The Ancient Mage's Lair (4)
Transported to an unfamiliar space, Leon quickly calmed his startled heart and scanned his surroundings. Though dim, it wasn’t so dark that he couldn’t make out shapes. The room was extremely cramped. He currently stood atop a circular stone slab; three steps would take him off it. Another three steps from there, and walls blocked him in every direction.
One wall was occupied by a bookshelf, while another held shelves and several ceramic jars that reached up to Leon’s waist. The final wall featured a door, with a familiar lever installed beside it.
Leon pressed a hand to his throbbing temple.
This must be the result of getting caught in that magic circle…
He glanced briefly at the magic formation engraved on the stone slab. The wooden sword’s ability to disrupt mana flows had likely prevented the teleportation circle from affecting it.
Blink worked just fine, though… Does it have some kind of owner-recognition function?
Leon extended his mana outward using detection magic, probing beyond the walls.
“This is bad.”
Beyond the walls, he sensed multiple presences and mana signatures moving about. Some were familiar, others not. The familiar ones belonged to armored golems—several of them standing right outside the door. The unfamiliar ones felt like the shuffling footsteps of gargoyle golems. By his rough estimate, there were more than ten in total.
“Ah… the wooden sword. Damn it.”
Unfortunately, the wooden sword hadn’t been transported with him, leaving him without an easy way out. Leon pulled an emergency designated teleport scroll from his pocket.
Should I use it?
Suddenly, passages from the advanced volume of Secrets of Creation flickered through his mind. Using the scroll now would mean abandoning the wooden sword. He didn’t know the exact location he’d been in right before the teleport, so he couldn’t return there with another teleport. He wasn’t even certain whether that spot had been on the second underground floor or deeper.
The two locations Leon had memorized with his emergency designated teleport were the training room he’d used while serving as a regular disciple, and the entrance to Sector 1 of the herb mountain—the area where he’d felt most fulfilled in his duties.
With a sigh, Leon decided to examine his surroundings first. His eyes immediately landed on the bookshelf. A red-covered tome stood out.
Secrets of Creation — Megrippa School (Advanced)
“Ha…”
A dry laugh escaped Leon as he examined the other books.
Golem Blueprints
He opened it, only to find every page blank.
Hmm… These don’t seem like ordinary blank pages.
Leon rubbed the paper between his fingers, tilting his head. It appeared the content could only be revealed through some other method. The rest of the shelf was filled with basic texts and theses related to golems.
His gaze drifted lower, landing on a book that had been seemingly cast aside.
“Hm?”
Ernita School — Gale of Light
A quick skim revealed it to be a high-level wind-attribute spell. To be precise, it sat right at the threshold of Secret Magic. Several other basic magic books were lined up alongside it. They didn’t seem to be texts the lair’s owner had learned personally; rather, they had likely been collected as references for creating golems capable of using magic.
Leon turned his attention from the bookshelf to the shelves occupying the opposite wall. Most of the containers were empty potion bottles, but among them he found three small vials containing beads.
Essences?
The familiar shape prompted him to immediately cast an appraisal spell.
“Hup.”
The first bead he appraised was a white orb—an A-rank essence. A single A-rank essence was a spiritual medicine potent enough to benefit even an Insight-rank mage. Given Leon’s constitution that allowed him to efficiently absorb such medicines, it was possible the pill could still show effect even if consumed after reaching Transcendence.
Methods to produce such essences were incredibly rare, and even when successfully made, the process was so difficult that their numbers were severely limited.
Did the owner stockpile these to consume upon reaching Insight? Or had they already attained Transcendence and no longer needed them?
A sudden impulse surged within Leon.
Should I train here for a bit?
He barely managed to suppress the urge and examined the remaining vials. Five B-rank essences. Seventeen C-rank essences.
“…What the hell?”
No matter how wealthy someone was, could they really acquire this many essences? Had the owner earned a fortune by manufacturing golems? In the current era, public opinion of golems wasn’t particularly favorable. While undeniably useful, they were considered extravagant luxuries that cost far too much to maintain. Had things been different in ancient times?
Next, his eyes fell on what appeared to be soft, silvery fruit inside one of the ceramic jars. Appraisal magic revealed it was a fruit that would never spoil and could supply every necessary nutrient with just a single serving.
It still hasn’t rotted after all this time?
