The Return of the EX-Class Wizard - Chapter 164

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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 164
Every circumstance speaks volumes.
He is currently practicing magic.
There are occasional instances like this.
When battle mages of differing skill levels clash.
One fights with all their might to master their opponent, while the other remains composed, refining everything they’ve learned with greater precision.
Such occurrences typically happen in mock battles.
Yes. A training scenario.
But this is real combat.
‘This is absurd.’
And all while otherworlders and the Chinese Forces conspire to seize Seonyang from Korea.
Training in this situation?
Humiliation, shame, insult, disgrace, fury….
No word could adequately capture my current state of mind.
Yet Tofurian is an exceptionally skilled battle mage.
‘No. Compose yourself.’
Exceptional battle magic means technical mastery, but it also means mental fortitude.
No matter how refined the technique, weakness of spirit prevents one from reaching the apex.
Beyond a certain threshold, mental strength often matters more than technique itself.
‘Right. Think rationally.’
I reclaimed the reason I nearly lost.
Composure gradually returns.
‘There’s no way he’s actually practicing right now.’
Impossible.
Just then, one of my subordinates submitted a real-time analysis report.
“That grotesque staff. I sense fundamental [deception] emanating from it.”
“As expected.”
[Deception] is a favored tactic among battle mages.
They display false magic to conceal the genuine article,
or deliberately expose weaknesses to lure their opponent in.
Combat is chess. Deception is fundamental within it.
Tofurian spoke.
“I see. So the information leaked already?”
A rational assessment.
I never intended to fully trust the Chinese in the first place.
Information control? Laughable.
Intelligence about the magical artillery has already reached the EX-Rank Awakener.
Based on that information, he has prepared a perfect [counter].
“So that’s why he came alone.”
Confidence.
I’d already won the information warfare.
“You deliberately disguised it as destructive magic, didn’t you?”
“?”
Choi Kang-mok stopped using Dispel magic.
The battle entered a temporary lull.
Regardless of anything else, he’d pretended it was destructive magic?
That was absurd.
“So you engineered the situation to bombard me with magics of simple structure. That was quite an excellent strategy.”
“?”
It wasn’t.
It had been genuine Dispel magic.
“I’ll admit it. The first move was my defeat.”
I couldn’t fully understand everything Tofurian said, but what mattered to me wasn’t that.
“So there’s a next move too?”
The magical artillery battery Tofurian had brought was nothing short of a stroke of fortune for me.
An elite personal tutor customized to the highest level.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to train Dispel step by step—the kind that might come only a handful of times in a lifetime.
That’s why I was excited. What kind of lesson would he prepare next?
Tofurian continued speaking.
“Your magic was originally perfected. It would be orthodox Dispel—meticulously decomposing and dismantling magic.”
Indeed.
He had an eye for it.
“But by disguising it as destructive magic and inducing magics of simple structure…”
He must have thought that was strategy, but he was wrong.
Combat mages shouldn’t expose their weaknesses in such a manner.
“Rather, it means you can’t Dispel magic with complex structure—magic that’s impossible to interpret.”
Tofurian raised his right hand.
Plan A had failed. Now for Plan B.
“I’m changing the settings.”
The battery’s configuration shifted.
This time, he would indiscriminately mix every available magic.
A fusion barrage—releasing a chaotic blend of magics with different properties and characteristics.
A torrent of hybrid magics whose very origins would be unknowable.
The downside was that the effects came out unpredictably, but the ‘magical artillery battery’ had been designed to overcome even that disadvantage.
“The effect is fixed on destruction.”
Complete control was impossible.
However, it could be modified with a focus on destruction.
Now, ‘destructive magics’ that even the mages operating the battery couldn’t predict would pour forth.
Directed at an EX-rank mage.
“This is the capability of a combat magic commander.”
Magic of every conceivable attribute erupted forth.
Bizarrely intertwined, it transformed into hundreds of streams of water that stretched toward the EX-rank Awakener.
The expression on the EX-rank Awakener’s face revealed unmistakable bewilderment.

