The Return of the EX-Class Wizard - Chapter 261

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

The Return of an EX-Rank Mage Episode 261
An energy bolt infused with the subtleties of severance, layering, form transformation, Haeju, unlocking, and decomposition.
The power of each attribute—especially flame and light maximized through high-ranking spirits and the Archer of Light.
Physical force conversion defense magic and even a black hole.
Countless spells were cast to ‘decompose’ a single target.
-(Light) : Is this really okay?
Recently, Light had awakened.
No longer a fugitive.
Evolved from prey to predator, from hunted to hunter.
Yet that primal nature hadn’t vanished.
Having faced and experienced countless mages, Light felt an instinctive dread.
-(Light) : How is he casting so many spells at once!
Even a mage’s body has its limits.
Light knew this well.
The violent, explosive power within itself.
Simultaneous casting of countless spells including this power in a single body?
This isn’t a mage—this is a mage’s grandfather or something…
-(Light) : He’s not even troubled?
-(Mayo) : I hope you won’t be embarrassed. This mage is an extraordinary mage. For an extraordinary mage, this is merely ordinary 🙂
How is that ordinary!
Light wanted to cry out but restrained itself.
Showing alarm here would only create an opening for the Red Cat and Igniasha alliance (though truthfully they weren’t allied).
Light regained some composure and surveyed the surroundings.
There was one being observing Choi Kang-mok’s ‘ordinariness’ with even greater composure than Red Cat and Igniasha.
It was Kang Pal-do.
[Simultaneous casting at its peak. Even amidst this, exquisite damage control shines brilliantly.]
Kang Pal-do even drew closer to Choi Kang-mok.
As if there were no danger whatsoever.
Holding the conviction that a mage’s body could withstand countless spells.
He appeared to feel no threat at all.
Seeing this, the Spirit Tree felt a twinge of remorse.
‘Even a mere artifact trusts my child so. Even a half-spirit trusts my child like this…!’
Yet I cannot trust my own child.
As a mother, I should trust my child!
That apology, guilt, and shame engulfed the entire space.
The parameters of the 70th Floor trembled wholesale.
Choi Kang-mok, whose eyes had been closed for a moment, snapped them open.
‘This is the last one!’
I decomposed the final remaining seal of justice.
‘Decomposition is the reverse sequence of assembly.’
By breaking it down and breaking it down again, I would come to understand how to assemble it.
And that was half correct.
‘It’s not a perfect creation spell.’
How disappointing.
I wish the Mage’s Archive would appear and acknowledge ‘creation’.
But through a mage’s intuition, I could sense it.
‘The assembly succeeded.’
It felt like I had completed a spell.
I tried using it immediately, but…
‘It won’t function properly.’
It felt similar to when I used the Seal of Justice, but then it fizzled out with a soft pop.
The spell manifestation wasn’t working correctly.
I needed an output of 100, but what actually came out was merely 1.
‘That’s fine.’
1 is insufficient.
But what if I layer it again and again?
‘Layering.’
This is what I’ve been doing every time.
Practice never betrays you.
Through practice, I would perfect the correction spell.
‘Layer. Layer. Layer.’
The power of the correction spell accumulated in layers.
But I felt it.
‘It’s insufficient.’
1+1 should equal 2.
Yet at some point, the result of 1+1 began to diminish.
1+1 became 1.9, then 1.8, then 1.1.
Before long, the effect of layering had diminished to almost nothing.
‘Simple layering has its limits.’
-(Mayo): I can help. I am a mage as well.
Another mage stepped forward.
If one wouldn’t suffice, then two would.
-(Mayo): This is also a layering spell!
-(Light): That’s layering?
-(Mayo): Yes. It’s definitely layering.
Mayo activated the storage and release functions within herself.
Having synchronized our breathing for so long, Mayo and I moved in perfect unison, like a single body, like ‘we’ were one.
-(Mayo): I store the correction spell, process it using my own methods, layer it, and re-release it to aid the mage. I will repeat this process.
Thanks to Mayo’s assistance, the output grew stronger.
Before long, Light Mayo’s form had transformed to resemble the Goddess of Justice.
Kang Pal-do’s system AI trembled in its voice, as if seized by tension.
[The artifact has been influenced by magic and transformed into the form of the Goddess of Justice. We are witnessing a moment when correction magic—magic that doesn’t exist within the system—is nearing completion. Will it truly be able to complete perfectly?]
Red Cat sensed the crisis.
‘I can’t just do nothing!’
Correction magic was fundamentally magic that interfered with system settings.
While the system couldn’t classify it as magic, the truth didn’t matter.
Either way, if the butler called it magic, then it was magic!
From what I could see, Igniasha remained utterly serene.
She had no particular thoughts on the matter. Yet the Artifact Alliance—Light and Mayo—was about to lose its advantageous position!
‘No, wait.’
Perhaps she wasn’t as thoughtless as I assumed.
After all, hadn’t Igniasha played a significant role in creating this very situation?
Igniasha had no reason to be anxious right now.
‘I’m the one who’s anxious, meow!’
Red Cat watched for an opening.
A dimensional beast. Born to interfere with system settings, Red Cat perceived the world through eyes unlike any human’s.
Red Cat’s eyes could see it.
The process of correction magic nearing completion.
‘Light Mayo is becoming incredibly helpful!’
In other words, Light Mayo was a wide-area bombardment.
It was scorching the system settings that obstructed the magic’s completion.
‘Impressive. But still slightly insufficient.’
If I were to compare it to a cat’s form, everything except the tail was nearly complete.
Now only a tiny bit remained.
Just one more brushstroke would finish it.
Right now, that final touch seemed to be missing.
‘Not yet.’
A skilled cat knows how to wait for the perfect moment.
Wait and wait, and eventually the true moment arrives.
‘This is it.’
Red Cat narrowed my eyes and gathered my front paws.
I would strike at the system settings at precisely the right moment.
To destroy the system setting that ‘correction magic like this doesn’t exist in the world’.
I waited for the final moment.
Kang Pal-do’s AI interpreted Red Cat this way.
[The dimensional beast waited for the moment. To deliver the finishing blow.]
In an instant.
Red Cat’s paw lashed out with a sharp meow!
Boom!
An explosion visible only to Red Cat’s eyes erupted.
And Choi Kang-mok sensed it instinctively.
‘Red Cat, nice!’
A notification appeared.
[Cooperative Magic, ‘Justice’ has been completed.]
The Archive did not activate.
It was not recognized as Creation Magic.
In other words, this was a heresy of the ‘magical order’.
[Cooperative Magic, ‘Justice’ is being used.]
I felt no shame in being unable to cast magic alone.
Cooperative Magic was also a branch of magic.
A mage is not omnipotent.
If one cannot do it alone, then two can do it together, and if two cannot, then three can.
‘This would align with the subtlety of layering as well.’
No.
It was cooperation.
Choi Kang-mok spoke.
“The reward is incorrect. I clearly completed a simultaneous clear of 10 floors at EX++ rank, yet I received only the mundane reward that was originally promised.”
[Indeed. A Mythic-grade robe is merely a mundane reward for a ‘Mage’.]
“Therefore, I demand this: let me be given a just reward.”

