The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 115

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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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115
Chapter 115. An Unwelcome Encounter
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[This station is the 1st District, Central Platform of the Academy. Please exit to the left.]
The speaker suspended from the monorail car’s ceiling emitted a mechanical female voice threaded with metallic tones.
As the train decelerated smoothly, its momentum climbed through my feet and gently rocked my upper body.
Beyond the window, colossal metal arches flashed brilliantly, reflecting artificial light, sweeping past at speed.
[This zone operates in synchronization with the Academy’s Mana Core, and the Mana wavelength has been calibrated accordingly.]
[Those with high Mana sensitivity require stabilization procedures before disembarking.]
[Non-Awakened individuals and visitors with lower Circles who require stabilization should proceed through the Resonance Chamber on the right side of the platform for adjustment before passing into the corridor.]
The moment the announcement ceased, the air circulating within the car abruptly shifted in character.
Invisible, hairline needles seemed to prick the skin lightly—an unpleasant sensation.
It was the physical pressure generated as highly compressed Mana dispersed into the atmosphere.
I lifted myself from where I’d sunk deep into the seat back, sensing a faint vibration along my nape as I gazed out the window.
“Is that really true? What the announcement said?”
Jung Se-hui pressed herself against the window as she asked. Her gaze had already fixed beyond the platform on glass structures designed with an eerie, meticulous precision.
A faint tremor was visible in the reflexive way her shoulders tensed.
“It’s true. The Academy is designed thoroughly for only high-ranking Awakened Ones and Mages. The physiological conveniences of ordinary humans aren’t even a consideration.”
I answered briefly, rolling up my shirt sleeves.
During the past years when I’d been scrabbling in the dirt at the bottom of this towering ivory tower, no such kindly facility as a “Resonance Chamber” had existed.
The sight of non-Awakened individuals or low-ranking New Researchers, unable to withstand the high-density Mana pressure—their eardrums bursting, nosebleeds flowing, crawling across the floor—had been nearly everyday.
The current Resonance Chamber was merely a thin coat of paint to mask the Academy’s arrogance.
There was no chance that a human body could emerge from these reluctantly constructed filtration devices completely freed from the side effects of Mana engineering.
“This is insane. Do I need to get that adjustment thing too? My head suddenly feels a bit fuzzy…”
Jung Se-hui rubbed the back of her neck, her brow furrowing. Her complexion was visibly growing pale.
It was a rejection response triggered as her body, untouched by Mana exposure, collided with the Academy’s central building’s wavelength.
Instead of answering, I rose and approached her.
Without hesitation, I placed my right hand on her nape, near the cervical spine where the spinal column and nervous system intersected.
Her shallow breath and irregular pulse transmitted through my palm with perfect clarity.
“Whoa. What was that just now?”
“You don’t need adjustment. Keep quiet and stay still.”
I drew refined Mana from deep within my Core.
With the most basic sorcery, I formed a single thread of Mana—sharp and precise—and pushed it along her cervical nerves.
Her internal circulation, which had been swept up in rough waves, rapidly found stability, using my Mana’s flow as a guide.
The thrashing external Mana wavelengths scattered, blocked by the barrier of my Mana.
“Oh, what? Something warm just went in and then came out. That nausea from before has completely vanished?”
Jung Se-hui’s eyes widened and she turned her head side to side. I withdrew my hand from her nape.
What the Resonance Chamber platforms called “adjustment” was, in truth, a brutal procedure—forcing crude mechanical wavelengths into the human body to temporarily paralyze the nervous system.
If a novice like her, with zero immune response to Mana, had undergone that adjustment, she would’ve spent the entire night rolling in bed, wracked with high fever and chills, conference schedule be damned.
“Get down. We’re going straight through to the corridor without the Resonance Chamber.”
With a sharp hiss, the monorail’s doors split open on both sides. I grabbed both her enormous carry-on luggage and my Carbon Suitcase in one motion.
The moment my feet touched the platform, cold air rushed deep into my lungs through my airways.
The scent of Mana—brutally high purity, and therefore more artificial.
The cartridges of Taesung Energy embedded in rows along the platform wall were glowing in the same rhythm.