* * *
I was caught off guard.
‘I can’t analyze its structure.’
My current power wasn’t sufficient.
It was too complex and tangled—I couldn’t perceive it clearly.
‘Damn it.’
I’d thought my abilities had grown considerably, but that was mere arrogance.
I still had far to go.
Yet one thing was unmistakable.
‘That… would be impossible without a catalyst.’
Different attributes don’t naturally blend together.
Fire and water, for instance.
To forcibly mix them, you need something to serve as a buffer.
‘Typically emulsification magic. Or what’s called interfacial magic.’
Magic that acts like an ‘adhesive’, binding attribute to attribute.
Usually one is employed, but not this time.
‘Not just one or two.’
The black streams of water that engulfed my vision.
Dozens of different magics were woven together.
Without my conscious awareness, the streams appeared to slow.
The ‘temporal perception’ that had germinated through my mock battle with Raymond was growing without my knowledge.
‘To weave so many attributes together at once would require multiple interfacial magics.’
The problem was that those interfacial magics themselves needed to be bound into one.
Forcibly. Abnormally.
And there was typically only one method employed in such cases.
‘A curse.’
A method of suppressing the collision between attributes and forcibly anchoring the rampaging energy.
In the end, the magic was built upon a curse.
‘That’s why it looks like that.’
Professor Raymond would be horrified if he saw this.
Something that looked like that wasn’t magic.
Magic should be dignified and elegant, like a triple-headed bald eagle.
-It’s curse magic, plain and simple.
-We should neutralize it.
Neutralizing curses was familiar to me.
The moment I recognized it as a ‘curse’, it became a target I could strike.
‘Energy Bolt.’
[Skill, Energy Bolt (S) activated.]
Then suddenly, temporal clairvoyance manifested.
I instinctively sensed that everything around me had slowed.
And my own magical structure became crystal clear before my eyes.
‘Energy Bolt.’
[Skill, Energy Bolt (S) activated.]
Thousands upon thousands of repetitions of deconstruction and structural analysis.
The accumulation of that training had unlocked new possibilities.
[Skill, Energy Bolt (S) activated.]
[Skill, Energy Bolt (S) activated.]
Cooldown ignored.
Continuous use of Energy Bolt had become possible.
Just as simple arithmetic could be performed without complex notation or calculators, so too could Energy Bolt.
—Assembly is merely the reverse sequence of deconstruction.
—If one becomes a master of deconstruction, one becomes a master of assembly as well.
—Ah, so this is what
‘magic’
truly is.
I wielded dozens of Energy Bolts simultaneously.
Control had become remarkably effortless.
‘All of them, grant penetration attribute.’
My heart thundered in my chest.
The exhilaration of tangible growth surged through me.
Dozens of Energy Bolts shimmered with ashen light.
Successfully achieved active directional control. Fragment manipulation, successful.
The Energy Bolts imbued with penetration attribute completely annihilated the black torrent through Haeju.
The black water stream that touched the Energy Bolts evaporated in an instant.
Kang Pal-do’s AI narration paused briefly.
It took time to construct an appropriate script to describe this situation.
[This is clearly distinct from mere destruction.]
Fundamentally, it is destruction.
More precisely, it is ‘Haeju’—rooted in destruction.
[…the term ‘evaporation’ does not quite fit either.]
[The otherworldly invaders’ magical barrage has been instantaneously obliterated. An incomprehensible phenomenon. Language cannot explain what has occurred.]
[A single human’s Haeju shatters the concentrated bombardment of an interdimensional invader.]
Tofurian was astounded.
‘How is this… Haeju?’
He too was a combat mage.
He could feel it. The aura of Haeju magic.
The magical artillery barrage was dispelled.
That’s what made it so strange.
‘But it wasn’t curse magic?’
It wasn’t curse magic, so how could it have been dispelled!
Countless mages—even Raymond himself—couldn’t quite grasp what this ‘dispel’ truly was.
Only Kang Hye, watching the situation through Kang Pal-do’s feed, understood.
“It’s exactly like Dispel.”
Whether it was Dispel or not, if you firmly believed it was Dispel and deceived even yourself in the process, the science staff’s true power manifested.
This was no different.
Whether that was curse magic or not, because I’d firmly believed it was curse magic,
“I became a target for dispelling.”
Even if that wasn’t curse magic at all!

* * *
It had been dispelled despite not being curse magic.
There, a fundamental question bloomed in Tofurian’s mind.
‘Would it have mattered if it wasn’t a dispel?’
Dispelling rooted in destruction… or rather, if it had merely been simple magical violence instead.
Wouldn’t the result have been the same?
There, he found his answer.
“Destruction magic and dispel magic are fundamentally different. No, they must be different.”
That’s magical common sense.
But they feel almost identical?
“That means your ability isn’t magic at all.”
“But it is… magic?”
A glimmer of intrigue flickered in Tofurian’s eyes.
For the first time, agitation was observed in the EX-Rank Awakener who had shown little reaction until now.
Like someone whose weak point had been struck.
-You’re mad.
-Claiming such exquisite dispel magic isn’t magic at all?
-I understand the sentiment. Those who face such tremendous talent often find themselves denying reality.
Tofurian reached his conclusion.
“You’re not a mage.”
“….”
“You’re a special ability-type Awakener masquerading as a mage.”
A unique ability user who merely appears specialized in magical combat.
Someone who obtained information about the magical artillery and devised a perfect counterstrategy accordingly.
“My second move is also my defeat.”
Combat ability disguised to look like magic.
Just thinking about it now, there are at least three or four possibilities.
‘At Earth’s dimensional level, it’s easy to mistake it for magic. I myself believed it was magic until just moments ago.’
Then, a low voice reached my ears.
“I am a mage.”

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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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