The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 101

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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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101
Chapter 101. The Vessel of Contradiction
***
I pressed the accelerator deep the moment I pulled out of Train Station Plaza. The engine’s low growl traveled through the chassis and into my palm.
The tires screamed as they gripped the asphalt, and the car shot forward like an arrow.
The coordinates Go Gwang-sik had texted were pointing to the outskirts, far removed from the urban sprawl’s nerve center.
The landscape rushing past the window shifted through its palette—from brilliant neon signs to drab concrete buildings, and finally to overgrown wasteland.
The suburban highway, untended for ages, was pitted and cracked in places, and the vibrations of the car bouncing across it echoed through my spine all the way to the base of my skull.
After driving for some time, an old metal fence loomed into view along the horizon.
Beyond that rusted, tangled border of barbed wire sprawled a vast expanse that had to be several thousand square meters.
It was a scale entirely different from that cramped, musty little Hunter shop on the outskirts of Donggureung—the kind of place that felt like a cave.
At the center of the lot sat a massive factory building, hunched like some sleeping leviathan.
Its slate roof, faded and corroded by sunlight, was pitted with holes in places, and the rust-colored water that ran down the outer walls left crimson streaks all the way to the ground, as if bearing witness to the building’s age.
Every time the wind picked up, a precarious sign hanging from the eaves squeaked out an unpleasant, creaking sound.
[Cheon-ma Motors]
Below the weathered nameplate, vehicles in their final stages were stacked in chaotic disorder.
Cars stripped of their engines, reduced to bare skeletons, lay scattered like the corpses of fallen warriors on a battlefield.
“They make it here?”
My muttered words scattered across the empty lot. It looked like a place that had once served as both a used-car dealership and scrapyard. But the smell in the air was different.
It wasn’t merely the stench of rotted rubber and oil. There was the lingering bite of friction heat, and the metallic tang of pulverized steel hanging heavy in the air.
The particular breath of iron that blacksmiths exhale filled this place.
I shut the car door and stepped out. A heavy wave of heat struck my face. The silhouette of a man stood at the factory entrance, in front of a massive shutter door.
It was Go Gwang-sik, swathed in a thick heat-resistant apron and wearing oil-stained cloth gloves. The moment he spotted me, he lifted his log-thick arms and waved in greeting.
I walked forward slowly, taking in my surroundings.
“I didn’t know a place like this existed.”
The enormous furnace chimney, stretching vertically toward the sky, exuded overwhelming presence even without spewing black smoke, and the hoist crane that dangled precariously from the high ceiling bore the fatigue of steel that had endured tons of weight.
What struck me most was the soundproofing.
Rather than merely blocking interior noise, the thick concrete walls—layered as if meant to suppress some emanation from within—created a peculiar oppressive atmosphere.
“You forge in a place this large?”
My voice came out dry and measured. I approached Go Gwang-sik and stopped to ask.
The space gave off the atmosphere of a vast armory or research facility rather than a workshop for crafting a single weapon.
“Of course! The thing you commissioned—is that an ordinary object?”
Go Gwang-sik laughed heartily while wiping his sweat-soaked brow. But his eyes weren’t laughing.
“To reforge the Ilhwi series, you need space. If mana pools in one spot, a massive explosion can occur. My master once blew away an entire mountainside while working on one.”
Explosion. The weight of that word brushed against my thoughts. This was far beyond the realm of simply striking steel and quenching it in water.
A legendary blade that even Kang Tae-yoon had longed for his entire life yet never managed to hold in perfect form.
Restoring it involved the kind of unstable and violent physical energy comparable to the incantations of 9th Circle magic with its precisely controlled high-density Mana Cores.
Severe risk. But I couldn’t reach the answer I sought without taking that gamble.
All I could do was stake my fate on Gwi-geom Cheolabangi’s final legacy.
Two unfamiliar shadows emerged hesitantly from the darkness within the factory, behind Go Gwang-sik.
They stood rigidly, like prey facing predators, their gazes toward me mingled with wariness.
“Are these the Master’s colleagues?”
“That’s right. This one here is Seok-gwang—we’ve been working steel together for decades. And this is Ji-ung, who’ll be handling the auxiliary work and control for this forging.”
