Lernen

Lernen is a thin, elderly mage whose gray hair, brushed back to shoulder length, frames blue eyes beneath a straight mustache. His standard dress is a long white robe fastened by a round clasp, worn over the navy uniform with gray trim that marks Serie's first-class apprentices, and he leans on a stout wooden staff bound with a sizable jewel. For the journey to Weise alongside Edel he adds a floor-length robe topped by a collared, long-sleeved shoulder cape. In his youth his hair ran darker and a touch more unkempt; during his Imperial Mage days he sported a paler uniform, light trousers, and dark boots.

Outwardly Lernen is humble and careful, the sort Serie recalls as timid but unfailingly dependable since boyhood. By his own account he struggled to connect with people, an awkwardness that got him cast out of the Empire's Imperial Mages while still young. The wider magic world holds him in high regard all the same, both as the earliest mage to reach first-class and as the longest to hold that rank alive.

Beneath the meek surface runs a stubborn, defiant streak: even as a youth he would defy Serie's orders when it suited him, and though he claims his long life owes to knowing when to back down, he readily throws himself at deadly odds when something matters, whether dueling Frieren to etch his name into history or braving the Golden Land against Macht to gather intelligence for Denken.

Born to wealthy nobility, Lernen served as an Imperial Mage in his early years and there struck up a lasting friendship with Denken, who alone stood up for him when he was forced out of the corps. The two stayed in touch, and Denken would often bring up his late wife Lektüre in their talks. Once the Continental Magic Association was founded, Lernen became its very first certified first-class mage, then took Serie as his master and grew into a figure of real power and respect. After Macht turned the city of Weise to gold, Lernen and his fellow apprentices broke into the middle of Serie's duel with the demon and persuaded her to seal him behind a barrier until Weise could be restored, raising the Great Barrier of the Golden Land in the process.

Lernen presides over the punishing last stage of the First-Class Mage Exam every three years. He first crosses paths with Frieren when she and Fern register, inspecting the Holy Emblem she offers as proof of standing. He skips the second stage but crafts the bottled escape golems Sense distributes to the candidates. When Serie convenes her first-class mages before the last stage, Lernen confirms that Frieren is the mage whose presence let unqualified hopefuls slip through, admits he is in no position to judge her, and reveals that he saw through her mana suppression at their very first meeting, guessing her true reserves rival Serie's own, a perception Serie notes only the Demon King had matched.

Once the exam ends, Lernen seeks out Frieren on the streets of Äußerst. He means to leave some mark on the world before he dies so that another trace of Serie's long life will not vanish with him, and to that end he strikes first with a black, Zoltraak-like spell that shreds her defenses and grazes her shoulder, then asks for a duel to the death. Frieren turns him down, telling him there is no need: awkward as she is, Serie has never forgotten any apprentice's favorite magic, his golem craft included. He lowers his staff, reflecting that he and his master are alike in their clumsiness.

Later he enlists the mind-reading mage Edel for an expedition into the Golden Land, hoping to fix the Stone Bracelet of Servitude and undo Macht's gold. The two are met by Macht himself; while Lernen holds the demon off with his golems, Edel learns the bracelet cannot be altered by anyone but its original caster and instead steals a century of Macht's memories, after which Lernen covers their retreat. A mage Serie believed could actually defeat Frieren, Lernen possesses razor-sharp mana detection and specializes in golem magic, conjuring sturdy constructs that shield, heal, smash through walls, and seal enemies away; he rounds this out with potent offensive beams, defensive and flight spells, and the barrier work that once held Macht for decades. His drive to help Denken springs from a simple conviction he shares with Edel, that human lives hold no someday and all anyone truly has is now.