Six normal pulses of light.
And a brief gap on the seventh.
It wasn’t a malfunction in a single monorail. At least the entire Central Platform’s power grid was bound to some unknown, unified heartbeat.
[Successor, the synchronized range is expanding.]
[Current location cannot pinpoint the source of transmission.]
I withdrew my gaze as I heard Airi’s report. There was no reason to sound an alarm the moment we entered and reveal my presence to whoever was here.
First, I needed to identify where the Mana was flowing.
Nine-tenths of the passengers who poured from the monorail, unable to bear the pain pressing on their temples, staggered toward the Resonance Chamber on the right.
Thanks to disembarking from the VIP-exclusive car used by high-ranking Awakened Ones, the area around us remained quiet.
I adjusted my grip firmly on the luggage handles in both hands.
‘Weight.’
The basic physical Sorcery manifested from my palm spread across the wheels and entire frame of the suitcases. The load pressing down on the ground from dozens of kilograms simply evaporated.
The dull heaviness transmitted to my wrists disappeared, replaced only by the sensation of carrying a light document bag.
My pace was unobstructed. I climbed the cold metal escalator of the underground platform toward the surface.
As I ascended each level, the Mana density in the atmosphere shifted with increasing precision. At last, I reached the entrance to the Dome of Light, called the heart of the Academy—Luciel.
“Come on, this way.”
Without hesitation, I made my way through the Marble Corridor that ran through the heart of Luciel’s main building. It was the shortest route to the VIP quarters assigned to me before the conference began.
The moment I stepped into the first-floor corridor, leaving behind the dark, humid air of the underground.
Brilliant sunlight poured through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows in the ceiling, burning my vision white. Warm light wrapped gently around my skin.
“Why is the weather so perfect? Just crossing the bridge earlier, it was foggy and dreary. This place feels like a different world.”
Jung Se-hui squinted her eyes and let out a gasp of admiration. She walked on curiously, her gaze lingering on the landscaping around us.
“Because it’s been adjusted that way. This is a place where the laws of nature don’t reach.”
“What? You mean the weather was created? In a place this vast?”
“Implementing a specific season and weather within a controlled, sealed zone through Secret Sorcery isn’t particularly difficult, as long as you have a stable Mana source. Nothing impressive about it.”
And that source was the Mana Core of the Academy that lay beneath Luciel.
The Core drew in raw Mana from nature, refined it, and sent it through circulation channels laid across the entire dome. The Conduits in each sector and release spells adjusted the Mana concentration and properties in the atmosphere.
At the Academy, they called this massive flow the Mana Stream.
If the Core was the heart, the Mana Stream was the bloodstream. The sunlight and weather I saw now were all consequences of that circulation.
My footsteps on the marble floor echoed softly through the corridor, which maintained an almost complete silence.
“That can’t be right. The interior of this dome is this enormous, and it’s all artificially covered? Sorcerers really are creepy.”
“More like con artists. They’ve just adjusted perception to ‘appear’ that way.”
I raised my eyes, taking in the ceiling of the corridor that stretched endlessly beyond measure and the geometric gardens laid out below.
This was meticulously crafted deception. A vast visual trap created by layering Space Expansion Magic and Light Refraction in complex combination.
The true nature of the Academy as a space was a fortress of illusion—designed to paralyze the spatial perception of all who set foot within it, forcing them to feel the surroundings as dozens of times grander and more magnificent than reality.
“Among sorcerers, there are quite a few obsessive-compulsive perfectionists. The kind who can’t endure it if the surrounding environment isn’t under their absolute control.”
“……Hearing you explain it that way is unsettling. Knowing the sunlight is fake, it gives me chills.”
Jung Se-hui shuddered, rubbing her forearms.
My words carried no exaggeration whatsoever. Those who occupied the Academy were fundamentally a caste of first or second-generation sorcerers who wielded Mana.
They were an obsessive group, prone to hysteria over even a single wrongly-tuned current of Mana, pursuing perfection in their equations with zealous madness.
