Chapter 135
Chapter 135
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 135
Chapter Title: The Trial One Must Endure (2)
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Mana flows through a mage's body.
Efficiently handling the mana that flows through one's own body—that is what it means to be a mage. A mage must know how to control their own mana.
'They all think it's a joke.'
Something you're born with.
Something you've always had, so familiar.
That's why so many people delude themselves. They think they know how to handle mana. They think they can perfectly control their own mana. And who could blame them?
'It's the most basic thing, after all.'
It's truly fundamental.
Because it's a path people have walked since ancient times, they often forget the value of the basics. Whenever that happened, I'd say this.
"The basics are the most important thing."
It's obvious.
Obvious, yet easily forgotten.
"And the basics are the hardest thing of all."
I took a step forward with a click.
Rak's footsteps followed behind. His steps were slowing bit by bit. It had been that way ever since we entered the barrier.
"What are the basics? The foundation itself. Only if the foundation is solid will the tower built upon it not collapse."
A tower built on shaky foundations.
When the storm hits, it sinks into the mud and crumbles. A tower without meaning.
There were those who built such towers. Many of them. On the battlefield, I saw mages like that. They collapsed at the entrance to the Demonic Realm and made excuses.
I recalled those excuses one by one.
And continued speaking.
"The air quality is too poor, the ambient mana is fluctuating..."
"If you're shaken by something so trivial, then your foundation was flawed from the start."
"The demonic energy is too thick, it's hard to even breathe..."
"If it crumbles because something foreign mixed in, then it was never much of a tower to begin with."
"So, I can't control the mana..."
I stopped walking.
"The basics must remain basic in any situation. They must never waver."
I turned around.
"Huff, haaah..."
Through the blizzard, I could see Rak.
He was bent over, hands on his knees, breathing raggedly. Bloodshot veins filled his eyes.
"Should we stop here?"
"...Not... yet, it's... fine."
Rak's words came out in staccato bursts.
His breathing was unstable, and the mana flowing through his body was starting to falter.
'But it hasn't collapsed yet.'
Rak was still standing on his own two feet.
It wasn't his limit yet, so we could go a bit further.
One step, two steps—ten steps like that.
Thud.
On the tenth step, Rak's legs gave out.
I walked back step by step, stopping two paces behind where he'd collapsed.
"Grab on."
I extended my hand. Rak grasped it with trembling fingers and stood. He staggered one step back.
"This is your limit right now."
I picked up the stake he'd dropped.
"First, we start by holding out here."
Ropes tied to each of Rak's wrists.
I pulled them taut. I drove the stakes at the ends of the outstretched ropes into the ground.
Thunk!
Rak was fixed in place, arms pulled back. The sturdy ropes wouldn't snap easily. If this were outside, maybe—but this was inside the barrier, where the blizzard raged.
Where mana flow twisted.
Where it was hard to put strength into your body.
That's why these old-school tools were useful here. With my foot on the stake, I said,
"Holding the basics in limit situations, at the extremes. That's what I'll teach you from now on."
Rak looked at me with bloodshot eyes.
He seemed confused, like he didn't understand. So I explained.
"Grab hold of your disrupted mana flow. Use it to cast reinforcement spells on your body. Break these ropes."
That was my goal for staying in the North.
"...Pardon?"
Rak's eyes went wide. He looked like it was impossible. Probably thinking, 'Holding out is hard enough already...'
I gave a wry smile.
"Just holding out won't help. Someday you'll have to run and fight in places like this... You gonna grit your teeth and endure while monsters charge at you?"
I shook my head.
"No, you need to move while enduring."
"Th-that's... possible...?"
"Why wouldn't it be?"
I shrugged.
"It's right in front of you. Someone who can do it."
"......"
"You think I got here overnight? I trained like this too. Grit your teeth and push through, and it usually works out. And you're in a better position than I was."
The heart of the Demonic Realm.
A place where everything was poison to mages, so all mages fled. A place that desperately needed mages more than anywhere else.
That's where I'd stayed.
'Now it's fine, with all these mages I trained holding out... but back then, it wasn't.'
The first time I stepped into the heart of the Demonic Realm.
I collapsed face-down, nose bleeding from the saturated mana. The tower of magic knowledge I'd built was utterly useless there.
So I had to build it from scratch.
Re-lay the foundation.
The people around me then were all prodigies. They couldn't teach me anything, so I had to charge in bare-handed and find the answers myself.
I vomited countless times.
