The Return of the EX-Class Wizard - Chapter 120

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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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The Return of an EX-Rank Mage Episode 120
Choi Kang-mok had already known. The malice gleaming in Kang Pal-do’s eyes was unmistakable.
Considerable hostility burned within them, yet strangely, it wasn’t direct enmity.
‘Kidnapping, dissection… well, it didn’t quite reach dissection.’
Regardless, I had barely survived becoming a test subject for magical experimentation.
By any measure, his anger was entirely justified.
So I decided to judge Kang Pal-do with human compassion.
‘I can’t afford to lose my humanity.’
Raymond was a figure with much to teach.
Both the good and the bad in equal measure.
Focusing on the bad: the moment Mayo approached Raymond’s side, she spiraled out of control.
It meant she was practically a corrupted entity. If Raymond had been Mayo’s master?
We would have already
become
one.
‘Preserving humanity is paramount.’
It was also a crucial factor in magical research.
The longer one survives, the better one’s magical research becomes.
So I simply left Kang Pal-do alone.
And that forbearance brought an unexpected reward.
───────
[Security Level 2]
1. Apprehension: 1(+)
2. False Disruption: –
───────
-Quite fascinating. Users who’ve unlocked up to the second item in advanced stats are rare indeed.
-True. This user is the first to achieve consecutive EX-Rank or higher clears on the 41st Floor.
-We anticipate the greatest
of our
kind 🙂
The conditions for [Security Level 2] were simpler than [Security Level 1].
The next tier unlocked without needing to fill all five stats.
However, the required currency had doubled again.
-Acquiring the False Disruption ability requires 20 EX Coins.
I was momentarily at a loss for words.
I’d known it was coming, but the currency inflation was staggering.
‘The supply of EX Coins is getting tighter and tighter.’
Expenses kept mounting while acquisition remained limited.
With roughly thirty coins in hand now, spending twenty at once was a significant drain.
‘Still, strengthening Mayo is essential.’
There was no room for hesitation.
If I was short on resources, I would have to economize elsewhere.
Strengthening Mayo was the top priority.
[Consuming 20 EX Coins….]
───────
[Security 2]
1. Apprehension: 1(+)
2. False Disruption: 1(+)
───────
-Now I can go beyond passive defense and even plant false information.
-The opponent will acquire ‘
contaminated
‘ information in the manner they most despise encountering.
-I wonder what reaction that recycled trash will show? Just thinking about it makes my heart race 🙂
In any case, Kang Pal-do’s recording had begun.
Choi Kang-mok, who had inadvertently acquired a new ability, smiled broadly.
“Thanks to you, I’m having a valuable experience.”
“Oh, I’m glad to hear that, haha!”
Kang Pal-do held his breath and quickly pressed the stop button.
Not out of fear, but to check if the recording was working properly. Really.
He started recording again.
[Recording begins.]
“It seems Kang Pal-do is a stroke of fortune for me.”
This was sincere.
One way or another, we had made a mutually beneficial deal.
Without Kang Pal-do, I would have struggled to create the driving force buffer device.
I could tolerate a somewhat suspicious glint in his eyes.
However, Kang Pal-do was so distracted that he barely engaged in the conversation.
“Yes. I’m pleased as well.”
In truth, I couldn’t even remember what I had said.
After somehow wrapping up the conversation, Kang Pal-do rushed home.
The recording had gone well.
‘Good. Now I just need to check it.’
Surely the face was captured properly?
I could project the recorded video onto the wall.
I immediately projected it onto the white wall.
‘Huh?’
A chill ran down my spine.
‘Why is there nothing?’
Right at that part.
The footage of the EX-Rank Awakener had been cunningly erased—only the parts showing them.
As if someone had meticulously cut it away with scissors.
The EX-Rank Awakener’s doing?
‘When? How?’
He had merely exchanged ordinary pleasantries.
The EX-Rank Awakener had smiled, made eye contact, and exchanged greetings.
‘They knew all along?’
But then.
Crack—
The white wall.
The ‘recorded footage’ split open.
Crack, crack—
Through the gap in the screen, an enormous pair of lips forced their way through.
‘It’ spoke.
