The AI Archmage - Chapter 74

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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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AI Grand Mage Episode 74

“What do you intend to do?”
The middle-aged man regarded the kneeling figure with sharp, cold eyes and continued.
“It escaped alive. I must have told you a dozen times that it needed to be killed without fail.”
“……My apologies.”
“You’re mistaken about this. We should never have accepted tainted blood, and yet we were deceived by that wretched woman.”
The middle-aged man muttered to himself, then turned to the figure before him.
“So where is it now?”
“According to our search, its current location has been traced to the Blue Tower.”
“……The Blue Tower?”
The middle-aged man’s face twisted with displeasure.
He’d already been bothered by the recent murmurs about the Blue Tower.
There were even rumors that the Workshop Alliance was coordinating something with the Blue Tower.
“It was said to belong to the Blue Tower. That’s hardly unusual.”
“What would you have us do? To carry out the assassination, there is no choice but to breach the Blue Tower’s territory……”
Of course, the Blue Tower would never permit intrusion into their domain.
They’d already gathered sufficient intelligence on their own.
But the middle-aged man had to kill it.
Only then would his glorious family be complete.
“There is only one way.”
The middle-aged man declared, his voice hollow and cold.
“We enter the Blue Tower’s territory.”
“Are you certain?”
“The Blue Tower may have drawn recent attention, but it remains nothing more than a fallen Magic Tower.”
Over the past months, he’d heard various accounts regarding the Blue Tower.
Yet most of them were absurd rumors hardly worth taking seriously.
“A Tower’s rank cannot be elevated so rapidly. Even if most of the rumors were true, it would change nothing. No—if anything, that’s precisely why we must act now.”
Before the Blue Tower grew stronger and became a true bulwark for it, they had to kill it.
“We move.”
With those words, the figure rose as well. The figure was a shadow.
Trained thoroughly to confront and hunt mages.
And as a shadow, the figure had to fulfill that purpose once more.
“I shall obey.”
This time, the target would be eliminated. With that resolve, the figure quietly clenched their fist.

