Level -99 Archmage - Chapter 44

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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 44. First Step of the Way-seeker
Officially speaking.
Park Chan-woo was humanity’s fourth strongest—the first to achieve the Limit Level of 99.
Moreover, among all 99-level Awakeners, he alone possessed a Dual Class.
And not just any Dual Class—a strikingly unusual case: a Mage who’d evolved from the Barbarian lineage, a class that eschews magic entirely.
―How did he achieve level 99 with a Dual Class?
―A Knight and a Mage? And before that, he was a Barbarian?
―That should make reaching 99 absolutely impossible.
―Surely you need pristine, singular devotion to a single talent to unlock maximum level?
Some had taken to calling Park Chan-woo’s achievement of level 99 one of the Eight Great Mysteries of the Abyss.
And rightly so.
The peak humanity could reach.
Only the rarest of the chosen few could achieve level 99 even after devoting their entire lives to a single path.
To reach it through a Dual Class—through two fundamentally opposing, completely unrelated classes—should have been impossible.
Barbarians.
Known colloquially as “Barbarians,” they valued only the strength of the flesh. They were so hostile to Mages that they treated magic itself as heresy.
Though he’d undergone a Class Up to become a Knight, his essential nature should never have changed.
And yet there stood a man who’d performed a Class Change to Mage at level 90—and reached level 99.
―How fascinating. I wonder how he overcame the final Limit Level Breakthrough quest, that ghastly ordeal of the Extremity of Purity.
This was what high-level Awakeners most desperately wanted to know about Park Chan-woo.
Beyond level 90—to achieve level 91, one must face the ultimate Limit Level Breakthrough quest!
A trial of hellish difficulty that demands alignment with one’s class and its guiding principles—no one could fathom how Park Chan-woo had overcome it.
There was simply no way to guess.
Everyone who’d ever faced that final trial refused to believe Park Chan-woo’s account.
Denial of essence. The collapse of purity.
These were the cardinal prohibitions—sins one must never commit to touch the ultimate.
‘A Barbarian and a Mage—the values these two classes worship aren’t fundamentally different.’
But Park Chan-woo’s thinking diverged.
Others saw them as mutually incompatible extremes, but Barbarian and Mage were, in the larger frame, one and the same.
‘They’re both Pathfinders.’
To pioneer the land, to explore the unknown.
The highest value both Barbarians and Mages upheld was identical.
For humanity, the Abyss represented the greatest frontier and mystery—so the Barbarian and Mage classes were merely tools for charting that territory.
It was the decisive driving force that let Park Chan-woo overcome the final Limit Level Breakthrough quest.
‘The souls of the Ancient Barbarian King and the Mage Tower Master. Breaking through the trials of both spirits was no small feat.’
The quest itself was straightforward.
One encountered an Ancient Spirit tied to one’s class and solved the trial they imposed—that was the essence of it.
This was why a Dual Class was deemed impossible to clear.
Someone with two classes would face trials from two Ancient Spirits.
Overcoming even one trial was daunting; solving two simultaneously?
Especially fresh off a Class Change?
…Absurd.
Everyone who’d passed the final Limit Breakthrough quest would say the same.
It was simply out of the question.
The Barbarian King’s trial might be weathered through accumulated practice, but how could someone who’d only just stepped onto the path of magic possibly overcome the Mage Tower Master’s trial?
‘I… had lost my beginning.’
Yet Park Chan-woo of that time knew no surrender.
He never bent his convictions.
With the spirit of a Pathfinder, he drove through like the horn of a rhinoceros—unstoppable.
Witnessing that resolute will, the spirits of the Barbarian King and the Mage Tower Master acknowledged him.
As a Pathfinder.
As a seeker of truth who pursued their highest value, their very essence!
‘I achieved level 99, and despair followed.’
The tragedy was that even his iron resolve crumbled into frustration and hopelessness after reaching level 99.
He’d learned that above even the heavens lay another heaven.
He regretted his belated discovery of Mage talent, and afterward devoted himself entirely to magic.
But.
Park Chan-woo’s essence was that of a Pathfinder.
He’d forgotten his beginning for far too long.
‘I walk the Mage’s path. My resolve on that hasn’t wavered. And yet….’
His heart races.
It pounds.
Mad with exhilaration.
……It was thrilling.