I studied the two men as Go Gwang-sik introduced them. Seok-gwang appeared to be a seasoned craftsman around the same age as Go Gwang-sik.
His face, darkened as if iron dust were embedded in the deep lines etched across it. What caught my eye most was his left hand.
His left hand, hesitating near his pants pocket, was missing the index and middle fingers—only blunt stumps of flesh remained.
The young man called Ji-ung appeared to be around the same age as Chu Jae-hee from the Ability Management Team. His youthful face, barely into his twenties, was strangely mixed with both fear and tension.
I stepped forward toward them. Both men flinched, their shoulders drawing up. Before them, I bowed deeply.
It wasn’t a contrived gesture. It was necessary. These men were putting their lives and parts of their bodies on the line to forge my weapon.
Since I was asking for dedication that went beyond labor one could simply purchase with money, I too had to show the bare minimum respect commensurate with that.
“I’m Kim Do-jin. Thank you for your help.”
The moment my greeting ended, Seok-gwang startled and took two or three steps back.
“No, no! Please don’t do that! What brings a Hunter here! We’re just here to work, sir.”
“That’s not true.”
I straightened slowly, meeting his eyes directly. Though I put no force behind my gaze, the old man still avoided my eyes, fidgeting with his worn cap.
“Your decision to take on something this difficult—for that alone, I am genuinely grateful.”
I turned my gaze to the young man, Ji-ung. He stood rooted in place, both fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white.
His entire frame trembled visibly, likely from the overwhelming tension.
I took one step closer to him, and extended my hand toward his right hand, which was shaking as if lost in the void.
My fingers gently enfolded his hand. The moment warmth transferred between us, his breath caught.
“If you would, I’d be most grateful.”
“Yes, yes, yes!!”
Ji-ung snapped upright as though propelled by a spring, bending his waist at a ninety-degree angle while emitting something between an affirmation and a shriek.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Seok-gwang had already removed his cap and was pressing it to his chest, bowing repeatedly.
“Wow… that’s incredible.”
Their exaggerated deference sent an odd stiffness crawling down my spine.
This mixture of genuine fear and respect—I had never quite grown accustomed to it.
***
Before the formal design meeting could begin, I made my way with Go Gwang-sik toward the rear of the factory. It was a barren lot where mountains of scrap metal loomed like geological formations.
Go Gwang-sik stopped beside a rusted drum and fished a crumpled cigarette pack from his pocket. His thick fingers struggled visibly to extract a single cigarette.
Once he’d gotten the cigarette into his mouth, he began patting his work apron, searching for a lighter.
I lightly rubbed my thumb and middle finger together on my lowered right hand.
Spark—
Minute concentrations of mana converged at my fingertips, colliding with particles in the air and igniting into a small flame.
With precision, the controlled spark traveled through empty space and landed exactly on the tip of the cigarette between Go Gwang-sik’s lips.
The tobacco caught with a soft crackle, the leaf glowing crimson as white smoke curled upward.
Go Gwang-sik stared at the burning end for a moment, then turned to me with eyes full of admiration.
“Magic really is convenient. Do you smoke? I could offer you one.”
“I don’t. There’s no reason to accumulate poison in my body.”
“Ha, nothing good about it, you’re right. I’ll just have to smoke it all myself and be done with it.”
Go Gwang-sik exhaled a long stream of smoke into the air. The gray plume was torn to shreds and scattered by the rough wind of the outskirts.
“Those two, you know. They actually turned down your request at first.”
Go Gwang-sik glanced toward the factory entrance, his voice growing heavy. Beyond the veil of tobacco smoke, his eyes narrowed.
“I see.”
“Yes. That friend Seok-gwang you just met—he’s missing two fingers. He thought his life as a blacksmith was over. As for Ji-ung, his father died while working at Gwi-geom Cheolabangi.”
Go Gwang-sik’s gaze fell to the black ash scattered on the ground. I didn’t need to ask; I could already grasp the implication.
“You don’t mean… those accidents were all…”
“Yes. All of them were because of Ilhwi.”
