An Invitation from the Red Tower
"Be my disciple."
I gave it a moment's thought. Cheongyeon was a master of many things, from martial arts to magic, but Paewang was a different story altogether.
The martial arts he carried were the domineering, overwhelming kind.
'Come to think of it, they'd pair pretty well with the Heukshinmu.'
I shot Heukcheon a discreet glance. She pulled an expression that suggested her pride had been rather wounded.
"—The Heukshinmu is complete in and of itself. There is no room for another art to meddle with it."
'Is that so?'
Then, regrettable as it was, passing on it was the right call.
"Well, then."
"If you become my disciple, I shall give serious thought to letting you date my daughter."
Paewang said it in an earnest tone, and everything about him looked dead serious.
"Why me?"
"I covet your vessel. The body is a vessel for holding the martial arts, and that vessel of my heir's doesn't even amount to half of Ara's."
"Is my body really that extraordinary?"
"Extraordinary, and then some. It rivals the physique of the giant race outright. No — given the realm you've reached, I'd say it's even more extraordinary than that."
"...Is that so."
"It is."
Having said that much, Paewang stopped short.
"Tch."
Clicking his tongue, Paewang turned his head to one side. He was glaring toward the headmistress's office, lips moving as though he were talking with someone.
"Can't even act your age, can you? Opportunity goes to whoever seizes it first. Marking your dibs with a bit of spit doesn't settle anything."
Then Paewang put on a strangely impish smile and turned his gaze back to me.
"So now the one who can't even act her age is baring her fangs, telling me not to covet what isn't mine. Absurd. In any case, I've said everything I came to say."
He turned to go.
Then, as if remembering something he'd forgotten, he let out a small sound and looked back at me.
"And — congratulations. On taking your first step down the hero's path. Once an existence of your caliber has set foot in that realm, there won't be anywhere you get pushed around."
After I returned home, I ran an inspection over my body.
'Nothing has really changed.'
If I had to single something out, it was that I could now pour in more Yeokcheon and actually load shockwaves into my strikes.
"—That is your capacity at work, Master."
"—The dominion you hold over Yeokcheon, Lord Seoha, is on a level even the previous Heavenly Demon could never dream of reaching."
'I see.'
Heukcheon and Yeongcheon gave their answers to my musing, and judging by their expressions, they weren't lying.
"—To begin with, there's hardly any difference between mid-tier and low-tier. For an ordinary martial artist, 'mid-tier' means having generated a Middle Dantian, or being able to coat their weapons and body in shockwaves."
"—The Heukshinmu's ultimate arts won't be much different either. You've always used more power than your own body was permitted, Master — as if overstepping were second nature to you."
"—Exactly. At low-tier, you should still be floundering just trying to learn the Heukshinmu."
'I see.'
Heukcheon and Yeongcheon protested in tones of open disbelief.
The conceptual stat seemed to have played a large part. Ever since I'd acquired it, I had handled Yeokcheon as freely as if it were my own limbs.
Yeokcheon was supposed to belong to that class of powers which resist their wielder, yet never once had I struggled to control it.
'It just moves exactly the way I picture it, that's all.'
I drew the Yeokcheon out like thread pulled from a spool. By Heukcheon and Yeongcheon's account it was a technique of punishing difficulty; I had produced it without the slightest effort.
"So this is supposed to be hard."
"—Even with ordinary mana, pulling off a technique like that is no small feat."
"—It's only once in a while, but there are moments when you are genuinely infuriating, Lord Seoha."
They could say that all they wanted; none of it felt real to me.
I raised Heukcheon and wreathed her in Yeokcheon. Vmmm! Shockwaves coiled around Heukcheon's blade — shockwaves woven from Yeokcheon itself.
This was not sword aura.
Sword aura was a technique that could only be used once you had forged a law of your own, and that law had begun to encroach upon the world itself.
Legends like the Sword Demon Geomgwi and Nabakcheon had sublimated that power into a law that could sever anything at all — which was precisely why Geomgwi could carve through a cavern wall as casually as breathing, even stripped of all four limbs.
Still, now that I could coat a weapon in shockwaves like this, contending with sword aura to some degree had become possible.
"—In any case, congratulations, Master. No one in history has ever stepped into mid-tier this quickly."
"—As expected of you, Lord Seoha. Although — when was it that you reached low-tier?"
"—It's June now, so two months ago, give or take?"
"—...You're joking, right?"
Listening to Heukcheon and Yeongcheon trade remarks, I felt it sink in anew: I had become mid-tier.
Not that anything felt different.
I headed into the training hall and finished the rest of the day's training.
The final evaluations came to an end, and the closing ceremony began.
It was a simple affair. Seo Yebin delivered a few brief words of guidance, and then our homeroom teacher — true to form — offered the standard advice not to let ourselves go too much over the break.
