The Lighthouse I Must Become
After releasing Blue back into the dragon habitat following the self-surgery, Elena returned to her office and sank deep into thought. She reflected on every aspect of Ed’s behavior she had witnessed so far. A genius who can be dyed in any color… That’s the right way to see him.
A genius who could be dyed in any color. In other words, depending on how he was guided from now on, he could become a hero who would lead the empire—or the worst villain in history. He possessed the talent and potential for either path. Whatever the outcome, it was certain he would leave his name in the annals of history.
I… I have to guide him well.
That realization sparked a sense of mission within her. As his mentor, she felt a duty to show her disciple the right path so he would not fall into evil. And it was true—Ed’s way of thinking was dangerous. He showed little respect for life, distorted rules and order, and had a high chance of producing ideas that would be ethically condemned. His curiosity might pioneer new roads and expand the boundaries of knowledge, but if misused, it could bring about an irreversible catastrophe.
Therefore, he needed a lighthouse to guide him—one that would ensure he used the power and knowledge he would gain in the right way. I have to be the one. I must do it!
And that lighthouse could only be her. Because she was the only person who would never exploit Ed’s power for personal gain.
With a quiet rustle, Elena slipped the letter requesting Ed’s special admission into an envelope. The envelope bore the imperial crest embossed in gold powder. And on the recipient line—
To Her Imperial Highness
Sephelia Ulysses Kaindel von Orserk
Elena instructed her attendant to deliver the letter in absolute secrecy.
Now that I had successfully analyzed the mechanism of the Blue Dragon, it was time to put it into practice. The moment had come to select materials, trim them to the right length and weight, design them with precise engineering structures, and assemble everything.
The materials are ready, at least.
All the materials had already been secured. Thanks to my master’s support, I had easily obtained mana stones and various rare minerals. Thinking about it again, choosing Elena as my mentor had been a stroke of divine luck.
The blueprints are perfect too. There’s nothing left to tweak.
The blueprints were also flawlessly prepared. Having poured my heart into them over the past three days using Engineering Thinking, there wasn’t even a 0.1-centimeter margin of error. That was how thoroughly I had completed the preparations.
The materials have all been processed as well.
Every piece had been machined. Of course, creating the equipment to purify the toxic substances emitted by the mana stones had been quite the ordeal, but in the end, I had succeeded in building a device that purified toxic matter as perfectly as a Blue Dragon’s organs.
All that remained was to implant all these devices inside my body.
“Master.”
After completing every final check, I went to find Elena. She was already waiting for me with an expression that said she, too, had finished her preparations.
“Everything’s ready. All that’s left is the surgery.”
“…Are you really okay with this? Most people’s minds would break trying to endure it.”
“I’ll be using anesthesia anyway.”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re going to be cutting open your own body. It’s on a completely different level from cutting open a dragon.”
Elena looked at me with eyes full of worry. The reason she was so concerned was precisely because of this surgery. She was having a hard time accepting my decision to operate on myself.
“It’s fine. If anything goes wrong, you’ll help me, won’t you, Master? And above all, your psychokinesis will assist me, so there won’t be any mistakes.”
“…….”
But Elena remained silent, her face clouded with many thoughts. Perhaps the idea of self-surgery still seemed far too bizarre to her. Still, if I wanted to become stronger, this was the only path.
“Ed.”
After some time had passed, Elena, having finished thinking, called my name. She opened her mouth with a grave look in her eyes.
“Let me ask you just one thing. Why are you willing to go this far? Is it simply out of curiosity? Do you just want to confirm whether humans can use mana through mana stones the same way Blue Dragons do?”
…There was clear weight behind Elena’s voice. This wasn’t a simple question for information. It was undoubtedly a test. Depending on my answer, she might help with the surgery—or she might refuse.
“I…”
So this time, I had to answer carefully. I needed to give her a reason she could accept. A wrong answer would sink the entire operation.
“The truth is, I’ve been having a certain dream for a long time.”
“…A dream?”
Elena’s brows furrowed at the word dream. Her expression practically screamed, What kind of bizarre nonsense is he going to spout this time? I paid it no mind and continued.
“Yes. A dream. Actually, it’s a nightmare. Because it’s a dream of the empire’s destruction.”
She flinched hard. Elena’s body jerked violently. Having frequently dreamed of the empire’s fall herself, my answer had clearly startled her.
“In that dream… everyone dies. My father, the village chief, the villagers… every single one of them dies.”
Elena’s mouth slowly fell open. Her trembling eyes fixed on me.
“The sky is thick with black smoke. Countless monsters roam the streets, and creatures in human form tear people apart and devour them.”
“…….”
“I don’t know when it started. But at some point, I began having this nightmare every single day. The problem is that the dream feels so vivid… I keep thinking it might actually happen one day.”
Elena was completely absorbed in my story. It made sense—she was hearing a dream almost identical to the one she herself experienced.
“That’s why I started doing anything I could. Creating new equipment, acquiring knowledge, building strength. Whenever I do any of those three things, I don’t have the nightmare as often. It puts my mind at ease.”
Elena nodded. Honestly, if it had been anyone else, they would have dismissed it as nonsense, but she took it seriously. It was because she could sense, deep in her subconscious, the stirrings of the catastrophe that would occur in Merz.
“So you’re moving out of a sense of duty. To protect the empire.”
