Chapter 129

“Do you know why Georgius City became the Knight Order’s headquarters?”

Evan asked.

“Because it’s a relic site left by the previous civilization.”

“Previous civilization?”

“Yes. Our oldest recorded history only goes back about 2,000 years, right? It’s a relic from the era before that.”

Evan lowered his voice into a growl.

“What do you think the world was like back then?”

“I don’t know?”

Bang! Evan slammed his fist on the table.

“Damn it! It was the same! Those damn mages were in power! And the already shattered world was broken again! This isn’t the first time! Magic inevitably disrupts the laws of the world! It eventually brings extinction! And then we start over from naked primitives! Do you know how many times this cycle has repeated? Do you understand how far humanity has fallen compared to the first brilliant civilization!”

In my opinion, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

But to be precise, the ones who brought the world to this state weren’t mages but gods. Of course, magic that clumsily imitates the power of gods can accelerate the world’s destruction. But what can we do? Could humans who barely survived after the gods’ war have survived until now without magic? Current magic is like an anesthetic. Continued use is certainly harmful, but without it, you’d die from shock immediately, wouldn’t you?

And if used properly, like I do… perhaps we could even prevent extinction.

Hmm… your story is rather boring, Evan.

Do better next time.

Crunch!

Beatrice bit into a cookie.

“Are you stupid? If magic destroyed the world on its own, why would we be working so hard? Well, as magic develops, more mages do realize that extinction becomes necessary. It’s inevitable. But thanks to garbage like you and foolish mages interfering every time, we’ve only ever achieved incomplete extinction. To avoid true extinction, we need to experience complete extinction once.”

“What nonsense is that!”

Crunch crunch crunch!

Stressed, Beatrice stuffed three cookies into her mouth at once. She stared directly at me.

“You know what? Our world hasn’t even been born yet.”

Oh? That’s a fresh take.

“All this talk about extinction is actually ridiculous. How can a world that was never completed face extinction? The current situation is no different from holding an unfertilized egg in your womb. An unfertilized egg should be made into a fried egg! Only then can a truly fertilized egg grow and hatch! But because of our greed, we’re killing the very womb that could give birth to a true world!”

Even for an analogy, a fried egg…

And how does she even know the world is an unfertilized egg in the first place?

“How do I know?”

Beatrice growled.

“I saw it myself! When I received the Dragon Heart, I directly witnessed those memories! Human history only goes back about 2,000 years, right? The memories I received through the Dragon Heart go back 20,000 years! They contain all the secrets of the world!”

Ho? 20,000 years?

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

Evan cut in.

“I’m the one who’s seen and heard it directly! Anyone who connects to the Coin of Rebellion can know this. Why do you think the Coin of Rebellion was created in the first place? To prevent the world’s extinction! It’s humanity’s last resort, created to kill mages! Think about why killing mages accumulates points in the coin—consider what that means!”

This is fascinating.

“Dragon Heart… you say? Ah, now I remember. I wondered why I felt a strange familiarity and pressure from this child. Tsk.”

Kaisel’s red eyes glowed.

“It was the same before. Those lizards acted like frontline commanders. The higher lords rarely showed themselves… Hmm… but who were those higher lords? What war was it again?”

Who else would it be but gods? After all, like the cube and Ari, all beings that have lived since the mythological era share the same memory problems.

“Actually, Truth Tower views this issue differently.”

Pan-Dalus, who had been quiet, took a sip of tea and interjected.

The discussion atmosphere is good. I like it. With perspectives from various factions coming together, the conversation flows continuously.

“The Magic Emperor refers to Ragnarok as ‘poor souls who fell for a cunning deception.'”

“Wh-wh-WHAT?! What did that usurper say?!”

Slam!

Excited, Beatrice stood on her chair. She looked ready to climb onto the table next.

“Kuk. Kuk. Nothing proper could be known by mage scum.”

Evan leaned comfortably against his chair back, enjoying Beatrice’s anger.

“And regarding the Knight Order, he called them vengeful individuals who twist facts to suit themselves without proper evidence.”

Bang!

“Hey, old man! Say that again!”

This time, Evan slammed the table and stood up abruptly. Pan-Dalus merely shrugged once and took another sip of his tea.

Beatrice, still standing on her chair, looked down at us and shouted until her face turned red. She seemed so excited that she’d forgotten Pan-Dalus wasn’t even affiliated with Truth Tower.

“You…! You…! Aren’t you the thieves who stole the Holy Grail, one of the three divine artifacts?! Who would believe the self-justification of thieves!”

Evan chimed in.

“Vengeful?! Coming from delusional psychopaths who destroy entire continents with massacre magic! Take that back right now!”

Ooh.

A war of revelations.

Crunch crunch.

I stuffed cookies into my mouth.

Ah—

Something’s missing.

Instead of cookies, I’d prefer something salty and fluffy but with a satisfying crunch…

* * *

“Why are you grinning like that?”

The Mage of Refinement frowned. Dark circles hung under his eyes, nearly reaching his chin.

“Oh, I was just watching a highly entertaining debate.”

“…I see…”

He must be really tired. I expected him to snap at me, but he just nodded.

Now, let’s see how much work he’s done.

‘Wow…’

Actually, there was nothing to check. I could only express admiration.

