I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 43

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

Chapter 43
I’d given the Black Market an ultimatum: finish by tomorrow without fail.
‘But honestly, I doubt they’ll be done by tomorrow.’
I’d never harbored any real expectation that everything would be completed.
Even for the Black Market, procuring and transporting such an enormous quantity in a single day would take an eternity.
‘I should just go check on their progress.’
After eating, hunting a bit, and resting, it had already passed midnight.
The date had changed.
I checked the Quest again.
The Epic Quest’s objective was to awaken Lee Ah-woon to EX-rank.
The first step was to break Lee Ah-woon’s curse, which was why I’d fed him the ‘Pure Elixir’.
“Is it done?”
Lee Ah-woon still hadn’t regained consciousness.
It seemed the NPC Artier had moved him—he was sleeping soundly on the plush bed in the Guest Room.
‘How annoying.’
Click.
I moved Nebula next to Lee Ah-woon.
Click.
I selected Lee Ah-woon.
Then I typed ‘/kick’.
Wham—!
Nebula merely extended her leg lightly, yet Lee Ah-woon’s body shot across the room like a cannonball and slammed into the wall.
[Ugh!]
Lee Ah-woon jolted awake with a strangled cry.
[B-Big brother? You’re here?]
“‘You’re here,’ huh? Anyone watching would think you’d been waiting patiently.”
Lee Ah-woon sat awkwardly on the bed, his posture somehow uncomfortable.
“Hasn’t it improved?”
Unfortunately, Lost Honor had no chat function.
It was impossible to communicate directly with Lee Ah-woon.
Normally, I would have been.
Anxiously pacing, worried something had happened to him.
Unable to convey my words, forced to shuffle my feet in frustration.
But that was no longer the case.
A new feature: whisper.
My usage limit had reset once midnight passed.
With the mindset of a novice cook checking if dumplings had steamed properly, I sent Lee Ah-woon a whisper.
[/w “Lee Ah-woon” How’s your body feeling?]
[It’s gotten much better.]
“Hmm… has the curse been resolved?”
Perhaps that’s the case, but the spectacle revealed after administering the elixir was so shocking that I couldn’t help but wonder: what if?
There’s no point wasting more time on this.
“If problems arise, we’ll deal with them then.”
That level of improvisation is entirely within my capabilities.
‘…If I’m here, even if I truly die, there are methods to bring me back.’
I can’t easily experiment with how ‘resurrection’—which I’ve used to revive NPCs—would actually work on a real human.
But what matters is that I have contingencies in place.
I led Lee Ah-woon to the Treasure Vault.
Opening the warehouse, I pulled out a massive quantity of other elixirs.
Namely.
The concentrated elixir of primordial mana blessed by the Primordial Blue God, forgotten in the distant past, from an ancient high elf’s vision.
That’s right.
The very one Han Seol-ah consumed until she lost consciousness.
The supreme tonic that increases maximum mana capacity.
“Let’s start with a thousand.”
I scattered them at Lee Ah-woon’s feet.
Patter, crash!
Scatter, elixirs.
In an instant, the room filled with brilliant golden radiance.
[W-what is all this…?!]
Lee Ah-woon stared at the glass bottles piled like mountains at his feet with eyes wide in astonishment.
Captivated by the extraordinary aura radiating from them, he carefully picked up one bottle and brought it to his lips.
[!!!]
Lee Ah-woon’s eyes went wide after taking a single sip.
[M-my mana is… increasing? This isn’t an illusion, right?]
“No. It’s not an illusion.”
[This is insane!!! Brother, thank you so much! Something this precious…! I’ll drink it all!]
Lee Ah-woon shouted with vigor.
* * *
[Ugh. Uuugh. Brother, brother···.]
Lee Ah-woon was crawling on the floor like a worm.
[I’m, I’m dying···.]
“Don’t be pathetic.”
He collapsed after drinking only around a hundred bottles.
Han Seol-ah, on the other hand, downed five hundred in one sitting without breaking a sweat.
“This stuff is precious.”
[I know it’s precious. I know it all too well. That’s why I’m so grateful···.]
Lee Ah-woon cautiously probed.
[C-couldn’t I drink it gradually, taking breaks?]
No. You can’t.
The man whom Han Seol-ah would never forgive, no matter how much she begged—that was me.
“Insolent brat.”
You’ve earned a thousand more.
[…]
Lee Ah-woon stared at the colossal elixir graveyard with a look of utter exhaustion, then with trembling hands born of resignation, he grasped another bottle.
The speed at which he forced the liquid down his throat had become markedly slower compared to the beginning.
So slow.
