Chapter 356
Among the Keyzen students, the first to step onto the podium was Kajan.
Unlike the other students, who twisted and fidgeted in hopes of making a good impression on the judges, he was different. With an indifferent face, in a monotone voice, he read out the paper he had written, line by line, as though reciting from a school textbook.
His presentation charged forward like a tank attempting a straight-line breakthrough, without hesitation. Even the judges, who had been quick to interrupt and attack the students mid-speech, were caught off guard and couldn’t find a chance to cut in.
“That is all.”
The presentation took less than five minutes.
The audience was engulfed in a heavy silence.
“You… truly leave me at a loss.”
‘Paper Shredder’ Vintra, holding Kajan’s thesis far from her eyes, spoke.
“Core strategies for summoned monsters? This is less Summonology and more Magical Combat, is it not?”
“I believed it to be information necessary for Summonology as well.”
Kajan replied calmly. Even with a mask of iron covering one’s face, it would be hard to answer so shamelessly.
“No, more importantly! This paper contains a critical defect!”
‘Citation Hell’ Calavan adjusted his glasses.
“You, student, have left the source citation section at the back completely blank. This is a most basic of basics, and you—”
“It said to cite sources for academic material. Therefore, I did not cite.”
“What?”
“The source is information from the Thieves’ Guild.”
Kajan tossed the words out casually.
“All information guilds, including the Thieves’ Guild, encrypt the identities of their providers to protect them. Is there anyone who asks an information guild for the identity of its source?”
Ha ha ha—!
As a soft ripple of laughter came from the audience, Calavan’s face flushed crimson.
“Ahem!”
Meanwhile, ‘Proof Parrot’ Latonia, seated at the far left, wore an uncomfortable frown. Since it was a story about killing undead without any academic basis, even he found it hard to demand proof.
“Enough!”
‘Paper Shredder’ Vintra shouted, his brows furrowed.
“The attempt to analyze a monster’s weakness using data from the information guild is commendable, but in the end, this has nothing to do with Summonology. This too is garbage! Zero points!”
Once again, the paper was ripped to shreds in Vintra’s hands.
Kajan, unconcerned, merely gave the judges a disdainful glare, then turned his back sharply.
“Th-that…!”
“Young people these days, honestly!”
Bang! Bang!
Vintra slammed the table, silencing the room.
“What a waste of time! Next!”
This time, Serne stepped onto the podium. With a cheerful smile and a flowery background surrounding her, she greeted the judges and the audience with lively enthusiasm.
“My name is Serne Eindark~”
The judges gave small exclamations of recognition.
“So, the rumored heir to the Ivory Tower.”
“To see her presenting a paper at Pentamonium is unexpected.”
“This one, we might look forward to.”
Like the other students, Serne used a crystal sphere and a mana projector to display her thesis in midair.
<Serne’s Creation of Feather Soldiers>
Simon thought the title was passable enough.
But why was the background image a picture of a weasel?
“I used my special ability to create an original undead called ‘Feather Soldiers’!”
As she turned the page, the screen revealed an extremely dense page of text—half blank space, half letters.
Simon’s eyes began to strain, while the three older judges had to crane their necks like turtles or pull out glasses to read.
“The feathers I produce with my ability are 100% compatible with Darkness! I can even transform feathers into magic circles. So I thought, what if I used these feathers to create a summoning magic circle! The runes I used were…”
While listening to Serne chatter away at a quick, chirping pace, Simon was consumed by a pure question.
‘But why a weasel?’
“So I changed the formula like this!”
Every time the page changed, the weasel image struck a different pose.
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t see the connection between Summonology and weasels. Suddenly, the text color would change to rainbow, or she would display photos of the pet dog she kept at her mansion. It seemed she was simply stuffing in anything she thought was cute.
His eyes were drawn only to the weasels, not the formulas.
“Let me demonstrate!”
Serne dropped several feathers onto the floor. The feathers disassembled and formed a magic circle on the ground, with a few more feathers joining in.