To satisfy their intellectual superiority and maintain optimal research conditions, they were arrogant elites who manipulated the weather, humidity, and even minute fluctuations in gravity throughout this space to suit their whims.
With such artificial disturbances layered upon each other, outsiders coming from the external world couldn’t endure the Phase Difference and had to numb their brains in the Resonance Chamber.
The Main Information Desk that crossed through the center of the corridor came into view.
“You’re from Taesung Energy, I see. Welcome, Representative Se-hui. Chief Attendant Do-jin. I imagine your luggage must be heavy—we’ll transfer your carry-on directly to your quarters.”
The Academy staff member guarding the desk offered a professional smile and received the carry-on luggage from my hands.
On the back of his hand, a Silver Seal faintly glowed, marking him as a low-Circle Sorcerer.
“Please proceed with check-in.”
“I see you’re both registered as Awakened Ones. I’ll register your quarters and conference hall access keys directly into the system using your unique Mana signatures. If you would both place a single finger on this Mana Recognition Pad, please.”
Jung Se-hui placed her finger on the Mana Recognition Pad with curiosity. The device that read both fingerprints and Mana signatures simultaneously emitted a pleasant beeping sound.
While she completed the registration procedure, I took a step back and loosened my stiffened shoulders with a light rotation.
My gaze naturally swept across the entire corridor around the desk. It was an instinctive scan.
A space I’d walked and memorized daily for years before my regression.
The topography of this massive ant colony, the locations of ventilation shafts, the barrier strength of emergency exits—all etched clearly in my memory. Nothing had changed.
At least not on the surface.
Then it happened.
Beyond the murmur of the crowd.
From the shadowed section of the West Corridor leading to the Grand Hall, a distinctly out-of-place presence scraped against my sensory nerves. Footsteps—regular but oddly heavy, as if weighed down.
And behind them, a cluster of dozens more footsteps.
‘The west corridor……’
I fixed my gaze. Parting through dozens of people, a single sorcerer in a Black Robe came into view.
At the Academy, a Black Robe was the symbol of authority marking Official Faculty or Full-time Researchers.
And trailing behind him in quick steps was a group of roughly twenty young men and women dressed in worn Brown Robes. Brown Robes.
The uniform of New Researchers or employees—the lowest rank of the Academy hierarchy.
“New researchers? The timing is a bit early.”
I murmured quietly, running a finger along my chin.
The Academy presents itself publicly as an academic institution, but in truth it’s a black hole that pulls in promising talent from around the world.
It was customary to conduct large-scale recruitment of new researchers annually, yet something about the timing felt off.
Typically, large-scale hiring of new personnel happened at the end of the year, after all conferences were concluded.
To lead an uncontrolled mass of new hires across the Main Corridor right in the middle of a conference when security was at its peak sensitivity? It was administratively nonsensical.
Turning that strange sense of incongruity over in my mind, I focused my gaze on the face of the Black-Robed figure leading the group at the front.
‘A familiar man.’
Black Rimmed Glasses and unkempt brown hair. Moving through the crowd, guiding the new researchers with a good-natured smile.
And shoulders slightly hunched, as if bearing some weight.
My brow twitched faintly. My ill omens had never betrayed me—not once. And this time was no exception.
“Oh? Senior Do-jin!”
The man crossing the West Corridor stopped in his tracks upon spotting me. His eyes widened, and forgetting all about leading the new researchers, he thrust his hand up.
The man approaching me with quick strides.
A name, sealed away in the deepest chamber of memory, surfaced across the cold expanse of my thoughts.
“Son Ho-sung?”
A parched voice escaped my lips.
“Senior, how disappointing! Really. How could you not recognize me at first glance and stare at me like that? Though I suppose I have changed quite a bit.”
Son Ho-sung gave my shoulder a light tap and laughed heartily. The warmth of his palm, the familiar rich coffee scent brushing past my nose—
Everything felt vivid.
Korean University Department of Ability Engineering.
A junior who’d enrolled two years below me.
During my undergraduate years, when I’d spread newspaper across the cramped lab floor and pulled all-nighters, I’d been his mentor—buying him meals, teaching him to code. A bond forged in those cramped spaces.
