The Return of the EX-Class Wizard - Chapter 1

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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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All geographical names and country names appearing in this work have no relation to reality.
The Return of an EX-Rank Mage Episode 001
Prologue
The age of modern fantasy had arrived.
A space where science and common sense held no sway.
The Tower rose across the globe.
In Korea, an ashen Tower materialized where the Sangam World Cup Stadium once stood.
A mystery drained of color.
A structure defying scientific explanation descended upon the world.
[Only Awakened Ones may enter.]
A space granted only to some, by criteria unknown.
And as time passed, people began claiming they had ventured inside.
[Legit feels like a game. Difficulty ramps up with each floor. You get rewards when you clear it.]
└What if there’s no proof?
└Phones disappear the moment you take them in, no cap
└Next delusional post~
[Each floor has a clear rank. The Hall of Fame actually exists]
└Am I the only one who can’t see it? How do I check?
└How many times do I have to say it’s exclusive to Awakened Ones lol
└Tsk tsk, forget the Hall of Fame—clear your own life first, you basement dweller lmaooo
Awakened Ones were exceedingly rare. Most people didn’t even believe they existed.
During that era, Choi Kang-mok was among the first-generation Awakened Ones.
‘This is fun.’
At fifteen, I found magic itself exhilarating.
I cleared floors one through nine with S-rank ratings, ascending the Tower successfully.
───────
[Hall of Fame (Floor 1)]
[Republic of Korea]
1. Strongtree (Seoul, S)
…
───────
The general public paid little attention, but the Awakened One community began to stir.
I barely made it out as a C-rank lol
└Strong is a genius lol
└I heard he’s a mage? Is mage actually broken?
└I’m a mage too but my magic doesn’t work lol
└Seriously jealous. I quit being a mage. Almost got killed by a fox yesterday.
└Control hell + paper-thin HP = mage is actual suffering just don’t do it lol
Mage was a despised class.
High firepower, but defense like tissue paper.
One hit, and you’re dead.
In reality, few awakeners chose the mage class.
Most who did never survived.
But Choi Kang-mok was different.
He achieved S-rank clears even on the 10th floor where boss monsters appeared.
Choi Kang-mok breached all the way to the 19th floor without pause.
Around that time, the number of awakeners began to increase gradually.
[20th floor is actual hell. Lost my awakening here lol]
└That samurai from Tokyo Tower lost his awakening too apparently
└He was whining and turned off the stream lmao
The 20th floor.
A place where a curse mechanic existed that could strip away awakening.
Choi Kang-mok felt no fear.
[Namujwa tears through curses too!]
└Since it’s a curse mechanic, mages counter it. Namujwa will pull it off again.
└Steel, please give me a strategy ㅠㅠ I can’t beat it unless it’s really you.
└He’ll get an S-rank this time too probably
Overflowing with confidence, Choi Kang-mok thought he would clear it easily this time as well.
But reality was cruel.
[Resistance to awakening-stripping curse fails.]
[Awakening qualification is revoked.]
In that moment, my mana severed.
I couldn’t even manifest a single mana sphere that I used to shape and play with like a marble.
The mystique that once shimmered within my body vanished.
A prodigious mage once full of promise.
My life as an awakener had ended.