Even drinking water.
‘There’s a good method for this.’
I moved Nebula to Lee Ah-woon’s side.
Sensing my intention, Lee Ah-woon’s face brightened.
[You’re letting me rest, right? Thank you! I’ll just take a short break and then eat again…]
“That’s not it.”
Boom!
With a grand sound, a flag materialized from the void and planted itself between Lee Ah-woon and me.
[A duel begins]
[…Brother?]
“Post-meal exercise.”
I’ll make you beg me to let you drink more instead.
* * *
[Duel start!]
The countdown ended, and the crimson letters announcing death vanished.
Goooooo—!
A man in pitch-black armor, radiating a terrifying aura even while standing motionless.
My ‘character’.
And to Lee Ah-woon right now, the ‘Grim Reaper’.
From him, a horrifying torrent of mana began to surge forth.
‘I’m going to die…!’
Lee Ah-woon pushed his circulation to its absolute limit, bracing for the incoming attack.
The man raised his hand.
And a pitch-black light.
Flash.
A black radiance that consumed his entire vision. Before he could even feel pain, his entire upper body simply evaporated.
‘Huh?’
Without time to react, Lee Ah-woon was dead.
His circulation had definitely activated.
He’d felt the sensation of successfully absorbing the attack.
But the problem was the sheer volume of mana that attack contained.
The moment he thought he’d absorbed it, his mana core shattered.
Groping about.
I reflexively touched my abdomen.
I had vividly experienced the sensation of my mana core rupturing.
Yet it remained intact.
‘Is this the afterlife?’
A sharp whoosh echoed through the void.
From the pitch-black floor beneath Lee Ah-woon’s floating form.
Black hands stretched forth in countless tendrils, grasping at Lee Ah-woon and dragging him downward.
‘What? No!’
As Lee Ah-woon thrashed his limbs wildly, sinking into the black abyss.
“Haaaaah!”
Lee Ah-woon awoke as though jolting from a nightmare.
“I… I’m alive?”
But immediately after.
A resonant thud.
The flag and duel message appeared once more.
“W-wait, hyung. I died. I really did die.”
Hyung didn’t even respond.
‘…Hyung probably thinks this is just a game!’
He wouldn’t know that dying and coming back to life is real here!
[3]
“Ugh… hehehehe…”
Terror gripped me.
This wasn’t a game—it was a real world where duels could actually kill you and bring you back.
[2]
“Ugh.”
In the distance, the inhabitants of this world—NPCs as they were called—gathered in clusters, clapping silently with visible restraint.
The gleam of ‘interest’ in their eyes was unmistakably clear.
A distinctly human and chilling vitality emanated from them as they savored another’s suffering as spectacle.
‘These things are alive, aren’t they? Damn it.’
Lee Ah-woon clenched his teeth.
‘I won’t complain about not eating an elixir…’
[1]
[Duel Start!]
* * *
‘Hm?’
Just now, when I landed my first strike.
Nebula’s health bar seemed to flicker ever so slightly.
This was the same Nebula who hadn’t taken a scratch even from Scathach’s full breath attack.
Yet her health actually dropped from striking down a mere powerless newbie?
‘Did I misread it?’
For a moment, I nearly fell into that tired cliché in the face of an absurd situation.
Usually, “Did I see that wrong?” is something people say when they didn’t actually see it wrong.
That’s the law of the world.
“Whitey.”
[Yes.]
“Record all the sparring data from now on.”
* * *
After the endless sparring ended.
Lee Ah-woon began drinking elixir with remarkable dedication.
[Brother, please, I’m begging you—just refrain from attacking until I show a loss in the matches.]
“I don’t want to.”
[I’ll drink the elixir even more diligently.]
It was a tactical shift that made it seem as though my words had actually reached him.
But I refuse.
“Why should I do that?”
If I beat him down, he’ll drink the elixir more earnestly, and I can also uncover the true nature of his real ability.
Of course, it would have been nice if I could wait.
Unfortunately, Lee Ah-woon.
I don’t have time.
There simply wasn’t enough physical time to indulge him while waiting for him to digest the elixir.
I had to forcibly draw out his potential.
“Whitey. What are the results?”
[Just as you predicted, Agent.]
Whitey unfurled a chart with flair.
It contained the spells I’d fired at Lee Ah-woon and their power output.
And.
Nebula’s HP reduction numbers were recorded there.
‘My suspicion was right. I didn’t see it wrong.’
Remarkably.
Every time Lee Ah-woon was hit by my magic, he was dealing damage to Nebula.
