Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Arc 20: The Wind Sorceress
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It was the rooftop of a black tower standing alone in the middle of a barren wasteland.
“……Another failure.”
The woman lowered her raised hand and ground her teeth.
In the sky, the vortex of wind she had created flickered chaotically. But the magic she desired was not of the wind attribute—it was pure mana in its rawest form.
And yet she was called the Wind Sorceress.
What she truly wanted was not the wind.
The repeated failures felt like they were crushing her spirit. She was already a mage at the pinnacle of mastery, but few knew that this pinnacle was merely the starting point.
Arch Wizard Tolari.
Perhaps she was the only one.
The only one who realized that even the supreme magic ‘Tempest’ was just preparation for the next stage.
“This won’t cut it.”
Tolari ruffled her hair wildly.
Tempest was a spell that compressed an attribute and released it in a vortex explosion in an instant.
Yet the more she compressed it, the more the attribute’s nature seemed to fade.
Of course, it reverted to its original attribute upon release, but she instinctively knew that this pure form before liberation was the true next stage of magic.
“Pure Magic…… I wish I’d never realized it.”
If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have to suffer like this or push herself so relentlessly.
Even she, hailed as a once-in-a-generation prodigy by the Magic Guild, could only glimpse Pure Magic through a crack in the door.
But giving up was impossible.
The price of peeking through the door of truth was brutal. She had to either fling it open and step inside or collapse before it, lamenting her inadequacies as a lingering ghost.
“So this is where you were.”
Tolari turned toward the voice. There stood a man wrapped head to toe in bandages, looking utterly composed.
“I thought you were inside the Magic Tower, but you weren’t there, so I was surprised. Training on the rooftop, I see. How have you been?”
“Can’t you tell?”
Tolari snorted at her patron.
“I feel like jumping off this roof right now. Worst mood ever.”
“You’d die if you fell from here. Though, being you, Tolari, you’d just fly away with flight magic.”
“Why are you here?”
Tolari shot him a hollow glare. The patron shrugged both shoulders.
“Why do you think? Isn’t it normal for a patron to visit the one they sponsor?”
“You’re weird in general. If you have business, spit it out.”
“Of course I have business, but I also came to check on you since it’s been a while. How have things been?”
“Me? Same as always.”
Tolari tilted her head back and gazed at the sky.
“My brain feels like it’s melting. Will I master Pure Magic first, or will I go insane first?”
“Pure Magic, huh. Even in our world, few reach that level.”
“‘Few’ means at least some have, right?”
“That’s a secret.”
The patron pressed a finger to his lips. Tolari glared at him with hollow eyes and muttered.
“You unlucky bastard, all wrapped in those rotten, dried-up bandages……”
“Pardon? What was that?”
“I called you a bastard. If you’ve got nothing else, get lost? I need to focus, and you’re distracting me.”
“I came after so long, and this is the welcome I get? By the way, I saw bags of money piled up in your room. What’s that about?”
“Bags of money? Oh.”
Tolari nodded as if it had just come back to her.
“Payment for a commission.”
“What kind of commission?”
“Someone wanted help assassinating a target. But assassination? It felt more like they were gearing up for war.”
“War, huh? That sounds fun. I love wars.”
“Didn’t ask, don’t care. I accepted thinking it might be a nice change of pace, but then they ghosted me. Maybe it got canceled? Not that I plan to return the advance.”
“There must be a reason. Do you need money, though? You never seemed to care about it before.”
“Nothing wrong with having some. I even figured out a way to boost my mana with money. Not guaranteed, but…… worth experimenting with.”
“As expected—your head’s full of nothing but magic, now and always.”
The patron chuckled at Tolari’s gaunt back.
“But before that, you need to eat something. Do you even eat properly?”
“Mind your own business. Whatever I eat or don’t eat. Anyway, let me concentrate—get lost already?”
“Actually, for you, Tolari, who’s so immersed in magic, I have some recent information I acquired.”
The patron held his ground against her repeated barbs, keeping his own pace.
“Have you heard anything about Prince Claude?”
“Claude?”
“That’s right. The youngest prince of the Payud Empire.”
“Why? You taking an assassination commission too?”
Tolari finally showed interest and turned her head. The patron nodded in surprise.
“I see—that explains the bags of money.”
“Yeah, so get to the point.”
“Someone I sponsor fought Prince Claude.”
The patron held up one finger.
“According to him, the prince used Tempest magic consecutively.”
“Really? That’s impressive.”
Tolari dug in her ear and replied halfheartedly.
Of course, chaining Tempests wasn’t easy even for an Arch Wizard.
But for her, it was a realm she’d reached ten years ago. The patron raised a second finger.
“And he mixed different attributes of Tempest in sequence. Fire first, then lightning, then ice. Like that.”
“Pretty skilled, huh? Most people struggle to master even one attribute.”
Now Tolari showed genuine interest. Mages typically had an affinity for one attribute that suited them.
Called attribute affinity, it allowed peak efficiency and power in that single element.
But it wasn’t that shocking.
“My master used three-attribute magic at equal power back in the day. Unusual, but not rare.”
