The Eccentric Enchanter
Baek Rin let out a deep sigh. “Another failure, huh?”
“Yes. We failed to imbue a 5th-circle magic into the artifact again.” His assistant standing beside him replied.
“Haa—seriously, what the hell is the problem here?”
The assistant glanced at him. His hair was a complete mess, and the dark circles under his eyes were so deep they looked like bruises. He clearly hadn’t slept properly for the past several days.
“Um… Professor?”
“Yeah. Spit it out.”
Baek Rin didn’t even look at his assistant. His eyes remained fixed on the magical schematic he’d drawn up for imbuing the artifact.
“Isn’t it already incredible that you can imbue 4th-circle magic?”
“....”
“There aren’t even ten people in all of South Korea who can imbue 4th-circle magic. Just that alone is—”
“Enough.”
Baek Rin turned his head to look at his assistant.
“If I were the type to be satisfied with being at the top in South Korea, I never would’ve left the Samhwa Group in the first place.”
“.....”
“I want to prove it to that so-called father of mine. That even without the Samhwa Group, I can succeed purely on my own ability.”
“....”
“And to do that, obviously I need to become the best in the world, not just in Korea. Right?”
Baek Rin was the eldest of the three children of the Samhwa Group chairman. Despite being the firstborn son, he had zero interest in inheriting the family business. The only thing that mattered to him was imbuing artifacts with magic. So he devoted himself entirely to that pursuit.
His father had looked at him with clear disapproval. If he had no intention of running the company, then he wouldn’t give him a single won in support. In the end, Baek Rin had no choice but to leave home.
And he wanted to prove it. That the path he’d chosen was right. That his father’s demands had been wrong.
Ring—
At that moment, the assistant’s phone rang.
“Yes… yes… I understand.” The assistant quickly hung up after a brief conversation. “Sir, the customers who made reservations keep calling to complain about—”
“Tell them I won’t meet a single person until I succeed in imbuing 5th-circle magic into an artifact.”
“But… still, sir.”
Lately, he had shut himself away in his personal lab, completely cutting off contact with the outside world. There was only one thing that held his interest right now: imbuing 5th-circle magic into artifacts. He paid attention to nothing else.
“I understand how you feel, sir… but imbuing 5th-circle magic into artifacts is a technology that was lost long ago, wasn’t it?”
During the golden age of magic in the past, the technology to imbue 5th-circle magic into artifacts had existed. But after countless great wars, that knowledge had been lost.
“....That’s—”
Even Baek Rin couldn’t continue. In truth, after devoting himself to this research for several months, he had begun to feel it vaguely. That restoring a technology lost in ancient times was impossible. The more he immersed himself in the research, the more clearly he felt that impossibility.
Vrrr—
This time, Baek Rin’s own phone began to ring. He glared at it with an irritated expression.
“I should just block them. I clearly put up a status message saying not to contact me…”
Then his expression suddenly softened. He hurriedly answered the call.
“Oh, my little sister. What’s up?”
His previously irritated face melted away in an instant. His voice had completely transformed into one dripping with affection.
“Yeah, yeah. If my little sister asks me for a favor, of course I have to do it. By the way, when are we going to have a meal together, sis?”
“Huh…? You don’t have time…? But I really want to see your face at least once.”
He spoke in that same cutesy tone.
“Ugh… okay, I get it. If that’s what you want, Jiyun, then I guess I have no choice. But this is the first time you’ve ever asked me for a favor on someone else’s behalf. Who is it? Your boyfriend? Or a friend?”
Beep beep beep—
The call ended before he could hear her response. He made a sullen face.
“You really don’t suit that at all.”
The assistant shook his head. He was nothing but a fool when it came to his little sister.
“Yeah, just sit wherever you’re comfortable.”
Baek Rin gestured toward me. I sat down on the sofa across from him.
“It’s the first time Jiyun’s ever asked me for a favor for someone else? Hmm—”
He looked at me with eyes full of curiosity.
“Ah. We’re not really anything special. Just friends. Friends.”
“Hmm—really? Is that so? A friend of Jiyun’s, huh…”
He leaned back deeply in his chair.
“That kid usually hates owing people favors. She always says it’s a debt and refuses to ask anyone for anything.”
“...”
“So the fact that she’s asking me like this just to have me meet you… it seems like she values you quite a bit. What exactly is your relationship?”