The feathers melted and flowed, and soon, a soldier with a geometric design in a pure white body sprang forth.
“Just as one controls an undead with willpower, I can freely command these Feather Soldiers! As I’m still a beginner, the maximum is ten! Now, here’s why I used the Abel Equation in my formula—”
“……”
The audience seemed to give up understanding halfway through, but the three necromancer judges’ eyes shone.
“Interesting!”
“As expected of the Ivory Tower!”
For the first time, the judges nodded.
Unbelievably, Serne’s presentation, incomprehensible except for the cuteness of the weasel, was working.
—It’s the kind of content that would appeal to eccentric mad necromancers at an academic conference.
Aron, who had proofread her paper earlier, had predicted this outcome.
A paper on making Feather Soldiers using Serne’s unique ability was utterly useless to anyone but herself—its academic value close to zero—but the judges loved it.
They were necromancers so steeped and rotted in the field of Summonology that the previous students’ presentations were, in their eyes, like “one plus one equals two”, or “eating too much sugar is bad for you”. Serne’s work, on the other hand, was like explaining “how a sloth swims”.
The judges felt a freshness in the “new fact”, even if they would never be sloths themselves.
“It feels like unused brain muscles are twitching.”
“The content was new.”
And so Serne became the second student to take her paper back intact. While the judges were pleased, the audience and students seemed unconvinced.
Finally, it was time for the last presentation.
“My name is Simon Follentia.”
Simon stepped onto the stage. All eyes focused on him.
“Special Admit No. 1 of Keyzen.”
The judges looked at Simon’s profile.
“Follentia family? Never heard of them.”
“Best not to expect too much, let’s watch slowly.”
“Mhm, agreed.”
Simon bowed his head in greeting to the judges, then handed each of the three a copy of his paper.
“I shall begin.”
His gaze fixed on the three—Calavan the Citation Hell, Vintra the Paper Shredder, and Latonia the Proof Parrot.
“The content of my presentation is—”
It was the final presentation of the student thesis session.
The older judges, perhaps tired, or perhaps dulled after being impressed by Serne’s freshness, were leaning back, resting their chins in their hands.
“A Skeleton Mage that uses Corpse Explosion.”
“What?”
Vintra shot upright like a spring. Even the audience stirred in surprise.
“Student! This is an academic conference! Not a fantasy storytelling session!”
Vintra barked, eyes wide awake now. The other two judges joined in sharply.
“You’re telling me an undead gives a self-destruct order to another undead?!”
“How could a Skeleton Mage use such a complex black magic as Corpse Explosion…!”
Simon grinned and raised his document.
“It’s possible.”
He opened his subspace and brought out one zombie and one Skeleton Mage.
“Before I explain, I’ll demonstrate.”
Turning back, he signaled to Serne, who flicked a feather from her finger.
The feathers struck the stage floor, forming a protective barrier around the zombie.
After lightly knocking on the barrier to check its safety, Simon stepped back and ordered the Skeleton Mage.
“Corpse Explosion.”
Schk!
The Skeleton Mage extended its staff. A magic circle flared at the tip, and the zombie suddenly stiffened upright.
Then, from its pupils and mouth, light began to flicker.
KWWWWAAAAAANG!
An actual explosion erupted.
At the sudden blast, the audience cried out in alarm and ducked down, the judges also recoiling.
Rumble rumble rumble!
Through the smoke-filled barrier, Simon smiled in satisfaction.
“Something like that.”
Serne then sent another feather to cast a ventilation spell, dispersing the blast cloud and removing the barrier.
Murmur murmur murmur!
While everyone was still in shock, Vintra impatiently shouted,
“Q-quickly! Explain how you did that!”
“Yes, Judge.”
Simon explained that he had gotten the idea from recently blowing up an Abyssal Horror with Corpse Explosion during the siege event.
Originally, he had used a Skeleton Mage as support when casting Corpse Explosion on the Abyssal Horror, but he wondered—what if the Skeleton Mage itself could cast it?
