The Return of the EX-Class Wizard - Chapter 273

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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 273
Is this another scam?
Getting blindsided by the Tower has become routine.
If I don’t stay sharp, I’ll lose my nose while my eyes are open.
‘I need to concentrate harder.’
Like a true mage.
I must fundamentally grasp the principle behind this phenomenon.
If I just sit idle, I’ll get blindsided again.
‘Another forced displacement.’
The movement method resembles [Tower Entry].
Broadly speaking, it’s a branch of spatial liberation magic.
‘The sensation feels familiar.’
I’ve already been displaced to five checkpoint locations—collapsed Towers.
By now, a map is nearly drawn in my mind.
A dimension several times wider than Earth.
‘The displacement itself doesn’t seem to contain any tricks.’
What mattered was the ‘collapse’.
The Tower here will collapse soon as well.
‘Then should I deploy a collapse-prevention spell?’
How?
I don’t know.
I don’t have time to devote myself to theoretical research right now.
I decided to try whatever works, whatever my body does, whatever my instinct commands.
A mage’s intuition sometimes surpasses theory, after all.
“Defensive magic.”
The result was failure.
[■■ The Tower has collapsed.]
[Remaining Towers: 2]
Another forced displacement.
‘Simple defensive magic won’t cut it.’
But trying taught me something.
Choi Kang-mok has grown once more.
Indeed, real combat and practice are what make a mage grow.
‘Think of it as creating a scroll.’
A scroll confines a specific spell within paper.
While preserving the spell’s nature intact.
I’ve already repeated this countless times.
‘Truly countless times.’
The insight comes to me.
I must inscribe my destructive magic onto a thin sheet of paper—a scroll.
It was virtually impossible—nearly so.
The mage who accomplished it was Choi Kang-mok.
“Light Mayo. Let’s go.”
-(Mayo) : I shall demonstrate the true power of a mage 🙂
-(Light) : Such magical force—far beyond what those cats could muster!
I successfully imprisoned Christine using confinement magic.
This principle applied directly to scroll creation.
It remains the same even now.
“Assume the Tower as a single scroll.”
-(Mayo) : Indeed. We are currently deploying scroll-generation magic with spatial distortion as its foundation.
-(Light) : It seems a bit forced, but it’s magnificent!
Light marveled at the sight.
Now I ventured beyond the realm of the Destroyer, reaching toward that of the Guardian!
Perhaps this was the more difficult, more transcendent stage.
Light, experiencing something I had never even dreamed of in my past life (?), was exhilarated.
Light Mayo’s form shimmered brilliantly.
I sharpened my focus to its peak.
‘Force the Tower’s form to remain intact.’
“…Is it working?”
It wasn’t.
It was imperfect.
[■■ The Tower has collapsed.]
[Remaining Towers : 1]
Unable to prevent the Tower’s collapse, I swiftly deployed defensive magic instead, saving the city’s inhabitants.
As a mage, this was quite gratifying.
And then the final forced displacement.
“This time….”
-I have a feeling. This time, we will succeed.
-Because we have already grown through practice.
That’s right.
Practice alone is the path to survival.
Practice makes a mage stronger.
“We succeeded.”
The Tower’s form was forcibly maintained.
[■■ The Tower’s collapse has been postponed.]
[■■ The Tower will not collapse.]
In that instant, the entire world was dyed ash-gray.
As if something had malfunctioned.
[No, this isn’t right….]
[Please let it be read-only.]
[This shouldn’t be cleared this easily….]
[It’s so disgusting I can’t even stomach it.]
[…What do I do?]

