"The Strongest Sage Appears." is the 1st episode of the "Shikkakumon no Saikyokenja" Anime adaptation.
The young Matthias Hildesheimer heads for the capital to take the entrance exam at the academy. He dispatches a monster, enchants a sword, and passes the exam with flying colors. How does the bearer of the "Crest of Failure" have such power?
Summary[]
In the past Gaius fights against a dragon and laments over the inadequacy of his First Crest and goes over the powers of the other three Crests. It's then that Gaius casts a spell to reincarnate himself. Within the present day, Gaius is now a young adolescent boy going by the name of Matthias and has the crest that he always wanted, the Fourth Crest as he rides on a wagon heading toward the capital. His goal is to take the examination in order to enter the academy there. En route to their destination, Matthias senses the presence of a calamity-ranked monster nearby. The wagon driver brushes Matthias' claim off, but when a big tiger-like beast confronts them, Matthias immediately deals with it leaving the driver astonished.
Arriving at the capital, Matthias enters a weapon's shop where Alma begs the store owner Beis to repair her friend's broken magical sword. However, Beis refuses to do repair it as it's impossible for him to do. Impressed by the swords sold in the store, Matthias overhears the conversation between the two, and when Alma requests a new sword, he offers to enchant it for her. Despite having an inadequate crest to do it, Alma insists that he do it with the magistone that she has on her person. Beis tries to admonish Alma from allowing Matthias to enchant the sword, but Alma has faith in him. The two then sit at a table and introduce each other and Matthias asks to be called "Matty" instead of Matthias. Amid their conversation, Alma's friend Lurie arrives and Alma introduces Matty to her. Once Beis is finished with Lurie's sword, Matty immediately enchants it, which surprises everyone with how fast he managed to do it. Right as Lurie was about to try it out, she accidentally slices the table they were sitting at in half astonishing everyone. Claiming that he gave it a simple enchantment, Bies notes how Matty accomplished this task not only quickly, but chantless as well. He then asks if Matty would like to become an Enchanter, but he flatly refuses.
On the day of the exam, Matty meets with Lurie and Alma again. Lurie manages to pass the fighting portion of the exam and when it's Matty's turn he faces off against Guile. He mentions Matty's Father's name noting he wishes to see how well his father taught him swordcraft. The two fight and Matty easily wins because of the magical enhancements that he made to his sword during the fight. The next portion of the exam is a target practice, where participants need to cast fire arrows aimed at the five targets. Lurie goes first and with her First Crest, she manages to hit all of the targets, and Matty cogitates on how counterproductive the modern interpretation of crests is. For his part of the exam, Matty casts a fireball spell due to the limited range that the fourth crest has. The end result leaves a giant crater left in the center of the exam site.
Afterward, now fitted with an academy outfit, Matty runs into Alma and Lurie with whom together they attend the opening ceremony. Headmaster Edwart gives a brief speech and after it requests that Matty head to his office once the ceremony is over. Anxious that he's going to be expelled for the incident where he destroyed the exam grounds earlier, despite repairing the grounds with his magic. In Edwart's office, Edwart recounts Matty's accomplishments during the exam, but doesn't reprimand him nor pry any information on how he was able to accomplish such feats. Instead, Edwart requests his aid in regards to the chantless spell casting. Because the academy follows its academy curriculum which denounces the use of chantless spell casting. This leads to why Edwart wants Matty's help, he wants him to become a teacher of chantless spell casting in preparation for the upcoming inter-school competition.
Sometime later, Matty demonstrates his chantless spell casting in front of the academy students and another teacher named Gaizal also helps demonstrate. By dusk, Alma demonstrates to Matty her newly learned chantless spell casting skills and due to Lurie running low on magic, Matty transfers some of his to her. This allows Lurie to successfully cast a chantless spell to destroy a target.
On the day of the inter-school competition, Matty senses a Demon somewhere within the arena grounds. As it so happens, Matty faces off against the demon named Devilis who was disguised as a human with a First Crest along with his cohorts. Matty instantly finishes off the cohorts with a single spell and provokes Devilis to cast nearly a spell without chanting. Again, Matty provokes the demon by making him use chantless spells and deducing that the demons want to make Human spells weaker. Using a spell breaker, Matty dispels Devilis' human disguise and the newly exposed demon tries to escape only to be beaten by Matty before he's able to do it.
Characters in Order of Appearance[]
Characters in italics debuted here.
- Gaius
- Matthias Hildesheimer
- Alma Lepucius
- Lurie Abendroth
- Beis
- Edwart
- Feikus
- Guile
- Lukas
- Gaizal
- Leisis
- Giaas
- Devilis
External Links[]
- "Episode 1" Summary (Japanese) - "shikkakumon.com"
- "Episode 1" Sub - "Ani-One Asia" YouTube Channel
- "Episode 1" Sub - "Crunchyroll"
- "Episode 1" Dub - "Crunchyroll"
| Shikkakumon | v01 • v02 • v03 • v04 • v05 • v06 • v07 • v08 • v09 • v10 • v11 • v12 • v13 • v14 • v15 Illustrations |
| Senmetsumadou | v01 • v02 Illustrations |
| Shikkakumon | List of Chapters • Short Story |
| Senmetsumadou | List of Chapters • Short Story |