“For materials, I selected a monster called Muspel. They inhabit volcanic zones and detonate like bombs—fire-type monsters. You’ll know them well, as they’re often used to make ‘fire-type Skeleton Mages’.”
Two of Simon’s own mages were Muspels. As he paced slowly, he continued explaining.
“The idea is to create a pair—one zombie Muspel, and one Skeleton Mage Muspel.”
“Oh-ho!”
“A zombie Muspel, now that’s a first!”
The principle was simple—engrave the same rune on the summoning magic circles for both the Skeleton Mage and the zombie.
That rune was the Rune of Transmission.
It was the same rune Simon had used in Aron’s Magiste System class.
“The Rune of Transmission is the core of Muspel’s Corpse Explosion.”
The Muspel, born in volcanic zones, lives only one to two years after reaching adulthood. At the end of its life, unable to withstand its own heat, it inevitably explodes.
However, it’s common knowledge that if you kill a Muspel and turn it into a zombie or skeleton, the explosive effect disappears entirely.
“I focused on reviving this ‘explosive effect’ from its living days, through the Corpse Explosion spell.”
Simon’s theory was shockingly bold.
Ordinarily, Corpse Explosion works by overloading an undead’s Core or summoning circle, but Simon focused on the biological traits of the Muspel itself.
Free, creative thinking unbound by academic conventions, every time Simon revealed another rune or formula, the necromancers in the audience gasped.
“Revolutionary!”
“A stroke of genius!”
“Using the physiological traits of a living monster for an explosion…!”
“How could anyone think of that?”
The crowd was growing excited, and even the three judges were sweating profusely.
“That concludes my presentation.”
Simon ended with a gentle smile.
He did not reveal every formula and principle, cutting it off at an appropriate point, because he intended to sell this thesis.
When the presentation ended, disappointed murmurs arose here and there, but Pentamonium had always been such a place.
“Is there no risk of a stored Muspel zombie exploding prematurely?”
Paper Shredder Vintra raised a question.
“As I said earlier, once a Muspel is zombified, the explosion function disappears. And the Corpse Explosion magic of the Muspel Skeleton Mage works on the principle of forcibly creating and pressing a switch that was never there in the first place.”
This time, Citation Hell Calavan adjusted his glasses and spoke.
“And the reason you didn’t include sources in the back of your paper?”
Simon shrugged.
“Because every idea came from my own head.”
Calavan had already skimmed it, but there was not a single line in Simon’s paper that overlapped with any existing research.
Her mouth shut, and this time Proof Parrot Latonia shot to his feet.
“This is a grand fraud! You must surely intend to insult Pentamonium!”
“Pardon?”
“The Darkness signal that can be sent through the Rune of Transmission exists in a completely different realm from a typical central nervous system! How can you prove that the Muspel’s explosion was artificially induced?”
“If you wish.”
Simon brought over a chalkboard on wheels.
“I’ll prove it.”
And he began writing the proof for the Rune of Transmission across the board.
Tak-tat, tak, tak-tak, tak.
In the hushed silence, only the sound of Simon’s chalk moving could be heard.
His hair and shirt hem swayed as he wrote like a man possessed.
Theoretical insight.
Simon had already gone through the process, had completed the Darkness Dynamics analysis. Laying out the explosion process of the rune in formulas was not a difficult task.
‘Thank you, Professor Eric Aura!’
Everyone watched as Simon moved the chalk.
Finally—tak!—Simon made a final mark with the chalk and dropped his hand.
“Will that do?”
It was a perfect proof.
No one had anything to say.
‘This is truly…’
Vintra felt a shiver run down his spine.
This was beyond groundbreaking, it was revolutionary.
The creativity and unpredictability of this seventeen-year-old boy had presented a new path to the stiff, rigid world of necromancers.
All the hardened assumptions, all the stale common sense thought to be unshakable, had been smashed to pieces and lay scattered, and a new citadel stood tall in their place.
Clap.
Vintra clapped his hands.
“Well done!”
