Who Spent the Night with the Tower Master (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 121

Mana surges are uncommon. Especially so among adult mages.

A mana surge was a rare symptom even among poorly managed mages. In this era, when mage registration occurs alongside birth registration, such incidents were hardly seen at all.

Thus, when Gibnen first received the report of a mana surge occurring in the examination hall, Riley immediately came to mind—the woman who had never been officially registered as a mage and had never received proper oversight as one throughout her life. Yet, being the daughter of an archmage, she possessed an immense amount of mana so vast it defied measurement.

Riley was the individual at highest risk of a mana surge.

Yet, the one actually caught in a mana surge turned out to be Josefine Lukan, who had been registered as a mage from birth and meticulously managed ever since?

“During a practical magic examination at Horizon Academy—the Empire’s premier institution for training mages—a mana surge incident has occurred. The victim is in critical condition… The exam has been fully suspended; professors and council members are investigating the cause. Public outrage pours in over the academy’s delayed response and negligent handling. Amid mounting casualties from successive surge incidents, the future of mages… Is this truly acceptable?”

News articles about the incident flooded in.

While everyone fled without taking any action, the tone of the reports—highlighting that a single student had halted the ‘mana surge’—quickly turned into condemnation of the academy’s staff.

Professors were criticized harshly for focusing solely on evacuating students, taking no measures whatsoever for the student who had entered a surge state, and for lacking even basic contingency plans against such surges at the Empire’s top-tier academy.

Of course, this criticism was justified. Their handling truly had been negligent.

The atmosphere at the long-overdue Horizon Council meeting was grave.

“We must establish countermeasures against surge incidents, even if belatedly.”

“Easier said than done. In Horizon’s entire history, no enrolled student has ever triggered a mana surge before. We’ve regularly tested students for surge risk and taken action whenever anomalies appeared. Isn’t that all we could possibly do? Frankly speaking, once someone enters a surge state… only an archmage can stop it. And we certainly don’t have enough archmages on hand to deploy immediately to every incident…”

“Precisely. Ultimately, the only archmages available would be the academy head or senior members of Mage Tower Horizon—but as you know, they’re extremely busy and simply can’t respond instantly to urgent incidents requiring immediate attention.”

“What nonsense. Only an archmage could manage it? This time, it was a Horizon student who stopped the crisis.”

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