The Wizard Who Endured the World of Murim - Chapter 24

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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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Surviving in the Martial Realm as a Mage: Episode 24
The stern of the sailing ship.
Aboard the vessel cutting swiftly across the waters of the Liu Chang River, I found myself lost in profound contemplation.
‘The form was slightly different, but that was unmistakably the aura of a spirit.’
In the distance.
Where my gaze fell, there stood the command ship of the Jinseong Transport Company, its iron carriage secured firmly in place.
No sound or aura leaked from the iron carriage now.
Yet I still vividly remembered the energy that had poured forth just before boarding.
‘The aura has weakened strangely, but it’s definitely a wind spirit.’
How in the world had humans managed to capture a spirit?
Did this world truly possess skilled spirit mages?
What I couldn’t understand was this:
Even if they had somehow managed to capture a spirit through some trick,
the spirit should simply sever its connection to this world and flee to the Spirit Realm.
So why hadn’t the one trapped there escaped to the Spirit Realm?
‘Soul Binding Magic is a fairly high-tier spell. Could someone here actually know how to use it? Or perhaps the spirit simply cannot escape?’
In this dimension,
there were far too many things that defied my understanding.
I absently kneaded my soft chin as I habitually did,
watching for nearly half a day
the command ship pursuing from behind without once looking away.
Finally, I turned my head with a light sigh.
‘After this escort mission ends, I should find a way to stay near the Namgung Clan Estate for a while.’
Honestly, I wanted to open that cargo container right now and speak with the trapped spirit.
But there were too many complications preventing that.
‘For now, since I’m a ronin, I need to focus on the job.’
I had considered approaching secretly,
but the ones aboard that command ship were far from easy opponents.
‘At minimum, there are ten masters of upper-tier knight rank.’
In this world, such masters were called peak experts.
And there were a full ten of them crammed aboard that command ship,
so getting caught doing something reckless would likely end poorly.
‘Come to think of it….’
I shifted my gaze sideways as I sat perched on the railing of the gently swaying deck.
There stood a middle-aged man on the deck with a relaxed expression, as if he had simply come out to catch the breeze.
This man’s name was Jang Geo-i.
‘This one too is of upper-tier knight rank.’
For some reason, he was concealing his true strength, but this one was also an upper-tier knight.
In other words, a peak expert.
‘It’s strange how often he catches my eye.’
At first, Ilhyang had wondered.
Whether that middle-aged man was watching him, given how frequently he appeared in his field of vision.
But soon he concluded he was being overly sensitive.
Jang Geo-i had been standing vacantly on the deck, gazing at the river.
Then he’d begun conversing with So Il-hyeon, the Pyo Kingdom escort master who’d emerged from the cabin.
‘True enough. There was no real connection between us anyway.’
As Ilhyang’s attention waned ever so slightly.
Song Gwang-sik, the Bright Moon Swordsman, exhaled a sigh of relief inwardly.
‘Phew, I thought I was about to be discovered.’
Realizing his surveillance target was beginning to grow wary of him.
Song Gwang-sik resolved to exercise greater caution in his actions.
Meanwhile, Ilhyang discreetly checked on the Jiangshi under his mental connection.
‘It’s precarious.’
Since his circle’s level wasn’t particularly high yet.
It became problematic if the distance from the Jiangshi grew too great.
The connection could snap entirely if he wasn’t careful.
Fortunately, thus far he’d managed to keep the Jiangshi following the vessel well.
By maximizing its terrifying physical capabilities and moving along the riverbank.
But because the Liu Chang River was nearly as vast as the sea itself.
There were moments when it teetered on the edge of his effective range.
‘If worse comes to worst, I’ll have it swim.’
That was preferable to losing control entirely.
Conducting this cursory check, he refocused his mind on the iron carriage aboard the command ship.
‘If just a bit more energy leaked out, I could determine it precisely.’
The fact that it was a wind spirit was certain.
But its exact level remained unclear.
The aura that had escaped was far too faint.
‘If it were at least mid-tier spirit level, that would be ideal.’
Even that much would provide substantial aid in reaching the fourth circle.
Spirits were pure natural forces.
Beings that harbored elemental power.
Ilhyang swayed up and down with the ship’s undulating motion, memories of his previous world surfacing.
‘Regardless, it’s now certain that spirits exist in this realm too. Then demons and demonic beasts might very well exist as well.’
The demon clans and demonic beasts that had once battled humanity.
They’d all cultivated cores within their bodies.
Extracting those cores from their corpses yielded extraordinarily potent demon stones.
Demon stones of such purity that they couldn’t be compared to those mined from demon stone quarries.
With such treasures embedded in their bodies, the higher-tier demons and demonic beasts possessed tremendous power.
But.
Humanity’s desire for demon stones.
It was the overwhelming power of the Demon Clan and the terror of their magic that drove humans to overcome their fear.
All for the sake of obtaining high-purity demonic stones.
Humans hunted countless demons and magical beasts.
‘They were truly mad.’
When one wasn’t enough, ten would rush forward.
When ten weren’t enough, a hundred would gather and charge.
No matter how formidable a demon or magical beast was, they couldn’t endure to the end.
Then, in the battle between the Demon King and the Hero, the Demon King—the linchpin—fell to the Hero’s blade.
The weakened Demon Clan had no choice but to flee hastily back to the Demon Realm.
They couldn’t withstand the relentless greed of humans who kept coming, no matter how many they killed.
‘We nearly drove the Demon Clan to extinction back then.’
Of course, humans died to the demons in staggering numbers as well.
At least a hundred times more humans fell than demons.
But.
No one paid attention to that obvious fact.
Demonic stones were objects that could drive humans to madness.
‘In any case, the inner cores of demons or magical beasts could potentially serve as elixir materials.’
