Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 161

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 161. Galaxy Martial God Hall – School Trip (15)

Ding—!
As the bell chimed, the Kidnapper A’s neck tensed and he fought back against my magic.
But he was already being pushed toward the boundary between nightmare and reality.
He bit his tongue, struggling not to fall asleep, and glared at me with bloodshot eyes.
Ding—!
The bell chimed again, and he slipped further across that boundary, now stepping with one foot fully into the nightmare.
By now, this place would appear more nightmare than reality in his perception.
The Kidnapper A, deciding this wouldn’t do, lunged at me and tried to leap up toward the upper level where I stood.
Ding—!
As the bell sounded, he lost his sense of direction and crashed not into the ceiling hole but straight into the wall.
Indeed, with the Hwagyeong body channeling full force into that blow, the wall shattered beyond recognition—like those crispy wafer cookies that crumble spectacularly under the slightest pressure, it disintegrated into powder.
The Kidnapper A, his face flushed crimson with veins bulging prominently, barely regained his balance and stared at me with bloodshot eyes.
Then he vomited blood like a waterfall from his mouth.
“Haaagh!”
“Signs of Demonic Possession. He’s going berserk!”
At Teacher Kim Do-hwa’s tense warning, I shook the bell once more.
Ding—!
“J-Ji-woo!”
Cheon So-yeon gasped, looking at my face.
Feeling warm liquid on my face, I touched it and found blood pouring from my nose like a tap turned all the way open.
“It’s fine. To capture someone of Hwagyeong’s caliber, this much is a price I have to pay.”
Right now, I was locked in a contest of Internal Power with a Hwagyeong martial master.
Of course, I had the advantage through poison and various drugs, but still.
Even so, it was the physical body that channeled the Mana used for magic.
With my three centers already destabilized, using excessive Mana was bound to cause injury.
Ding—!
“Cough!”
I too suffered internal injuries and was about to collapse, vomiting blood.
If Cheon So-yeon hadn’t rushed to support me in alarm, I would have toppled forward and fallen to the level below.
“…That’s enough.”
I’d pushed him completely into the abyss of nightmare.
“Phew, if his willpower had been just a bit stronger, I would’ve been the one heading for the exit first.”
Pushing the Hwagyeong monster completely into unconscious nightmare had exhausted not only my Astral Body but nearly all the Internal Power in my Dantian.
“Ji-woo, are you alright?”
Cheon So-yeon examined me with a worried expression, and I offered a weak smile.
“I’m fine. Just a bit tired.”
“Fine, my foot! How did you break the seal?”
As expected, she caught on immediately.
“There are ways for everything.”
My Mana-starved paper birds finished their role and burst into flames in midair, preserving the security.
As my sense perception returned, freedom flooded back like a blind man regaining his sight.
“Before this one wakes, we need to dispose of him.”
Teacher Kim Do-hwa drew his sword, but I quickly waved him off.
“Just leave him as is. If we disturb him now after putting him to sleep, he’ll go berserk.”
A martial master’s survival instinct shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Touch him now and even unconscious, he’d likely attack us with the martial arts carved into his very bones.
At my words, Teacher Kim Do-hwa sheathed his sword and nodded.
With Cheon So-yeon’s support, I descended through the hole below and drew a circle around the Kidnapper A, inscribing a simple formation.
“What kind of formation is that?”
“Reverse Recovery. In other words, a formation that inhibits healing.”
Left as is, he might recover from his wounds or restore his Internal Power.
Blood was still flowing from the hole I’d torn in his abdomen and the gash on his shoulder, but as a Hwagyeong martial artist, he wouldn’t die.
If he did, that would be unavoidable.
“Sigh, this is exhausting. How are we going to catch the remaining ones?”
By my count, there were still two or three enemies left.
Now that I’d taken down the Hwagyeong opponent, the balance of power had shifted in our favor, but facing an Ultimate Master still meant risking our lives.
My phone and Teacher Kim Do-hwa’s buzzed simultaneously.
“Looks like we won’t need to catch them ourselves.”
At Teacher Kim Do-hwa’s words, I checked my phone and found that Blue Eyes, the resort’s AI, had sent over CCTV footage.
It showed the Cheon Family’s rescue spaceship descending toward the planet.
“Blue Eyes, what about the remaining students and teachers?”
-All survivors have evacuated to the spaceship landing site.
The word “survivors” landed heavy.
Several teachers, including the Vice Principal, had perished.
“Then we need to evacuate too.”
Teacher Kim Do-hwa turned his back to me as he spoke.
“Climb on. We need to get out of here fast.”
“Ha, then I’ll take you up on that.”
My Internal Power and Mana were nearly depleted, so my regeneration wasn’t working properly, leaving my legs unsteady.
As I climbed onto Teacher Kim Do-hwa’s back, Cheon So-yeon pouted slightly.
“I could carry someone too.”
“I’m still taller than you, and your feet would drag on the ground.”
Despite inheriting the Cheon bloodline, Cheon So-yeon wasn’t particularly tall.
“No time to bicker. You know how to use Lightness Skill, don’t you? Run!”
Clinging to Teacher Kim Do-hwa’s back, I sprinted toward the spaceship landing site.

