Chapter 368: Dyeing (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 368: Dyeing (1)
Han Ju-hee.
A woman who met more people in a day than anyone else, yet never engaged in any real emotional exchange.
Wealth, fame, power.
There was only one way to capture the interest of this woman, who possessed everything a human could ever hope to hold.
Magic.
In particular, she was intensely curious about the way I used magic.
So much so that she had even signed an oath, promising to answer truthfully no matter what I asked.
But despite her enthusiasm, our research sessions were few and far between.
Was it because she was the busiest person in all of South Korea?
No.
This was a woman who could cancel an appointment with the president if she so desired.
If there had been an experiment that truly piqued her interest, she would have cast aside her busy schedule without a second thought.
The real problem lay elsewhere.
She had no idea where to even begin to uncover the secret of my magic.
She couldn't call me because she couldn't even get a feel for where to start.
I felt that if I left her to figure it out on her own, nothing would come of it.
So I thought about it.
What was the true essence of my ability to handle mana so freely?
“I believe the essence lies in sensation.”
The answer I arrived at was sensation.
Eyes that could see mana?
Extremely useful.
Through sight, the most intuitive of senses, I could read the color, shape, and flow of mana, allowing me to react and counter several times faster than others.
But my eyes only gave my abilities wings; they weren't the core.
In the end, excluding sight, all that was left was sensation.
“To me, mana feels incredibly vivid.”
She countered my words.
“…Any high-level mage can do that.”
“Yes, anyone can feel mana vividly.”
Simply put, a mage is a profession that deals with mana.
Of course, no Hunter class takes mana lightly.
But to describe a mage, the proposition must be different.
A profession solely dedicated to mana.
The only class that fits this description is the mage.
So, it was only natural for someone who had been a mage for a long time to be sensitive to mana.
However, the vividness I spoke of was on a different level.
“But no mage can perceive even the ratio of elements within the mana in the air by sensation alone.”
“……!”
Han Ju-hee’s eyes shot open at my words.
Even mages who were highly sensitive to mana could, at most, grasp the mana concentration or flow in the air.
But my body was different.
The ratio of each element contained within the mana in the air.
Where the flow of mana originated and where it was headed.
The skin in contact with the mana unraveled every detail and transmitted it to my mind.
This acquisition of information didn't just end with knowing.
“The moment this information is input into my head, I feel it.”
Mana, a being that held secrets unknown to all, was no longer an unknown entity, nor something to be handled with caution.
Therefore.
“That all this mana is within my grasp.”
A sense of dominion forms—the feeling that I can control all the mana in this world as I please.
And that dominion, naturally combined with a bold will…
“Allows me to do anything I set my mind to.”
I manifested a small world upon my palm.
I laid down solid earth, carved a small ditch upon it, and created a river.
I raised a tall mountain and filled its peak with hot flames.
Then I cast dark clouds in the sky and struck down a small bolt of lightning.
Finally, even the wind that traveled between the sky and the earth.
“Like this.”
Her eyes widened as if they would tear, watching me handle the five elements in the blink of an eye.
A clear emotion formed in her pupils, which had always held only ambiguity.
Disbelief and shock.
And then hope and longing.
It was a progression.
She was in disbelief at the wondrous ability that surpassed her understanding, and shocked by the proof before her eyes.
And then she hoped.
That she, too, could reach that realm.
Finally, she longed for it.
Vowing that she would reach it.
I asked her.
“What do you think? Do you agree with what I’m saying?”
“That’s…”
She hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.
“Haa… Honestly, I don’t know.”
A deep sigh, born of frustration, escaped her before she continued.
“Kim Do-jin, your ability itself is just so alien.”
“I suppose it is.”
“I… I’ve always thought of magic as a discipline to be wielded through meticulous calculation and understanding.”
Deep confusion was visible in her eyes.
I thought I knew the reason for her confusion.
She must have felt as if the magic she had spent her entire life learning was utterly useless.
But her thinking was flawed.
“Here, think of it this way.”
I began to speak calmly to help her realize it.
“When you, Hunter Han Ju-hee, had just become an Awakened Being and first stepped onto the path of magic, would it have been possible for you to learn magic in the way I described?”
“That… would be nearly impossible.”
“Right. And why is that?”
“Because I would have had no foundational knowledge to understand how outstanding, how amazing, and how illogical your magic is.”
Exactly.
My magic system is far simpler and more straightforward than conventional magic.
But learning it is several times, even dozens of times, more arduous and difficult.
Perhaps to the point where one could devote their entire life to it and still never reach it.
“That’s why I think my magic is the next stage of magic, the one that all mages, including you, Hunter Han Ju-hee, must eventually reach.”
“The… next stage of magic?”
“Yes. What if one first learns magic as a discipline, like you did, masters it, and then reaches the stage of manifesting magic by handling mana through sensation?”
If so, everything would make sense.
If the developmental process for a mage—one that had been unknown until now—was to start by manifesting magic through meticulously calculated magic circles, and then, based on that knowledge, to enter the realm of sensation from the realm of calculation.
