Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 32

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 32. The Tower – Escort (1)

A mere thousand years? That’s nothing.
I’m not some fantasy dragon or elf.
Still, the Middle-aged Man before me seemed to have gone mad in his own refined way.
At least he hadn’t smeared excrement on the walls or suddenly attacked me.
The Middle-aged Man drew a deep breath and spoke in a measured tone.
“With your talent, you wouldn’t necessarily need to seek out the Magic Tower Branch in the 20th or 30th Floor districts. However, they possess their own unique magic, so it wouldn’t be unwise to visit them. But be cautious. I don’t know which city you’ll end up in, but mages with enough discipline to suppress jealousy like I do are rare.”
“…Even if The Tower’s Apostle comes and drags me away?”
“People who know that committing murder gets them arrested don’t commit it impulsively.”
A perfectly logical answer.
Damn it—was I in danger just now?
“Don’t think of it that way. If someone doesn’t envy talent that he recognizes, they’re disqualified as a mage. However, since he was aware of my discipline, he must have sent you here.”
I had no idea who the Librarian Elder was, but he seemed to have blinders on—thick ones.
“Ah… yes, thank you.”
Even as I thanked him, I wondered if I should really be grateful that he hadn’t committed crimes against me.
Not committing crimes is common sense.
Criminals are the ones being irrational and inhuman.
So I’d count my gratitude as being for the magic he taught me and the grimoire he gave me.
He’d given me valuable knowledge in return for just showing him Mana Bullet.
I immediately sent the grimoire through my inventory to my main body on Tower Floor 1 and left the Magic Tower Branch.
“Damn it—I’m never setting foot in this place again. It’s terrifying.”
Avoiding a madman possessed by demonic cultivation is common sense.
I never thought I’d witness firsthand the demonic cultivation that I’d only heard about in Galactic Martial Arts World internet posts.
I didn’t know demonic cultivation could strike even when learning magic instead of martial arts.

* * *

I returned to the Inn and flipped through the grimoire, and to summarize its contents, it was merely an extension of the fundamental magic the Middle-aged Man at the Magic Tower Branch had demonstrated.
Conjuring fire and shaping it into forms—blades, arrows, walls—then wielding, firing, and blocking with them.
It detailed how to sculpt and manipulate each element based on its properties.
Beyond that, it contained methods for simultaneously creating multiple elements and fusing them together.
For example, creating water and releasing heat to form ice, or absorbing heat to create mist.
Complex mathematical formulas expressed the flow of mana for this purpose, and when I sketched graphs on paper to verify them, they were certainly intuitive.
I’d wondered why magic was expressed through mathematical formulas, but there was nothing quite like graphs for representing the movement of mana.
Still, couldn’t these basic graphs just be expressed as drawings instead?
Ah, perhaps it’s because blueprints would take up too much space?
But then, why do incantations even exist?
I couldn’t figure it out. No matter how much I studied, self-teaching had its limits.
Having a master would be convenient, but I hesitated to visit the Magic Tower Branch or forge connections with The Tower’s mages.
“Once I reach the 20th Floor, I’ll gain three slots, right? Then I’ll use one slot to explore the magical world.”
Since reincarnation takes far too much time, I’ll simply create a clone for the third slot.
I can decide whether to reincarnate after observing the world’s circumstances.
When my multidimensional avatar reaches level 20, it might gain new abilities like reincarnation and the three-dimensional avatar did, so I should experiment with those abilities too.
“Now I’ll sleep.”
The sun had completely set, and darkness filled the window. I lay in bed and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