* * *
The Blue Writers who witnessed Choi Kang-mok’s ‘Magic Completion’ through Kang Pal-do’s broadcast were in a festive mood.
They scribbled in the ‘Remarks’ section without hesitating to consume ink.
───────
Haha, I can almost hear the system screaming from here.
└Isn’t Correction Magic basically forbidden magic?
└Can’t even call it forbidden—it was supposed to be impossible in the first place
└But he’s doing it?
└Seems like a miracle happened
But to pull off a miracle like that… don’t we need ○○?
└Shh, say more and you’ll get banned
───────
A new reward was given to Choi Kang-mok.
The reward itself was simple.
───────
[Item Duplication Right]
Grade: EX
Duplicate items of EX grade or lower, including Mythic-grade items.
Can duplicate any single item of all forms—equipment, consumables, special items, etc.
The duplicated item retains all options, effects, and performance identical to the original.
The state of an item remains unchanged during the copying process.
───────
However, the system was ultimately not so simple.
[Considering the current dimensional level, this is judged to be an excessive reward.]
[A safety constraint has been generated.]
───────
※Experience with copying or equivalent success using abilities and items of the same rank and category is required※
───────
Choi Kang-mok was delighted.
Most of all, I was thrilled to have completed ‘Correction Magic’.
While I couldn’t use it independently yet, with enough practice, I would eventually become skilled enough to wield it alone.
“Though it did come with a strange constraint.”
It seemed the system was reluctant to give too much.
But it didn’t matter.
I prided myself on being a master of preemptive clearing.
[Using the cooperative magic, ‘Justice’.]
I cast the magic once more.
And I spoke.
“I have prior experience successfully creating a skill book using an EX-rank copying talisman. Please verify.”
In that instant, the entire 70th Floor trembled.
It was similar to how a person might flinch with a shudder.
[…Verifying factual accuracy….]
-(Light) : Mayo, is that actually true?
-(Mayo) : A basic skill of entering the Tower. I have already completed experience by utilizing an EX-rank copying talisman and transforming it into entry to the Labyrinth.
Compared to Light, Mayo remained composed.
-(Mayo) : For a mage, this level of experience is considered standard.
Igniasha also showed no great surprise.
Her expression suggested: That butler might very well be capable of such things.
That was why Red Cat was confused.
Being a creature sensitive to ‘settings’, it was all the more so.
“An EX-rank copying talisman appeared on Earth? And that long ago?”
Were EX-rank items originally this common?
And then what else did he do with it to create something?
EX-rank talismans were so intricate and delicate that it should have been difficult to accomplish anything with them at Earth’s level?
The dimensional monster’s common sense was shaken to its core.
Mayo, who understood this situation well, spoke with a pleased smile in the form of ‘:)’.
-(Mayo) : For a mage, it is a common occurrence. Mountains of accumulated Novae. A mage-driven creation maniac. As long as someone like Byun Ha-gu, whose reinforcement abilities are exceptionally developed in strange ways, is prepared. Hehehehe.
[Seriously, tone it down….]
After a notification that passed too quickly for anyone to see, the official notification followed.
[…The safety constraint conditions have been satisfied.]
[Restriction conditions are deleted.]
‘Copy Right’ has been completed.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————