“If that’s true… it would certainly all fit together. But there’s a flaw in that theory, too.”
Just as she seemed to be agreeing, she looked at me with sharp eyes and continued.
“You.”
“……”
Right.
The flaw in that statement was me.
If the developmental process of magic was as I claimed, then how could one explain me, a person who had entered a realm unknown to others before even learning the basics of magic?
To that flaw, I offered this answer.
“An irregular.”
An abnormal mutation who arbitrarily skipped a stage through an unconventional form or talent.
“…What if we define it like that?”
It might be a stretch or mere speculation.
But it wasn't entirely nonsensical either.
After all, I was the only person in the world who used magic like me.
And to be honest, whether I was an irregular or not, whether my theory was right or wrong, didn't matter right now.
“The real key here is whether there’s a possibility in my claim or not.”
All she had to do was judge based on that one possibility.
If she believed there was, we could simply prove it through experiments from now on.
If she believed there wasn't, we could just discard everything we had discussed.
And I already knew the answer she would give.
“…There definitely seems to be a possibility. No.”
She shook her head with a self-deprecating smile and continued.
“To be honest, I hope everything you said is true.”
She seemed to genuinely wish for it.
Only then would the magic she had learned so far not be rendered useless, and she would gain the hope of advancing to a far more sublime stage.
She spoke with a small, resigned laugh.
“Alright. That’s enough explanation. To be precise, I don’t think I could truly accept it even if I heard more. So tell me.”
Her gaze turned serious.
“What do I need to do?” she asked.
What did she need to do?
There was nothing more ridiculous than making a plausible-sounding speech without offering a method.
So I had thought about it before coming here.
I had even run some small experiments and confirmed its effectiveness.
“First, please sit in the most comfortable position for you.”
“Sit?”
“You can stand or lie down, but it should be a posture that’s good for raising your concentration.”
“…In that case.”
As soon as she heard my words, Han Ju-hee sat down on the lab floor, her legs crossed.
The position she chose was cross-legged.
“……”
It was the same posture she used to adopt, following my lead, whenever we trained together before our marriage.
“Is that the most comfortable position?”
“It’s not comfortable. But… if it’s a good posture for concentrating, then this is it.”
“I see.”
I decided not to read any special meaning into it.
Ninety out of a hundred people sit cross-legged to concentrate.
I approached the seated woman and began to speak.
“The method is simple. As I said before, sensation is more important than anything else.”
So I had found a way to further awaken that sensation.
“From now on, I will move the mana in the air and poke you with it.”
It wouldn't have any physical force.
I would simply give shape to the formless mana in the air and touch her skin with it directly, allowing her to react more sensitively.
She then asked in a doubtful tone.
“Will that really be effective?”
I answered with confidence.
“Of course. I’ve already gotten meaningful results from experiments, so don’t worry.”
The test subjects were, naturally, my team members.
To be specific, the experiments were conducted on Na-eun, who is also a mage.
I don't know if it was because the girl had slight masochistic tendencies, but her senses seemed to awaken a little each time I shaped the mana into a sharp form and poked her skin.
The problem was that the awakened sensation would disappear not long after the training ended.
Of course, it didn't disappear completely.
As we continued the process repeatedly every day, the sensation gradually began to linger in her body.
“I’ll begin now, so please close your eyes, raise your concentration as much as possible, and sharpen your senses.”
“…Alright.”
She finally closed her eyes.
Watching her breathe at a steady depth, slowly honing her senses, I began my preparations.
I fixed the mana, which had been merely flowing without any form, and gave it a shape.
“Alright, here I go.”
I brought the mana, shaped like a sharp arrow, close to her body.
A reaction soon followed.
“…Is it an arrow shape?”
“Oh, you got it right away.”
As expected of Han Ju-hee.
I think it took Na-eun almost three days to guess that.
“I’ll be poking you with distinct shapes like this. Then I’ll gradually make the shapes more complex, and eventually, I’ll only shape the part that touches your skin.”
“Alright.”
A faint smile graced her lips.
Having experienced it once, she must have intuitively realized that this would help her in some way.
I smiled as I watched her begin to embrace the direction of the training.
“Alright, then next is…”
Instead of an arrow, I shaped another form to poke her with.
This time, a triangle with a sharp point.
Countless triangular tips were aimed at her.
At the same time, I recalled an interesting fact I had learned through my experiments with Na-eun.
As I said before, this training method is meant to activate the sensation of feeling mana with the skin.
Therefore, I had to poke her meticulously to awaken the senses all over her body, and in this process, a very interesting question arose.
What would happen if this sharp mana poked a woman’s erogenous zones?
“I’m going to poke you now, so try to guess again.”
The triangles slowly advanced and poked her all over her body.
The crown of her head, her face, the nape of her neck, her shoulders, her back, her stomach, her thighs, her calves, her feet.
And when a few intentionally delayed tips reached her private areas.
“Eumm…”
A sound, slightly different from the groan she made when lost in thought, escaped her lips.