* * *

The middle-aged man who had infiltrated as an engineer continued sending transmissions to his commander.
“Damn it, we’re getting nowhere.”
Could there really be an enemy capable of standing against a Hwagyeong Martial Master?
Looking up anxiously, I spotted the Cheon Family’s spaceship descending.
The fact that a rescue ship was already coming down meant a distress signal had been sent long before their operation truly began.
The mission was a complete failure.
Even if they launched the escape shuttle they’d prepared, enemy ships would shoot it down.
And what awaited them was the horrific torture meant to extract information about whoever was behind this.
After such horrors, death would come—or worse. Better to end it here and now, at least with some dignity preserved.
Since taking on such a dishonorable assignment, he’d steeled himself for an inglorious death, yet now that it approached, bitterness filled him.
“If I can’t escape, neither can any of you.”
The middle-aged man swallowed poison and initiated the final protocol his commander had instructed him to carry out in the gym.
As the toxin worked through him, his complexion turned a sickly blue and fever wracked his body.
The Ultimate Master realm granted some resistance to the poison.
Even as his mind swam in delirium from the burning heat, he found solace in knowing this was better than torture by the Cheon Family, and his life slipped away.

* * *

When we reached the landing site, I was classified as a casualty and laid on a medical stretcher.
“My god, your internal injuries are severe, and your left arm is broken.”
When I’d blocked that Hwagyeong fighter’s fist with my arm, it must have snapped then.
The arm was swollen, but it wasn’t dangling loose—a clean break, by the looks of it.
A medical officer with a license took one look at my condition and gasped before rushing to administer first aid.
They fitted a splint on my arm and attached various things—painkillers, blood transfusion packs, and more.
They’d managed to bring all this while fleeing.
Once my Internal Power recovered, injuries like these would regenerate easily.
I tried to pull a Mana Recovery Potion from my inventory, but there was none.
Ah, that must have been the last one I’d consumed when recovering the Internal Power I’d expended creating a clone and growing my Astral Body.
I could buy more, but Energy Breathing would do just as well, so there was no rush.
Besides, I still had quite a bit of Spirit Medicine left, which I’d prepared for Internal Power recovery—not as immediate as a potion, but serviceable.
Soon the transport spaceship settled into the landing site, and I, being wounded, was loaded aboard first on the stretcher.
Children and teachers quickly boarded the rescue vessel, the doors sealed, and we began to rise slowly into the air.
The inside of the transport ship, unlike a passenger vessel, was bare as a cargo hold.
Though the cockpit and the waiting area for soldiers were in separate compartments, the interior was surprisingly more spacious than its exterior suggested.
As we lifted into the sky, something went wrong—suddenly, red warning lights flashed and an alarm wailed.
The children and teachers, unsure what was happening, trembled with anxiety, and Cheon So-yeon gripped my hand.
“Hold on a moment.”
I sat up, consumed some Spirit Medicine, began Energy Breathing, and simultaneously used the small amount of Mana I’d recovered to create a Mage’s Eye, projecting it outside the ship.
Ordinarily, you can’t do anything else while performing Energy Breathing, but even so, during Minor Circulation for simple Internal Power replenishment, simpler tasks were more or less possible.
Internal cultivation is typically static meditation, but there’s also dynamic cultivation where you move your body while circulating energy, isn’t there?
Of course, if I said something like this, I’d get scolded for talking nonsense.
But still, without Mana, you can’t use magic.
The bluish horizon seen through the Mage’s Eye and the cosmic landscape beyond it were remarkably beautiful.
Lowering my gaze, I saw turrets and missile batteries installed at the resort for military purposes, aimed directly at our spacecraft.
What? I thought I’d regained central control?!
The image of the kidnapper in janitor’s clothes I’d encountered at the gym flashed through my mind.
In that moment, I understood why the defense system was operational.
It was just like when my central control had been seized and I’d turned the CCTV screens to my side.
They were operating the defense system not from the central control computer, but from an external one.
Unlike me, they wouldn’t be constantly attempting to hack the central control computer, so they’d be subdued quickly enough.
The problem was that the time until that subdual was far too generous.
Missiles launched from the missile batteries stationed across the snowy plain of the asteroid, streaking toward the spacecraft.
At this rate, we’re done for! Damn it! I should have stopped by that gym after all!
The moment I thought that, someone burst out from the spacecraft, bare-handed.
A man emerged bound by special cables, moving his hand lightly.
“Crack!” Sparks erupted, and a palm strike sent a shockwave that detonated every missile hurtling toward the spacecraft.
At the same time, the spacecraft shook violently.
“Kyaaaah!”
The children screamed as the spacecraft trembled.
On the surface, the missile batteries reloaded and prepared to fire again.
The man outside the spacecraft threw a few casual punches, and the snowy plain of the asteroid was utterly devastated.
“Wow, what the hell?”
I put on the Appraisal Glasses and looked at the man through the Mage’s Eye.