* * *
Choi Kang-mok could intuitively understand this phenomenon.
“The Tower has stopped.”
───────
1) Define the worldview of this floor (Clear, Rank: EX)
2) Prevent the Tower’s collapse in this world! (Read-only) (Clear, Rank: EX++)
───────
It was a temporary malfunction.
Just as the Tower sometimes glitches before dispensing massive rewards, it seemed an internal issue had arisen within it.
“I might need to use correction magic.”
No matter how I thought about it, a ‘read-only challenge’ was far too contradictory, wasn’t it?
It wasn’t like a warm iced Americano or anything.
A challenge that you could only observe passively.
There was no harm in preparing in advance.
Red Cat marveled at this.
“So you could bluff your way through it like that!”
In fact, from Red Cat’s perspective, a ‘read-only challenge’ wasn’t all that strange.
Not all challenges had to be cleared by force.
Some naturally passed simply by observing them, didn’t they?
In other words, this was like a ‘challenge that clears itself just from watching.’
Yet I deliberately cleared it myself.
“Ah, I was but a frog in a well.”
I learn so much from meeting my butler.
Color began gradually returning from the distant horizon’s edge.
The Tower was normalizing.
Choi Kang-mok murmured with slight regret.
“No penalty?”
I had already finished preparing correction magic.
Unfortunately, the Tower seemed unable to impose any penalty on Choi Kang-mok.
Even normal ‘Floor 90 progression’ already seemed overwhelming for it.
-(Mayo): It seems our magic has thoroughly intimidated it. Indeed, at Floor 90, the Tower finally recognizes the true nature of a mage.
-(Light): If you’re going to be forceful, you have to do it to this extent to make your opponent shut up!
[!Special condition satisfied!]
[You have completed the hidden fragment of this world!]
Choi Kang-mok felt a strange sensation.
It felt as though time magic had been cast upon this entire world.
It was as if the world itself were spinning at several times its normal speed.
I observed events unfolding across the globe as though flipping through footage in fast-forward.
‘It’s like watching a movie on accelerated playback.’
Until now, I had witnessed towers crumbling as Choi Kang-mok moved through them, but now it seemed the world itself was coming to Choi Kang-mok, revealing itself to me.
As a mage, it was quite an exhilarating experience.
In this cinematic world, there existed one protagonist.
‘A mage?’
A mage.
More specifically, a combat mage.
Combat-specialized mages excelled at destruction.
‘Ah!’
Now I understood.
‘The towers collapsed because that monstrous mage destroyed them.’
It wasn’t merely overwhelming destructive power.
It was precise.
Where my magic pressed down with nearly infinite force….
‘That mage’s magic destroys everything with exactly the right amount of power.’
Where 100 units of power were needed, they applied exactly 101.
Where 1000 units of power were needed, they applied exactly 1001.
Where 10000 units of power were needed, they applied exactly 10001.
In certain respects, they surpassed even me.
‘A mad mage indeed.’
The world I perceived had its temporal axis twisted into chaos.
At certain points, the ‘protagonist’ was a child, while at others, they were an adult.
‘This face seems familiar….’
I felt I’d seen them somewhere before, yet the memory eluded me.
In any case, that mage was obsessed with destroying towers.
They had destroyed towers across the entire world.
‘And the final seven remaining.’
Those were the towers I had witnessed directly.
From that point onward, the ‘protagonist’ began sensing an anomalous force.
[■■ Tower has collapsed.]
[■■ Tower has collapsed.]
Towers continued collapsing.
And at the sixth tower, the ‘protagonist’ nearly failed to destroy it.
It was when I deployed my barrier magic.
And finally.
Ultimately, the ‘protagonist’ failed to destroy the tower.
For the first time since perfecting their tower-destruction spell, they experienced magical failure.
And a new objective was generated for me.
───────
3) Repel the deranged creature bent on destroying the Tower!
───────
Then the notification continued.
[Congratulations!]
[You have been selected as the boss of the 100th Floor of the ■■ Tower.]
[Boss Name: Mage]
Choi Kang-mok doubted his own ears.
‘Me? The boss of the 100th Floor?’
I had clearly entered Korea’s 90th Floor.
And yet….
Now I was being asked to serve as the boss of the 100th Floor in a different dimension, a different timeline.
‘I’m an Awakened One, not a boss.’
It was already absurd to be treated as a boss mob occasionally, but to be explicitly assigned as a boss like this?
“Well, the terminology doesn’t really matter.”
It was just a matter of how it was phrased.
In reality, the true ‘boss’ of this floor was the deranged creature intent on destroying the Tower.
That ‘Protagonist’ I had just glimpsed.
[!As the boss, you have the authority to configure the map!]
[Set it freely so you won’t be raided!]
Everything turned ashen once more.
It seemed they were giving me time to freely generate the map, as if I were setting up a practice match….
Boom!
The ashen world trembled.
Choi Kang-mok sensed it instinctively.
“Magic?”
-(Light): Mayo, can we separate for a moment?
-(Mayo): Impossible. We are already one body.
-(Light): I want to run.
Light, the escape specialist, grew deeply anxious.
These boom! boom! impacts were no ordinary tremors.
-(Mayo): It appears to be magic rivaling our own.
It seemed the Tower was currently restricting the Protagonist’s entry.
The Protagonist was attempting to force his way in through magic.
Igniasha spoke in exasperation.
“Is he insane? I haven’t even prepared yet!”
Less than a minute had passed since I was designated as the boss mob.
So why was he forcing his way in like this?
Shouldn’t the boss be given time to prepare too?
If entry was forbidden, couldn’t he just wait a bit?
Wait, shouldn’t I be the one waiting?
Igniasha clicked her teeth in frustration, and Red Cat fell silent.
‘It’s what the butler does every day.’
Having switched from perpetrator to victim, I found the perspective oddly refreshing.
Perhaps this is why the saying about understanding others through empathy exists.
Still, Choi Kang-mok remained largely unperturbed.
‘A magical duel against a mage seeking to conquer me.’
This was.
A magical combat scenario.
And a real one at that.
[You may freely set challenges within the established parameters.]
Choi Kang-mok immediately set his challenge.
[Challenge:
Achieve victory
in magical combat!]
The Protagonist’s challenge was to achieve victory in magical combat.
Choi Kang-mok’s challenge was to defend the last remaining Tower.
A loud alarm blared before Choi Kang-mok.
[※Warning! Warning! Warning! Warning!※]
[The Tower cannot prevent the entry of the deranged creature!]
Boom!
Light began seeping through with the sound.
In the same font as the Blue Writers, a notification in blue text appeared.
[An Awakened One enters!]
[Boss, be cautious in combat with the Awakened One!]
[That bastard Pease is truly insane!]
[Please stop them, Mercenary!]
The boss mage, entering combat mode, faced the Awakened One.
The voice of the magical creature echoed.
“At last, the final 100th Floor.”
A special space where time and space were distorted.
Tower (South Korea) Floor 90. Extradimensional Tower 100th Floor.
Awakened magical creature versus 100th Floor boss mage.
Raid commence.

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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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