The Price of Climbing Higher
"Excuse me."
Chris raised a hand.
"You seem to have gone beyond the realm of an Ultimate Mage. So isn't it possible to reach Absorption even in this world?"
"We are the last. The mana is too thin now. Even a genius born once in a thousand years cannot become an Absorber."
"We? You're saying there are more monsters like you, sir?"
"Four more."
"God above."
The knights felt the same cold drop in the gut. Chukhwan was frightening enough, and now there were four more monsters beyond even that. For an empire that had dreamed of multiplying its Grand Masters until it could hold the magic towers down, the news was a catastrophe.
Julien spoke.
"How can we be of help?"
"Bring every mana stone the towers have in store. And the mages will have to labor at filling them with mana."
Daryl said it flatly.
"Why should we?"
"Because you're coming with us."
"What?"
"Why the surprise? Without a benefit like that, you'd never cooperate with us."
Mid-sentence, the old man flicked his fingers—snap—and a fireball bloomed above every head, seething in the air.
"I could drive you with threats, but what efficiency would that give me? The gate is open anyway. Another hundred passing through won't harm us."
"A hundred?"
"Aren't there about that many Chukhwan of middle grade and above on the continent?"
William spoke.
"Middle grade? You mean lesser Chukhwan and Sikbae mages can't go?"
"I'm not capping the number because some quota is fixed at a hundred. The passage between the Lower Realm and the Middle Realm is exceedingly dangerous. Fall short, and your body is torn to shreds. Every Sikbae will die. About half the lesser Chukhwan will die with them. If a lesser one wants to gamble a life and climb anyway, I won't stop them—but I would advise them to think again."
Daryl murmured.
"Climbing upward..."
"Yes. You climb, you raise your realm, and that is how you live forever."
"Eternal life."
A seductive pair of words.
Tower Master Hal licked his lips.
"I am the tower master of Mickclonia Magic Tower. I'm only a Two-Ring, so the climb will be hard for me."
The old man smiled, all warmth.
"You'll cooperate as tower master, so you want to be looked after on the side?"
"I am ashamed to ask."
"Mages are greedy by nature. Nothing to be ashamed of. What do you want?"
Hal's eyes glittered like stars.
"I want Motaro."
Julien went all the way down to his knees.
"Give me any order and I'll run like a dog to see it done. Tell me to lick the soles of your feet and I'll lick them. Just give me Motaro."
"You're a Chukhwan. Why do you look like that?"
"My lifespan ran out, so I shattered my rings."
"Heh."
The old man clicked his tongue.
"Break your rings to stretch your life, and raising your realm afterward becomes truly difficult. Did you know that?"
Julien bit his lip.
"Yes. I knew."
"And you did it knowing?"
"I was dying. I had no choice."
Chris muttered inwardly. So he dropped his realm and bought years with it. To a mage, realm is more precious than life itself, and he sacrificed it anyway. He must have wanted to live that badly.
The old man said, "Restoring shattered rings—one Motaro won't do it, will it?"
Julien's face went blank.
"It won't?"
"You'll need three, at the least."
"Three..."
"Bind one more ring after that, and you'll need six. After that, twelve."
Julien pressed his forehead to the floor.
"Please, save me."
"Very well. In light of your resolve, I will grant you Motaro."
Julien cried out, overcome.
"Thank you!"
But his face twisted at what the old mage added.
"I'll make it for you—provided you supply the raw materials."
"Raw materials?"
"Motaro doesn't fall out of the sky, does it? Of course you need materials to make it."
Julien bit his lower lip.
"What do you need? Only say the word. I'll jump into a furnace to fetch it."
"It isn't hard to obtain."
A chill crawled up the back of Chris's neck.
"Surely not... it can't be..."
The old man let out a little cry of delight.
"Oho. You seem to have guessed."
"It isn't, is it?"
The old man's face turned playful.
"I'm afraid it is."
Daryl looked at Chris.
"What is the material?"
"How do all of you bind your rings? Up to three, you bind them on your own power. After that you devour a Klpandi and bind with that. And when you hit the wall, you eat Motaro."
Felix shouted, startled.
"Devour a Klpandi? What are you talking about?"
The plants wound around his body had gone slack when Daryl lost to the unidentified mage, and that was how he had gotten free.
Chris put on a meaningful look.
"Why would busy, high-nosed Chukhwan bother chasing me? Because I know a secret."
William said, "And that secret is?"
"Right. Chukhwan eat the Klpandi of Sikbae mages to bind their rings. That's why they raised the towers and reared you. They breed you the way you raise pigs for the slaughter."
Hear something too shocking, and the first instinct is to deny it. Most hearts work that way.
"Liar!"
They cried out, voices tumbling over one another.
"It's a lie."
Chris smiled.
"Why do you think they call me the Forbidden Mage? Because I know a secret that can shake the towers."
The knights who heard him all but cheered. Millicent thought, With this, we can shake the towers.
Fielder was thinking along the same lines. Split the towers with this, and we can put an end to their rule.
Julien ended the quarrel with a shout.
"What does any of that matter at a time like this?"
He glared at Chris.
"What's the raw material?"
"You eat a Klpandi and bind a ring. You eat Motaro and bind a ring. What do those have in common?"
Julien understood.
"So the raw material of Motaro was Klpandi."
The instant he understood, he moved.