One of the stubborn fragments of university life that clung to me still.
And now that same person stood before me wearing the Black Robe that symbolized the Academy’s elite, commanding a contingent of new researchers.
“You—you’ve been at the Academy this whole time?”
“Huh? You didn’t know? Hold on, everyone!”
Son Ho-sung turned toward me as if to answer, then clapped his hands sharply at the new researchers in brown robes following behind him.
“We’re heading straight to the research building, Leanna. Next time you report for duty, don’t bother coming through the Central Platform—that’s a waste of movement. Just assemble directly at Leanna through the Underground Sub-Gate! Don’t get lost, everyone move ahead!”
At his practiced command, twenty new researchers nodded in unison and scattered down the corridor.
‘Leanna.’
He watched their retreating figures for a moment, then turned back to face me.
“Phew, I’m swamped with looking after these kids. Senior, it’s been how long? Seeing your face after graduation is like picking a star from the sky.”
“It has been a while.”
I answered curtly, hands thrust into my pockets.
“Wait, you never check the class band or alumni board? I posted this whole essay about getting into the Academy on special recruitment last year. I thought you’d be the first to congratulate me.”
“Did you? I don’t quite remember.”
“You’re genuinely making me feel bad. I keep up with all your news—see it on the feeds, in guild bulletins. Word is you’re eyeing an S-Rank title soon.”
“Who says that?”
“Everyone. ‘That’s what a real hunter does.’ I even screenshotted it.”
“Ridiculous.”
“By the way, senior, word is Se-hui and Hyung-seo are coming to the symposium too.”
“Of course they are. They’re part of this world.”
“I know you knew. Personally… it’s a shame about you and Se-hui. You two were perfect together.”
“That’s enough. What’s past is past.”
Son Ho-sung prattled on with his characteristic good nature, speech tumbling out without pause.
While he kept track of my affairs, my ignorance of his was only natural.
After the regression, I’d deliberately severed all ties from my former life. Tangled human connections were nothing but dead weight on the path to preventing the world’s ruin.
I’d changed my phone number, blocked alumni networks.
“Anyway, your typical graceless humility is exactly the same as back then, Do-jin. People don’t change, they don’t.”
Son Ho-sung chuckled and gripped my forearm lightly. Along with the warmth of his skin came the heavy pulse of his mana—a current that brushed past mine.
Back in university, he’d been nothing more than an ordinary low-rank Awakened One. But the mana dwelling within him now was grotesquely vast.
“Senior, after the symposium wraps up, let’s grab a drink somewhere quiet. I know all the best spots near the Academy—my treat.”
“Sure. If the chance comes up.”
“I’ve got to run—these new recruits get into trouble the second I look away. Call me soon, okay? I’ve got stories to tell!”
Son Ho-sung waved broadly and sprinted down the west corridor where the new researchers had vanished. The fluttering hem of his black robe was swallowed entirely by the darkness at the corridor’s end.
……
I couldn’t move. I stared at the empty hallway where he’d disappeared.
My fists clenched so hard inside my pockets that the knuckles went white.
His awkward friendliness, his guileless smile, the familiar university memories.
The conversation we’d just had was a perfectly ordinary reunion between senior and junior.
But.
In the deepest recesses of my mind, in the thoroughly sealed database of my past, red alert sirens were screaming at the mundane scene unfolding before my eyes.
Son Ho-sung.
Korean University Department of Ability Engineering. My direct junior.
This man—
In the world before the regression, when I was a fourth-year student.
At the gate break incident during a hunter training exercise in Yeongwol, Gangwon Province, he’d died a gruesome death right before my eyes—his ribcage torn open by a monster’s claws.
I, still unawakenened back then, could do nothing.
I’d collected what remained of him myself, and at his funeral, stared blankly at his portrait photograph.
A man who should have died, who should have turned to dust.
A shadow that had no right to exist in this world, according to the law of causality.
And yet here he stood before me now, ten years later, breathing, his heart beating, bearing the title of Full-time Researcher at the Academy.
A chill raced down my spine. The Academy’s artificial sunlight suddenly felt as cold as ice.
This was not the Academy I had known.

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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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