– Thank you, Kang Pal-do. Thanks to you, I’m having quite the enlightening experience.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
Kang Pal-do screamed and collapsed.
His mind, which had remained intact even during magical dissection, now spiraled into chaos.
He feared ghosts. More than anything in the world.
And then his phone rang.
[Choi Kang-mok]
Notably, they had never exchanged numbers.
He had never saved the name.
Yet the call came through.
A thousand horrific imaginings flooded his mind.

* * *
According to Kang Pal-do, a lip ghost had appeared.
Supposedly the most terrifying ghost in the world.
In any case, I confirmed the ability of ‘False Disruption’ with certainty.
-We can secure a highly advantageous position in information warfare 🙂
-Now that we can use it in actual combat,
we
are quite pleased.
The work progressed at lightning speed.
Faster than expected, Owen delivered the finished product.
───────
[Kinetic Power Buffer Module]
Selectively absorbs the user’s kinetic power and mitigates impact.
───────
It was quite small. Exactly two finger joints in length, rectangular in shape.
It resembled a small crystal sphere flattened down.
Within the milky translucent exterior, faint yellow patterns drifted.
It was small and smooth enough to be mounted on a necklace without issue.
“Thank you, Owen.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Owen smiled broadly.
A sense of satisfaction washed over him—he’d earned his keep with this.
Should I perhaps bring up a long-term contract?
‘No. Not yet.’
During the 41st Floor incident, the professor had hurled abuse at me. ‘You’re a mage without fundamentals,’ he’d said.
I had no idea what slander that damned professor might have spread to the Research Institute director.
It’s too risky to push too hard right now.
I devised a strategy to slowly increase his favorability by increasing our meeting frequency.
“The module requires durability repairs once a week. Every Saturday. I’ll set aside the time. You must visit once each week. Absolutely.”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
-It seems
we
are eager to meet us. An NPC showing favorability toward an Awakened One. A rare case indeed.
-However,
we
have no intention of accepting that ugly fellow as
we
ourselves. As you know, we dislike anything lacking in beauty.
-Then, will you be entering the 42nd Floor now?
Choi Kang-mok shook his head.
“No.”
Clearing the 42nd Floor was important, but as a mage, I had a more pressing objective.
To perfectly complete the High Spirit—Meteor Transformation.
I was almost there.
Just one or two more practice runs, and I would have it flawlessly mastered.
“I’m going to challenge the 41st Floor again.”
-An excellent choice indeed. It is time to be entranced once more.
–
Completion is merely proven incompleteness.
–
We are
now…experiment observation interpretation illusion reality
proof!!!
[Entering Seoul Tower, 41st Floor.]
But then.
[Entry to Seoul Tower has failed.]
Something that had never happened before occurred.
[Seoul Tower refuses entry to ‘-‘.]

* * *
The Tower entry refusal incident. An unprecedented crisis.
A rare case never documented anywhere in the world.
Perhaps the first of its kind.
“Mayo, do you know anything about this?”
-I have suspicions, but I cannot assert them with certainty, so it is difficult to speak.
-In truth, what I suspect… I believe you have already considered it yourself.
“….”
I had a vague sense of what it was.
I had destroyed the Tower too many times, and now it was rejecting me.
After the 7th Floor was hastily reconstructed and the Tower updated,
it had simply cast me out.
“It’s not like I committed any crime.”
-Perhaps the Tower finds it all the more horrifying that such destruction was legal.
-I cannot say I fail to understand the Tower’s position.
“Has anything similar happened to previous users?”
-No. According to my records, you are the first user to have destroyed the Tower.
We
are.
-Ah, the destructive nature within me
we
It’s writhing again. How vulgar—constantly shrieking about destruction.
-Destroy!!! Shatter!! Lick!! Crush!! Pulverize!! Obliterate!! Scream!!
-Wait a moment.
I
will restrain it and return.
Non-physical entry using skills failed.
I attempted physical entry with the cooperation of the Seoul Guild as well.
That also failed.
‘I can’t enter the Tower?’
I’d never even considered such a scenario.
In the age of Tower civilization, the Tower is the foundation of everything.