He asked with a mischievous expression.
“We’re really just friends.”
“Alright. Enough with the jokes.”
He leaned forward.
“So why did you come here? You even got an introduction from Jiyun.”
“Ah… I wanted to imbue some fairly high-circle magic into artifacts.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place. That’s my specialty.”
He grinned.
“What kind of magic do you want to imbue? Tell me. I’ll imbue anything for you. I may not look it, but I’m at the top of this field in Korea.”
“Is it really okay for me to say it?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to imbue Angel's Protection and Library of Knowledge into artifacts.”
“...What did you just say?”
Angel's Protection was a 5th-circle magic I needed for myself, and Library of Knowledge was the one Jeong Hanna needed.
For a moment, Baek Rin’s expression hardened.
“Is it impossible?”
“...Do you even know what circle those spells are before you say that?”
“Yes. They’re 5th-circle, aren’t they?”
“....”
He stared at me in silence.
“I’m truly sorry, but even I can’t do that.”
“Pardon?”
“As you probably know, that technology was only possible during the golden age of magic. It’s impossible with current knowledge.”
“But weren’t you researching exactly that right now?”
“....Well, that’s true, but.”
At first, Baek Rin himself had been confident. About imbuing 5th-circle magic into artifacts. But the more he researched, the more his confidence began to crumble. The more he studied, the more he felt like he was slamming into a massive wall.
His heart was gradually tilting toward the conclusion that it was impossible, but he kept desperately denying it.
“What if I knew the schematic for that lost ancient technique?”
“Haha. You’re an interesting kid.”
Baek Rin laughed. The schematics for imbuing high-circle magic had all been lost during the multiple great wars. He knew that better than anyone.
I couldn’t find them even when I was with the Samhwa Group.
Before leaving the Samhwa Group—back when he was still part of it—he had used every information source inside the company to search for them. But he had found nothing.
Baek Rin looked at Nam Doyun.
The Samhwa Group’s intelligence network couldn’t find it, but this kid claims he knows it?
No way.
“Kid. I get that you’re young and full of spirit, but lying isn’t a good habit. You know that, right?”
“Whether I’m lying or not, wouldn’t it be better to listen first before deciding?”
“...”
Baek Rin stared at Nam Doyun in silence. There wasn’t the slightest tremor in his eyes.
“Fine. Then what should I do?”
“Just explain to me the part where you got stuck while researching 5th-circle imbuing.”
“...And you’ll understand?”
“Yes.”
Baek Rin tilted his head. The assistant sitting next to him had majored in ‘magical imbuing’ at university and even continued into graduate school in the same field. Yet even he couldn’t understand the research Baek Rin was doing.
“Alright. I’ll explain it, so just wait a moment. The part I got stuck on in this research is right here. During the process of converting the magic formula, the magic keeps unraveling. To solve that, I tried rearranging the formula like this.”
As he spoke, Baek Rin began drawing the magical schematic. The assistant shook his head as he watched. Even he couldn’t understand that schematic. It was practically an alien language.
“Okay. I’m done drawing. You see this?”
Baek Rin looked at Nam Doyun.
“Can you explain back to me what I just did?”
“...”
Nam Doyun stared at the magical schematic without answering. Baek Rin shook his head as he looked at him.
As expected, he doesn’t get it.
Well, that was only natural. How could he possibly understand this? It was his own mistake for explaining something like this to an Academy first-year who had asked for an explanation.
“Kid. It’s not your fault that you don’t understand. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
As he said that, Baek Rin patted Nam Doyun on the shoulder.
“No. I understood it.”
“...”
At those words, Baek Rin’s face unconsciously twisted into a frown. He could overlook the bravado of a kid that age once or twice, but—
“Kid. My patience isn’t that great… If you’ve realized it’s impossible, could you leave now?”
“To summarize what you said, sir, this magical schematic uses Maxwell’s equations and Hertz’s discovery to create planar electromagnetic waves that prevent the conversion of magic, right?”
“...”
The glass Baek Rin was holding slipped from his hand and fell to the floor.
Crash—
“Are you alright?”
His assistant rushed over. But Baek Rin didn’t move an inch. He simply stared at Nam Doyun.
“You… you really understood it?”
Baek Rin asked with a completely stunned expression.