Even if I Make It Roughly, Ex-rank Items Continue to Accumulate - Chapter 143

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Even Hastily Made Ones Keep Stacking Up as EX-Rank (143)

 

Nightmare

 

It was excruciating pain.

 

Enough to make him want to abandon his work immediately and take a rest.

 

However, Lee Si-hyeok still concentrated his mind while clenching his molars tightly.

 

‘If I stop here, it’ll become even more dangerous.’

 

He knew it well.

 

That mana was like blood. He couldn’t give up hastily. If he couldn’t overcome the current pain and failed to properly recover the mana he had released from his body, an even greater backlash would come instead.

 

It was the price of being desperate about the immediate situation.

 

He could collapse from severe mana exhaustion, and in serious cases, it could even lead to brain damage. But the current situation was far more dire.

 

At this rate, probably…

 

‘…I’ll die.’

 

Literally instant death.

 

A truly desperate situation where he could neither continue like this nor just give up.

 

Lee Si-hyeok exhaled hot breath while devising a solution. He searched for a breakthrough amid the pain that rang through his head.

 

‘Should I try to recover mana little by little? Or should I stop and somehow recover even at the cost of brain damage…’

 

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind.

 

Though he had experienced moments of overcoming death crises several times, he never got used to it. His breathing was blocked up to his chin and his fingers trembled.

 

But after a while.

 

What came at the end was, somehow, a familiar sensation.

 

Among the sharp needles rampaging through his mind, something quietly revealed its presence. Did it flow out from Blackie’s belly?

 

He guessed so, but it wasn’t.

 

Rather, this sensation originated from Lee Si-hyeok himself.

 

Warm yet intense.

 

Like a single vine, it was tenacious, and the lush plant that grew that way blocked the pain in his stead.

 

Its identity was ‘ecstasy.’

 

An emotion that bloomed amid excruciating pain, completely out of place, was instead becoming Lee Si-hyeok’s barrier.

 

A smile formed on Lee Si-hyeok’s lips. Though his entire body had long been drenched in cold sweat, his crumpled expression smoothed out in an instant.

 

‘I can do it.’

 

He didn’t know why.

 

But vaguely.

 

Very vaguely, that feeling was building up.

 

Like when he stepped on the stairs of dreams he could never reach.

 

Like when he achieved one by one the people he thought he’d never meet, the places he thought he’d never go.

 

This vast space too – somehow he was confident he could figure it out.

 

Lee Si-hyeok chuckled. The pain remained, but all anxiety had lifted. He bit his molars hard and twisted up the corners of his mouth.

 

‘Give up? What give up.’

 

He released again the mana he had reflexively withdrawn.

 

The mana that flowed out through his fingertips touched the stabilized table once more. It rapidly broke through the space like the universe inside Blackie’s belly.

 

Then he felt a completely different sensation from before.

 

Though it was clearly the same vast space, Blackie’s mana didn’t block Lee Si-hyeok. He could explore the space a bit more softly and gently.

 

After pondering briefly, Lee Si-hyeok soon realized the reason.

 

Lee Si-hyeok’s mana.

 

Its inherent property of ‘warmth’ was softly enveloping this space itself.

 

If until just now it felt like forcibly prying open space with stiff wire, now it was like flexible silicon. Since nothing was blocked, there was no pain.

 

To be precise, it was more that there was less of it.

 

“…”

 

Mana branched into hundreds of streams swept through all the space.

 

It extended endlessly to search thoroughly, investigating all directions – up, down, left, right, east, west, north, south – without omission.

 

It was around that time he discovered that ether was spread uselessly wide, filling this space.

 

And the spreading mana finally reached the ‘end.’

 

Thud. With such a sound, the mana that touched an invisible wall bounced back powerlessly. He concentrated and examined it, but there were no other peculiarities.

 

Just that an intangible barrier was blocking progress beyond this point.

 

‘…Then I just need to push this barrier to expand it.’

 

As a result of looking around, there was no need to secure too much space.

 

This space was unbelievably vast to begin with. That was why it reminded him of Subspace. It was so wide that he couldn’t even imagine it being inside this insignificant cotton ball.

 

In other words, the space itself was originally sufficient.

 

The problem was that the waste was too severe.

 

The elements forming the ether weren’t concentrated in one place, but were spread widely with great distances between each other.

 

It was similar to the feeling of inconsiderate passengers who spread their legs unnecessarily wide on the subway.

 

Though they would clearly occupy only one seat if they closed their legs, they uselessly displayed the presence of their crotch, taking up two or three seats.

 

Naturally, seats would become insufficient.

 

Then he just needed to gather the scattered ones in one place.

 

‘Let’s start right away.’

 

Lee Si-hyeok immediately took action.

 

When he carefully recovered his mana, the branches that had spread to the ends of space gathered at the center at high speed.

 

He spread it out again to weakly grasp the ether scattered here and there. Ether had the property of destruction. If he grasped it too strongly, he could be inversely eroded.

 

Eventually, he gathered the elements that had been occupying useless space one by one. As carefully as possible. As he gradually began to position them like this, one concern came to mind.

 

What form would be good to consolidate them into now?

 

A pyramid form with stable structure?

 

A cube said to be effective for mana compression?

 

Or perhaps…

 

‘A sphere.’

 

A perfect circle without any creases.

 

Stable and showing excellent effects for mana compression, but an unfortunate form with somewhat ambiguous performance compared to the two forms mentioned earlier.

 

Nevertheless, a non-mainstream design that showed efficiency second to none only in the ‘adaptability’ department.

 

Though it wasn’t a commonly used form in modern magical engineering since artifact adaptation problems were solved by other methods, there was no design more suitable than this at this moment.