* * *
One year after the Tower revealed itself.
The world entered a period of genuine upheaval.
[Global Announcement!]
[Open Beta Service Concluded. Official Service Begins.]
[Phase 1: National League]
[Physical movement between nations is restricted.]
Korea descended into absolute chaos.
[Cannot move overseas. Isn’t Korea ruined? thief]
[A nation that survives on exports can’t export? Game over.]
[I already bought three years’ worth of rations yesterday lol]
Both air and sea routes were sealed off.
A translucent barrier blanketed the sky and ocean.
The nation immediately entered a state of emergency.
Anxiety, terror, rage—flames of emotion erupted everywhere.
Then came another transformation.
[City Towers will be generated in each metropolitan region.]
Seoul, Daegu, Gwangju, Busan, Ulsan, Incheon, Daejeon, Jeju.
New Towers rose across the nation.
Cities naturally reorganized themselves around the Towers as their centers.
[Using fertilizer from the Tower, rice production goes nuclear]
[The Tower produces basically everything]
[Is this really a ruined nation?]
[Yep, new civilization~ Nope, not ruined~]
People settled in Tower-centered cities, and the initial chaos vanished like a lie.
Direct international exchange was blocked, but self-sufficiency became possible thanks to the resources and artifacts the Towers produced.
Digital exchange remained possible.
The world trembled once more in that gap.
-German Research Team Successfully Converts ‘Mana Stones’ into Energy!
-Clean Energy Mana Stones, Humanity’s Future!
The Mana Stones and artifacts excavated from the Towers fundamentally transformed human civilization and the ecosystem.
A new era where ninety percent of humanity had awakened.
Those among them who climbed the upper tiers were called ‘Players.’
-The world now belongs to the age of ‘Players’!
Players rose rapidly as the architects of this new civilization.
They belonged to regional Tower Guilds and grew ever more prominent.
-Unrivaled #1 Domestically, Busan Guild’s Surge!
[Busan Guild’s Kim Gang-hyeon Clears Floor 39 at S-Rank!]
└Seoul? Oh, you’re still near the ground floors there?
└How’s the weather down there? We’re above the clouds today in Busan, the view is insane lol
Stop messing with them, you guys. The Seoul kids are crying.
A new civilization, city-states, a world centered on Towers. In the midst of that turbulent era, I existed as an Unawakened—Choi Kang-mok.
As an ordinary, unremarkable office worker.
“That’s him? A typical Unawakened.”
“How does someone like that even exist in this day and age?”
Some clicked their tongues. Others quietly avoided me.
A society overflowing with people who could calculate 83×38 in their heads and remain sharp after two sleepless nights.
There was almost no place for an Unawakened to stand.
“Don’t be too harsh. He’s supposedly a graduate of Korea University.”
Korea University.
The finest prestigious institution in Korea.
“Probably got in through the Unawakened quota though.”
“Did he actually graduate?”
“Apparently not. Failed the practical exam.”
“What was his major anyway?”
“Something about magical research, I heard.”
“Wait, he can’t use magic but majored in magical research? Isn’t that insane?”
Ridicule was my daily bread.
Yet I focused on my work.
‘There. The mana field is starting to stabilize.’
When the Tower era began, Gates were generated alongside them.
My job was to measure the mana field flowing from Gates in the process of being generated.
Because mana exposure could be harmful to the human body, it was classified as a 3D occupation.
Colloquially known as Gate drudgery.
“Beginning analysis.”
“Choi, call me when you’re done.”
The work was conducted in pairs.
My partner left the measurements to me and disappeared somewhere.
Based on the values I measured, a dispatched civil servant would assign the Gate’s rank.
‘The Awakened would sense this.’
Fifteen years ago, I could sense it too.
Now I felt nothing.
Yet I harbored hope.
If I were repeatedly exposed to mana fields, wouldn’t something change?
Wouldn’t I be able to use magic again?
Harmful? I didn’t care. If only I could use magic again.
As the building turned completely ash-gray, someone came rushing over in panic.
An Awakened whose face I didn’t recognize.
“Excuse me, but we haven’t finished the rank assessment yet….”
“Get lost, you cripple.”
An Awakened One.
Without hesitation, he shoved my shoulder, and my body tumbled helplessly to the ground.
A gorilla and a human. That was the difference between us.
That Awakened One cleared the Gate in just one hour and emerged.
“See? No problem at all.”
Then he winked and left.
That day, I faced severe reprimand.
The Awakened One who shoved me was a promising prospect being watched by every Guild, while I was just an easy target—an Unawakened.
The civil servant who was originally supposed to be blamed was the daughter of some prominent family.
The director threw a white envelope at me.
Money handed over by that civil servant’s parents. In other words, hush money.
“This is how things work in this industry. You understand, right?”
It was a fairly common occurrence in this business.
This time, it just happened to be my turn.
The Unawakened Choi Kang-mok lost even the job I’d barely managed to secure.

* * *
Inside the bus on the way home from work.
“Sigh.”
Outside the window, a new civilization flowed past.
Towering lights, meticulously maintained streets, bustling crowds.
Yet within that prosperity, I had no place.
‘If only I’d Awakened just a little later…’
If I hadn’t rashly entered the twentieth floor.
If I’d waited until someone else created a strategy guide.
Would things have been so different then?
‘I want to use magic again.’
My graduation from Korea University ultimately fell through because practical magic was impossible for me.
Graduate school was naturally out of reach.
I gazed at my own hands reflected in the bus window.
I began the visualization I’d grown accustomed to.
A mana sphere. Conjuring it had become as natural as breathing.
Thousands of times, tens of thousands of times.
Yet the result remained unchanged.
Nothing happened.
I was thoroughly, completely Unawakened.
[Honestly, isn’t this just an Unawakened disability? lol]
└Actually, that’s right lol
└How is someone who can’t even break 100 meters in 13 seconds even human?
└Saw him collapse after staying up two nights;;;
[Unawakened first-generation Awakener spotted on floor 20 lol]
└Does that actually exist? Isn’t that just an urban legend?
└There’s a rumor he devoured the Tower because his awakening never wore off
└Called a phantom species, but really just a fossil in reality lol
Choi Kang-mok turned off the screen.
Endless chatter. Endless mockery.
In the end, I was nothing but a relic of the past—not even a record remained.
Stepping off the bus, the Tower came into view.
The colossal structure loomed above me.
Beneath it, Awakeners pounded away at training dummies.
Fifteen years ago, I stood there too.
Back then, I was treated like a madman. Now, this is just routine.
Someone in the distance was weaving magic.
‘If they just reduced the number of incantations by one, their firepower would jump by at least twenty percent.’
Quietly, without seeming to look away, I analyzed.
Habit. Instinct.
‘Skipping the chant would cut the delay in half.’
I envied them.
I wanted to be down there, sweating under the strain.
I wanted to wield magic like they did, to study it, to experiment with it.
In my mind, magic still lived.
Theory. Intuition. Memory.
And fifteen years of accumulated knowledge.
Everything I had built in magic remained intact within me.
The problem was that I couldn’t use it.
‘Just one more time.’
Ten thousand futile attempts, all the same.
Today was no different from any other—except it was.
[Congratulations.]
[You have Awakened.]
A world first. Re-awakening.
Light returned to the circuit that had gone dark.

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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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