Azure Magic School had originally been a plain school made entirely of white stone. But now it was elaborately decorated with intricate patterns. Chain patterns, five-petal motifs, equilateral triangles and pentagons, alphabet-like symbols—these patterns covered the floors, pillars, and ceilings without a gap. Simple patterns came together to form larger, more complex incantations. It was impressive up close and nearly moved me to tears from afar. Cobalt blue, forsythia yellow, emerald, ruby—all sorts of colors were used, making Azure Magic School look like it was blooming with flowers.

Even more impressively, the incantations continued uninterrupted into the ancient relic site submerged underwater.

“How did you engrave that part?”

Even with all the manpower and resources we provided… could such work be completed in just one night? I could understand the visible parts of Azure Magic School, but what about the ancient relic site submerged under the impossibly heavy water of the Great Water Plains? How? Surely they didn’t lift all the water first? That would be absurd…

“Any relic site already has self-restoration spells engraved on it. If you know how to use them, it’s not difficult.”

The Mage of Refinement answered with a sleepy face. So rather than engraving everything manually, he had simply provided materials and let the relic site manifest the incantations itself.

A true genius is indeed a genius.

“I didn’t do it alone. The submerged portion was too large for me to cover by myself.”

The Mage of Refinement nodded toward the back. Two people were sleeping, leaning against a pillar and each other.

Erina had her head on Lytol’s shoulder, and Lytol rested his cheek on the crown of her head. Behind them, the waves of the Great Water Plains shimmered gently.

“Well, at least Lytol seems to have collected a handsome fee.”

At my comment, Refinement burst into laughter.

“Anyway… as you can see, I’ve completed the preparations to hack the main control of Azure Magic School, or the Waiting Stairs. But as I told you, this alone won’t be enough. I’ve tried similar attempts before and failed miserably. There must be some defense mechanism I don’t know about.”

Previously, Refinement had asked me two things.

First, could I obtain complete control over a single staircase?

Second, after gaining control of one staircase, could I use it as a medium to hack other staircases or cities?

As soon as I heard these questions, the cube answered,

-Of course it’s possible, Administrator.

And that’s how our Independence Day memorial project began.

“To restate our goal… we need to obtain at least communication permissions for all staircases and cities. Not just sending crude pigeon magic, but directly projecting images to each base to announce our independence. That alone would showcase our level of magical scholarship. But if we could go a step further and actually disrupt and utilize their defense systems, that would be even better. We could expand our territory more easily.”

Yes, that.

I had already asked the cube about it. It also saw no reason why it wouldn’t work.

The cube said,

-The area currently known as the Tower of Covenant was where the Administrators resided, officially named the ‘Divine Realm.’ The Administrators conducted creation research here and stored meta-records about the world. The ‘staircases’ and ‘cities’ were laboratories and fortresses created by the Administrators. Naturally, there must be a communication network connecting all bases.

The only problem was that the cube’s memory wasn’t intact.

-The method to activate the communication network is… confirmed to be stored in the embedded memory device, but I cannot retrieve it. If I receive stimulation related to that memory, I might be able to recover it.

How could I stimulate that memory?

Experimentation and research were needed. For now, we were just banging our heads against a brick wall. But if we just kept headbutting blindly, our heads would burst first.

Fortunately, I had a Gift specialized for this: [Simulation].

Currently, my [Simulation] capacity is 67,725 simuls.

The condition burden of the entire Waiting Stairs is about 500,000 Jun-woos.

1 simul can simulate 1 Jun-woo’s condition for 1 minute.

In other words, if I ran [Simulation] on the Waiting Stairs for about 8 seconds, I would be completely exhausted.

That’s out of the question.

So I made a decision.

Sigh…

Even though I’ve firmly resolved to do this, my flesh still trembles.

“Refinement.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

Noticing the tension in my voice, his face grew serious.

“I… want you to tell me your secret.”

“…What secret are you talking about? The atmosphere has become quite somber.”

“That one. Your secret for not aging.”

His eyes widened. He looked up at me slightly. When we first met, we were about the same height, but I’ve grown since then and now I’m about 4cm taller.

Even so, I’m still only 165cm tall. I’ve just reached the age where I should be growing significantly… is this where it ends for me? I could cry tears of blood.

“I was planning to wait until my body was fully developed, but it seems we don’t have that luxury.”

“You…?!”

“Yes. I’m going to raise my level. I’m tired of being 3rd Circle.”

Refinement’s face hardened.

“You have a misunderstanding. This isn’t some ‘secret.’ It was an accident. Among the mages conducting research with me at that time… my parents… I was the only survivor.”

This is the first I’m hearing of this.

He lost his parents… I couldn’t help but feel a pang in my heart as I examined Refinement’s face.

But my decision was already made.

No matter how dangerous it might be, with both [Simulation] and the cube at my disposal, I should be able to understand the principle and find ways to reduce the risks.

“Tell me anyway. I’m not asking for no reason. I’ve heard that you don’t just avoid aging; you’re almost immune to magical power addiction too. Since your body became fixed, the risk of further collapse is extremely low. With everything that’s about to happen, I can’t keep restraining my level out of fear of magical power addiction.”

“…Well, someone like you would grow explosively once the restrictions are removed. Honestly, I can’t even imagine how far you might develop…”

After thinking it over, Refinement finally answered.

“Alright. I’ll tell you. But… remember that even I don’t know what side effects might appear later.”

“Don’t worry. If it looks like there might be side effects, I’ll heal you first.”

Heh.

Refinement cracked a smile.