“Hmm… It’s not quite that grand, but anyway, I feel like I have to keep doing something. Haha… Even I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. I’m not sure if explaining it as just a dream makes any sense…”
“No. I think I understand. I get what you’re saying—one hundred percent.”
Elena smiled as she spoke. It was a smile laced with deep affection, as if she were reuniting with an old friend. Perhaps she felt a sense of shared suffering with me. I wondered if I had raised her favorability too much while trying to ace her test. Surely Elena’s Courtship wouldn’t activate over this, right?
“Right. If the nightmare is that horrific, there’s nothing you wouldn’t do. Shall we start the surgery right away?”
“Yes. Let’s do it now.”
“Good. Let’s head to my private training room.”
Once we arrived at the private training room, we began by inscribing formulas onto the mana stones. Elena would teach me the formula, and I would carve it into the stone.
“You really… how on earth do you control something that minute…”
What I was doing now was an extremely high-level task that no ordinary person could replicate. Inscribing formulas onto mana stones the size of a human fingernail required immense concentration and precision. Especially since the formulas consisted of multiple geometric lines—if even the slightest proportion was off, the formula would either fail to activate or suffer a drastic drop in performance. No one but me could even dream of inscribing formulas onto such tiny mana stones.
But I succeeded in inscribing formulas onto all thirty-seven mana stones. And not simple ones, either—complex formulas that combined multiple different arrays.
I couldn’t have done it without the Hand Technique skill.
The hidden-grade skill Hand Technique. Along with Engineering Thinking, which granted instant understanding of all engineering knowledge, it was one of my most broken skills. Thanks to this hidden skill, I could trim every material with zero error even without measuring tools.
“…Incredible. All thirty-seven are functioning without issue.”
Elena, who had been checking whether the formulas were operating normally, turned to me with an awed expression. With this, every preparation was truly complete. It was time to begin the surgery.
“Then I’ll start.”
I took off my top as I spoke. I lay down on the surgical bed that had been prepared in advance. A mirror had been installed above me so I could watch my own body while operating.
“Ready? I’ll set up the link.”
“Yes. Please do it right away.”
Link. Link was Elena’s unique technique that connected her senses to another person. It was a skill she had often used to awaken the senses of academy students. Now, she was using it to hand over control of her psychokinetic power to me.
—Flash!
The moment Elena activated the link, I gained the ability to use her psychokinesis at will. Having practiced various combinations beforehand, wielding her power wasn’t particularly difficult. I immediately lifted the scalpel that lay on the surgical table.
Whoosh—.
It rose without issue. No matter how I swung it, it moved perfectly according to my will.
“I’ll start with anesthesia.”
Using psychokinesis, I lifted the anesthetic syringe and injected it into my straightened right palm. A throbbing pain spread, but before long, all sensation was blocked.
“Hoo…”
I took a deep breath. I brought the scalpel over and poked my palm repeatedly. Sensation was completely gone. I immediately used psychokinesis to lift the scalpel and sliced along the pre-marked incision line.
Schlick— Blood flowed, revealing the inner skin tissue and tendons. An ordinary person might have panicked at the sight of their own body’s interior, but with Engineering Thinking active, I focused solely on implanting the mana stones.
Splash!
Blood spurted. I had nicked an artery. As blood gushed out like a fountain, I calmly said, “Heal.” Elena immediately chanted a spell and restored the area.
“…I’ll continue.”
In this way, the surgery was rather crude. If I messed up while operating, I healed it. If I damaged something, I healed it and cut again. It was an endless cycle of repetition. Since I wasn’t a professional surgeon, mistakes were inevitable. The only reason I could even attempt this mad surgery was thanks to the cheat key known as magic.
“Uh… I can’t feel anything in my hand?”
I had successfully implanted a mana stone in my palm, but now I had no sensation in my hand. It seemed I had damaged a tendon.
“I’ll cut again.”
In Elena’s eyes, Ed was completely insane. Where in the world was there a madman who would cut open his own body and insert mana stones? Even looking inside someone else’s body was hard to endure, yet Ed stared into his own internal organs without so much as a change in expression.
Superhuman mental strength.
That horrifying process continued for a full eighteen hours. He relentlessly implanted mana stones all over his body—palms, soles, wrists, elbows, shoulders, chest, abdomen, thighs, calves, and more.
“Heal.”
But Ed never lost his composure. Even when he accidentally damaged an organ and vomited blood, even when his eyes suddenly rolled back and he made strange gurgling noises, even when he lost sensation after damaging nerve tissue—he trusted in his “Heal” and continued the surgery without hesitation.
In the end, Ed succeeded in placing every single mana stone throughout his body. And at the center of his chest, the core mana stone that would control all the others was revealed. It was a circular mana stone that glowed with a bright light, just like Iron Man’s arc reactor.
“…You actually did it.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Master. I could never have done it without you.”
Ed said this as he climbed down from the bed. He rolled his shoulders, clenched and unclenched his fingers, and checked his body’s condition. There were no abnormalities.
“Then I’ll attempt mana refinement.”
Gulp.
The long-awaited moment had finally arrived. Whether a human who could handle mana through mana stones like a Blue Dragon would be born—all of it hinged on this very instant.
—Flash!
Ed began the mana refinement. A blue haze erupted from his entire body. Elena’s eyes widened, and her mouth slowly fell open.
“……Huh.”