"You all know this already, but each of you is a face of this school. Every single one of your actions as a student of Korea Hero Academy..."
Instructor Seo Wooju's seemingly endless lecture droned on.
"And your internships begin one week after today, so make sure you've memorized your guild's rules and codes of conduct before then."
"Yes!"
The students answered in a loud chorus. The speech carried on for roughly five more minutes before Instructor Seo Wooju at last declared the vacation open and filed out.
"Seoha, got anything planned for the break?"
"Not really. Apart from going to the Red Magic Tower."
If I had to squeeze one more thing in, it would be clearing the Tower of Illusory Dreams, I supposed.
Going by difficulty alone, the Tower of Illusory Dreams sat among the harder ones, but with Yeokcheon's energy at my command, it posed no problem at all.
'If anything, it might turn out too easy.'
The monster I'd have to face was probably just a single mid-tier beast. A nightmare-type, at that, so it wouldn't give me much trouble.
"My grandfather says he wants to see you, Seoha."
"...The Wizard of a Thousand wants to see me?"
"Yep."
Kim Seohyun looked at me. Those eyes were brimming over with admiration — to the point where it was frankly uncomfortable.
'Why do I keep getting tangled up with Transcendents these days?'
The Wizard of a Thousand. The one under whom Kim Seohyun studied the art of sorcery. Paewang had brushed off everything Seohyun learned from him as mere tricks — but that was a judgment only Paewang could get away with making.
"Hm... if I find the time, I'll come by."
"I suppose you are busy with this and that, huh?"
Kim Seohyun's face fell into a sulk.
'...'
Doing my best to ignore it, I turned my head and looked straight ahead. Erciel stood there with a pleasant smile.
"Terribly sorry to interrupt your conversation, but we ought to be leaving soon. Would it be all right if we headed out first?"
"...Why so early?"
"The Red Tower Lord — Hong Yuhwa's grandfather — has extended us an invitation."
Erciel drew it out of her coat: an antique invitation in a crimson envelope, its golden seal embossed in the old style. She gave it a little flutter.
"Oh, you're going too?"
And with that, Kim Seohyun broke into a bright grin and produced an invitation of her own.
It was a banquet to celebrate the Red Tower Lord's birthday — but the Red Tower Lord was a man of modest temperament, so he had invited only a handful of close acquaintances. Unfortunately, Kim Seohyun's grandfather happened to number among that select few.
We stood in front of the hotel.
Perhaps befitting the Red Tower Lord's banquet, they had booked out an entire hotel for the celebration.
'Now that's what you call a shameless money flex.'
I gave the hotel a withering look and re-knotted my tie.
"It really does suit you."
"Yeah?"
Well, the face did most of the work.
"Ah, it's come loose right here."
Erciel stepped in close and settled my tie back into place.
While Erciel and I were making small talk, Kim Seohyun approached from a distance — a white suit with a blue tie.
"Everyone came early, huh. And here I thought I'd come early myself."
Kim Seohyun smiled faintly.
"Seoha, formal wear really does suit you."
"You think so?"
"This one looks good in anything. He could live in black T-shirts and shorts every single day and still come out looking like a painting."
"That much is true."
Kim Seohyun nodded along to Erciel's praise. Compliments about my looks felt good, but they were also embarrassing, so I changed the subject.
"Shall we head in, then?"
"Let's."
Inside, the hotel was already packed with people.
"Is that the Wizard of a Thousand's prized disciple? What remarkable poise."
"And there's the next head of Merhen, Britain's illustrious house of phantasmal magic. The rumors can't even keep pace with the real thing."
"The man in the middle... there's quite a story behind that one, I can tell."
"And that one is just... absurdly handsome, isn't he...?"
The crowd murmured, their eyes fixed on Kim Seohyun and Erciel. The two of them were already famous figures among society's inner circles.
"You there. The one who lost to me."
I flinched.
It was Hong Yuhwa's voice. I turned toward her, praying I had misheard. Hong Yuhwa, clad in a violet dress, was staring down at me with an imperious expression.
"...You can't possibly mean me?"
Surely not.
There was no way. No human being with a shred of shame could act like this. Cheongyeon and the Emperor had both stood as official witnesses. I was the one who had contributed the most to taking down the Minotaur. The formal announcement hadn't come out yet, but still...
Yet Hong Yuhwa simply kept watching me, the corners of her mouth curling upward.
"Well, no need to take it too hard. It was me you were up against, after all."
Hong Yuhwa sauntered over, gave my shoulder a couple of patronizing pats, and walked on.
"Shall I kill her, Master?"
"Just say the word, Lord Seoha."
I trembled from head to toe with humiliation.