Clap, clap.
Applause rang here and there in the audience.
And then—
Clapclapclapclapclap!
Waaaaaaah!
It turned into a roar of cheers and applause. Some professional necromancers, faces flushed with excitement, even gave him a standing ovation.
Even the ever-demanding Calavan and Latonia were clapping with vacant expressions.
Simon bowed to everyone in gratitude.
“This is exactly what we wanted!”
Vintra, flushed with excitement, shot to his feet.
“Many people have questioned the level and significance of the ‘student thesis presentations’. But today, Simon Follentia has proven their necessity! A new approach from students! Bold attempts born from youth! We may be sharing the moment when a new history begins. Truly splendid!”
“It’s an honor.”
“You intend to register this thesis with Pentamonium, yes?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Come here!”
Simon did not know Vintra’s intention, but walked toward him.
“Take this.”
What Vintra handed him was a white slip of paper. The judges to either side glanced at it and let out gasps beyond shock.
“Vintra, sir!”
“This is still presentation time! Suddenly doing something like this…!”
“There’s no rule saying you can’t buy a thesis during presentation time.”
Vintra’s eyes were already gleaming with greed, his mind half gone.
Simon lifted the paper with a puzzled expression.
It was a check. But where the payer’s signature read Vintra’s name, the amount field was completely blank.
“Sir, this is…”
“A blank check.”
Murmur murmur murmur!
At those words, the audience erupted in commotion.
“What are you doing?!”
“Are you not ashamed to be a judge?”
“If you want to buy it, you should bid fairly and compete properly!”
Professional necromancers shouted, faces red, but Vintra gave a sly smile.
“Bid or no bid, I will purchase at the highest price. That’s market logic, isn’t it?”
For a moment, Simon thought this man was a necromancer down to his bones.
“Go on! Write whatever amount you want! It doesn’t matter how much!”
He spread his arms wide and then, in a voice only Simon could hear, murmured,
“A necromancer student studying Summonology is always short on money. You must have participated in this conference for the same reason.”
“……”
A blank check.
If he wrote the amount, that amount would be his.
He could even buy the heart for the lich’s Life Vessel.
In some ways, it could be called an honor. When in life would one have such an opportunity?
Simon’s hand moved slowly.
“Yes, yes, that’s it. Now write the—”
“Sir.”
Simon picked up the blank check.
And slowly, he held it upright for Vintra to see clearly.
“What are you—”
Riiiiiip—
“!!!”
The entire conference hall was instantly engulfed in silence.
No one moved, no one breathed.
Riiip—
While everyone in the room was frozen, only Simon’s hands moved, tearing the blank check.
Rip—snap.
Finally tearing it cleanly in half, Simon stepped toward the trembling, stunned Vintra.
“Feels unpleasant, doesn’t it?”
Simon smiled as he placed the two halves of the check together.
“You were showing me sincerity for my sake, but it turned out like this.”
And then he began tearing it horizontally.
“Students felt the same.”
Riiiiiiiiip—
The sound of tearing paper lingered long in everyone’s ears.
Aland, Sierra, Moyran—every student rose to their feet, eyes blazing.
“Despite busy academic schedules, everyone here gave their all for this conference. The effort may vary in degree, but no one here failed to try.”
—The one who first disrespected Pentamonium, with no minimum preparation, sincerity, or thought, filling it with obvious content, was you.
“You call it disrespecting Pentamonium? Unless one is insane, how could a mere student possibly disrespect Pentamonium?”
—Kids these days have no class.
—What on earth do they teach in Sierra?
“No one starts out skilled. We did our best with what we had. Were the judges skilled from the very start?”
—Trash. Zero points.
Finally, Simon looked straight at Vintra, whose expression had completely collapsed, lips trembling.
Rrrrip, rip, rip, rip.
“We are—”
Just as Paper Shredder Vintra had done, Simon let the shredded pieces of the blank check fall before him.
“—not garbage, sir.”
No one in this world has the right to mock someone who worked hard.
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters