Chapter 121

Another name for the Waiting Stairs is the ‘Azure Magic School.’

In the distant past, it was one of the first magic schools established by the Academy, and it’s still exclusively operated by them today.

While it was once a hall of learning where high-level magic was discussed, it’s now famous primarily as a basic school teaching children between seven and twelve years old. The basic magic curriculum at the ‘Azure Magic School’ was considered the finest in the Tower, making mages from all backgrounds—whether Magic Tower or Society—eager to enroll their children. The minimum requirement to remain in the Tower is 2nd Circle. Even for those born in the Tower, if they don’t reach 2nd Circle by age nineteen, they must leave for the cities. Considering this reality, the parents’ educational zeal was understandably intense.

Thus, this place had been a neutral zone enjoying peace for over a thousand years under the Academy’s management.

And that’s why…

This war was such a shock to the students here.

“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen. Just sleep seven nights, and you’ll be able to return soon.”

A teacher in a black coat consoled her young disciples.

“Teacher… will you die?”

An eight-year-old child sobbed.

The teacher with her brown hair braided into a single plait ruffled the child’s soft hair, looked into their eyes, and smiled.

“Who says that? I’m a mage. I won’t die from something like this.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Mages don’t lie. So Jung-in needs to listen well to the escort teacher until I return, okay? When I come back, I’ll ask the escort teacher if you behaved well or not. Understand?”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Good. Have fun.”

The teacher who had comforted the crying children one by one was young and beautiful. When entrusting the children to the travel caravan heading to the 14th floor, her eyes trembled as if she might cry.

For the next week, the children of Azure Magic School would travel around famous attractions on the 14th floor before returning.

Of course… if we lose, they might never return.

Watching this scene… somehow reminded me of Teacher Sena.

Perhaps that’s why I found myself approaching her.

“You’re an Azure Magic School teacher, right? You could have left with them… but you chose to stay?”

Startled by my sudden voice, she hurriedly wiped her eyes and turned to face me.

“Ah! Divine Mage! What an honor!”

The woman who had been on the verge of tears just moments ago now had flushed cheeks. Seemingly embarrassed, she fiddled with her braided hair and said,

“I’m Roa, in charge of the Sprout Class at Azure Magic School.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Baek Jun-woo.”

Roa looked somehow deeply moved.

“This is… truly an honor. Because… you asked why I didn’t leave and chose to stay, right?”

I did.

Of course, while Azure Magic School belonged to the Academy, Pan-Dalus’s current actions were unrelated to the Academy. That’s why we didn’t force Academy-affiliated mages to join our campaign. In other words, her decision to stay was entirely voluntary.

I was grateful, but honestly, I didn’t quite understand it.

Roa spoke straightforwardly.

“What mage would miss an opportunity like this? When you first arrived here, you gave a lecture on ‘New Multi-Control Spell Theory’ with the Mage of Refinement, didn’t you? To have the chance to learn, master, and apply that… if I ran away out of fear of war, the magical powers would never forgive me.”

Looking at those unwavering eyes, I couldn’t help but smile.

“Well… ‘New Multi-Control Spell’… I was surprised too. That he could theorize my ideas in such a short time. The Mage of Refinement truly is a genius.”

“Oh, but the Mage of Refinement says that the Divine Mage is the genius!”

This somewhat surprised me.

“That guy actually says things like that?”

“Ah, well, he also said, ‘If only he could fix that autism where he talks about things only he knows as if they’re obvious, he might be more useful…'”

Roa grinned broadly.

Seriously… why is this lady so cute?

I chuckled and nodded slightly.

“Then I look forward to working with you.”

“Yes! We’ve practiced singing so hard for this day! Look forward to it!”

I walked past Roa as she waved her hands enthusiastically, and exited through the main gate.

Splash. Splash.

The sensation of walking on the water here was peculiar. It felt soft like jelly yet supported my feet more firmly than sand.

Behind me stood the Azure Magic School built of clear white stone, and to its left and right stretched the event horizon dividing the 13th and 14th floors.

The event horizon was bizarre.

Standing before it was like standing in front of a mirror—my reflection and the surrounding scenery were visible. But it wasn’t just a mirror. Like the endless corridor created when two mirrors face each other, reflecting infinitely, the event horizon endlessly replicated the scenery before it, creating a deepening tunnel that gradually darkened. Until it became completely dark and nothing could be seen.

If you observed that dark space carefully, you could see people, monsters, and objects that existed only within it, not in the reflected scenery. Like beings trapped in a mirror, completely motionless. They were those who had attempted to cross the event horizon in the distant past. But since the event horizon is a line where time doesn’t flow, no one could cross it and they remained eternally preserved. Like fossils buried in a fault line, figures from all eras stood frozen in various attires.

‘Why did they try to cross the event horizon even knowing they would end up like that?’

…An unknowable matter.

I turned my head again.

With my back to the event horizon and Azure Magic School, I faced the transparent great sea before me. This would be our battlefield.

Among the mages busy preparing for war, I spotted Oh Si-jin, the Mage of Refinement, who was putting the finishing touches on his work for the multi-control magic.

“So you finally came. Annoying brat.”

He grumbled at me without even turning around.

“What, why, what?”

I grumbled back and examined the items he had been working on.

He had carved resonance chambers from echo wood and covered them thinly with the belly skin of thunder frogs to make drums.

He had completely hollowed out whistling buffalo horns using openwork techniques, then filled them with a clay mixture of wind reed leaves, echo tea leaves, silver, and copper using inlay techniques, jellified them, and carved them into flutes.

Percussion instruments, wind instruments, string instruments… there were enough completed musical instruments neatly arranged to form several orchestras.

The performance even exceeded my expectations.

Wow… I couldn’t help but be impressed.

-This is… truly remarkable. I’ve never seen such items before. The world seems to have changed dramatically while I was sleeping. All the materials differ slightly from what I remember. They’ve been transformed. Yet this mage seems to know how to utilize these transformed materials well. Such transformations in materials are ominous signs evidencing the world’s impending destruction… but seeing this civilization that can even utilize that transformation… I feel a sense of awe.

Even the cube was amazed by the Mage of Refinement’s work.

Yes. Just as water is changing now, all the magical materials we currently use have actually been altered after the destruction. And humans faced great crises whenever such alterations occurred, but ultimately used even those altered properties to build today’s civilization.

This is where the Mage of Refinement’s greatness stands out.

He was like a walking encyclopedia. He thoroughly understood the characteristics and applications of all magical materials humans had discovered.

I had only vaguely said, “It would be good to have something like this…” and he promptly gathered magical materials and created exactly such items.

A genius who had mastered magical academia through endless study and training. A mage more famous than even the great mages. This was the Mage of Refinement, the darling of magic.

Now this same man frowned and grumbled at me.

“Well then, now it’s time for the magnificent Divine Mage to teach us ‘how it’s originally done’ with these instruments, right?”

The Mage of Refinement’s eyes revealed both annoyance and undisguisable curiosity. As the spokesperson for orthodox magical academia, he was particularly uncomfortable with my magic that deviated from the orthodox path, while simultaneously striving to pull my ‘stories’ into the realm of structured ‘scholarship.’

You could say he was trying to incorporate the music I played haphazardly, without knowing musical notation, into existing music theory.

“I already explained everything, didn’t I? You must have confirmed the power of the ‘chorus’ too.”

“Explanation? You call that an explanation? I feel like I just heard some kind of myth! And while I somehow came to terms with the ‘chorus,’ I really don’t understand these instruments! The basics of multi-control magic involve creating pillars or sculptures as magical devices to form the magic circle… but musical instruments?”

“Well… if you don’t understand, you’ll just have to see it directly. Wait a little. Ragnarok will arrive soon.”

“Ha, without any experiments or practice, you’re going to succeed in one go? And in the middle of a war?”

“It will work, I’m telling you.”

I tapped my head, and Oh Si-jin frowned deeply.

“Ha, I suppose so. Damn… that cursed absolute mana sight…”

Absolute mana sight. That was the name the Mage of Refinement had given to my ability to see mana.

Of course, my current confidence in the outcome was thanks to [Simulation].

* * *

Ragnarok’s junior inquisitors are issued white robes.

These white robes gradually become soaked with blood, and when even cleaning magic can’t completely remove the dried blood, the robes turn a dingy brown. Junior inquisitors who survive until then are promoted to intermediate inquisitors.

The brown robes become soaked with blood daily, and finally, when they remain perpetually stained red despite washing, the robes become permanently tinged dark red. Intermediate inquisitors who survive until then are promoted to senior inquisitors.

Senior inquisitors—that terrifying title. They were slaughterers said to be capable of destroying entire cities single-handedly.

Ragnarok appeared quietly. Distant red figures shimmered on the horizon, and soon about fifty mages wearing dark red robes glided smoothly toward us.

One girl, one woman, three wearing skull masks. Fifty wearing just dark red robes. Exactly fifty-five people.

‘They’re… so few?’

Meanwhile, we numbered nearly a thousand. A battle of 1000 versus 55. Looking at the numbers, their side seemed laughable.

But it was our side that tensed up instead.

“Senior inquisitors…”

Groans erupted from all around.

And understandably so…

‘One, two, three Mages… and all of them 5th Circle?’

Everyone in red robes was 5th Circle, and those wearing skull masks were actually mages. The elders of Ragnarok, they were called.

And the black-haired beauty standing next to the little girl was undoubtedly the vampire woman I’d encountered before. Though I didn’t know why she was there… she had to be counted as mage-level strength too.

In the end, they had four mage-level combatants. Our side had only two mages: Hedric and Pan-Dalus.

Additionally, we had only 17 5th Circle mages on our side. Meanwhile, everyone on their side was 5th Circle or higher…

Setting everything else aside, the Academy had only 13 Mages in total. To think that four Mage-level powers would gather together… I hadn’t anticipated such powerful forces assembling. There was a reason they had confidently charged in.

Oh, and wasn’t their Saint said to have torn apart a Magic Tower Mage like it was child’s play?

Splish, splash.

A small girl holding a teddy bear stepped forward.

“Pleased to meet you. I am Beatrice, the Saint of Ragnarok.”

A little girl with white hair.

She seems to be their leader.

…Our images kind of overlap?

“You didn’t flee? Indeed… do you intend to join us? Ah, those who have opened their distant eyes. I shall gladly accept you.”

I learned today that a voice as young as about 11 years old could be so arrogant. Unlike me who had been roughing it in the wilderness, she thoroughly embodied what it meant to be ‘a precious being born to be revered.’

She had no less than five Circles. At that age, I hadn’t even become a mana beginner… not only was she 5th Circle, but she also possessed the mysterious power to tear apart Mages.

Whew, that’s how frightening environment can be.

…It’s really irritating.

“Join you? Like hell… Hey, witch! Didn’t you see my warning notice? Coming this far means you want to die!”

Somehow feeling riled up, I just shouted.

I thought I was establishing dominance, but Yuria snickered behind me.

“Wow~ The contrast in speech. I guess we really are uncultured. Hehe. Like street thugs.”

…Damn it.

“Hmm? You don’t wish to join us?”

The little Saint put her finger to her lips in mock surprise, then smiled slyly. Her emerald eyes that had shone like jewels darkened ominously.

“Ah, how impious and heretical—”

She raised her hand high. As if to say there was no virtue in offering twice, she immediately signaled for war.

“Inquisitors? Make them atone.”

Make us atone…

What a joke.

“Let’s start the song!”

I gave my order.

As I raised my right hand,

Boom!

The mages struck their drums as they had learned.

As I raised my left hand,

The mages holding wind instruments produced high and low notes.

As I waved both hands, the string instrument section began playing.

And then, a thousand mages began singing in chorus. A majestic chorus.

Not just a song. A song that vibrated mana… a requiem for dead gods.

The song of mana, perfectly harmonized following my conducting, made all the magical powers in heaven and earth focus on us. The magical powers responded in rhythm, and the spells naturally grew stronger. Just like a magical power singularity.

Four Mage-level powers… no, five?

Fifty 5th Circle mages?

Ha!

Even if the Nine Dragons, said to be the Tower’s strongest, were here, I wouldn’t be afraid.

A new form of multi-control spell that completely overturned all previous multi-control magic!

The spell cast by a thousand people together endlessly increased in power.

Whoosh!

The sea, heavier than iron, raised its body. The water level on our side rose endlessly, while the water surface where Ragnarok stood sank endlessly. The impossibly high wave targeted all the way to the horizon. There was nowhere to hide.

The mages who were putting their all into infusing the melody with spells wore expressions of joy.

Yes. With this spell…

No matter how individually powerful the enemies were, strong enough to destroy cities, couldn’t we sweep away about 1/3 of them in one go? And that’s being modest—if they suffered such damage from the first strike, the battle would be over in that instant.

The song quickly moved through one melody and reached its climax, and at the end, I made my Circle resonate with all my might. A single activation word to dot the eyes of the song at its climax.

[TTSSS-EU-EU-NA-A-MI-YEEE!]

Like the world itself turning against the enemies… a massive tsunami engulfed the paltry fifty mages.

We were confident of victory.

[Draaaagon Breeeeath!!]

BOOOOOOOMMM!

‘…Did they just say Dragon’s Breath?’

I could hear the Circle’s words so clearly,

And then the towering tsunami vanished without a trace.

Even the steam that exploded upward was immediately swept away by the hot wind, and when our vision cleared again, all fifty-five people stood there without a scratch.

“They… blocked it? What was that spell just now?”

I must have looked dumbfounded. And,

“Couldn’t break through…? What kind of multi-control spell is this? Wasn’t that supposed to be terribly inefficient?”

The Saint girl definitely had a dumbfounded expression.

“What are they?”

“What are these things?”

Beatrice and I both felt our pride wounded at the same time.