Tower of Knowledge (1)
Tower of Knowledge (1)
It threw the first punch out of nowhere. And just as suddenly, once the "trial" ended, the Golem declared it would escort me.
After that, it sealed its mouth and simply walked in one direction.
- Boom! Boom!
It was the size of a building, each step carrying a deep vibration.
Feeling the tremor rise through my soles, I leisurely inspected my surroundings.
Earlier, I had only gathered combat-relevant information and let everything else slip by. Now that the battle was over, I could observe the Floating Island with a more relaxed mind.
The outer wall surrounding the island blocks approach and detection. Its performance isn't inferior to Siyoram's wall—piercing it even with the Observation Authority isn't easy.
'...Actually, is "island" even the right word?'
Floating Island. The name means a floating island, but it didn't really look like one.
For a start, it isn't surrounded by water. And if you split the island horizontally, the top surface is a mass of special alloys so complex it makes my head spin even when I analyze it with observation.
That material matches the Golems and serves as the source that manufactures them in real time through magic.
The underside isn't ordinary either. I'm not sure how to define the underside of an island in the first place, but common sense says it shouldn't be an inverted quadrangular pyramid. Yet this island's underside is a quadrangular pyramid made of gemstones. It seems to be the source that keeps the island afloat, and this area is especially dense with high-level formulas related to levitation.
'...It's a bit frightening how unfazed I've become by these astronomically insane acts of financial madness.'
Selling just one decent artifact from the Siyoram Secret Vault would generate enough for three generations of ordinary people to live comfortably... My sense of money has completely shattered lately.
- Boom! Boom!
The vibrations still echoed from the Golem walking ahead, but it was far easier on my ears than before. The deafening convergence of thousands upon thousands of Golems was no longer assaulting my senses.
The Golems that had been fiercely chasing me until just a moment ago had long since dispersed. They scattered in every direction, then took up perimeter positions at exactly the right distance.
'It's like a Go board.'
This Floating Island is like a Go board. The ground holds hardly any soil or vegetation—only identical metallic surfaces greet me. And across this board-like ground, countless Golems stand on high alert, each precisely spaced. The pure-white Golems looked like white stones placed on a Go board.
Encircling me in formation, driving me with tactical maneuvers to prevent my aerial escape—it all felt like a game of Go.
'......'
The Floating Island's military power was staggering. Even with many of its functions restricted, simply operating the Golems like that would let them steamroll most dungeons without breaking a sweat. And that's not all—this Golem army would demonstrate particularly formidable strength on a battlefield. They don't consume food like humans, require no sleep or rest, and seek no mental amusement.
If you merely provide the materials for their bodies and mana, they fight indefinitely. And yet, each individual Golem's combat ability is immense. On a battlefield, that kind of force holds tremendous value.
The original story. From the 1st Iteration to the 12th Iteration, I had never once seen this kind of power.
In a strange memory—the memory of a man who wielded Three Ends—a man with no particular affinity for magic went to visit the Tower of Knowledge. The Tower Master of Knowledge didn't show so much as a single hair. There were no Golems, no trials, no welcome—just a repetitive voice declaring that access to certain areas was forbidden.
'...Hah.'
Complex thoughts. At the prospect of soon meeting the Tower Master of Knowledge, my nerves were taut, pulling up all kinds of stray reflections. The sensation of my tongue going dry kept bothering me. I moved my right arm.
'If I just leave it, it'll recover on its own.'
My arm, injured from twisting my circuits. I hadn't taken any special measures—just set the broken bones and torn muscles back in place, gently coaxed my circuits, and boosted my natural recovery. Yet even such minimal measures already showed signs of recovery. My body's regenerative power, which was abnormal to begin with and only grew more monstrous after I started training in this world, was really something else.
'If it had been ripped off or severed, I would've had to imitate Ellia's Recovery Melody for regeneration... I miss Ellia.'
Since it remained attached and only the inside was pulverized, special healing wasn't required. My master's teaching: to cultivate my physical resilience without borrowing power from the many regeneration tools around me. By firmly believing those words and throwing my body into training, I'd managed to build up this level of recovery.