 

Because Lee Si-hyeok was currently doing the work of forcibly consolidating scattered ether.

 

Naturally, they would have to cause rejection reactions with each other.

 

“…”

 

Having finished his judgment, Lee Si-hyeok continued his work.

 

He slowly molded the gathered ether. Into a perfect circle shape, not an ellipse. With perfect composition without any deviation.

 

After a while, a sphere-shaped mass of elements floated up.

 

An infinite space like the universe. Ether that rose at the exact center coordinates of that space. An aggregate of pure and innocent destructive elements.

 

Space was no longer insufficient.

 

It was the moment he confirmed that once again.

 

—Ding!

 

[A change has occurred in Blackie’s internal circuits.]

 

[The original mana core that sustained life. A new substance to replace it has been discovered.]

 

[Ether Reactor – This is a new mana core.]

 

[Blackie’s existing mana core decomposes to expand the internal space. Through this process, Blackie’s size will grow slightly.]

 

[…]

 

[Blackie awakens.]

 

Several messages appeared simultaneously as Lee Si-hyeok recovered his mana. He slowly opened his closed eyes and read the text.

 

Just as he reached the last sentence.

 

Twitch.

 

A faint movement was felt beyond the blue window.

 

A presence that had been sleeping until now.

 

Struggling to hold up his body and mind that seemed ready to collapse at any moment, Lee Si-hyeok turned off the messages and quietly watched over the Stabilized Table.

 

Twitch, twitch…

 

A chuckle escaped him.

 

To think a mere cotton ball would cause him this much trouble.

 

After some time passed.

 

“…?”

 

Blackie’s eyes, which had been trembling for quite a while, finally opened.

 

The creature blinked its button-like eyes and turned its head to look around quickly. Its plump bottom kept wiggling as if trying to grasp the situation, until finally its gaze reached this direction.

 

Only then did it discover Lee Si-hyeok.

 

Its twitching bottom froze in place.

 

A few seconds that felt like minutes passed, and then.

 

“Ma, maang!”

 

The creature rushed straight into Lee Si-hyeok’s arms with a cry full of joy.

 

“I missed you, little guy!”

 

“Maaang!”

 

[You have succeeded in directly crafting 〈Blackie〉’s mana core.]

 

[Your connection with 〈Blackie〉 grows stronger. You can absorb more mana.]

 

[All fatigue is instantly recovered.]

 

* * *

 

Late dawn.

 

The Snow Flame Empress, lying on the wide bed, furrowed her brows. Her nose wrinkled and she bit her lips anxiously as if something was troubling her.

 

Yet her eyes remained closed, clearly the expression of someone having a nightmare.

 

“Ugh, uugh.”

 

Was it because she had worked so hard preparing food yesterday?

 

Or perhaps it was from putting on a solo fashion show, changing into dozens of dresses trying to look her best?

 

No one would know the truth, but it probably wasn’t either of those two reasons. The current situation was also related to her trauma.

 

She let out an anxious moan.

 

“Blackie, Blackie…”

 

Losing someone precious.

 

It would certainly be a wound.

 

But what if it wasn’t just one person, but hundreds or thousands?

 

What if it became a world-scale loss?

 

Would that truly be something a human could bear?

 

If one lost all those people and survived alone, dedicating their entire life to searching for those who were lost…

 

Would they still be able to maintain their sanity even then?

 

“Huuugh…”

 

In that regard, the Snow Flame Empress was quite an irregular.

 

Despite having trauma that others could hardly imagine, she had never once shown it.

 

Of course, she did eventually reveal it to Lee Si-hyeok, but that was because Lee Si-hyeok was perceptive, not because of her mistake. She had hidden it thoroughly and lived coldly.

 

Struggling desperately in unfamiliar places.

 

When she missed her homeland, she would turn all that attention to magical engineering and artifacts.

 

Sometimes she would get absorbed in ArtiNet, that… addictive community site.

 

But yesterday evening, her trauma surfaced again.

 

It couldn’t be helped. The moment the child called Blackie recognized her as its mother, she couldn’t help but feel responsible.

 

But it was Lee Si-hyeok, her benefactor, who had been raising Blackie, and after months of painful separation and waiting, they finally met again, but…

 

Blackie was in a comatose state.

 

It didn’t recognize its own mother.

 

“Keuugh.”

 

The Snow Flame Empress let out a startled breath as her nightmare seemed to intensify.

 

She looked as if she was suffering from sleep paralysis.

 

Her entire body was stiff and unable to move.

 

As if something heavy was pressing down on her body, the Snow Flame Empress’s brows wrinkled deeply.

 

She struggled like that for quite a while.

 

She tried desperately to escape from the nightmare that dug into her trauma, and made every effort to shake off the paralysis that kept her immobilized.

 

And then…

 

“Huh, huiit!”

 

After desperate struggling, she was finally able to open her eyes.

 

It felt as if the trauma that had been eating away at her mind had cleared up, even if just slightly.

 

She looked at the ceiling while breathing heavily.

 

But something was strange.

 

The feeling of sleep paralysis… this sensation of something heavy pressing down on her body still couldn’t be erased.

 

She blinked and tried moving her arms. But strangely, her arms moved just fine. Her toes wiggled normally too.

 

“Why is this happening…”

 

Only then did the Snow Flame Empress tilt her head and check below her neck. The weight seemed to be felt only on the upper part of her stomach for some reason.

 

And at that moment.

 

The moment she saw the pitch-black creature sitting on top of her stomach, her breath caught.

 

“…?”

 

Did it sense her gaze?

 

The creature that had been wiggling only its plump bottom finally turned around with a cute cry.

 

“Mang?”

 

The Snow Flame Empress had to think once more.

 

That she was still dreaming.

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