* * *

“I’m excited right now.”
[What is it this time?]
Akasha responded curtly to the Creator’s usual nonsense, as was her habit.
She honestly wondered if there was any need to answer seriously, but he was the Creator after all.
Sion spoke.
“I really can’t tell which noble family Nerin belongs to. Which one will fall for this trap?”
[There’s also the possibility they won’t fall for it, is there not?]
“That’s possible too, I suppose.”
Sion didn’t bother refuting what Akasha said.
There was certainly a scenario where they simply gave up on Nerin.
But.
“Then they wouldn’t have deployed the Magic Killer’s weapon.”
[……Hmm.]
“From the start, these are people who mobilized weapons the Council itself treats as official armaments in order to kill Nerin. Would they give up so easily?”
They wouldn’t.
They hadn’t merely probed.
They’d made a calculated move to ensure Nerin’s death—it simply failed.
“And there’s one more point that matters most.”
[What would that be?]
“Right now, our Tower looks very vulnerable.”
[…….]
Akasha quietly began her calculations, combining the information she already possessed. After a moment, she nodded.
[It does seem rather manageable, doesn’t it?]
“Much may be changing, but the starting point was always rock bottom—there’s no helping it if things appear easy from that vantage.”
If one cannot alter such circumstances, one might as well turn them to advantage.
“Which is precisely why they’ll feel no resistance to conducting their business within our Tower’s domain.”
[Ah, I see….]
“And if we dangle the information they desire at just the right moment, they’ll swallow it without question.”
Sion stated this with absolute certainty.
What was needed first to restore Nerin’s condition was ultimately the blood of her clan.
By analyzing the blood at its source, a method to improve Nerin’s traits could be discovered.
Of course, when Sion had broached this plan, Lumia’s expression had suggested doubt—but that was of no consequence.
“The path of a pioneer has always been fraught with hardship, after all.”
[Perhaps we might refrain from using such language for matters of this sort.]
In any case, Sion had already outlined the situation and the plan to Nerin in broad strokes.
This plan required bait.
And there had ever been only one candidate for that role.
Nerin.
For the plan to succeed, she would need to expose herself as bait as conspicuously as possible.
“Well then, shall we begin?”
Sion closed his eyes quietly.
Since opening them in this body, he had been continuously dispersing Mana with each passing moment.
For him now, it was as natural as breathing.
It proved useful for detecting the presence of any unwelcome guests lurking in the vicinity.
Ping.
A drop of Mana slowly fell within Sion’s consciousness.
With it came ripples spreading outward.
The ripples propagated swiftly through the surroundings, initially confined within the Blue Tower itself.
But through various methods, Sion had learned to disperse Mana with greater efficiency.
And by now—
“……This should be sufficient.”
He had become capable of spreading Mana across an area roughly the size of an entire village.
Sion maintained the dispersed Mana and walked forward.
[Frankly…… the fact that I can manage this without my Calculation Assistance is beyond comprehension.]
“Do not forget that I am the one who created you, Akasha.”
Would it not be absurd for a creator to fall short of his own creation?
In any case, by controlling Mana alone, Sion had become capable of detecting any unwelcome guests who might approach near the Blue Tower.
Of course, that alone was insufficient.
In short order, Sion had installed Magic Tools—crafted in Belusian’s Workshop—throughout the Tower’s domain.
These Magic Tools amplified Sion’s Mana.
“Activate them, Akasha.”
[Understood.]
At Sion’s command, Akasha immediately began activating the installed Magic Tools in unison.
In that instant, the ripples expanded further.
Currently, Sion was effectively no different from a 7th Circle Mage.
And with Magic Tools now in play, that range expanded by several dozen times over.
There was only one way to utilize such capability.
A mind capable of comprehending the entirety of such an expanded area.
That was something Sion possessed.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
Ripples spreading from Sion emanated from every corner of the Blue Tower’s ground.
Through them alone, Sion could discern even the trivial movements of wild creatures stirring in the vicinity.
“Wait. That fool Barean is trying to modify a Grimoire again with his crude knowledge.”
[Ah, so he is.]
Having detected the irregularity, Sion immediately headed toward Barean.
“What are you doing there?”
“Oh—eh?!”
Barean froze mid-motion, tools in hand, as he worked on the Grimoire.
“When did you—and how did you know I was touching this……?”
“I told you not to tamper with it amateurly.”
“Well, I’ve recently attended lectures given by some 3-Star Craftsmen, you see.”
“You heard about that too?”
“I disguised myself and snuck in as a student.”
……
Watching Barean speak with such pride, Sion pressed his temples quietly.
When he’d first met this man, he’d been remarkably well-behaved—how had he come to this?
[It’s because you’re entangled with a Human, isn’t it?]
‘I wonder why, exactly.’
[……]
Sion pretended not to hear Akasha’s remark.
‘It’s not a bad change, at least.’
In fact, it was a remarkably good one.
If you asked who at the Magic Tower was currently embracing Magic Engineering most rapidly, aside from Lumia and Serentia, it was undoubtedly Barean.
Actually, in some respects, Barean was leading the way.
Unlike those two, he had no choice but to rely purely on Magic Engineering to cast spells at all.
“As you know, even with this Grimoire, we’re limited to the 5th Circle, aren’t we?”
“That’s correct.”
“But I was thinking—with some modifications, wouldn’t it be possible to make it capable of reaching the 6th Circle in emergencies? I don’t understand Magic Engineering like you do, but surely creating a 6th Circle Grimoire from scratch would take considerably more time, no?”
……Hmm.
It was a good proposal.
Especially since he was voluntarily taking an interest in understanding the Grimoire’s design and attempting modifications.
However.
“That may be true, but this isn’t something you should be tampering with so carelessly.”
“Well, that’s… I suppose you’re right……”
Barean immediately bowed his head at Sion’s words.
But he quickly lifted it again and spoke.
“But I’m curious!”
“I understand that. But if you insist on this, I may have to confiscate your Grimoire.”
……Ahem.
At that, Barean fell silent.
Sion regarded him quietly for a moment, then spoke.
“What if you discussed the Grimoire directly with the Craftsmen and conducted your research alongside them?”
“Eh? Um?”
“If you can understand and improve the design without me having to build one, that would be ideal.”
For the Magic Engineering Tower that Sion envisioned, someone like Barean would ultimately need to take the lead in pursuing scholarly research.
If Barean volunteered to open that door himself, there was no reason for Sion to refuse.
“Hmm……”
Barean’s eyes lit up at those words.
It seemed he’d been waiting for Sion to say exactly that.
“If you’re willing to do that, I have no reason to refuse.”
“Yes, well, then we’ll do that……”
Just as Sion was nodding and preparing to move on, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
‘Come to think of it, this senior has been around for quite a long time, hasn’t he?’
If that were so, wouldn’t he know more about the Noble Houses and their connections as a mage?
On impulse, Sion posed a question to Barean.
“Do you happen to know anything about a Noble House that uses violet Mana? I heard it also has a floral scent.”
……Um?
Barean stared at Sion for a moment, his eyes wide.
“Violet? And a floral scent…… That’s an odd combination of traits. And a Noble House, you say? Then……”
Then, after pondering for some time, Barean nodded as if remembering something.
“Ah! There was such a thing!”
“You remember something?”
“But it wasn’t a Noble House. Violet Mana and flowers…… There was an unusual group that surfaced about fifteen years ago—I’d heard whispers of them.”
Barean slowly spoke the name aloud.
“It was called the Lobellia Assassination Squad, I believe. They appeared suddenly around fifteen years ago and vanished within a few years.”
“The Lobellia Assassination Squad……”
“What was peculiar about them was that they were mages who assassinated mages. Being secretive folk, nothing was ever clearly confirmed.”
“That was helpful.”
Sion nodded at Barean’s words.
It had actually been quite useful.
The name didn’t seem unrelated to his search.
It was just as he was lost in thought about the assassination squad.
Ping.
“……!”
In an instant, something had caught on the ripple he’d sent out.
Sion’s eyes widened as he immediately shifted toward it.

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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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