I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 108

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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 108
I carefully examined the mechanical devices of M.G.R’s codename operative, The Old Master.
Maestro Giovanni Russo.
The equipment created by the old man who stood at the pinnacle of Master Craftsmen was certainly… worthy of being called genuine craftsmanship.
Though complex in appearance, it was intuitive enough that by pressing a few buttons and examining its design, one could easily understand the principles governing its operation.
‘It resembled some of what I’d seen at Lost Honor…’
This space, closer to a precision chemical laboratory than alchemy, had been designed to control even the minutest flows of mana.
If there was one drawback.
It was far too ‘conservative.’
Likely because Earth’s level of alchemy was so primitive.
‘At this rate, I won’t achieve the refinement I need.’
“Whitey.”
[Understood. I will force all device mana conductivity to 120% overclock.]
A low mechanical hum resonated through the workshop as a bluish light suffused the interior.
I laid out World Tree materials from my spatial pouch in a line.
I ground the branches into fine silver powder and mixed it with the emerald extract from the leaves, creating a thick paste.
[Agent, mana density has reached critical threshold. Adding more solution will cause an explosion.]
“That’s exactly why I need Giovanni’s equipment.”
I transferred the World Tree’s dew into a dropper and began carefully controlling each drop.
This dropper was a masterpiece.
In alchemy, there exists a concept called ‘the subtlety of a single drop.’
When a single drop is considered 100%, whether you add 99.9% or 99.8% determines whether it explodes or succeeds, whether it degrades or strengthens.
The higher the grade of alchemy, the more critical this single drop’s subtlety becomes.
This dropper could adjust drops with such precision that it truly captured this essence.
The physical force of pressing the dropper. The mana enabling fine control.
A tool that simultaneously reflected all of these elements.
‘How was this even made?’
I felt genuine wonder.
Drip. Another drip.
Each time the transparent dew touched the paste, the mana particles that had been repelling each other began to fuse as if by magic.
This was the core of the fusion solution.
The reason Master Craftsmen struggle most when handling mana stones.
It stems from the stubborn nature inherent in mana stones.
Mana stones refuse to mix with other materials.
Yet if one attempts it by force?
—You touched me? I’ll self-destruct.
…It loses its efficacy.
In severe cases, it even explodes.
But the World Tree is infinite and the pure source of all life.
Its essence possessed a nature that embraced and soothed even the sharpest mana in existence.
I pulled the machine’s lever, initiating the high-pressure compression process.
Now that I’d come this far, the rest was simple.
First, I needed seven batches of dough prepared this way.
The next method was…
Activating the alchemical equipment…
Using the seven batches of dough…
“I’ll spare you the tedious details of the rest.”
A soft shimmer filled the air.
“Complete…!”
I poured the finished liquid into a small vial and held it up to the light.
At first glance, it resembled a beautiful violet potion, but within it lay the primordial essence of magical stones, refined and rendered capable of blending with any material imaginable.
“This should do nicely.”
Based on my analysis, Master Craftsmen are invariably vulnerable to objects that shatter their common sense.
For Maestro Giovanni Russo, who had spent his entire life battling the rejection of magical stones, this solution was far more than a mere potion—it was the very “divine substance” he had sought his whole life.
In other words, this was a divine elixir that should never exist in this age…!
Now, all that remained was…
“Finished sightseeing? Time to go.”
* * *
Jang Ho-hyun considered himself nothing more than “one unremarkable assassin among many.”
But reality painted a different picture.
The undisputed king of assassination.
That was Jang Ho-hyun.
The reason he was called the “Silent Assassin” rather than epithets like “King of Darkness” or “Emperor of Death” was singular.
He never leaked killing intent.
An assassin who had even murdered his own will to kill.
Thus, the epithet spoken with reverence by those in the assassination trade was simply…
“Silence.”
When Min Ji-hee, the vice president, had confiscated his illegal modification workshop—a place as vital as his own soul—and ordered him to serve as guide to its new master, Jang Ho-hyun had regarded it as merely a somewhat tedious errand.
Nothing more than that.
“Greetings, Apostle. I am Jang Ho-hyun.”
He materialized before the man called Apostle and delivered his brief greeting.
The moment the Apostle’s head turned slowly and their gazes locked…
‘…!’
He felt his heart pierced through, freezing solid.
Jang Ho-hyun found himself unable to breathe.
The Apostle’s face bore no emotion whatsoever.
Not the faintest hint of curiosity or surprise at his sudden emergence from thin air—only a perfect, mineral-like expression.
It was an absolute indifference far deeper and more distant than even that of someone trained as an assassin.
Jang Ho-hyun instinctively scrutinized that face in meticulous detail.
His seasoned assassin’s eyes easily discerned the camouflage artifact layered across the Apostle’s visage.
Was it because of an artifact?
No. No, it wasn’t.
Jang Ho-hyun sensed it instinctively.
Beneath that leather mask, the true face hidden away would wear that same chilling, expressionless visage.
But more than that…
what was truly terrifying
was those eyes.
‘…Ugh.’
Jang Ho-hyun swallowed the groan threatening to escape.
I had witnessed countless eyes throughout my life.
The hideous despair of those writhing at death’s threshold.
The tears shed by arrogant wielders of power as fear crushed them—I had grown weary of witnessing such sights.
Yet what I had witnessed most often were pupils clouding and dimming as the final spark of life flickered and faded.
I had shaped such ‘death’ countless times with my own hands and endured it,
and yet… the Apostle’s eyes were unbearable to behold.
An instinctive urge to avert my gaze seized me.