The answer lay in the jar itself. The ceramic vessel was a precious artifact enchanted with preservation magic. By grade, it appeared to be C-rank.
“Is this place actually a training room?”
Leon realized this was where the ancient mage had trained.
Even if I use the teleport scroll now, these items should more than compensate for losing the magic sword… No, that’s not right.
Still, the thought of truly giving it up left a bitter taste in his mouth. As Leon mentally ran the numbers, another idea occurred to him.
What if I train here until I reach Secret Magic? Then I might be able to deal with the golems outside.
Of course, the golems outside were unlikely to be all of them. If the ancient mage had truly been Transcendence rather than Mystery, there would surely be far more than this. Even so, attempting it once before escaping wouldn’t result in any real loss.
“I can’t hold back anymore.”
Leon had already been starving for training. The sight of all these high-grade essences made his heart race. How long would it take if he raised his rank as quickly as possible?
He calculated the time. Even training twenty hours a day and sleeping only four, it would still take a long while. Including the ten hours inside the Chrono Orb, thirty hours of training followed by four hours of sleep, repeated over and over—it would still be slow.
If he stayed too long, the odds of the wooden sword remaining in its original spot would drop sharply. Moreover, there were people who would be troubled if they concluded he was dead. He couldn’t afford to remain here indefinitely.
Leon considered ways to raise his realm quickly. Looking purely at essences, consuming over fifty E-rank ones would be required to reach the fifth grade. Due to the probability system, he had never been able to stockpile higher-grade essences in large quantities. Whenever he saved up while aiming for the next rank, he would only accumulate twenty to thirty by the time he actually broke through.
So far, he had gathered twenty E-rank and five D-rank essences. Based on his experience consuming them, roughly seven or eight F-rank essences produced an effect similar to one E-rank. If seven E-rank essences equaled the effect of one D-rank…
Consuming all the essences he currently possessed would be equivalent to eating fifty-five, which should be enough to enter the fifth grade. However, that would mean exhausting every spiritual medicine he had received as rewards, leaving him with nothing prepared for the next breakthrough.
Normally, that would be the case…
Leon’s gaze returned to the vials on the shelf. Seventeen C-rank essences. Consuming just one would be equivalent to forty-nine lower-grade ones. In other words, he could reach the fifth grade in a single leap.
Of course, this was simple arithmetic. Advancing in rank required enlightenment. That was the problem. The side effects of raising one’s realm too rapidly. Raising one’s level purely through essences in one go would require an enormous amount of time to achieve true comprehension, unlike the steady progress gained from training Arpina’s four-star magic step by step.
There was also the issue of his core. Why did people avoid consuming high-grade essences at low ranks? Because their cores simply couldn’t endure it. Hoping to absorb high-grade essences completely at any rank was pure greed.
Am I being greedy too?
Even with his All-Element Affinity, Leon couldn’t be certain there would be no side effects.
I can’t be sure… but why does it feel like it might work?
Having made up his mind, Leon first poured all twenty E-rank and five D-rank essences into his mouth at once. Intense heat rapidly spread throughout his body. The warmth accumulated, layered, and built until it burned like molten lava.
When his core blazed far hotter than expected, Leon gritted his teeth and fought desperately to control it. His core pounded violently, as if struggling to break free from an egg, inflicting wave after wave of agony. Burning pain and torment battered him repeatedly.
He had no idea how much time had passed. The stone slab beneath him was covered in dried traces of his cold sweat. Normally, one essence would be digested naturally after ten hours of training, yet Leon had consumed twenty-five at once and was forcibly trying to refine them all.
After focusing every ounce of his concentration on stabilizing his core and groaning in pain, he suddenly came to his senses and realized he had reached the latter half of the fourth grade.
“Haa…”
The clear, refreshing sensation that came from completely digesting spiritual medicine washed over his body. All the heat vanished without a trace.
Judging by how hungry I am… about three days must have passed.
Without even thinking to satisfy his hunger, Leon fell straight into sleep. When he opened his eyes again, he ate some of the fruit and fell into thought.
To break through to the next rank, he now needed enlightenment. The time remaining inside the Chrono Orb was 163 hours. He had already used an extra hour collecting the golem remains.
It’ll be difficult to gain enlightenment with only this much time…
Just reaching the fourth grade had required 640 hours inside the orb. It was nowhere near enough.
After hesitating for a moment, Leon clenched his eyes shut and swallowed three C-rank essences at once.