I woke early the next morning, performed my breathing cultivation, and headed outside the City.
I’d arranged to meet Lee Su-young around 10 a.m. to ascend to the 12th Floor, so I decided to test my magic in the grassland outside the City first.
While Goblins appeared if I ventured into the Forest, practicing against them amid all those obstacles seemed impractical, so I chose to experiment with my magic against Horned Rabbits and Blade Roosters lurking in the grassland’s brush instead.
Flame magic seemed dangerous if it caused a fire, so I tested wind and water magic instead, using pressure bullets and water orbs.
“Wow, it takes far more mana than I expected to generate real power.”
Actually landing hits proved less difficult than I’d anticipated.
After selecting a target, I created a thread-like path with mana and fired it, and like a guided projectile, it curved slightly through the air and struck true.
However, making it a guided projectile consumed two or three times more mana than simply firing it straight.
But if I just fired it directly, my aim suffered, so I had no choice.
After hunting about thirty Horned Rabbits and Blade Roosters, harvesting their mana stones, and selling the carcasses to a butcher, I returned to the Inn Room and filled my dantian with inner energy through breathing cultivation.
By then it was nearly 10 a.m., so I hurried to our meeting place.
“You’re late, aren’t you? Did you oversleep?”
“No, I went outside the City for a bit of practice.”
“Practice?”
In response to Lee Su-young’s question, I conjured a small flame at my fingertip.
“Magic?! Did you obtain magic through that…?”
Lee Su-young tactfully mouthed the words “ability stone” without speaking them aloud.
I’d thought so before, but she had quite good instincts.
“No. I discovered there was a Magic Tower Branch in this City, so I learned the fundamentals of magic there.”
“What? There’s a place like that?! Could I… could I learn there too?”
Faced with her innocent curiosity and hopeful expression, I shook my head firmly.
“I’ll teach you instead. I don’t think you should go there.”
“Why not?”
“The owner there is a bit unhinged. I’m never going back.”
At my resolute words, Lee Su-young only grew more curious about the Magic Tower Branch.
“I’m serious. When I used magic, she told me I should be grateful she didn’t kill me because of her deep spiritual cultivation.”
The phrasing was a bit off, but it wasn’t a lie.
Watching someone experience jealousy and demonic possession over a complete newcomer—someone who could barely be called a novice, with only a single Level 1 mana bolt as their only usable spell—made it hard to believe she had any deep spiritual cultivation at all.
“Oh, then I won’t go either.”
“Good thinking. If you don’t trust my teaching, just learn from the Magic Tower Branch on the 20th Floor or in another City. Anywhere but here.”
The Magic Tower Branch wasn’t known on the 10th Floor, but according to Community information, from the 20th Floor onward, the Magic Tower Branch was apparently quite substantial in scale.
I absolutely must never mention meeting the Librarian Elder there.
“Ah, while using magic, I realized that shooting homing projectiles like the Blade Rooster does isn’t easy. I think I finally understand why I can’t fire multiple shots at once.”
“Huh? The water spheres the Blade Rooster shoots aren’t homing projectiles though?”
“What!? They’re not homing, yet they hit with such accuracy?”
At my words, Lee Su-young responded as if it were obvious.
“I did archery, you know. I’m the one targeting and shooting every single one. So I thought they were homing projectiles this whole time?”
“Uh, uh-huh.”
“Haha! That can’t be right. You hit with every throwing hatchet too, and you’re exaggerating.”
No, I’ve never actually hit where I was aiming even once.
It’s all just pure luck… but I couldn’t say that without losing face, so I just nodded.
“Y-yeah, that’s right.”
From now on, I should just shoot homing projectiles even if they consume more mana.
No, let’s just use a sword instead. When did I even start using magic?
Lee Su-young and I placed our hands on the crystal and ascended.

