The AI Archmage - Chapter 89

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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 89

In the eyes of the world, Belusian was known as a Grand Mage shrouded in mystery.
But Sion, his close friend, knew exactly what kind of person he was.
If you had to define Belusian in a single word:
‘A madman.’
Recalling memories of his friend, Sion shook his head slowly.
Unlike someone sensible like himself, Belusian was not in his right mind.
[Pardon?]
Akasha muttered something in protest, but Sion paid it no attention.
It wasn’t particularly important, after all.
[A sensible person? On the contrary, from what I can see, it’s rather the human who——.]
‘Be quiet.’
Sion firmly dismissed Akasha’s objection.
He examined the traces, then rose to his feet.
“This should be it.”
“This should be what?”
Eira tilted her head and asked. She had been quietly observing Sion’s movements.
It was different from before.
Eira had already come to recognize that Sion held considerable friendship with her.
Naturally, her sense of intimacy with Sion differed from that of the other students.
Sion replied in an equally matter-of-fact tone.
“The site of the excursion.”
“An excursion, you say…….”
Eira instinctively looked around at her surroundings.
There was nothing.
She felt no mana in the air, nor did anything appear to be a hidden magical tool.
‘Is this really an excursion?’
Eira found herself wondering so.
Just then, Briella, approaching quietly, wordlessly handed Eira a set of survival tools.
“B-Briella? Why are you giving me these…….”
“Keep them with you.”
Briella spoke to Eira with a calm gaze.
“You’ll need them. My instincts tell me so.”
“……?”
Uncertain what she meant, Eira decided to keep them anyway.
Briella had a natural instinct for these things, and she had a track record of responding unusually fast to trouble.
Regardless of the two of them, Sion quietly brushed away the traces with his hand.
Whoosh.
A faint sensation of mana emerged.
Using that trace of mana, Sion began to “compute” what had transpired in this place hours earlier.
Countless magical formulas rose and fell in his mind, until the optimal formula for analyzing this meager amount of mana remained.
And in that moment.
“Ah.”
A smile played at the corners of Sion’s mouth as he found the answer.
[What are you attempting to do?]
‘I’m going to use the mana left in the traces to reconstruct what happened here a few hours ago as an illusion.’
Thump.
He quietly extended his hand into empty space and summoned mana. In that instant, a scene from a few hours past flowed before his eyes like a panorama.
And then.
[Aha.]
Moments later, a young man with hair the same color as Sion’s stood in that place.
Of course, since it was an illusion, the youth’s form was transparent.
Yet even so, his general features were discernible.
‘So this is that elder brother.’
Sion felt an oddly peculiar sensation.
As Altair, he has never known Treben Rostery.
But the memories and feelings remaining in Sion Rostery speak of knowing him.
And this feeling is…….
‘A sense of kinship.’
Sion let out an involuntary laugh. Starting from that feeling, he tried to recall something, and it seemed as though a memory was stirring to life.
[This Illusion Magic—it doesn’t seem visible to others, does it? How did you manage that?]
‘I layered it over my own eyes. So that only I can see it.’
[……Well, that’s something.]
Watching Sion explain it as though it were the most natural thing, Akasha shook her head slowly.
[Do you understand what that means? Generally speaking, applying Magic to one’s own body is only permissible with Magic that has been thoroughly verified beforehand. Otherwise, the body could be damaged.]
‘You think I wouldn’t know that?’
Sion believed that if a spell held enough certainty for him to trust it, it had been verified thoroughly enough.
That was knowledge etched into his experience.
[Still, you’re Human, after all.]
And Akasha, understanding as much, offered no further objection.
In any case, within the reproduced phantom, Treben gazed at something with trembling eyes.
And he reached out tentatively.
In that instant.
Whoosh!
Treben’s form vanished without a trace.
“I understand.”
Having confirmed as much, Sion’s eyes gleamed. He grinned and reached out his hand.
“There—Belusian’s Workshop lies beyond.”

