightning-enchanted sword.

He had some knowledge of swordsmanship.

It all started when he was thirteen. Upon learning about the existence of “Magic Swordsmen,” a profession that wielded powerful magic and swords on the battlefield, something inside Shion Kurosaki was profoundly stirred, and it became his ideal combat style.

Since then, he had occasionally practiced swordsmanship alongside his magic studies.

Once Shion set his mind on something, no one could stop him. His parents happily provided him with muscle-enhancing potions, meals with similar effects, and swordsmanship manuals. As a result, his physique and swordsmanship skills had become quite impressive.

Unlike magic, fundamental physical abilities weren’t entirely dependent on his parents’ genetics, so they improved with training.

Thus, if Shion were to engage in a pure swordsmanship match with other students at the magic academy, he would rarely lose.

That said, he still couldn’t match students from knight schools, where the curriculum heavily emphasized swordsmanship, and they were taught daily by top-tier swordsmen.

Shion Kurosaki’s swordsmanship was decent, but only decent.

Yet, he paid no heed to such realities, utterly thrilled by the lightning-enchanted sword. Like a child lost in make-believe, he swung his sword with reckless abandon, imagining various scenarios.

Before he knew it, the sun had fully risen, and Shion decided to wrap up his practice.

He carried the books, sword, and empty potion bottles back to his dorm room, then took a bath to wash off the sweat from his early morning training.

After his bath, he changed into his Crawford Magic Academy uniform and had a second breakfast in the dormitory cafeteria.

Once he finished his second breakfast, Shion cleaned up the dishes and returned to his dorm room to prepare the belongings he would take to the academy.

With his preparations complete, Shion headed to Crawford Magic Academy, located just a short distance from the dormitory.

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During class, Shion made a point of looking bored.

He wasn’t actually bored by the lesson; he was just putting on an act.

While his classmates focused intently on the lecture, frantically taking notes to avoid missing anything, Shion was busy projecting an air of, “How ridiculous that I have to sit through such low-level lessons now.”

The reason for this pointless behavior was simple: to exude an air of mystery and look cool.

However, it wasn’t entirely an act.

After all, Shion Kurosaki had started studying magic earlier than anyone else in Class C and had spent more time on it than anyone else.

While his magical abilities were only at a C-rank level, his knowledge of magic far surpassed that of his classmates.

In fact, the current lesson was something he had long since mastered, and while he pretended to be bored, he was actually pondering more advanced magic.

Though he occasionally drifted into his imagination, Shion spent every possible moment honing his magical skills.

That said, some teachers were naturally annoyed by his bored expression, which he put on just to look cool.

These teachers would deliberately pose difficult questions to Shion, ones that hadn’t even been covered in class yet.

When Shion replied, “Sorry, I don’t know,” the teachers would sarcastically comment about his magical lineage or call him a failure, while his classmates laughed at him.

This created a moment where the closed space of the classroom was filled with ugly human emotions.

But Shion brushed off the teachers’ sarcasm and paid no mind to the ridicule from his peers.

In fact, he welcomed being underestimated by those around him.

Because this situation perfectly aligned with his ideal of “living a school life while hiding his true abilities.”

Even though he could easily answer the tricky questions the teachers posed, he deliberately pretended not to know.

…However, he never fully acted clueless; he always maintained an air of subtle confidence.

He wanted to appear as if he didn’t want to stand out, but he always left room for others to wonder, “Could he actually…?”

This was Shion Kurosaki’s quirk.

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