Coughed up blood countless times, passed out countless times, taming the rampaging mana. That's how I built my foundation. So it wouldn't crumble in any situation.
'Even if I had to stand before the Demon King.'
I used those brutish methods...
"I had to figure it out alone, but you don't."
Rak didn't need to.
"Watch closely and imitate. That's all."
Because I was here.
Someone who'd walked the path before was here, knowing the way, so Rak could take an easier route.
"......"
Rak nodded slowly.
I let out a chuckle and clapped.
"Then let's get started."
I'd taught this to mages on the battlefield a few times. Those who learned from me described the process like this.
"It feels like being born again."
Indeed, a perfect description.
Recalling their words, I nodded.
'To be born again, what first?'
First, you die once.
I extended my hand. I pressed my index finger to Rak's forehead. Ash-gray mana rose above it.
"One."
A poorly laid foundation.
The tower built upon it.
"Two."
First, it needed to be demolished.
"Three."
Even if it meant the death of the mage within—even then, it was necessary.
Engrave.
Whoosh!
The mana blooming from my finger pierced Rak's mind. It passed in an instant. But the trace left behind wouldn't fade easily.
"Gahk!"
Rak's pupils trembled.
Blood streamed from his nose, veins bursting in his eyes. With bloodshot eyes, he looked at me.
"Endure."
I said.
"Endure and remember."
What I'd engraved in Rak's mind.
It was the mana arrangement I possessed. The answer I'd found—one that wouldn't falter in any situation.
"Then imitate it."
I'd hammered the answer sheet into his head.
All that was left was to copy it. Standing before the trembling Rak, I smiled.
"Plenty of time. Take it slow."
The sun had only just reached its zenith.
Rak's first blackout came just over ten seconds later.
2.
A blizzard raging in the sanctuary where the coming-of-age rite is held.
Rak had experienced that blizzard once as a child. In the sanctuary he'd entered with his father, Rak felt powerless.
He couldn't see an inch ahead.
His senses twisted. His vision shook. It didn't take long for the young Rak to foam at the mouth and collapse.
'That was the first.'
And recently, Rak had a similar experience. During the class assignment exam. Dragged into the Mana Spring's domain by a professor, Rak endured an environment like the sanctuary's blizzard.
But what he felt then wasn't powerlessness.
He felt it at first... but when he gritted his teeth and lasted a minute, achievement surged through him.
'That was the second.'
Time passed, leading to now.
Rak faced his third trial. Again, with a professor.
"Guh, gahk."
Rak exhaled and opened his eyes.
He'd blacked out briefly. He'd lost count of how many times.
Black out, wake up, black out again.
That was the cycle. Each repetition lengthened his waking time... but he still couldn't exceed two minutes.
'Compared to before, tremendous growth.'
In the Mana Spring, enduring one minute was life-or-death. But now? In a similar—no, harsher—environment, he was holding two minutes.
'Growth. It is growth, but...'
Rak lifted his head.
A path lay hidden by the raging blizzard. It stretched on endlessly. So far, so distant. Rak stood only at its entrance.
'Far.'
Bloodshot eyes turned to the woman walking that path effortlessly.
"One minute."
She counted.
A minute since he'd opened his eyes. Her voice cut clearly through the blizzard. Her breathing never faltered.
'A realm.'
Rak thought hazily.
'The place I want to reach. So distant.'
As he thought, another minute passed. Snap—his mind blanked briefly. When he opened his eyes again, she still stood before him.
As if no time had passed at all.
"...How long."
Rak spoke.
"How long... was I... out?"
"Roughly 30 minutes?"
I see.
Rak bowed his head.
Drip, drop—nosebleed fell onto the white snow. The flowing blood was hot, but once out, it froze cold.
His mind was chaos.
Piecing together fragmented thoughts, Rak spoke.
"...Professor."
"Yeah."
"Something's... floating... in my head."
"It should be."
"Complicated. Hard... to understand."
In his hazy mind, Rak spoke.
Mid-sentence, his mind blanked. Regaining it, he continued. Lania still listened intently.
"What... is this?"
"The answer. The one I found."
She smiled.
"In a situation like this, you can at least glimpse it vaguely. People usually only realize when it's right in front of them."
Rak looked at what floated in his mind.
'Arrangement. Interwoven patterns.'
Something complex.
His head instinctively rejected it. No, not instinct. Everything he'd built so far resisted it.
'Wrong answer.'
That thought filled his mind.
It's wrong. It contradicts everything Rak had learned. To accept it, he'd have to shatter what he thought was common sense.
