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A middle-aged man with beautiful gray hair faced the audience.

“Starting it off with the French Magical Association!”

“I think Alain Corneau will be representing them?”

“Wow, that’s going to be a hard act to follow up.”

The French Magic Association, along with the United States and the United Kingdom, are considered the triumvirate of magic.

Alain Corneau is a fifth-circle archmage representing the French Magic Association. He has already participated in the Magical Academic Conference several times, and each time his impressive results were praised by wizards worldwide.

Alain Corneau began to speak,

“It’s been a while since I’ve been up on this stage, so before anything, let me introduce myself. I am Alain Corneau, a member of the French Magical Association. Five years ago, I began attending this event, and ever since, I’ve never stopped researching magic. Currently, the world of magic is at a standstill, the last significant discovery was the Thunder Canon, and that was three years ago. I’ve made no discoveries about 5th circle magic, but I’ve since began thinking about 6th circle magic.

His voice was commanding.

As he continued talking, the entire convention began listening to him, all other conversations stopped, and his voice was the only thing that could be heard.

“Suddenly, I had this thought, ‘what would happen if I combined what was already known about 5th and 6th circle magic?’ I began to expound on that idea. Eventually, I had results. I will release it to you now. A new form of magic that amplifies the power of the 5th and 6th circle magic, and other magic! Its name is Element Field.”

“Wow.”

“A new 5th circle magic?”

Behind Alain Corneau, a holographic image emerged.

As the wizard began casting, he shouted, “Element Field!” and the area around him turned red.

“Element Field is a spell that increases the destructive power of offensive magic within a certain range. In the video, the caster amplified his flame magic, and the result is …”

[Fire ball!]

[Furious!]

The video showed huge flames.

It seemed to be 1.5 times larger than usual; it didn’t even look like a fireball anymore.

It was incredibly powerful.

After showcasing its tremendous powers, the audience burst into excitement.

“Was that a fireball?”

“This is revolutionary!”

The size increased, and so did the destructive power, it wasn’t that dramatic that the enhanced 2nd circle fireball would exceed the 3rd degree one, but applying the same technique to a much more powerful spell would make it more efficient.

The audience flipped.

The crowd was so noisy that Alain Corneau had to speak louder,

“The range of element fields is not very wide. Its scope can include up to 10 wizards, but I think it has great potential. If a party with a 5th Circle Wizard in the past had 50 efficiencies, a 5th Circle Wizard who learned the Element Field could achieve more than 100 efficiencies. The spell is not enough to slay A-class monsters, but this discovery could be the first step in creating more enhanced magic.”

‘Enhanced magic’, a word that makes wizards salivate.

Outstanding, that was the only way to describe it.

“That is all.”

As soon as the presentation was over, Alain was given a standing ovation.

Applauses filled the room.

“Amazing, Great!”

“As expected of the French Magic Society!”

“They’re definitely going to win; no one has made this big of a breakthrough for ten years!”

Words of praise continued to fill the room.

Alain Corneau smiled brightly, as the room filled with compliments.

* * *

Alain Corneau set the bar too high, the following contestants had excellent presentations, but none of them could match up to Element Field.

“Alain Corneau is going to win.”

“That’s for sure. It’s the greatest discovery in the last decade.”

The competition was fierce, and soon enough, it was the Magical Department’s turn.

“Next will be the presentation of Professor Lee Mi-hye and Kim Moo-yeol, who belong to the Department of Magic of the Korean Hunter Academy.”

As the names were called, Moo-yeol could be seen standing behind Professor Lee Mi-hye. His face was pale.

‘I’m so nervous,’ he thought.

Thump, thump, thump.

His heartbeat hastened.

Kim Moo-yeol was brimming with confidence when he first got to the venue, but seeing his competitors’ presentation, especially that of Alain Coneau’s, made him feel how grand this event truly was. Moo-yeol finally understood why the event was called ‘the festival of wizards’ and ‘the future’.

He began doubting himself, and whether he was worthy enough to be there.

But it was too late to back out now, Kim Moo-yeol did his best to stay calm, and started his presentation with Professor Lee Mi-hye.

“I will now start our presentation. Our research was focused on the fusion of the 3rd circle magic spell Wind Bomb and the 4th Circle Magic Inferno. As most of you may know, wind and flame magic have the most destructive power among all the elemental magic. With this in mind, we decided to develop Wind Inferno. This spell utilizes the strengths of both magic spells, without compromising mana consumption…”

The presentation was given by Professor Lee Mi-hye.