'The master's words are indeed truth... I miss the master.'
I nodded to myself and pulled a cloth pouch from my subspace. From it, I took out a single green pill, placed it between my teeth, and chewed.
- Crunch crunch.
I crushed it with my teeth, then moved my tongue as the substance dissolved into a thick paste in my saliva. At the tingling sensation on the tip of my tongue, I worked my tongue some more.
[......?]
The Golem glanced back. Its blue mane of light shifted between my chewing mouth, the cloth pouch in my hand, and my purple-stained right arm.
[May I ask what that is?]
The helmet creaked as it let out the voice. For reference, this was the same thick-gauntleted Golem that had tried to turn me into minced meat earlier. Considering its appearance, I found its tone unexpectedly polite. I shrugged my shoulders.
I gulped down the contents, then popped another pill into my mouth.
[It's Black Serpent venom.]
[I see. A pill made from Black Serpent venom, crunch crunch...]
As if it had misheard, the Golem let out a discordant grinding noise—giii-gik—and fixed its gaze on me.
[Crunch crunch...?]
Maybe it wasn't just me—its blue mana-glow flickered like a seismometer needle.
[Why... are you consuming that...?]
[...?]
[It's poison resistance training.]
At its odd reaction, I shrugged again. When I popped another pill into my mouth, the Golem's shoulders flinched. With a body the size of a building, that motion was so threatening I instinctively stepped back slightly.
[Poison... resistance... training? With such a crude method...?]
[It's crude, but efficient.]
That's how all resistances work. If you keep getting hit, at some point your threshold rises. I raised my impact resistance that way, as well as my severance resistance and pain resistance. Poison resistance follows the same logic: if you continuously introduce poison into your body, eventually resistance will develop.
[Poison is a substance that must be handled with particular care, yet you ingest it in such a perilous way? Even considering efficiency, it's far too dangerous.]
[It's fine.]
I nodded at the Golem's concern. It is true that poison must be handled carefully. There's said to be only a hair's breadth between medicine and poison—a drug that saves a person can kill them with the slightest change in application. So I am handling it carefully.
[Even so...]
[I'm really fine, so I'm taking it.]
[After being viciously ravaged by the Twin-Headed Poison Dragon's venom, ordinary poisons barely affect me.]
The Twin-Headed Poison Dragon. Even though its rank had probably been lowered by the unstable reanimation at the time, the venom's viciousness was still enough to make my tongue curl. If I hadn't undergone a phenomenon akin to Total Body Transformation back then, wouldn't I have died without even leaving a corpse? Thanks to that, my baseline poison resistance skyrocketed. That's the silver lining.
[.......]
The Golem, which had been about to voice more worries, fell silent at my small complaint. 'Hmph.' I let out a little snort and kept chewing my pills.
.
.
.
The Floating Island is packed with magic formulas. Presumably inscribed by the Tower Master of Knowledge personally, they were all advanced formulas—far too profound and arcane for me to guess at with my current level. But I could at least discern their rough structure, so I knew where they all led. Most of the formulas pointed toward the center of the Floating Island. And all those converging formulas led to one single structure.
A colossal white tower. The Tower of Knowledge.
[We have arrived.]
The Golem that had been leading the way turned around, bowed its waist once, and stepped aside. Behind it stood the tower's entrance, just a bit larger than the Golem itself. I examined the synesthetic impressions wafting from the dark entrance, then redirected my Observation to scan the tower's exterior.
Its size was similar to the Tower of Growth, but the exterior differed. The Tower of Growth had a yellowish ivory hue with an ancient architectural air, as if time itself was steeped into it. The Tower of Knowledge was white with a bluish tinge. Its surface was sleek like unrippled water, and deep blue geometric lines were drawn across it, lending an air of mystery.
'Tower of Knowledge...'
Now that I was actually standing before it, my nerves broke into a cold sweat. I couldn't help the creeping suspicion. 'Worrying now won't make a difference.'