‘In my own way. Down a path no one else has walked.’
He had chosen to walk the path of a Mage, but his approach would differ from the conventional.
After all, there was no law forbidding a Mage from wielding a hand axe.
Just as there existed no rule in this world requiring a Mage to use only magic.
If one’s fundamental values aligned, a Barbarian could become a Mage, and a Mage could become a Barbarian.
Park Chan-woo returned to his origins.
Then he set foot upon the world once more.
‘I walk.’
One step. Then another.
Forward, always forward.
He was a Pathfinder, charting the unknown.
A seeker and explorer who ventured through the lightless Abyss without a single torch to guide him.
《You have awakened the Spirit of Arahan, the enlightenment of the sage.》
《The hidden option ‘Golden Mystery of Arahan’ has been unlocked.》
《’First Step of the Way-seeker’ has been completed.》
《For every 10 Coins held, all ability scores increase by 1.》
《With 41 Coins currently in your possession, all ability scores have risen by 4.》
《The hidden option ‘First Step of the Way-seeker’ applies identically to all equipment bearing the name ‘Arahan.’》
《…….》
《O one who has begun to walk the path of the Way-seeker!》
《That path is also one of Pride and reckless ambition.》
《The Tower of Pride senses the presence of the Way-seeker.》
《The Tower of Pride has begun to watch you.》
* * *
“…Did something go wrong in there?”
The Seoul Union members exchanged puzzled glances.
Everyone who had entered the barracks had taken the Entrance Test under Lim Chang-yeol.
But they had never remained inside for this long before.
It had been over thirty minutes since Kim Byeong-han and Park Chan-woo entered the barracks.
The union members stared at the sealed entrance with uneasy curiosity.
The surroundings were far too loud for any sound from within to reach their ears.
Yet they could sense that something unprecedented was unfolding.
“Shouldn’t we go in?”
“The Commander will handle it.”
But the bodyguards guarding the entrance remained impassive.
Bodyguards in name—in truth, they were the Commander’s personal guards.
Dismissing the members’ concerns, they waited with blind faith for their leader to emerge.
Another ten minutes passed.
Bang!
The barracks door swung open, and a man stepped out.
“K-Kim Byeong-han?”
The member who had escorted him blinked in wide disbelief.
Kim Byeong-han emerged drenched in blood.
Certainly, many who had taken the Entrance Test bore wounds.
But Kim Byeong-han’s expression was strange.
More than that—he had not entered alone.
Both should have emerged together, so why had only Kim Byeong-han come out?
“Where is the person who went in with you?”
“…Go inside and see for yourself if you’re so curious.”
Kim Byeong-han shook his head wearily and exited the barracks.
As he left, he muttered softly, “Crazy bastards…….”
Something extraordinary had occurred.
The bodyguard and escort at the entrance entered the barracks.
“……!”
“……!!!”
In that instant, they beheld an impossible sight.
The barracks interior was a complete disaster.
Everything scattered about—weapons, boxes, goods strewn haphazardly across the floor.
And then.
“Y-Your Excellency!”
…Lim Chang-yeol, the Union Commander, lay sprawled unconscious on the ground.
Along with Park Chan-woo.
Both of them wore expressions of profound satisfaction.
* * *
Night.
A chill wind swept through the evening air.
Lim Chang-yeol stared up at the moon hanging in the sky, his gaze vacant and distant.
‘That man was truly a monster.’
He had wielded every weapon at his disposal.
Unleashed every technique he possessed.
He had given his all—no regrets, no hesitation.
They had fought with reckless abandon, wild and uninhibited.
Though they fell simultaneously, Lim Chang-yeol counted it as his own defeat.
‘Monstrous regeneration, flawless tactical awareness, reflexes without equal.’
Not a single weakness to exploit.
A seasoning born of facing hundreds, perhaps thousands of opponents.
Even the refined technique to slip away from attacks as naturally as water.
‘The only weaknesses, really, were raw strength and stamina.’
Park Chan-woo’s physical endurance was far worse than expected.
He tired quickly, refusing to meet attacks head-on.
He devoted himself entirely to deflection and evasion.
He was aware of his own inferiority in raw power.
Yet compensating for that weakness, even serious wounds regenerated almost instantly.
‘…As the fight wore on, his movements grew sharper.’