[Name: Cheon Gyeong-ho / Age: 514]
[Strength: 90 / Agility: 89 / Stamina: 90 / Intelligence: 45 / Mana: 87]
[Status: Normal]
[Ability: Martial Arts Lv 90]

The man who had burst outside the spacecraft was Cheon Gyeong-ho, the Outer Patriarch of the Cheon Family Clan—my grandfather, whose face I had never once seen.
I’d thought they’d send at most a few military units with Hwagyeong practitioners, but for the Outer Patriarch himself to come directly was unexpected.
At my exclamation, Teacher Kim Do-hwa, who had been holding me and Cheon So-yeon so our bodies wouldn’t be thrown about, asked me a question.
“Do you know what’s happening outside?”
“Yes. The Outer Patriarch just sterilized the asteroid. I’ve only heard of a Jayeongyeong Martial Master in stories, but this is impressive. Devastating an entire asteroid with just a few light punches.”
The Outer Patriarch, Cheon Gyeong-ho, known as “Thousand Lightning Sword,” was a renowned master of Jayeongyeong and one of the Galaxy 100 Masters.
In any world, anywhere, people loved to make rankings.
The Galactic Martial Arts World was no exception—though each faction had its own criteria and order for ranking.
Some magazines even ranked the Galaxy 10,000 Masters.
Among the many media outlets and organizations that ranked masters, the most authoritative were the Joint Investigation Committee of the Beggar’s Sect and the Hao Sect, with their Galaxy 100 Masters Registry.
The criteria set by the Beggar’s Sect and Hao Sect for their hundred masters were quite strict—first, those in the Transcendent Realm were excluded as Heavenly Transcendence, and among those who hadn’t retired and had official activity within the past twenty years, they ranked everyone from the Ten Kings Below Heaven to the True Masters without distinction.
Twenty years might seem long, but among the top hundred masters, none were under three hundred years old, so it wasn’t actually that extended a period.
At my mention of sterilizing the asteroid, Teacher Kim Do-hwa was startled.
“Student Cheon Ji-woo. Even a Jayeongyeong master couldn’t devastate an entire asteroid with just a few light punches.”
“But he is doing it?”
At my response, Teacher Kim Do-hwa hesitated slightly.
“…Then the Outer Patriarch isn’t in the Jayeongyeong realm.”
“Then what?”
“If what you’re saying is true, the Outer Patriarch must have reached the Seongyagyeong realm.”
A master who has reached Seongyagyeong has an appropriate Tower level of around ninety.
A monster who can casually sterilize an entire asteroid alone, ranked at ninety…
What on earth is the Tower?
Leaving that mystery behind, the spacecraft cruised safely away from the asteroid.
What had been scheduled as a five-night, six-day school trip ended as a one-night, two-day excursion.

(To be continued in the next installment)

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————