My thoughts continued to unfold.
I couldn’t yet determine precisely what form elixir materials took in this world, or by what name they were known.
But the existence of spirits of that caliber meant.
That the primary materials for elixirs also exist in this world.
This is quite important information.
Splash—! Splash—!
I stood at the railing of the sailing ship I was aboard, gazing blankly at the muddy yellow waters of the Liu Chang River.
Then So Il-hyeon, a Pyo Kingdom swordmaster with whom I’d grown quite familiar over nearly ten days of traveling together by carriage and boat, sidled up and struck up a conversation.
This fellow.
Certainly possessed remarkable sociability.
“Our Young Dragon Lord seems quite accustomed to ships? Your posture is remarkably stable.”
During the escort mission.
After knocking down Hyeol Pung Chang several times.
The ronins and bounty hunters traveling with us playfully took to calling me Young Dragon Lord.
I couldn’t fathom why these locals were so fond of bestowing nicknames.
And not even impressive ones at that.
“I’ve ridden on ships a few times before.”
In truth, it was far more than a few times—I’d grown sick of it.
In my past life, I’d sailed on the ocean rather than rivers.
I’d even boarded massive galleys more than ten times their size on multiple occasions.
I’d thrown myself into the deadly seas countless times, risking my life to learn the unique magic of the merfolk who dwelt there.
As I fell into nostalgic reverie, my expression growing distant.
So Il-hyeon, who had been observing me, flashed his characteristic warm smile and posed a question.
“But what do you plan to do once we arrive at the Cheonjoong Sungdo, our young master?”
“I have no particular plans.”
Ideally, I would have preferred to stay at the Namgung Clan Estate, or failing that, somewhere near the Three Great Families.
But that was something I would need to discover gradually.
As I ran my palm across the rough texture of the wooden railing on the deck, I answered So Il-hyeon loosely.
So Il-hyeon tilted his head quizzically.
“Huh? I heard that Hyeol Pung Chang needs to climb Bota Mountain and deliver his master’s request?”
“Hmm? Is that so? How audacious—hiding his schedule from his father! I should go down to the cabin and teach that impudent son of mine a lesson.”
“Hey, hey! Wait a moment. If you go now, it’ll look like I’m the one who revealed the secret, won’t it? I’m the only one who heard that story directly from Yang Cheon-jo!”
Ilhyang paused for a moment, then gave So Il-hyeon a thumbs up and smiled brightly.
“That was very useful information. My son will lose a precious friend today. The culprit has been identified, after all.”
“…!”
So Il-hyeon, flustered, couldn’t respond and merely gaped. He suddenly came to his senses and asked back.
“S-so, how long do you plan to keep up this father act? It’s been entertaining to watch, I’ll admit. That Hyeol Pung Chang is quite famous around Myeong Province.”
More precisely, his master was the famous one.
Ilhyang knew that fact as well.
But his mindset was simply: so what?
I leaned against the deck railing for a moment, relaxed my shoulders, and answered readily.
“He’s a troublesome one in many ways, but he has talent. I thought he might become quite useful if cultivated properly, so I’ve been teaching him this and that. The problem is that his learning is slow.”
“…Were you genuinely instructing him?”
And cultivate him? That made no sense….
After all, Hyeol Pung Chang was considerably older than me.
When So Il-hyeon’s expression became somewhat bewildered.
Ilhyang gazed steadily at So Il-hyeon before him and smiled faintly.
“The Three Bonds and Five Virtues, benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom that I speak of are merely shells. To be more precise, they are little more than an excuse to instruct my son.”
An excuse to teach?
So Il-hyeon, who had been thinking about something for a moment, answered with an expression of sudden realization.
“Ah! No wonder you were always nagging and hitting him with flicks on the head. So that was your instruction!”
I glanced at the sailors busily moving the sails of the sailing ship and nodded.
“Every time I nag and attack, my son somehow manages to react. But he still has a long way to go. Since he seems to be someone who learned through elemental attributes, he has far too many openings.”
“You… you also know who his master is, don’t you?”
“Yes. Well, I know who it is. But even if the master is skilled, not all disciples can become skilled.”
“That… you’re right about that.”
When So Il-hyeon, having barely managed to change the subject, let out a sigh of relief internally.
Ilhyang met So Il-hyeon’s gaze directly and suddenly brought up a different matter.
“Now we are entering the most dangerous section of this escort mission. It seems we’ve reached the perfect moment for an attack.”
“Huh? Yeah, that’s right. The river is certainly dangerous after all.”
“Certainly, an attack on the water is more dangerous than on land.”
The Jiangshi that had been secretly following us could not easily move across the vast river like a sea.
Moreover, it wasn’t simply a matter of crossing the river.
It was a grueling six-day journey along the river just to make decent progress.
‘The sheer scale of this waterway is staggering.’
This wasn’t even the sea.
Just an inland canal connecting one region to another.
Yet even traveling at such breakneck speed aboard a sailing ship, it still took six days to traverse.
Ilhyang couldn’t help but marvel anew at the vastness of this continent.
‘It’s unfortunate that I can’t deploy the Jiangshi while aboard the vessel.’
If an accident occurred on deck, I certainly couldn’t rely on the Jiangshi’s assistance.
I would have to rely solely on my own strength to ensure my survival.
‘Well, barring any unforeseen variables, there shouldn’t be any major problems.’
Third Circle Mage.
In the Lower Dimension, I’d only just shed the title of apprentice mage.
Now I could rightfully be called a proper mage.
At this level, wouldn’t I rank among the stronger fighters in this world?
“You… your expression right now. It’s really irritating.”
“…Ahem, were you observing me?”
Ilhyang quickly composed his features and turned his gaze toward the river.
If things went as expected.
It was about time for the villains to make their entrance.

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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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