Could he have been concealing his true strength all along?
Playing weak in strength and stamina to bait openings?
‘Hah.’
For a moment, Lim Chang-yeol felt something close to exasperation.
That even while facing him, the man still harbored hidden reserves.
As proof, the moment Lim Chang-yeol thought he had seized advantage, Park Chan-woo’s eyes blazed—and he reversed the momentum entirely, pressing back with overwhelming force.
As though struck by sudden enlightenment, he displayed a presence utterly transformed from before.
‘A dangerous man indeed.’
Few had ever given him this feeling.
For all the opponents he had faced, Park Chan-woo stood alone in dominance.
Not merely in technique, but in presence.
The very aura that enveloped him.
Should he ever turn into an enemy, keeping him in check would prove far from simple.
Thus, a decision had to be made.
‘Cut the grass and the root both, or keep him beneath me.’
Lim Chang-yeol had survived decades in the backstreets precisely because he distinguished ruthlessly between enemy and ally.
Should an enemy emerge, he uprooted them entirely.
Should an ally rise, he kept them below him and granted them favor.
But.
‘…Park Chan-woo. He is no one’s subordinate.’
A man like Park Chan-woo could never exist beneath another.
The sort who stands atop regardless of intent.
A ruler by nature.
Conflict with him seemed inevitable in time.
‘……What am I to do?’
Even to harbor such deliberation was without precedent.
Lim Chang-yeol prided himself on first impressions, on reading people, on discerning enemy from ally with supernatural precision.
Yet Park Chan-woo remained an exception.
Park Chan-woo alone defied his judgment.
He drew a hand slowly across his chin.
“Perhaps… I should watch a little longer?”
To defer judgment was itself something he rarely did.
Given his temperament, he’d either boast about it or deny it outright.
Tsk.
Lim Chang-yeol clicked his tongue and shook his head, then turned back into the barracks.
* * *
The next day.
A party was formed.
Fifty members led by Lim Chang-yeol, the director of the Seoul Union, decided to ascend the tower together.
All of them had surpassed Level 11—Limit Level Breakthrough achievers.
Among them were Kim Byeong-han and Park Chan-woo.
‘So he was hiding his level.’
This was Kim Byeong-han’s conclusion about Park Chan-woo.
The way Park Chan-woo had displayed himself against Lim Chang-yeol three days ago.
It was a performance he couldn’t have shown unless he’d achieved a Limit Level Breakthrough.
He’d crossed Level 11 but deliberately kept it hidden.
‘The man’s devious beyond measure.’
Yet Park Chan-woo’s skill was genuine.
Where he’d suddenly acquired such prowess remained a mystery, but Kim Byeong-han confirmed once more that turning him into an enemy would bring nothing but trouble.
Still, there was an odd feeling to it all.
In a position where he should have been the protagonist, hadn’t Park Chan-woo—introduced as his subordinate—outshone him?
‘There will be plenty of chances for a reversal. I just need to grow stronger in the Tower of Pride.’
Kim Byeong-han clenched his fist hard.
Soon, Lim Chang-yeol, who stood at the vanguard, spoke at the entrance to the Tower of Pride, his face hidden behind a mask.
“No one knows what lies within this tower. The only thing we can trust is our union itself, so we must never scatter.”
Lengthy words weren’t necessary.
All the information had already been conveyed beforehand.
Soon he approached closer to the tower’s gate.
《You are entering the 1st Floor of the Tower of Pride.》
《Entry Condition: First-stage Limit Level Breakthrough achiever.》
《Condition satisfied.》
《Please select your faction.》
《Orc Master Kankun, Witch of Death Adora.》
《You will ascend the tower alongside the leader of the faction you select.》
《When you reach the 10th Floor, the two factions will engage in combat.》
《Before arriving at the 10th Floor, strengthen the leaders of your chosen faction.》
《Only the victorious faction may proceed to the 11th Floor.》
Choose a faction.
Orc Master Kankun.
Witch of Death Adora.
A trial in which you select one of them and ascend to the 10th Floor while strengthening them.
Orc Master Kankun was a warrior, and Witch of Death Adora was surely a Mage.
And all fifty Awakeners gathered here were warriors with a Beast Heart.
The answer had been decided from the start.
“…Everyone will select Orc Master Kankun.”

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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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