Kim Moo-yeol’s position was only her assistant.

As Lee Mi-hye’s presentation progressed, Kim Moo-yeol began to regain his composure. He started thinking that they could win again.

‘We can still win.’

Wind Inferno, its power could be compared to fifth circle magic.

Fusion magic may not be as impressive as Element Field, but its high destructive power was still valuable.

His heart was pounding.

Moo-yeol was nervous, but now he was excited about how the audience will react at the end of the presentation. The audience seemed very intrigued. Their eyes were glued to the holographic video playing with the presentation.

“Excuse me.”

‘What?’ Moo-yeol’s thoughts were interrupted.

When the presentation started, and they began explaining their research, the judges already had a concerned look on their faces.

In particular, the judge, John Wesley, the archangel of the British Magic Association, raised a concern.

He approached him and asked,

“I have a question I would like to ask, are you out of your minds?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Eight years ago, I did the same research at the British Magic Association. Everyone knows that the combination of wind and fire magic would yield great destructive power, so naturally, we studied it, we came up with the same system as you did. However, we did not announce ‘Wind Inferno’ to the world. Do you know why that is?”

“…”

Both Moo-yeol and Professor Mi-hye remained silent.

What they thought was a new discovery had already been discovered eight years ago.

John Wesley sighed as the two of them couldn’t answer.

“How many times did you complete the formula and experiment with magic?”

“Out of the 100 times that we tested Wind Inferno, we had only encountered a problem once… ”

Bang!

John Wesley hit his desk, his face tinted red with anger.

“Why are you saying that only now? Magic is a dangerous discipline. To present your findings, I expected that you did your research carefully, but testing it merely a hundred times? And you already think that you’ve achieved great results? When we tested the same system eight years ago, we did it 10,000 times. The experiment failed only once due to mana instability, but one failure is enough to be lethal.”

The expressions of Lee Mi-hye and Kim Moo-yeol became pale.

The problem in their research was apparent, the spell’s destructive powers might be great, but one small mistake would be a catalyst for great destruction.

“It seems you finally understand. Studying magic requires a significant dedication of time and effort to ensure that one’s hypothesis is totally correct, because unproven magic poses a tremendous danger. Get off the stage. You two have made a foolish mistake that defiles this event.”

That was the end of it.

Lee Mi-hye and Kim Moo-yeol could not say anything.

Neither of them had any words of rebuttal.

The two of them hurried off the stage, their faces red with embarrassment. John Wesley, with an irritated voice, said,

“You two are now banned.”

Their faces will now be remembered forever, as the two people never allowed to return to that stage.

* * *

The atmosphere calmed down.

Marco Dawson, a member of the German Magic Association sitting next to John Wesley, expressed strong dissatisfaction.

“This is disappointing. Since when did the Magic Academic Conference become an academy’s playground. Contestants and their research should be filtered more thoroughly. Only 100 tests? And here I was excited to see what great discovery they had made.”

“You’re right; we should begin filtering and verifying future competitors.”

The other judges agreed, similar situations had happened before.

Only a few qualifications were needed to present a new invention; this allowed more people to participate, including the magic department. This rule allowed the magic department to be recognized by the World Magic Union. Still, because of what Professor Mi-hye and Moo-yeol did, the academy’s recognition may be revoked.

Once again, the atmosphere tensed up.

The next presentation was also from the Magic Department, a judge commented,

“Why don’t we just cancel the other Magic Department presentations? They’re decreasing the prestige of this event.”

“I concur, this event was designed for scholars to converge, this is not a place for students to play around.”

“And look at this. The theme of the presentation by Professor Kang Pil-doo and Kang Min-hyuk is the magical Form Change; even a first grader could tell you this is impossible to stabilize.”

Dissatisfaction grew.

John Wesley sighed deeply and said,

“Let’s watch the two other competitors. If they’re as incompetent as the first one, then we’ll ban the Magic Department from any future competitions.”

The judges had mixed expressions.

One of the judges tried to complain,

“Why bother doing that when…”

“Let’s at least listen to what they have to say.”

The situation has changed.

John Wesley once gave the other teams a chance, but he wasn’t looking forward to their presentations.

‘Form Change is a challenging study; even if you don’t succeed, you’ll at least give it more exposure.’

Min-hyuk folded his arms; now, they had to succeed since this would decide if they’ll be able to join future competitions.

The judges’ eyes became sharp; there was no room for error.

Facing the judges head on, Kang Min-hyuk and Professor Kang Pil-doo got on the stage.