Lee Ah-woon, an incompetent with no awakened ability according to the registry, had actually wounded Nebula—who didn’t even get a scratch from taking Scathach’s full breath attack.
[It’s a bizarre recoil that reflects pain and death intact. Moreover, it seems like the character Nebula is gradually adapting to her attacks with each match.]
Furthermore, Nebula’s HP was being reduced more with each successive sparring match, albeit minutely.
‘This is interesting.’
It’s an absurd situation.
‘No ability’—how did a hunter with that designation acquire such an impossible reflection ability?
There’s only one thing I can deduce.
Lee Ah-woon’s unique trait.
[Child of an Outer God] or whatever it is—that must be the cause.
It’s certain that his initial awakening came from a high-grade regression. Earth’s system wouldn’t be so crude as to allow otherwise.
But when that outsider intervened, I was struck by heavenly punishment, my fate twisted, and my original power was stolen.
What remained instead was this grotesque characteristic that reflects pain—a curse, if you will.
Anyway.
He still seems to believe he’s using Circulation, but the truth that ‘I’ve become powerless’ is quite the sobering fact he’ll have to face eventually.
For an ordinary hunter, this would be the end of their story…
But for me, it’s different.
More precisely, in my world, it’s different.
“I’ll advance Lee Ah-woon’s class.”
In Lost Honor’s system, ‘nothing’ means perfect ‘blank slate’.
That’s right.
From the moment I saw ‘no ability’ in Lee Ah-woon’s compendium, I’d already decided to advance his class.
That grotesque reflection ability that can even damage Nebula.
Upon this blank canvas, I’ll sketch the blueprint most useful to me.
“From now on, you are a Dark Mage.”
* * *
Lost Honor has a total of fourteen class lines.
Each line contains six classes, and a ‘pinnacle’ class that can only be unlocked after mastering all six classes to level 99.
For example, Frost Mage, a class unlocked through Han Seol-ah, belongs to one of the classes in the ‘Line 8—Elemental Magic’ line.
Besides Frost Mage, there are five remaining classes: Flame, Lightning, Earth, Storm, and Water Dragon.
These six classes collectively are called ‘Elementalist,’ and mastering all of them unlocks the pinnacle class, ‘Grand Sage’.
The ‘Dark Mage’ I’ve chosen as Lee Ah-woon’s class follows the ‘Line 9—Dark Magic’ tree.
[I can’t… eat anymore…]
Carrying Lee Ah-woon, who had fainted after drinking the elixir, I headed to the Temple of Advancement, where classes are advanced.
Normally, you’d have to visit an official temple in a major city and go through a long, tedious, and pedantic entry quest to even enter such a difficult place.
But I’d simply installed one in my Safe House.
Passing through pillars shaped like stars, crossing a portal that rippled like the Milky Way, I arrived in a pitch-black space.
I gazed up at the star shining in the distance.
[You have completed all stars]
“I know, you bastard.”
Nebula had already completed her class advancement to ‘Void Knight,’ a hidden class that requires mastering every single class.
Naturally, she couldn’t advance further.
I offered up the limp Lee Ah-woon.
Starlight illuminated Lee Ah-woon.
[Analyzing aptitude…]
In this world, even NPCs can advance their classes.
However, unlike players—unlike me—who can freely choose a class and advance, it’s only possible for those with what’s called ‘aptitude’: their talents, abilities, personality, and everything else combined.
Those with such aptitude can only advance their classes in a limited way.
‘Lee Ah-woon is probably classified as an NPC.’
A non-player character.
In other words, since ‘I = player,’ Lee Ah-woon would be treated as an NPC.
And after testing him through sparring matches.
One of Lee Ah-woon’s aptitudes became undeniable.
[Dark Mage aptitude confirmed]
‘That’s right.’
[Available advancement paths: 9 series – Dark Magic]
[1. Blood Mage]
[2. Curse Caster]
[3. Demon Hunter]
Now then…
I simply needed to choose a class that would aid in conquering Resonar and the 94th Floor of the Tower.
The answer is!
‘None of them.’
“I can’t settle for this.”
I moved the cursor and closed the class selection window.
A ‘newbie’ who arrived with a blank slate—a rare opportunity to cultivate exactly as I saw fit!
I couldn’t be satisfied with merely handing out a single basic class.
The blood of a veteran player wouldn’t allow it.
“Congratulations. You have been selected as a candidate for the ‘Emperor Cultivation’ program.”
Make no mistake—this is an overwhelming stroke of fortune that will overturn every injustice you’ve endured.
[Ugh… hyung… I’m gonna die again, blegh…]
Oblivious to the immense fortune descending upon him, Lee Ah-woon groaned in agony.

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