The Tower of Illusions
The Tower of Illusions.
Four of them stood at the cardinal points of the academy grounds—towering, vast structures that ranked among Elprime Academy's proudest landmarks.
Masterpieces forged by the Empire's greatest mages. A kind of colossal simulation engine, built by fusing high-level dimensional magic, spatial magic, and illusion magic into a single whole. The time, materials, manpower, and budget poured into designing and constructing them had been astronomical.
They were also what set Elprime apart from every other academy. No other institution even dared attempt a pale imitation.
Mages from the eastern kingdoms who came on observation tours always left with their tongues hanging out—stunned by the complexity, the precision, and the sheer, unhinged extravagance of the spending.
Class A arrived at Tower One, the eastern tower. Ceren led them inside and began her briefing.
Summarized in a single line: beat whatever enemies the tower conjured up.
"We'll start with individual matches. Leon."
"Yes, ma'am."
First up was, of course, Leon.
He stepped into a training chamber the size of a grand drill hall. The rest of the cadets and Ceren withdrew outside and watched him through a transparent glass wall.
Ceren turned to the mage assistant operating the tower.
"Start at the lowest tier and raise it sequentially."
"Understood."
The assistant worked the control panel with practiced ease, and a vast current of mana began to surge.
Gooooooo.
Leon whistled at the mana flowing through the floor, walls, and ceiling in patterns of nightmarish complexity.
Like some kind of supercomputer.
In its ability to generate illusions so close to reality that ordinary people could never tell the difference, the tower had reached a domain Earth's science still hadn't touched.
An enemy appeared before him.
"…"
Stubby height. Green skin. A twisted face and a long nose.
"Grrrr!"
A goblin, clutching a small dagger.
"Oh…"
Leon studied it carefully and let out a quiet murmur of admiration.
Even with the senses of a mid-Expert, the illusion was nearly impossible to distinguish from the real thing. The way it moved. Its body odor. The quick, shallow breathing. The spit that flew every time it snarled. A perfect deception of all five senses.
If he hadn't felt the abnormal mana flow no goblin should possess, he would have sworn it was genuine.
"But that's neither here nor there."
Bang!
Blood, brain matter, and shattered skull bone sprayed into the air.
Leon had kicked the creeping goblin's head and blown it apart. No need to draw a sword.
"One goblin? Are you kidding me?"
He looked through the glass at Ceren and shrugged, the gesture loaded with what is this supposed to be?
The corner of Ceren's mouth twitched as she met his eyes.
"Raise it four tiers."
"…Yes, ma'am."
Mana surged again, and a monster took shape from empty air like a phantom.
Well over three meters tall. Broad shoulders, a body of solid muscle. In its hands, a club the size of a small tree. An orc.
"That's…"
"Already something like that…?"
The cadets murmured at the sudden leap in difficulty. It was someone else's problem for now—but soon enough, they would be the ones walking in to face it.
Orcs were formidable enemies even seasoned adventurers rarely saw. When one came down from the mountains and raided a village or homestead, knights were the minimum force required to put it down. For fresh academy enrollees, the difficulty was more than a little steep.
"Even Leon's going to struggle with that, right?"
"Obviously. Active-duty knights don't take orcs lightly."
Expecting Leon to flounder, the cadets kept glancing at Ceren—silently asking whether she hadn't cranked the difficulty too high.
"…"
Ceren said nothing. Arms folded, her gaze never left Leon.
"KRAAAAAH!!!"
The orc bellowed and charged. A savage presence packed with enormous mass. Leon's bangs whipped hard behind him—
"…"
—but his eyes didn't so much as flicker. He simply dropped into a low stance and settled into the opening form of his sword art.
Shiiik!
Even as the orc's club came down toward the crown of his head, he remained frozen, as if time itself had stopped.
"What is he doing?!"
"Why isn't he moving?!"
The cadets cried out at Leon's absolute stillness—and in that instant:
Jecheon Sword Style, First Form—Yeomyeong.
A flash of light.
Shaaaaak—!
From groin to crown, the orc's body split cleanly in two.
Fifteen minutes later.
Leon hung high in the air and swept his arm. Blue sword qi scattered in a crescent arc.
Seogeok!
The ogre that took the blow had its head sheared off like a bundle of straw.
Thud!
The headless body toppled onto the corpse of its already-fallen companion.
Shaaaaa—.
Their roles complete, the two illusion ogres crumbled into ash-gray nothing and vanished.
"In… sane."
"Already tier eight…!"
"When the hell did he get this strong…"
Every cadet was pressed tight against the glass wall now, eyes bulging as they watched Leon fight.
He had already cleared tier eight—a level second- and third-years couldn't reach unless they ranked among the top. And a first-year, on his first visit to the Tower of Illusions, had just smashed through it.
"Man. Once the difficulty climbs a bit, this actually gets pretty fun."
He still looked completely at ease, the smile never leaving his face.
The truth was, the Demonic Soul Pill Bergopf had given him played a major role in this display of power.
That was no ordinary elixir.
It wasn't like the usual spiritual medicines that refined the dantian or expanded one's mana. What it contained was soul—more precisely, fragments of the memories and experience of countless swordsmen.
Almost certainly drawn from the souls of the swordsmen Bergopf had absorbed over the years.