'Answer.'
But Professor Lania said it was.
She declared it firmly.
"......"
Rak looked at Lania.
In the blizzard, she alone held clear form. Through blurred vision, Rak saw her distinctly.
"If I... accept this."
Rak forced out the words.
"Engrave it... make it mine."
Rak asked.
"What happens?"
What can I do?
Lania smiled at the question.
"You'll be able to do a lot."
She said.
The woman standing at Rak's goal—the distant realm—spoke.
"Mana won't falter in any situation. You'll perfectly control what you have. Perfect control enables perfect calculation."
She wiggled her finger.
Tick—a flame bloomed in the blizzard.
"Your spells won't falter in any situation."
Rak blacked out. Waiting for him to open his eyes, Lania continued. Flame still burned on her finger.
"Their power will rise dramatically. Enough to maintain a simple ignition for 30 minutes in a blizzard."
She swung her hand, extinguishing the fire.
Then flicked her finger again. A fiercer blaze roared atop it.
"Power, accuracy, precision—all of it will improve. And that's not all?"
She spread her arms wide.
She smiled amid the blizzard.
"You can fight anywhere. Anywhere, at full power. No place will be disadvantageous to you."
She walked through the blizzard.
A place Rak couldn't traverse, she strolled like on a walk. Her gait showed no difference from outside the sanctuary.
"Aren't you curious what's inside?"
He was.
"Don't you want to see it with your own eyes?"
He did.
Rak nodded unconsciously. Seeing his eyes, Lania chuckled. She exhaled briefly and spoke.
"Well?"
She asked.
"Tempting, right?"
It was. Extremely.
"Then do it."
Her firm tone echoed in his ears.
Rak closed his eyes. When he opened them, his gaze had changed.
Grit.
He clenched his teeth. Two minutes passed, but he didn't black out. His heart pounded fiercely.
Thump, thump.
Hearing his racing heart.
Hearing something snap.
Hearing what he'd built crumbling.
"Ptoo."
Rak spat the blood filling his mouth.
He spat blood, but discarded stray thoughts. He emptied his mind. In the blank white void, one thing rose.
Mana arrangement.
He groped the engraving in his mind. Even that was grueling. But not impossible. Like a blind man in the dark, Rak felt it out.
Crack, crick.
Cracks formed in Rak's mana arrangement.
A new one took root amid the shattering. The molting progressed slowly. From the smallest parts, steadily, surely.
He blacked out countless times.
Stood countless times.
Rak ceaselessly grasped the flow.
Ultimately, persistence was his strength. Even the raging blizzard couldn't cool his fervor.
Northern warriors are tempered steel.
Hot iron that never cools.
Steel hardens with tempering. Northern warriors are like steel. Rak was a northern warrior. In trials, Rak grew.
Drip.
As the sun set, Rak succeeded in snapping the rope on his right arm. Unexpected, even for Lania.
3.
"......"
I silently watched Rak.
After snapping the right arm rope, he collapsed as if fainting. Total exhaustion.
"Didn't see that coming."
I clicked my tongue inwardly. Unexpected speed, unexpected result.
'Thought it'd take at least three days...'
Mages on the battlefield took about a month.
Since Rak was talented, I figured three days... but even that seemed tight.
'Yet he severed one side in a single day...'
I let out a hollow laugh.
"Impressive. Really."
He'd exceeded my expectations.
In a good way.
"Hyup."
Hoisting the collapsed Rak on my back, I exited the sanctuary. I laid him where the blizzard eased, lit a small campfire nearby.
"Hoo..."
I exhaled briefly and turned my head.
My gaze went to the sanctuary's depths. Seeing it up close inside, I got a feel.
'Not the Mana Spring.'
Similar, but not the same.
Saturated mana floating in the air was alike. The difference was the mana's state.
'Hostile. Extremely so.'
The mana was sharp. The blizzard-mixed mana repelled intruders. As if guarding something.
"Hmm..."
I stroked my chin.
A place made to protect something. Then, what was worth embedding mana rivaling the Mana Spring to defend?
"Kinda curious."
Curiosity stirred.
I glanced at Rak, out cold, then stepped toward the sanctuary's interior.
'If I'm curious, just go see.'
The moment I stepped forward, a fiercer blizzard greeted me than before. Like chasing away the uninvited...
"Oh."
It only ignited my challenge.
"Hm, hmm~."
Whistling, I advanced into the blizzard. The cool wind wasn't bad at all.