* * *

The Quest on the 12th Floor was straightforward.
A Farmer had requested that I defeat the Sky Beasts attempting to steal grain from his rice fields.
The problem was that these Sky Beasts were as enormous as eagles.
Worse still, they bore blades on their legs like a Blade Rooster.
I attacked with magic bullets that consumed minimal mana, while Lee Su-young unleashed arrows and water orbs from her water spirit companion, but whenever we brought down a few airborne creatures, dozens more would descend to the ground, peck away at the grain, then flee skyward.
Once they took flight, they performed evasive maneuvers at great altitude, dodging arrows and water orbs with such skill that capturing them proved nearly impossible.
After casting magic several times and growing frustrated, I used my clone ability to purchase nets from the shop and receive them through my inventory, then the moment the Sky Beasts descended to peck at grain, I hurled the nets and captured them instantly.
The synthetic fibers—products of 50th-century space engineering—were far too resilient for the blades on their legs to tear through.
The Sky Beasts trapped in the nets became food for my blade.
After repeating this process several times, the Quest was completed within an hour.
“Would you consider selling me that net? I’ll pay 2,000 credits—no, 3,000 credits!”
The Farmer pleaded with me, regarding my net as though it were a precious treasure.
It wasn’t that the Farmer had simply chosen not to use nets all this time.
The blades attached to those legs shredded any net he attempted to use, rendering them worthless.
So imagine his longing upon discovering a net that wouldn’t be torn apart by those very blades.
I sold him the net I’d impulsively purchased for 3,000 credits.
I’d bought it for 20,000 won, and selling it for 3,000 credits—300,000 won—was certainly profitable for me.
Given the Farmer’s desperation, I could have sold it for triple that price, but I had no desire to exploit another’s misfortune for excessive gain.
Instead, I sold him five additional nets as backup.
The Farmer was delighted to have more nets available, and I was equally pleased with the unexpected windfall.
“Big brother, is your inventory different from mine? Why do you have so many nets?”
“Haha, they’re lighter than they look, I assure you. Now that we’ve finished early, let’s head to the next floor immediately.”
I urged us onward to the next level.
Tower Floor 13 proved equally manageable.
The 13th Floor’s Quest wasn’t a wish granted by someone in The Tower, but rather to exterminate a Goblin Lair that had undergone abnormal proliferation.
Finding the Goblin Lair within the forest wasn’t difficult.
By pursuing the Goblins wandering through the woods, they led me directly back to their lair.
The Goblin Lair appeared to be a natural cave formed by geological processes.
Lee Su-young worried about fighting in the darkness, but I saw it differently.
If entering an enemy’s lair was dangerous, then simply not entering seemed the obvious solution.
I tracked the Goblins to a Bamboo Grove I’d discovered earlier, cut bamboo stalks, and fashioned a simple barricade using rope.
“Where did you learn to make something like this?”
“The Military.”
In the Military, we often constructed makeshift barricades with spikes for vehicle control.
Typically these were welded from rebar and steel pipes, or rebar and steel plates, but as the saying goes, if you lack teeth, you chew with your gums.
I improvised with rope and sharpened bamboo stalks instead.
The proper knots to keep everything secure were naturally something I’d learned in the Military as well.
Back then, I’d performed the tedious labor without realizing I was learning anything—I’d thought the drill sergeant was just making us suffer—but clearly, one should embrace learning wherever it comes.
Who knew such skills would prove useful.
That said, this experience certainly hasn’t made me want to enlist again.
That place isn’t fit for anyone to live in.
Before we sealed the cave entrance with a barricade, Lee Su-young and I dealt with the Goblins wandering outside the lair.
Right after that, we blocked the cave entrance with a barricade.
I secured the barricade by burying its base deep into the earth using earth magic.
After sealing the entrance, I retrieved smoke bombs designed to exterminate space cockroaches—the kind that breed even on starships—lit them, reinforced my arm with inner energy, and hurled them deep into the cave.
The smoke bombs detonated, releasing thick toxic fumes.
I kept throwing in the cockroach extermination smoke bombs, the kind that would send even humans to the Hospital if inhaled for too long.
After tossing in about a dozen or so, acrid, dense smoke began pouring from the cave entrance, and I could hear the agonized screams of panicked Goblins along with the sound of them rushing toward the exit.
Lee Su-young, holding the bamboo spear I’d crafted instead of her bow, thrust and killed the Goblins as they rushed out.
I too diligently dispatched Goblins with my bamboo spear and shoved their corpses aside.
“Oppa, the superpower you received—it’s not martial arts, is it? It’s something like a special shop, right? Combat gear, nets, all sorts of strange things keep appearing?”
“Stop talking and keep stabbing! They keep coming!”
Sharp girl.
Or maybe I was being careless.
Still, there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t sacrifice convenience just to avoid raising suspicion among my party members.
If Lee Su-young wants to keep partying with me, she’ll simply assume I have some secrets and let it slide.
After stabbing for quite a while, lunchtime arrived.
I pulled out a sandwich I’d bought on the 10th Floor and asked.
“It’s still early—want to head up?”
Lee Su-young, who went “Yum!” and bit into the sandwich I gave her, nodded.
“Let’s rest a bit.”
“Good idea.”
We had annihilated two hundred Goblins and twelve Hop Goblins.

(To be continued in the next chapter)

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