I Became A Flashing Genius At The Magic Academy - Chapter 4

Thump!

As the warrior collapsed, Baek Yu-Seol also fell to the ground.

“Haah, haah…”

Baek Yu-Seol’s hands trembled. The fear of death played a part, but even more so, he had never pushed himself to such extremes before.

First battle, first Flash, first kill.

Pain radiated from his broken shin. The five corpses scattered around him drove home the fact that he had changed.

This was reality, and he was Flash Mage Baek Yu-Seol.

And he killed them all to survive.

Unable to bear the throbbing agony in his leg, Baek Yu-Seol hastily searched the warrior's pockets, trying to stave off the storm of emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

Luckily, he found the warrior’s potions.

The bitter liquid burned his throat and induced nausea as he gulped it down. The first potion he ever drank tasted bittersweet.

He grabbed another bottle and sprayed it over his shin. The pain slowly subsided, the potion evidently having some analgesic effect. It was cheap and didn’t heal him completely, but it was enough.

“… I survived.”

Relief washed over him like a tidal wave, and his tense body relaxed instantly.

Only then did Baek Yu-Seol notice how much his legs were trembling.

‘For now, I have to get out of here…’

He rose slowly, his eyes lingering on the corpses. They all had pockets. Poor as he was, he had no choice but to be practical.

Bloodstained money might disgust others, but to someone as broke as Baek Yu-Seol, it was just money.

He scavenged through his pursuers’ belongings, collecting whatever he could and stuffing it into his backpack. He found around two million credits, roughly equivalent to two million won in Korea.

Weapons were also part of the haul: a spear, a crossbow, and a dagger. In the game, Baek Yu-Seol relied on a special long gun created through alchemy magic engineering as his auxiliary weapon. But since he couldn’t get his hands on it yet, he needed a temporary replacement.

Though his main weapon was a spear, he also used axes or swords in certain situations. Since his Flash ability wasn’t offensive, heavy weapons often proved effective.

There was a high possibility that these weapons would be useless if he met a real mage.

A dagger might work once against an armored opponent wielding a rifle, especially if used during Flash. But once an enemy realized that Flash was all he had, they’d focus on defense. With his lack of offensive skills, Baek Yu-Seol would lose in seconds.

'But if I go to the city and take care of it, these things are all money.'

He would have to battle with such a crude weapon until he awakened by raising the level of the Mana Leakage Delay.

In this world, there was no such thing as sword qi, but the only one who could imitate it to a certain extent was him, who had Mana Leakage Disorder.

As long as he put mana on his weapon and released it explosively, he would have impressive attack power.

'Haa, how did my life end up like this?'

Baek Yu-Seol recovered for a while before getting up with his backpack on. Just then, someone shouted from across the cliff.

"Hey, is anyone there?"

It was a small group of mages. Had he crossed the cliff the usual way, he might have encountered them at the perfect moment… but reality was far less forgiving.

He stood up in a hurry and waved at them.

"There's someone here!!"

After crossing that cliff, Baek Yu-Seol did not know what would happen to him. This was because in the game, the screen disappeared after a simple message. If they left without him there, there was a high chance of him getting lost, so he could not afford to miss their wagon.

Murmurs rippled through the group, but at a distance of over a hundred meters, he couldn't make out what they were saying.

Before long, a man presumed to be the leader shouted as if they had reached some kind of consensus.

“There are no bridges nearby! Can you come over?”

Baek Yu-Seol responded quickly.

“Yes! I’m coming now!”

***

Meanwhile, across the cliff.

"He says he's coming over."

The mages examined the boy on the other side with a telescope. The distance between the cliff and their location was quite long, so crossing seemed almost impossible without learning a knight’s Power Jump magic skill.

“A knight would have to be at least Class 3 to make it…”

“Will that little boy be able to?"

While the mages were drowned in their doubts, the boy standing far away suddenly appeared on top of a floating stone, leaving behind afterimages. He effortlessly glided through the path he formed.

“Huh?”

“What's that? It’s not jump-type magic!”

“Hmm, I don’t know. It’s my first time seeing that kind of magic…”

As the mages panicked, a certain mage in a gray robe sitting at the back answered.

“Flash.”

Her appearance was a mystery as her face was hidden, but the gray-robed mage was a girl.