* * *

“So this is…….”
Brushing back his tousled hair, the young man raised his head.
His ice-blue eyes trembled, brimming with several emotions at once.
“Is this Altair’s Workshop?”
The young man’s name was Treben Rostery.
He had recently left his Family and was tasting a measure of freedom.
Born with magical talent, he had been raised as a mage as naturally as breathing since childhood.
Treben had never been given the freedom to choose his own path.
He was meant to become a mage—there was no alternative he was ever permitted to learn.
Yet even so, as people mature, they inevitably seek their own way forward.
Treben was no exception.
As a child, he had stumbled upon a manuscript on Magic Tools. And then, naturally, had come into contact with those very things…….
From his earliest years, such matters had drawn his interest without effort.
“If only I had been born like my younger brother, receiving no expectations from the Family at all…….”
Sion Rostery.
Thinking of his own younger brother, exiled to the Blue Tower, he shook his head.
He was well aware of how cruel such a thought was to a brother who had been ignored and dismissed by the Family since childhood.
Yet unfortunately, Treben had never harbored much interest in the talent he was born with.
And so, in the end, he ran away from home.
The expectations of his Family, the pressure from his father.
Such things suffocated him beyond measure.
“……Sigh.”
Treben brushed aside such thoughts and looked around.
How his hands had trembled when he first discovered this map in the Family library by accident.
It had been the very thing that gave him the resolve to run away—of that there was no doubt.
He couldn’t begin to fathom how such a map had come to be hidden in the library, but the fact that he had arrived here at all suggested it was no forgery.
‘If I can gather proof here, I can become a disciple of the Workshop Union Leader.’
And once I reach that station, my Family won’t be able to force my return.
I’ll be free.
After all, they have Cornelia as the next heir—ambitious and gifted beyond measure.
Treben moved forward with determination.
If he felt no tension in this moment, it would be a lie. Yet he had to overcome it.
Only then could he achieve his goal.
And in that instant.
Blaze!
The darkened interior suddenly flooded with light.
Faced with the revealed interior before him, Treben could not hide his shock.
“How… how can such a vast space possibly exist?”
He stared in shock, mouth agape.
The expanse before him was immense—so much so that his eyes couldn’t find its end.
What startled him even more was how meticulously finished the entire space appeared to be.
“Incredible… truly incredible. This must be Altair’s Workshop after all…”
What more could be said?
Treben admired Altair.
His father had called certain texts “forbidden” and urged him not to read them, but Treben had studied numerous works about Altair regardless.
Through that reading, he’d gathered considerable information about the man.
The more he learned, the greater his sense of wonder became.
Starting from nothing, cursed with a body incapable of wielding magic, Altair had nonetheless established the Workshop Alliance through sheer capability.
Beyond that, there was Magic Engineering—knowledge that could have revolutionized this world, had the Council not opposed it.
All of these were the very things Treben admired.
“Then… at the end of this path, does Altair’s technique truly exist?”
Perhaps it was merely hearsay, but there might be Altair’s greatest invention—the masterwork he was said to have created.
“An… an Artificial Spirit, Akasha…!”
The texts he’d found in the Library had certainly contained such information.
Though not widely known, Altair possessed a “great creation” that he’d never revealed to the outside world.
An Artificial Spirit named Akasha.
Altair had succeeded in creating a magnificent being that possessed true self-awareness.
And just as Treben took a step forward, filled with anticipation—
A sharp resonance rang out.
“…Huh?!”
An illusion materialized abruptly before his eyes.
It was an elderly man, somewhat eccentric in appearance, his gaze sharp and penetrating.
[So you found this place. Truly remarkable, young one.]
The old man spoke as though he’d been waiting.
[Welcome to my Workshop. Having come this far, you must already know who I am.]
“No… surely not!”
[Indeed.]
The old man revealed his identity to Treben.
[I am Altair.]
“…!”
At those words, Treben’s eyes widened.
“Gasp!”
[If you have come here, then surely you are ready to inherit my legacy.]
“Y-yes! Absolutely, sir!”
Treben found himself answering the Altair illusion’s words without thinking.
[Come then, young one. At the end of this path…]
Altair continued, his eyes wide and intense.
[…lies everything I have created.]

* * *

“Right then, shall we begin our excursion?”
“…How exactly?”
Eira, having methodically donned the Survival Tools she’d received from Briella, tilted her head in confusion.
Tult too was fastening on his own Survival Tools from Briella.
The students found it difficult to guess what Sion was getting at.
After all, Sion was someone for whom prediction was largely meaningless.
“Look here, do you see it?”
Sion gestured at empty space as he spoke.
“This is the entrance. Disciples, aren’t your hearts racing?”
“…?”
The students wore expressions of bewilderment.
But Briella, listening quietly, felt something ancient stir in her spine.
An ancestral instinct, passed down through her bloodline, was speaking to her.
‘We’re in trouble!’
This was something to take seriously.
And Briella decided to heed that primal warning.
‘Everything’s ready, right? Started with the survival tools, checked all the Magic Tools for damage…….’
For a situation like this, I’d scraped together enough money to buy a low-quality Subspace Pouch, even if it hurt the wallet.
Provisions were plentiful too…….
“Excuse me, Teacher.”
One of the students raised a tentative hand and spoke up.
“No matter how hard I look, I don’t see an entrance. What exactly are you talking about?”
“As you can see, there’s a Portal right there.”
“……I don’t see it though?”
The other students seemed to share the same confusion.
But instead of answering their questions, Sion simply began counting silently.
“Five, four…….”
“……?”
The students tilted their heads in bewilderment as Sion suddenly started counting.
What was he up to now?
Then Briella, heeding her survival instincts, cried out.
“Now!”
“Wh—yes……?”
Before Briella’s words had finished landing, the numbers Sion was reciting tumbled away in an instant.
And then.
“Zero!”
The moment Sion spoke, an enormous Portal tore open beneath the students and swallowed them all whole.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
“Come now, disciples!”
Sion called out, gazing after his beloved students.
“The excursion begins!”
“……?!”
Wait, this bastard?
In that brief instant, a whirlwind of tangled emotions flickered across the students’ eyes.
Whoosh!
The Portal consumed them all and vanished without a trace, as though nothing had ever been there at all.
As if there had never been anything to begin with.

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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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