“Your master—the late Lafroik, right? True, not much in the world of magic could surprise you, Tolari. How about this, then?”
The patron raised a third finger.
“The prince even cast two Tempest spells simultaneously, one in each hand.”
“……What?”
A sharp glint flashed in Tolari’s previously listless eyes.
She couldn’t brush that off. Because four years ago, her first wish to this patron had been exactly that.
-What I need right now is the power to cast two Tempest spells at the same time.
Known as Double Magic.
It wasn’t as simple as it sounded.
You had to split your mind in two, perform extreme concentration to calculate separate spells, then allocate them to different hands at the exact same timing.
And not with ordinary magic—with Tempest.
She knew instinctively what training it required and how long it would take to reach that level.
About ten years.
A timeframe possible only because she was an unparalleled genius.
The problem was that Double Magic was the first step toward Pure Magic.
And it alone took ten years?
How many years would it take to reach the final stage, then?
That’s when the patron appeared and asked her wish—and astonishingly, a single mystery injection granted her the necessary concentration.
It shaved ten years off her goal.
But even after four years of dedicated training since, she still couldn’t surpass the next step for Pure Magic.
Multiple Compression.
Merge the two different Tempest spells from each hand into one, then compress it again into pure form.
A technique ordinary mages didn’t even know existed, but Tolari was convinced it was the path to Pure Magic’s essence.
Her innate genius let her know.
She could glimpse it, confirm its existence.
Yet realizing it was impossible.
That drove her mad. Eyes blazing, Tolari closed in on the patron.
“He used Double Magic? Did he get sponsored by you too? Did he wish for the same thing?”
“No. He reached that level with his own power.”
“Impossible.”
“But it happened. Prince Claude is only 16, they say—while you’re already 24.”
“What?”
“At this rate, he’ll master Pure Magic first. All your efforts so far would be for nothing, wouldn’t they?”
The patron prodded provocatively. Tolari laughed it off dismissively.
“Ha! Who cares about that.”
“Who cares? Isn’t that exactly what you want, Tolari?”
“Mastering it first? Don’t care. As long as I can use it someday.”
Order didn’t matter.
Success was all that counted.
To achieve that goal, she’d forsaken everything she could have had.
Status, honor, even human relationships—all of it.
It had been four years since she secluded herself in the Magic Tower she built and dove into Pure Magic. The patron, who had tilted his head curiously, suddenly stuck out his tongue and leaned in close.
“Gah!”
Tolari screamed and shoved the patron back.
“What the hell! I’ll kill you! You did this before—warn me before you shove it in my face!”
“My apologies. I was so eager my tongue moved first.”
The patron bowed, savoring the taste lingering on his tongue tip.
“It’s all a necessary process, so please bear with it. Hmm, but you’re still definitely weak.”
“Weak? At what?”
“The distortion of your emotions. Others have changed dramatically with the prince’s emergence, which is good…… but you really don’t care much about him, do you, Tolari? Even though you took that assassination commission.”
“Not exactly.”
Tolari propped one hand on her hip and frowned.
“The guy’s been making waves lately, right? Things have been so stagnant for me—fighting him might give me a spark.”
“That’s the problem—your interest ends there. You need deeper madness, Tolari.”
“Deeper than this?”
Tolari spread her arms wide in disbelief.
“I’ve been holed up in a Magic Tower in the middle of uninhabited wasteland for four years. What more do you want? You want me to actually lose my mind?”
“I mean jealousy or rage.”
“Huh?”
“Self-loathing or inferiority would work too. The issue is your emotions don’t align with what I desire. But well…….”
The patron smacked his lips and slowly nodded.
“Your obsession is top-notch. The pure, undistorted kind bothers me a bit, but this should be enough for me to grant your second wish.”
“Second?”
Tolari’s eyes widened, her body stiffening.
“There’s a second wish? I thought it was one and done?”
“I must not have explained fully at first. There’s a second, of course. Ultimately, even a third is possible.”
“Then…… don’t tell me…….”
“Yes. What is your wish?”
“Pure Magic! Pure Magic! Pure Magic!”
Tolari shook the patron’s body wildly, shouting like a broken toy.
“Make it so I can use Pure Magic! Doesn’t have to be forever—just once, right now! Please, let me fire off one shot!”
“That won’t do.”
Even as she shook him violently, the patron firmly shook his head.
“Pure Magic is the ultimate realm of magic. There are several steps you must take. Right?”
“That’s…….”
“You’re probably feeling it by now. To achieve Pure Magic, you need compression far beyond Tempest-level spells—but the human brain can’t handle that computation.”
“It’s possible!”
Tolari bristled as if her entire life had been denied.
“It is! I’ve already adapted Double Magic for double the compression.”
“Double Magic is a necessary base step, sure. But is double enough? You need far more intense, advanced compression.”
“That’s…….”
“In the end, the human brain has limits. The neural network acceleration has a cap.”
“A cap?”
“A safeguard against overload. Sheer will alone can’t break it. So the key is…….”
The patron drew a slender syringe with a needle from his pocket and said.
“To discard your heart.”