The memories of a knight who had guarded the imperial palace. The memories of a vagrant wandering the streets. Memories of dueling before throngs of spectators. Memories of swinging a sword alone deep in the mountains. Memories of fighting desperately while surrounded by dozens of knights. Memories of being hunted by hundreds of magical beasts.
They were the records of swordsmen who had once walked this world. Their swordsmanship, their combat styles, even their bodies were all different—and precisely because of that, those memories had taught Leon profound lessons.
Stepping into a body completely unlike his own and living through the battles that person had fought was an extraordinary experience. It was like having a vast archive of combat data slammed straight into his skull.
Thanks to those insights, Leon had been able to crush his way through eight of the ten tiers of the illusion monster gauntlet as easily as eating cake.
If this keeps going well, I might even get to try the second form today.
His focus sharpened with every exchange. His senses climbed higher. With stronger enemies continuing to appear like this… he might soon be ready to attempt the Crusif family's second secret technique.
Tier nine.
A drake—called a cut-rate dragon—appeared.
Kwaddeudeuk!
"Cut!"
Leon split its head in half in under five minutes.
"This can't be…"
A groan of pure disbelief slipped from the assistant. Even someone whose entire job was operating the tower every day could barely accept what he was seeing.
Now came the final stage: tier ten.
Across Elprime Academy's long history, countless first-years had entered the Tower of Illusions and challenged the monster gauntlet. Those who reached tier ten numbered fewer than a hundred. Those who cleared it numbered fewer than ten.
The people standing here might be witnessing the birth of a new legend.
Gulp. Gulp.
"Khh…"
Leon flung the empty mana recovery potion behind him.
"Next!"
"…Initiating tier ten."
Guuuuuuung!
The entire chamber turned crimson. The current was so overwhelming that the mana pouring from every direction became visible to the naked eye.
Black, red, blue, violet, gray. Threads of mana carrying countless properties spilled forth and began assembling a colossal form, piece by piece.
Shaaaaaak!
A serpent's trunk coiling around the entire drill-hall-sized chamber. A head rising to a height that scraped the ceiling. A maw and teeth that could snack on an ogre. And finally, long tentacles packing every remaining empty space.
"Is that a chimera? I can't even tell what they mixed into it."
Leon scowled hard.
"Ugh. That thing is seriously ugly."
Setting aside the monstrous bulk and pressure, the sheer grotesqueness was a fact.
In contrast to Leon's casual attitude—
"No!! How is he supposed to kill that?!"
"Holy shit, what the hell even is that monster?!"
—the cadets were fully immersed in Leon's fight, like spectators watching their nation's World Cup match. They clawed at their own hair, having completely forgotten it was only an illusion.
And for good reason. The crushing presence pouring off the chimera could not be ignored even as a phantom. Even from far outside, with a glass wall between them, their skin prickled.
"Ah, screw it!!! Go, Leon!!!!"
"You can do it, Leon Crusif!!!!!"
"Goooooooo!!!!!"
Whether they'd placed bets among themselves or not, the cadets pounded the glass like spectators at an arena, roaring their support.
"…Leon."
Ceren's lips moved, barely a whisper beneath the noise.
Seven years ago, as a first-year herself, she had been one of the swordsmen who cut down that chimera and carved her name into Elprime's history.
"…"
With deeply settled eyes, she watched him.
At last, light entered the finished mutant chimera's eyes, and its mountain-like bulk began to move.
"KIEEEEEEEK!!!!!"
It reared its head and let out a thunderous roar.
Charrrrrrr!
Tentacles sheathed in serpent scales undulated and closed in from every direction. A writhing, heaving mass of tentacles that triggered a human's instinctive revulsion and terror.
That is genuinely disgusting. I'm tearing every last one of them apart.
Of course, Leon was the kind of man who felt rage and fighting spirit in situations like this.
Srrrrrrr!
Pale, sickly tentacles filled his vision to the brim. As if refusing to tolerate a single insect's fretting, the tentacles sealed every direction, leaving him no room to take a single step back.
"Hoo…"
Leon closed his eyes, exhaled a long breath, and raised his sword high.
In the midst of a tidal wave of tentacles surging in to crush his entire body—
His crimson eyes flared open.
Jecheon Sword Style, Second Form—Manunbicheon.
Parr.
The tip of the sword, pointed at the sky, began to tremble faintly. What started as a small vibration grew, swelling in scale.
Charrrrr!
The Heaven-Shattering Sword answered its master's will, scattering a luminous sword-cry in greeting.
Then his blade began to move, painting strokes through empty air. As if an army of clouds were flooding into a vacant sky.
From one to two. From two to four. From four to eight. From eight to sixteen.
Accelerating, the sword shadows multiplied beyond counting and blanketed the chamber.
No two clouds shared the same shape—and neither did Leon's strikes.
Hwarrrrrr!
The blue sword qi riding his blade was perfectly suited to painting color across the white canvas the enemy had offered him.
Hwaaaaaaak!
And then it was complete: ten thousand azure clouds covering the heavens.
Soft as clouds. Flexible. Fresh and light. That beautiful sword-light seeped into the enemy, one stroke after another—
———!!!!
Without a single exception, every one of the chimera's tentacles burst apart like fireworks.