I shook my head roughly, brushing away the doubt. Whatever happens, I have to go in. And if the worst comes, I just have to overcome it somehow. If I hesitate even now—in a safe and sound situation—I won't be able to do anything moving forward. I must overcome whatever comes at me.
Firming my resolve, I stretched my leg toward the tower entrance.
Soon I pushed my body into the pitch-black opening, and my consciousness sank.
.
.
.
'?'
The moment my briefly floating consciousness settled back into place, my Observation unfurled in all directions.
'Ugh...'
As the Observation unfolded in a sweeping wave, an overwhelming torrent of information crammed into my head. Even now, when I was accustomed to pain, this information arrived in such a massive dose that it brought a headache intense enough to freeze my body. In the estate's library, I'd felt as if every book in the world was gathered there, right? This was different. That time, it ended at the metaphor of "feels like it." Here, it truly feels endless—as if every book really is collected.
Books are everywhere. The tower's interior looked, literally, like a tower. I stood on the first floor, and above my head it was completely open. I couldn't sense any ceiling. It soared infinitely, like a glitched map in a game. And across the inner walls of that endless tower, bookshelves are crammed full.
Inside those, books are packed to an insane degree, and the letters within those books are tightly packed. Light novels you could read casually, books inscribed with simple general knowledge, incomprehensible picture books in strange formats, handwritten notes reeking of terrible penmanship, diaries, and magical tomes of advanced knowledge far too heavy for my level to interpret... Unusual Observation Records, 1st...
"An Authority is an ability with particularly severe side effects."
Suddenly, a cool sensation touched my forehead. Slender fingers that had calmly parted my hair pressed against my forehead, and instantly, the headache-ridden fog in my mind cleared cleanly away.
"When used properly, it is immensely useful, but one cannot use everything in the world properly at all times. Whenever that fails, rights that are not one's own place a great burden upon the wielder."
'Huh?'
My eyes went round. The headache was gone. Not only that, but the poison circulating through my body had vanished as well. The strain that had been applied to my body to induce growth was released. My purple-stained skin returned to its original fair tone.
I'd been so distracted by the overwhelming information that I hadn't noticed an approach. I didn't startle, but simply blinked vacantly.
At some point, I'd been standing before a woman seated in a chair. She was white. Her skin was smooth and white as if dusted with powder, and her voluminous garment was a plain, pure white with no ornamentation. Her hair fell straight without a single twist, reaching down to her ample hips, and the strands that fell forward settled softly over her large chest. Even her open eyes were pure white. Eyes as though they held a world buried in snow gazed at me plainly.
[......]
While I was still blinking dazedly, the woman who'd been seated rose gracefully from the chair. The chair, dignified like her, didn't let out so much as a creak. She stood, and her shadow fell over me. I finally realized she was much larger than me, and I flinched, stepping back a few paces.
The woman, who had been studying me closely, gently closed both eyes and folded her hands neatly over her stomach. "Though I am unworthy, the one called the Tower Master of Knowledge, Ariel Segnis Ternovsia, greets the Savior."
And then she bowed deeply, as if addressing a greatly honored superior. Seeing her lower her head with what seemed like the intent to touch the floor, I blinked blankly again.
'?'
I had stepped inside envisioning the worst. Yet faced with a welcome far more respectful and courteous than I'd ever imagined, my mind went blank.
It was a meeting with the Tower Master of Knowledge.
* * *
【Player Correction System: Pioneering Progress】
【Quest "Enter the Tower of Knowledge" achieved】
【Earned a large amount of points】
...
【Facing the 「Tower Master of Knowledge」】
【Conditions satisfied】
...
【Player Correction System: Affection】
Lee Ha-yul → Tower Master of Knowledge (?)
●●●○○○○○○○ (30▷31/100)
｢Complicated｣ ｢Confused｣ ｢Dubious｣ ｢Miffed｣ ｢Grateful｣ ｢Sulking｣ ｢Nutjob?｣