Go Gwang-sik drew the cigarette smoke deep into his lungs, then released it from somewhere far within his chest as though scraping it up from the depths.
“Those two—the moment they hear the word ‘Ilhwi,’ they jolt awake from their nightmares. Honestly, I’m probably the only one in this trade who hasn’t let go of a twisted attachment to the name. For everyone who ever worked at Gwi-geom Cheolabangi, Ilhwi isn’t a blessing—it’s a merciless curse and a trauma.”
A weapon forged with death and permanent bodily mutilation as collateral.
If one carried the desperate weight of that blood-soaked history, the desire never again to stand before a roaring forge would be a natural survival instinct.
“But how did you persuade them? A deposit alone couldn’t have been enough.”
I watched the burning cigarette as I asked. No amount of money could heal a trauma anchored in the loss of life.
Go Gwang-sik looked at me and let out a weak, hollow laugh.
“It wasn’t about money.”
“Then?”
“You. It was you, straight up.”
He pointed directly at my chest with his blunt index finger.
“They said they’d lend a hand in making a sword for you. If it’s for someone like you, they figured they wouldn’t regret dying in the process of forging Ilhwi.”
Something heavy settled deep within my chest. To obtain a weapon by owing the lives of others.
That weight pressed down on my shoulders far heavier than I had imagined. It was an unfamiliar sensation—I didn’t know where to rest my gaze.
***
The moment we stepped into the factory interior, the atmosphere transformed. Incandescent light fell vertically onto a massive iron table, slicing through dust-laden air.
We each took a seat in one of four rusted folding chairs. Not a single blueprint or metal specification sheet lay upon the table.
Only heavy silence filled the space.
When no one dared to speak first, Go Gwang-sik interlaced his fingers, set them on the table with a sharp slap, and broke the quiet.
“All right then, let’s get down to it. No fluff—just the core of it.”
Go Gwang-sik’s eyes transformed into those of a master blacksmith.
“First, Do-jin—there’s something you need to understand deep in your bones. Ilhwi is a sword that devours life.”
It was a stark and ominous pronouncement. Yet it didn’t surprise me. It fell within the range of risk I had already anticipated.
I shifted my upper body forward from the backrest and met Go Gwang-sik’s eyes.
“A Demon Sword, then.”
“Not quite… Well, you could say it’s similar? Seok-gwang, why don’t you explain.”
As Go Gwang-sik tilted his head uncertainly, Seok-gwang, seated beside him, scratched his beard roughly and opened his mouth.
“Similar, sure, but it ain’t like a Demon Sword where it’s got a will of its own and seduces folks like some treacherous thing.”
“Then what exactly do you mean.”
“You heard the rumors about Ilhwi consuming people, right? Among the Hunters?”
At Go Gwang-sik’s question, I sifted through my memories from before the regression. The sinister tales of Ilhwi that circulated among countless Hunters.
Even the Blade Saint Kang Tae-yoon had once referred to those rumors, calling it a “troublesome thing”—stories of how a masterless Ilhwi would consume its new master instead.
“Yes. I’ve heard of it a few times.”
“It’s not just rumor. One hundred percent fact.”
“That’s the truth. My master never bothered to deny the rumors in his lifetime, but if you look at the people who actually wielded the Ilhwi, there’s not a single one who died of natural causes.”
At Seok-gwang’s words, Go Gwang-sik nodded and continued.
“The moment you grip the hilt, it drains the caster’s aura and mana like mad. And at a truly vicious speed, at that.
Think of it like a dam’s floodgates bursting open—your mana pours out.”
A weapon that indiscriminately absorbs mana. It was the “Blood Drain” or “Thirst” property that emerges when forging the deformed ore of the Other World.
An extreme form of osmotic pressure that occurs when low-concentration mana matter encounters high-density energy.
“Such weapons aren’t uncommon in the world. Japan’s Youdo or Europe’s Cursed Weapons are similar, after all.”
“Don’t you dare compare real blades to foreign trinkets like that!”
Go Gwang-sik slammed the table as his face flushed with indignation.
“Listen here—it’s Youdo. Get the pronunciation right.”