“Flash?”

“Yes. It’s flash."

"But..."

Flash was an uncontrollable magic. It was impossible to travel even half the distance in a chosen direction like the boy.

'What on earth is that?'

The boy was crossing the floating stones at a very slow pace. It was unclear whether his slowness was due to the cooldown between activations or if he was carefully calculating the distance between each stone.

"We can wait a little. It’s not often you get to see such a unique mage, after all."

However, their option of waiting leisurely suddenly disappeared.

Two men appeared behind the boy and started casting a magic circle on the palm of their hands!

The leader hurriedly shouted.

“Hey! Watch out!”

However, the warning had come too late.

Whoosh!

Only when he saw a huge sphere of flames rushing toward him did he snap out of his trance.

‘This, son…!’

Before he could curse inwardly, he jumped forward. The flame sphere collided with the floating stone he was standing on and shattered it.

[Flash]

"Ugh!"

He, who barely managed to Flash toward the upper floating stone and hang on the edge, looked back again.

‘What the hell are those guys…’ 

Come to think of it, there were initially seven pursuers. Two of them fell behind and he ended up facing five. But since they had not been following him for a long time, he assumed they must have returned. Who would have thought that they would come this far?

Seeing them grit their teeth while chanting magic, they seemed enraged over the deaths of their comrades.

Crackle!

He felt a tingling sensation in his head and he could tell without looking.

Coordination magic: Thunderbolt.

‘One’s using fire, and the other electricity?’

It was a low-level spell, typical of rookie mages, but if it hit him in his current state, he’d be paralyzed and fall to his death.

Jump!

Baek Yu-Seol hurriedly let go of the floating stone, but the three-second cooldown of Flash had not yet passed.

“Damn it!”

Fortunately, some of the loot recovered by Baek Yu-Seol earlier turned out to be useful. As he rummaged through a backpack, he took out a wire that was used by the archer and threw it upwards on another floating stone.

Ping!!

The moment he managed to reach the floating stone transferring the recovery burden onto the wire, a sphere of flame flew overhead and hit the other floating stone in front of him.

Boom!

The mage’s accuracy wasn’t great, but it was still a threat. The floating rock that had been hit crumbled and fell into the abyss below.

Fssss...

Baek Yu-Seol glanced down the cliff as chunks of stone and dust tumbled into the foggy abyss. The bottom was invisible, but one thing was clear, falling would mean certain death.

[Flash]

Realizing the stakes, his focus sharpened, and he surrendered to instinct.

Hanging onto a floating stone, Baek Yu-Seol swung his body around and pretended to aim the wire at another rock. When an attack targeted his decoy, he activated Flash and narrowly escaped.

Yellow lightning bolts danced around the stones and wriggled their way through the thick layer of snow like snakes. The blazing flame arrows showered from the sky, and they came crashing down like meteors, bringing destruction wherever they pierced.

Without any defensive magic in his arsenal, Baek Yu-Seol moved nimbly between the floating stones, his acrobatics reminiscent of a circus performance.

Arrows of flame and chains of lightning brushed past his cheeks.

“Wow…”

The mages marveled while witnessing the exciting show before their eyes. They noticed that there was no sense of crisis in Baek Yu-Seol’s leisurely movements.

"Incredible... I’ve never seen a knight use magic like that."

“His movements are no joke.”

But then...

“Why doesn’t he use a defensive skill?”

It was natural for such a question to arise in their hearts. A mage with that much control would be able to easily block the low-level magic of the novice mages.

But did they realize? The boy darting across the floating rocks couldn’t use any magic other than Flash.

‘Damn it!’

Baek Yu-Seol, who was gradually pushed to the limit, gritted his teeth. A single lightning bolt started to chase him.

It was the ‘Chain Lightning’ magic, low in power but guaranteed to hit multiple enemies.

There was still no way to dodge homing magic.

Crackle!

'I'm going to get hit...!'

Flash’s cooldown still had a second left. Desperate, he shot the wire toward another floating stone. Even if he propelled himself through the air, the lightning would still follow.

‘Am I really going to die so pathetically?’

As despair settled in, the mage in the gray robe, who had been silently observing, stepped forward and activated a magic circle.

“Huh? What are you going to do…?”

