Chapter 166
Chapter 166
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 166
Chapter Title: The Tower's Test
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* * *
Imperial Calendar, Year XX, Month X, Day XX, 3rd day of the Feast of Saint Santiago, weather clear
The experiment failed again. I am experiencing great difficulty in procuring children for the experiment. My collaborator—the demonologist Prelati—seems to have no understanding of my troubles. Should the next demon summoning ritual fail, Prelati is demanding that I leave Britannia Island and join the 'Demon Worshippers' Conclave' in the Empire.
* * *
Achieving the state of a 5th-Circle mage was a special trial, undertaken with the help of Eris and Shub.
However, separate from that, the test Dale had to pass before everyone as the heir to the Master of the Black Magic Tower was no exception.
The Tower's test, the 21st floor of the Black Magic Tower.
The 5th-Circle black magician, the 'Black Prince,' was there.
Five Circles began to rotate around his heart.
And among them, the jet-black tentacles forming the 5th Circle began to writhe, generating a massive amount of black mana.
With each heartbeat, black blood spread through his body, imbuing every part of his flesh with the mana of darkness through his bloodstream.
A body of dark blood, its fusion with *The Book of the Black Goat* complete.
Reborn as one with the world's most terrifying darkness, a twisted being that could no longer be called biologically human.
Having come this far, Dale himself did not know what to call his own existence.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't even clear if the thing coiled around Dale's heart should be called a 'Circle'.
But Dale was no longer a 'mere host' to Shub, just as Shub was no longer a mere parasite to Dale.
Nothing had changed.
A fusion and symbiosis that had grown closer to perfection.
His heartbeat quickened the flow of blood in his body, and the black blood, dark as coal tar, began to churn.
Upon Dale's body, which defined him as human, the avatar of the Shadow Lord was superimposed.
The body and armor of dark blood.
He lifted his head.
“I-I-I surrender! I surrender!”
“...”
Seeing the young black magician kneeling, pale with fright, the Shadow Lord nodded silently.
Every time he ascended to the next floor, it was the same.
The black magicians on the lower floors, and even the creatures of darkness crafted by the tower's elders for the test, were no exception.
The heir of Black moved to inherit his position, and no one could stand in his way.
It was a free pass, something that couldn't even be called a test.
* * *
After defeating the floor guardians of the Black Magic Tower one by one, he finally passed through the lower levels and a new place greeted him.
The upper floors of the tower.
From here on, the opponents in the tower's test were 5th-Circle or higher black magicians who resided on their respective floors, using them as workshops. And they, too, participated in the test each year to determine their standing. To prevent the entire Black Magic Tower, from the 50th to the 100th floor, from descending into a chaotic free-for-all, several restrictions were in place.
First, the challenges are conducted sequentially, from the lowest floor upwards.
Second, the challenged party can freely utilize the workshop in which they reside.
To a magician, a workshop is a fortress and a domain in itself, and in the case of the Black Magic Tower... a battle fought in their workshop is akin to a siege.
The magicians modify their workshops into defensive fortresses to protect their positions, and breaking through requires a difference in ability greater than what's needed to win a one-on-one fight.
A fortress assault.
If one assumes that a 4th-Circle magician is a respectable level beyond that of an ordinary mage, and the final stop where most mediocrities hit a wall and are thwarted...
Then a 5th-Circle magician is part of the established power structure within the tower, with a firm position of their own.
They can use an entire floor as their residence and workshop, and the benefits provided by the tower, from funds to materials for black magic, are immense.
'The problem is that they pour all those benefits into converting their floors into defensive fortresses.'
The 50th floor, the workshop of a 5th-Circle black magician.
Waiting for Dale there was, quite literally, an army of the dead.
They acquire the corpses of orcs and other demonic beasts that flood the Sachsen Duchy each year, reanimate them, arm them as an army... and by remodeling their entire floor into a military encampment, they desperately protect their positions.
Dale turned his head.
He spoke softly, addressing the elders of the Black Magic Tower who were surely watching his test.
“Some time ago, a few elders staged an uprising to revive the dead spirit of the Black Magic Tower.”
He paid no mind to the 5th-Circle black magician or the army of the dead before him.
“In a way, it may be true that the spirit of the Black Magic Tower has stagnated.”
Dale said, and at his words, the elders of the Black Magic Tower held their breath.
“For magicians who do not premise their craft on combat to so crudely and desperately fortify their own workshops... not to mention the effort and cost consumed in the process.”
And as a warrior who had lived his entire life on the battlefield, Dale accelerated his five Circles.
“What meaning is there for magicians who know nothing of real combat to desperately play at war among themselves inside a well?”
Proving himself in the tower's test was also an indispensable objective.
But separate from that, Dale had another, true purpose.