But I could not simply look away.
As though daring to evade those eyes was forbidden.
Those pupils gazed directly into the depths of my being.
‘Those aren’t human eyes… no.’
The concentration of death contained within them was so heavy and dense that everything I had endured could be dismissed as ‘trivial.’
And transcending even death itself, there dwelt a void where nothing remained.
The abyssal depths where no light ever touched—an eternity of darkness.
Or perhaps the emptiness of a cosmos beyond ten thousand light-years, where every star had exhausted its lifespan and perished.
That pitch-black abyss gazed directly through the Apostle’s eyes into my very soul.
Cold sweat poured down my spine like rain.
‘Don’t look. That’s… something you mustn’t gaze into.’
Death itself whispered.
Only then did those eyes release me.
That’s how it felt.
I immediately cast my gaze downward.
Despite the eye contact lasting mere seconds, my mind reeled as though I had wandered through hell itself and returned.
Then, the Apostle’s head tilted ever so slightly.
That minute movement alone forced me to suppress the trembling that seized every muscle in my body as terror overwhelmed me.
“—Who is that?”
What happened after that.
I don’t remember.
I answered his questions truthfully.
After escaping that place and meeting Min Ji-hee,
despite having endured such bone-chilling terror, I had to fulfill my duty as guide by hiding in a corner of my old workshop to keep watch over the Apostle.
And now.
Maintaining perfect concealment while pressed against the workshop wall, Jang Ho-hyun’s inner world churned like a rollercoaster in free fall.
‘S-s-such a p-precious thing…!’
He nearly broke his concealment and cried out loud.
Scattered across the table were silver branches brimming with dense vitality and emerald leaves.
The concentrated mana waves they emanated seemed to purify the very air within the workshop.
Jang Ho-hyun himself had considerable expertise in alchemy, having personally concocted poisons for assassinations and sold potions for substantial profit.
His eyes instantly recognized what those materials were.
‘C-could that possibly be World Tree material!!!’
The very same material that had sent the alchemy industry into upheaval when the United States’ 70th-floor conquest team—humanity’s current vanguard—miraculously obtained a single ‘fragment’!
A legendary item that even money-drenched America had never obtained in complete form, not even once!
Yet the Apostle was casually tossing these precious World Tree materials into a mortar as if they were branches picked from a neighborhood hillside, and began grinding them.
That was where Jang Ho-hyun’s common sense began to crumble.
‘Kyaaaaa! No! Please stop!!!’
Jang Ho-hyun watched the Apostle’s hand movements with tears of blood streaming down his face.
Alchemy is the flower of magical engineering and the pinnacle of precision.
A 0.001g weight error, the slightest humidity fluctuation in the air, even whether the materials are mixed clockwise or counterclockwise—any of these can transform the result into deadly poison or a vicious explosive.
This is why alchemists set up measuring devices worth hundreds of millions of mana, conducting experiments in vacuum chambers while holding their very breath.
But what was this man doing right now?
A measuring cup?
Not using one.
A calibrated electronic scale?
Not even glancing at it.
He simply eyeballed rough portions, then kneaded and mixed them together like clay.
“Whitey.”
[Understood. I will forcefully overclock the mana conductivity of all devices to 120%.]
Whiiiiiing—!!
The entire workshop began vibrating with a sound that seemed ready to tear the building apart.
The cutting-edge alchemy equipment worth 800 million points, crafted by Maestro Giovanni Russo of Italy, glowed fiery red as it struggled against the non-standard mana being forcefully injected into it.
‘I-insane! Completely mad!’
Jang Ho-hyun’s pupils trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
The mixture was already insane enough without any proper measurements.
And now, exceeding the machine’s limit of 100%, forcing 120% mana into it?
The needle on the mana density gauge mounted on the workshop wall pierced through the red danger zone, shattered the glass, and flew off.
[Agent, mana density has reached critical threshold. If you mix in more solution, it will explode.]
“That’s why I need Giovanni’s equipment.”
‘Even if the equipment is premium, it’s still going to blow!’
The moment Jang Ho-hyun drew defensive mana throughout his entire body in preparation for the coming explosion and squeezed his eyes shut—
From the Apostle’s hand, a single luminous drop of ‘dew’ precariously fell onto the bubbling mixture with a soft tap.
‘Huh?’
It had gone quiet…?
Just moments before, the Apostle’s mixture had been thrashing about as if the particles were tearing each other apart.
But the instant the dew touched it.
A distant… energy flowed out and suppressed the mixture.
The mana particles that had been on the verge of self-destruction flattened out and began harmonizing into a cohesive mass.
The climax came when the Apostle pulled the machine’s lever to initiate the high-pressure compression process.
“I’ll spare you the tedious details of what comes next.”
After some incomprehensible gesture.
A violet flash erupted!
The intermediate stabilization process, the mana filtration stage…
And roughly forty other procedural steps were simply skipped over.
“Voilà.”
As the expressionless Apostle murmured those words.
…the divine potion was complete.
‘This can’t be real….’
This, or rather, that.
Was that alchemy?
…Then what have I been doing all this time?
Jang Ho-hyun’s mind had completely shattered.
As if he’d been waiting for that very moment, the Apostle holding the potion turned to face Jang Ho-hyun.
“Done watching?”
Jang Ho-hyun crawled out sluggishly.
“Apostle… what exactly was that just now?”
The Apostle answered.
“I just mixed it together roughly.”
“R, roughly…!”
The Apostle stuffed the potion into his backpack.
“Now, let’s go meet Giovanni. Show me the way.”

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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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