Seok-gwang chuckled softly, trying to ease the tension, but Go Gwang-sik’s expression remained rigid.
“The Ilhwi isn’t a simple blood-draining artifact. Think of it as using your own life energy directly as fuel.
It’s not merely a tool you hold in your hand—your nervous system extends all the way to the sword’s core.
When the blade takes damage, your soul takes damage. When the sword demands mana, your heart must squeeze blood to feed it. That’s the structure.”
‘Life energy used directly as fuel.’
Based on his explanation, I reconstructed the mechanism in my mind.
If a typical artifact’s synchronization rate is 1, the Ilhwi forces a synchronization rate close to 10.
Not merely the core’s mana, but also the body’s metabolic energy—even the mana circuit itself, the very source of life force, is directly linked to the blade. An extreme risk.
“It’s difficult to understand. Why would you choose such an inefficient structure?”
“Inefficient? No, the opposite. Precisely because of this, the Ilhwi is faster than any artifact and sharper than any weapon. Your will reaches the blade’s tip without passing through your brain.”
A mad pride flickered across Go Gwang-sik’s eyes.
“I understand. I’m fully aware of the risks. That’s my burden to bear.”
At my affirmation, Go Gwang-sik let out a short sigh and nodded.
“Fine. Don’t back out later. Now tell me the specific specifications of the blade you want. We’ll do our best to accommodate you within what we can achieve.”
At last, the real subject was broached. All three blacksmiths’ gazes fixed on my lips.
I spoke aloud the ultimate vision of the weapon I had constructed in my mind for so long—the form I must attain.
***
The moment I finished speaking, a cold silence descended over the factory.
“Is it impossible?”
Go Gwang-sik’s face went pale with shock, then he slammed the table with a bang and shot to his feet.
“Are you joking?! No blade like that exists in this whole world!”
“That’s absolutely impossible.”
Seok-gwang too waved his hands frantically in alarm. The two blacksmiths’ immediate and violent refusal was something I had anticipated.
“Listen well! Good mana conductivity means the spaces between the metal’s particles are flexible enough to let mana pass through. Metal like that has to be soft! You know why those ornate ceremonial blades the nobles use don’t work in actual combat? Because mana flows through them beautifully, but the moment they clash with something, they bend like taffy! That’s why!”
Go Gwang-sik continued his explanation, flecks of spittle flying.
“Conversely, if you compress density to the extreme like the Black Iron you’re using now, it becomes hard as diamond. But with such high density, there’s no room for mana to seep through! The moment you channel mana through it, the blade can’t withstand the energy and explodes from the inside! A metal that’s both hard and conductive? That’s like talking about hot ice!”
His argument was metallurgically perfect. Hardness and conductivity were opposites. A paradox where you had to sacrifice one to gain the other.
It was a foolish question to ask.
Steel’s durability combined with an Archmage’s explosive output—conductivity to withstand it.
I had never held much hope. I’d only thrown out a slender thread of possibility, just in case.
Since the Regression, I had never stepped onto the battlefield wielding a staff or magic wand. I had only used the sword as a conduit, layering magical formulae onto it as I swung.
Right now, with only 2nd Circle mana, there was no fatal difference in output between holding a staff or a sword.
But in the future that approaches—if the core’s circle rises beyond 5, 6, and reaches the pinnacle of the 9th Circle once more, everything changes.
A vessel capable of containing transcendent magical computation. If I could then perfectly add Kang Tae-yoon’s physical trajectory—the fleeting moment that cuts—to that container.
An impossible dream that existed only in theory.
“It’s not easy, though.”
Cutting through the silence that hung heavy over the factory, a thin but clear voice rang out.
Go Gwang-sik’s, Seok-gwang’s, and my gaze all turned simultaneously to the end of the table, the source of the sound.
It was Ji-ung, who had been listening in silence.
The young man’s eyes were no longer trembling. As if staring at invisible blueprints laid before him, he pierced through empty space with terrifying concentration.
“······It doesn’t seem impossible.”
A hairline fracture began to form in the wall of common sense.
Impossible dreams sometimes begin to don the clothing of reality, born from the smallest conviction rising from the lowest place.
I waited for Ji-ung’s next words.

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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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