Chapter 53 : Chapter 53

Chapter 53. I Cannot Understand It!

The apprentices listened attentively to the lesson that Habos was delivering, all of them acting as if they had been injected with a surge of energy.

However, after the class had continued for ten minutes, the apprentices began to look at the people they knew with blank expressions.

None of them understood what Habos was actually talking about.

Laiyi even turned her head to glance at Fulan. When she saw that Fulan had already begun picking at her fingernails out of boredom, the tension in her heart finally eased.

“You cannot understand it either?” Laiyi whispered.

“Huh?!”

Laiyi repeated the question in an even softer voice. Meanwhile, Fulan glanced at the notification displayed on her panel.

【Forging (Beginner) (Proficiency: 45/100): The craft of forging objects.】

【You listened to a master’s lecture. Forging Proficiency +20】

To be honest, Fulan had not understood anything at the beginning either. However, her proficiency had increased rapidly, allowing her Forging skill to immediately reach the Beginner level.

After that, she found that she could understand perhaps two sentences out of every ten—but she still could not grasp what Habos truly meant.

No matter how much she thought about it, she could not figure it out, so she simply decided to wait until her proficiency rose further before trying to understand again.

A master’s lecture truly granted enormous proficiency gains. The increase was incredibly fast. Without this class, she would probably have had to swing a hammer endlessly to improve her Forging skill.

Of course, she could not explain this to Laiyi—especially not that she was gradually understanding more and more. So she loudly replied,

“Of course I cannot understand it!!”

Fulan’s voice was far louder than Laiyi had expected. Laiyi froze for a moment before suddenly realizing why she had spoken in such a quiet voice earlier.

“Do not shout like that. Even if others cannot hear you, you are still disturbing me.”

Laiyi spoke awkwardly at a normal volume, while Fulan continued picking at her nails without the slightest concern.

Elan’s attention was also drawn by their conversation. He glanced at Fulan’s completely inattentive expression and shook his head.

Just as he had expected. If the leader of a school had to personally recruit apprentices, it was obvious that something was seriously wrong.

Not only these apprentices—even he, someone who had been a formal mage for many years, could not understand the lecture.

The entire class was about weapon forging, but it was completely different from the blacksmith work the apprentices had imagined.

The content Habos was teaching was simply far too advanced.

It was like someone teaching you how to solve a mathematics problem. You could see the steps being performed, yet you did not understand why those steps were necessary.

The teacher simply performed a series of operations you barely recognized and then produced the answer.

Habos was doing the same thing.

He was currently explaining “how to craft a high-tier magic staff.” Not only did the apprentices fail to understand the technical terminology, they also had no idea what many of the steps were for.

What was “polygonal gem placement”? What was “spell reaction time”? What was a “near mana-devoid environment”? The apprentices could not understand either the terms or the procedures.

Among the apprentices were some who had worked as Magical Craftsmen before and had even crafted staffs themselves. Even they looked troubled.

It was understandable that those who had never made a staff could not follow the explanation—but for those who had experience, failing to understand it was rather embarrassing.

Was crafting a staff not simply about selecting suitable materials and embedding amplification gems?

Why did the gem have to be cut into special shapes?!

At most, one could carve mana-conducting patterns inside the staff. That already counted as an advanced technique—learning it would ensure a lifetime of stable income.

Elan understood why Habos was teaching such excessively profound content.

The school he had founded was called the Forge Furnace School. With a name like that, it was obvious that it specialized in crafting weapons.

And the reason Habos was teaching these things was because he had nothing else to teach.

His school had only just been established and lacked basic low-tier knowledge.

Habos had once been a member of the Elemental School. Naturally, the spells he intended to teach in his school were the ones he had developed through years of personal research.

But the problem lay here.

He was a fourth-tier mage. The spells he was most skilled with were third-tier or fourth-tier spells—not spells that apprentices could easily learn.

Those spells were neither practical nor meaningful for apprentices.

The spells Habos could teach all required the knowledge he had just explained as a foundation.

If the apprentices failed to understand that foundation, they would never be able to learn his spells.

And that was precisely the problem.

Unlike the large, long-established schools, his school did not possess a complete teaching system for apprentices. In fact, the lowest-level spell he could currently teach was already a first-tier spell.

Of course, he also knew spells from the Elemental School—but he could not teach those to these apprentices.

Before Habos, many founders of new schools had faced the same situation.

Either you possessed strong connections and could persuade a large group of people to convert to your school, or you lectured about profound concepts like this and hoped to discover a few extraordinary geniuses who could help you develop low-tier spells.

What if someone listened to your lecture, returned home, and created a spell based on what they had learned?

While teaching, Habos was also observing whether any apprentices truly understood the material.

That one does not understand. That one does not understand either. The one in the back has already given up…

Habos’s heart grew colder with every passing moment.

He knew that his situation was even worse than that of many previous school founders.

Most new schools were merely specialized branches of existing schools. For example, the Elemental School had produced branches such as the Flame School, the Frost School, and the Lightning School… while the Necromancy School had produced the Modification School.

Although those schools initially lacked their own low-tier spells, they were still connected to the parent schools. It was relatively easy for them to modify a few spells based on previous teachings.

But the path Habos had chosen was far more difficult.

He had no low-tier spells to reference.

Before coming here, he had already conducted tests. Ordinary low-level blacksmithing techniques and enchantment methods were simply incapable of supporting the spells he had created.

The content he was currently teaching was already the most basic foundation that could barely sustain the casting of his spells.

If only there existed a low-tier crafting technique capable of supporting my spells…

Habos could not help but wish for such a method.

High-level magical craftsmanship had undergone countless iterations over the years. The process of creating advanced artifacts had long since become abstract and complex. That made it extremely difficult for him to deduce low-tier spells from it.

Of course, he could search through historical records to find older crafting methods.

But identifying a suitable one among them would not be accomplished overnight.

Besides, some of those records might even be false.

Habos had already finished explaining the entire process of crafting a high-tier magic staff, yet the apprentices continued to stare at him blankly.

“That concludes the entire process of crafting a high-tier magic staff.”

“If you can gain a deep understanding of this process, then you will be able to learn a spell and become a member of my school.”

“Next, allow me to introduce this spell. It is called Equipment Augmentation. If you are able to master it…”