Just as he had pioneered the Demon Lord's domain as Viscount Sachsen and brought a wind of reform, it was now to break down the outdated customs and stagnation of the organization known as the Black Magic Tower.
An innumerable army of the dead began to charge forward to protect their master's workshop. It was a horde of orcs, reanimated as undead soldiers by the 5th-Circle black magician, and as they charged, Dale extended his arm.
*Fwoosh!*
Simultaneously, jet-black tentacles erupted from within his armor of dark blood and whipped about.
Undead orc soldiers, only slightly stronger than common foot soldiers, could do nothing to the Dale of now.
“Ah, ahh...!”
It could no longer even be called a battle.
“In the case of the Red Magic Tower, I hear there is an organization that hones its magic with the premise of being active in war from the very beginning.”
Dale said, recalling the existence of the Purifiers.
“If we assume those Purifiers were to attack this 50th floor, how long do you think it would take for this workshop to fall?”
Dale finally asked, his question directed at the 5th-Circle black magician hiding among the undead soldiers.
“When you are so preoccupied with protecting your own status by building such a clumsy fortress, the repercussions will naturally affect the young black magicians on the floors below.”
“But L-Lord Dale! This is all in accordance with the traditions of our Black Magic Tower...”
The 5th-Circle black magician finally spoke after a long silence, and Dale nodded.
“What the hardliners of the Black Magic Tower should have sought to change was not to prove their foolishness by attacking my father's castle, but precisely these traditions.”
“...!”
The old, harmful customs that ate away at the organization's function and efficiency, from the top down and the bottom up.
He didn't think it would change overnight. That was why Dale had simply waited quietly for the right time.
The time when he could look down on them as a proper black magician and solidify his position as the undeniable heir of Black.
Dale waved his hand once more.
Not the power of his dark blood armor, but to reveal the power within his body of dark blood.
A storm of black mana began to swirl at his feet.
A wind of annihilation swept through the entire fortress that the 50th-floor black magician had so desperately built.
Inorganic matter corroded, and the bodies of the undead, which were nothing but bones, crumbled into ash.
“H-Hiiik!”
Sensing the terror of death, the 5th-Circle black magician fell right on his rear.
But the Shadow Lord paid him no mind, merely continuing on his way impassively.
To move past the already devastated 50th floor and advance as far as his own power could take him.
* * *
Now that Dale had declared with his own mouth that he would overturn the organization of the Black Magic Tower, it was an inevitable conclusion that he would face resistance from the black magicians who possessed their own floors.
Thus, from the 50th floor onward, the resistance of the black magicians against the 'Black Prince' was incomparable to what had come before.
Nevertheless, there was no way for mere 5th-Circle magicians to block Dale's path.
51st floor, 52nd floor, 55th floor...
As he devastated the fortresses of the black magicians who struggled desperately to defend their workshops, Dale began to speak.
At first, he showed them a power they wouldn't dare to defy, but oppression was not Dale's only card.
Rather, just as he had turned the Demon Lord's domain into a land of irreplaceable opportunity, he finally spoke of rewards they could accept.
While the Master of the Black Magic Tower was officially absent, he would seize the authority of his proxy...
Just as he had done in the Demon Lord's domain, it was time to change many things in the Black Magic Tower for the sake of its future.
* * *
At that moment, the 'Black Guard,' an organization composed of the elders of the Black Magic Tower, was gathered in a room within the tower.
Watching Dale's test unfold from the 50th floor, they couldn't hide their utter astonishment.
But what truly astonished them was not the reforms Dale was proposing.
As high-ranking magicians of the Black Magic Tower who pursued the principles of darkness, they could tell.
What was happening to Dale's body. A darkness they couldn't even dare to imagine had become one with the 'Black Prince's' body.
“It seems our young and brilliant lord has quite the splendid ambition. It is truly a fine sight to see.”
Just then, one of the elders of the Black Magic Tower spoke up.
Eris, the Agent of Black, who sat in the vacant seat of the absent Master of the Black Magic Tower, turned her head.
“Moreover, shamefully enough, what the young lord says is correct. Are his words not as sharp as an awl?”
“O-Old Master...!”
Ignoring the few elders who couldn't hide their bewilderment, the Old Master laughed.
“As my old friend Edgar once said, it is an undeniable fact that our ideology has stagnated and grown rusty.”
Several elders gasped, and Eris, her monocle glinting, asked in return.
“Do you have something to say?”
“I merely wish to say that the young lord's actions are justified, and furthermore, that he is more than qualified to carry them out.”
“...”
“Then, if you'll excuse me for a moment.”
Having said that, the Old Master rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?”
“I am on my way to welcome the new spirit of the age.”
With those words, the Old Master let out a hearty laugh, as if greatly amused.