A mana bomb detonated among the Sikbae of Hermann Magic Tower, packed together in one place. The blast caught them and left them wounded.
Three more Sikbae were present: William, and two of Shay's disciples. They stood under the protection of Chukhwan and could not be taken, so Julien chose the mages of Hermann Magic Tower as his prey. Stan was dead, and their protector was gone.
Felix screamed with a hole blown through his leg.
"What the hell is this! I won't let you get away with it!"
He carried on as if he might fight then and there, then turned at once and fled. His colleagues did the same, scattering as one and hurling themselves away.
The air rippled, and a mage in a tall pointed hat burst out of it, swinging a staff. Cold sprayed in every direction and froze the fleeing Sikbae. At a gesture, the ice-bound mages were laid out in a neat row before the old man.
The old man looked at Shay.
"Will you hand over your disciples too?"
The eyes of Shay's disciples shook like leaves caught in a storm. Shay shook his head.
"I'll offer other materials."
The two disciples swallowed sighs of relief.
William swallowed his unease along with his spit. They wouldn't offer me up as the sacrifice... would they?
His eyes rolled.
"I have a friend who'd make excellent material."
Hal nodded.
"See to it."
With that, William was saved. A friend would die in his place, but in the world of mages, sacrificing a friend was hardly rare.
The newly appeared mage in the pointed hat started toward Chris, then kicked Stan's torso as he came. The body flew and landed beside the frozen Sikbae.
Chris asked, "Do you use Chukhwan as Motaro material too?"
"Of course they can be used. A Chukhwan's Klpandi is finer than a Sikbae's, so make material of it and you get excellent Motaro."
"Are you going to use Stan?"
"It'd be a waste to just throw him away."
The pointed hat indicated Stan's head, the skull cracked open and the brain spilling out.
"Why? Shall I put him back together?"
"Can you?"
"No. Once a brain looks like that, revival is difficult."
"That's a relief."
Perez had been tilting his head at the pointed hat. The man had pulled it down so deep that nothing above the philtrum showed, and yet the set of the mouth and the line of the jaw looked strangely familiar. Perez imagined the face above that line, landed on a name, and went cold with shock.
"Grain!"
Grain took off the pointed hat and smiled.
"It's been a while, Perez."
"You were alive?"
"Of course I was."
Shay murmured, "Grain... the Ultimate Mage of Mick Magic Tower who went missing..."
Grain walked up to Chris and threw an arm around his shoulders.
"You're a Body Mage, aren't you?"
"How did you know?"
"I watched you fight Stan. Your movement was no ordinary thing. No common mage could ever move like that."
"No one else seemed to notice..."
"I'm a Body Mage too. One look was enough."
"It can't have been easy for a Body Mage to climb all the way to Ultimate Mage."
He clamped down hard on Chris's shoulder.
"And I did that difficult thing."
"Impressive."
"I'm overflowing with talent. A genius."
Perez ground his teeth.
"After you stole my Motaro and bound your rings with it!"
"Still sore over something from ages ago. Why is a grown man so small-minded? Live with a broader view. A broader view."
Daryl said, "Elder Grain, are you on that old man's side?"
The old man cut in to answer.
"We recruited him."
"Recruited?"
"Where did you think the towers' Ultimate Mages went?"
"All of them!"
"Yes. They're working under us."
"Why?"
"Why else? They cooperate with us so they can go to the Middle Realm."
Grain nodded.
"Do you know what I felt after I became an Ultimate Mage? Despair. And why despair? Because the way up was sealed. I could advance no further, and so I could not extend my life... Then he appeared and offered to open the way above. You can't imagine how glad I was. I hope you'll be glad too."
Julien cried out.
"I am glad. Truly glad."
"Let us all take hands, climb together, and become not merely excellent mages, but great ones."
At his words the mages' hearts trembled. Of everyone present, Chris alone felt nothing stir in his chest.
The lifespan he had secured came to roughly nine hundred years. He considered that plenty. He had no wish to live any longer than that. He did want to climb higher, but he would not burn with frustration if he never grew another step.
If only the towers were not out for his life, he would have liked a domain of his own, and to travel on its income in search of every good meal he could find. He wanted desperately to slip away from this gathering in silence, but Grain would not take his arm from Chris's shoulder.
Grain said, "You'll all cooperate, won't you?"
Julien went without saying, and every other mage nodded as well.
"Will you persuade the other towers too?"
Daryl said, "Most will agree, but some towers will oppose it."
The old man said, "I'll handle those."
The tone was chilling.
Chris thought, Does he mean he'll kill them all?
Julien went a step further.
"We could just round up everyone who objects and turn the lot of them into Motaro."
The old man laughed.
"I like this one more and more."
Grain's gaze shifted toward the knights.
"You lot cooperate too."
Millicent drew herself up. The way he spoke, as if their cooperation were simply owed, quietly stoked her temper.
"Why should we cooperate?"
"Because it's to your advantage."
"This is all to the mages' benefit, isn't it? How is it to ours?"
"You've been listening to everything we've said, haven't you?"
"Yes. We have."
The knight's voice grew steadily more curt.
"So what?"
"You heard, and you still don't see the advantage? Are knights' brains made of muscle? How do you not understand this?"
Dwight stepped forward and held Millicent back as she was about to flare. He was a slender knight. He looked middle-aged, though he had passed sixty the year before.
"Set beside mages, knights are the stupid ones. I won't deny it. So please explain it in detail."