One can only grow by ascending the Tower.
“….”
My eyes wavered for a moment. It had been fifteen years.
Fifteen years under the stigma of being unawakened, unable to do anything.
Loss. Descent.
That time when despair spread like roots seemed to be approaching once more.
Anxiety gripping the back of my neck. Fear crawling beneath my skin.
Yet I was not as helpless as I had been then.
‘I am different from back then.’
I collapsed, rose, and walked forward again.
‘My re-awakening was fortunate.’
I acknowledge that.
But I didn’t reach this point through luck alone.
For fifteen years, I retraced my magic without surrendering.
For fifteen years, I learned to resist despair.
So today, I would not despair.
‘I will find a way.’
First, I attempted to consult with Raymond, but it failed.
[Raymond is currently on an external assignment.]
[You may forcibly summon him using Research Institute Director authority.]
[Favorability –90]
I know well how crucial favorability is within a base facility.
I cannot afford to lose ninety points of favorability. It’s better to wait.
“I apologize. This is my first time encountering such a case. Though I do have some suspicions.”
“….”
Owen quickly exercised his social skills.
I’d only just restored our relationship—I couldn’t damage it again.
I absolutely cannot say that you destroyed the Tower. That’s off-limits.
“…Speaking carelessly without conviction is not the conduct of a mage. I will conduct my own investigation as well.”
A problem that even the Research Institute couldn’t solve.
Choi Kang-mok returned home once more.
The sky beyond the window was overcast, and so were his thoughts.
‘How can I climb the Tower again?’
The path of a mage still stretched far ahead.
I couldn’t stop here. This was a desperate reawakening I’d waited fifteen years for.
That time had surely worn away at me, bit by bit.
But simultaneously, it had given me the opportunity to endlessly retrace, grasp, and rebuild the shattered foundations of magical theory.
I learned not to surrender, and developed a resilience that refused to kneel before despair.
‘Let me think of a method.’
First method. ‘Infiltration’ in the form of entering alongside an explorer.
It was the approach Joshua, once a spy for Reale and a combat mage of London, had used for Tower infiltration.
-However, such methods are extremely complex and consume excessive resources.
-It’s nearly impossible to secure continuity.
Second method.
Materializing ‘rejection’ as a curse form and shattering it.
I tried. But it failed.
Materialization wouldn’t work.
‘What if I strengthen my [Tower Entry] skill?’
However, strengthening came with severe side effects.
If it failed, the skill could shatter.
‘But if I don’t strengthen it anyway, there’s no solution.’
If I’m already in a situation where I can’t go, there’s no reason to fear it breaking.
Fortunately, Earth’s finest enhancement master, Emily, was in Seoul.
Emily adjusted her glasses and let out an exclamation.
“…I roughly knew such an ability existed, but seeing it in person is truly moving.”
After marveling for a while, Emily continued.
“I can guarantee unconditional success. At least up to +1. Zero failure rate.”
Once per year. I could use ‘Absolute Enhancement’.
Enhancement was guaranteed to succeed up to +3.
However, each use increased the death rate by 7%.
The current death rate was 63%.
It was originally 7%. It increased by 7% with each use, so now it was 63%.
“What do you think? Shall we try enhancing it?”
Of course, I didn’t mention trivial details like death rates.
An opportunity to enhance such a skill was worth its weight in gold, even to an enhancement master.
What did life matter anyway?
“Wait a moment, Emily.”
“Yes? Why? Do you have something to say? Can’t we do it later? I think it would be better to enhance first and talk later.”
“…Is that ability… contingent on your life?”
Kang Pal-do’s “Fortune’s Gambit” operated on a similar principle.
He stakes his very life to manifest miracles.
Unconditional success always demands a price.
“Well, that’s true, but it’s my life anyway. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“How could I not worry about that?”
Truth be told, there’s a small part of me that doesn’t want to worry either.
But I must be careful.
If I abandon my humanity, I might truly be absorbed into
“us”
after all.
“…Pardon?”
“I have a good method for you.”
“A good method?”
“I’ve discovered a mine absolutely brimming with survival-specialized fortune nearby.”
Dig into it and fortune pours out abundantly.

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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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