"Please step aside."

Her unexpected action drew skeptical looks.

Most of the mages in the group were Class 2 or 3, meaning they lacked the ability to cast long-range spells capable of saving Baek Yu-Seol from the attackers over a hundred meters away.

As they guessed, that gray-robed girl was a Class 3 mage. At such a young age, that level of achievement was great, but it was still impossible.

“The distance is too far. There’s a possibility that the mana will disappear or the trajectory will deviate and the magic skill will result in failure….”

However, the leader quickly shut his mouth. An ice spear wrapped up in lightning formed at the fingertips of the gray-robed girl.

‘Two... Two attributes?!’

Bang!

In an instant, the spear sliced through the air, colliding with the lightning bolt chasing Baek Yu-Seol. A sizzling sound erupted as the two spells canceled each other out.

"She calculated the trajectory..."

The precision was shocking, but what came next was even more extraordinary.

The girl gritted her teeth and swung her staff. Using the recoil from the lightning, she launched another ice spear with incredible speed.

It zipped past Baek Yu-Seol’s cheek with terrifying accuracy.

Thwack!

The spear impaled one of the attacking mages, smashing him into a nearby rock.

An ice spear of terrifying power!

"W-What...!"

“What?! This is crazy….”

“Did she really hit him from this far away?”

“I can’t believe it…”

As soon as the other mage saw that his comrade was killed by a spear from a distance of more than a hundred meters, he was greatly shaken, and his mental defense began to crumble second by second. He immediately turned to run away and even canceled the magic he was about to cast.

Seeing the gray-robed girl sit down and breathe heavily, the mages looked at each other with pale expressions.

The person jumping on the floating stones was also a young boy, but that girl also looked young; how talented were they?

“Ha, ha…”

Eventually, Baek Yu-Seol was able to safely cross over the cliff and move in a wagon with the help of the group of mages.

"Hey there, you’ve really been through a lot. I’ve never seen a knight with such remarkable agility."

The leader approached first and offered him a handshake.

“Hmm, so by the way… Where did you come from?”

“Huh?”

Since it was a slightly random question, he answered in a bewildered voice.

“I came from over there.”

“No, not that…”

His absurd answer lightened the mood, and a few mages chuckled. Even the gray-robed girl seemed momentarily amused, though her demeanor quickly returned to its quiet reserve.

“It’s not that. I'm asking about your affiliation.”

“Ah… I have no affiliation.”

“Oh, are you a freelance knight? Then, how about joining our group?”

"No, it's not that... I'm actually still a mage apprentice."

“What?"

“Really?”

The mages who were listening to their conversation exclaimed in surprise. This was because the movements shown by Baek Yu-Seol were already at the level of a veteran. Not to mention, he had enough mobility to cross that rocky cliff.

“Heh, I thought you were already a professional mage because you were so talented. Excuse me for my misunderstanding."

Hearing Baek Yu-Seol’s words, the other mages began to talk. Why was he still an aspiring mage with such skills?

Baek Yu-Seol wondered what kind of sound they would make when they realized that the only skill he knew was Flash.

Baek Yu-seol turned his head, looking for the gray-robed mage who had helped him. She was already sitting in a corner of the carriage, seemingly chewing on her loneliness as if there was nothing else to bite.

"Thank you for helping me. I almost died back there."

The girl raised her head. That elegant jawline made it obvious to him that she was a woman and not a man.

“I didn’t do it for your thanks, so don’t worry about it.”

Somehow, her tone was quite sharp.

‘Her voice is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life…’

Even her harsh tone sounded as melodious as a romantic song.

‘Does she have light-blue hair?’

A few strands of light-blue hair fell from within her gray robes.

A mage with light-blue hair along with lightning and ice attributes. The coincidence made Baek Yu-Seol think of a familiar face, but he did not delve into it any further.

She was covering her face, so it was not polite to stare at it.

"Haa..."

Following the guidance of other mages, he slumped into the corner of the carriage and looked helplessly into the air.

After completing an episode during the day, suddenly another episode popped up.

[Episode 2]

[Enroll in Stella Academy!]

While completing the second episode didn’t seem too challenging, the thought of what lay beyond it filled him with worry.

‘How am I supposed to handle school life at my age…’