Dimensional Workshop

Whoooosh!

At the center of Floating Island Sion stood the World Tree.

When that massive tree swayed its leaves, cool wind spread across the entire island.

-Grrrrowl. Grrrrowl.

Among the massive branches, three ‘Night Calamity–Dragons’ that Baek Jun-woo had collected slept with their bodies coiled in circles. The dragons’ scales were red, black, and yellow respectively, and when the leaves swayed, the glimpses of those colors looked like autumn foliage.

-……This feels good. Thinking about it now, we can’t even understand why we waged war like that.

Among the calamities, only the ‘Spirit of Raging Storm’ remained awake, thinking that the sight of dragons and the World Tree suited each other quite well.

Artisan Hephaestus. A supreme administrator. In wartime, he would surely have been a mortal enemy that had to be killed. The ‘Spirit of Raging Storm’ was a former spirit who had sided with the rebel forces and modified itself into a weapon, while the dragons were beings born as war weapons for the rebellion from the beginning.

But… now that the war was over, looking at it this way, his heart felt at peace. He felt nostalgia for the weapon ‘World Tree’ created by Hephaestus, who had been the enemy commander. Enemy or whatever… an administrator is an administrator. Without administrators, no existence can find rest.

“Do you remember the wartime? I barely remember any of it…”

The ‘Spirit of Raging Storm’ asked in a somehow wistful voice from among the swaying branches where the vampire lord Kaisel sat.

-I don’t remember most of it either. That we fought desperately. That we hated madly. When I came to my senses from time to time, the world had become a complete mess. Just fragmentary impressions like that. As I said, I don’t even remember why we waged war.

“……We should be grateful to the Divine Wizard. If he hadn’t declared the end of the war, we’d still be raging madly.”

-That’s certainly how it would have been. Everything is thanks to him. But at the same time, he’s also a strange person. Though my memory isn’t complete, his existence is different from any administrator I know.

“Ah, really? I wasn’t the only one who found it strange!”

-Right. At first, I thought he was definitely an administrator from the rebel faction. But… his form keeps changing. Sometimes he looks just like the administrators I remember, but… when you look closely, there’s something unsettling. Sometimes he gives off the scent of multiple administrators, and sometimes he seems incomplete. Also, sometimes he seems like a lower administrator and sometimes like an upper administrator.

“……Magic, that’s the deal. Beings who claim to be descendants of ancient administrators.”

-Right. I heard it on the wind too. Those who would have been classified as mortals in the old days now claim to be administrator descendants and wield immortal power. Honestly, I was a bit confused at first.

“So? Have you sorted out your feelings now?”

Whooooo—the sound of wind swept around Kaisel. Kaisel thought that sound was just like laughter.

-Sorting out is too much to say. The command that the Divine Wizard gave was clearly legitimate. I too held semi-administrator status, but that was before the war. Now I merely follow the orders of higher authority. However… personal curiosity has arisen. Is the Divine Wizard a new god born after my death? A hybrid of lower and upper administrators? Did he undergo mutation during the destruction process? But listening to the stories here, isn’t magic a discipline of gathering the flesh of ancient gods and regenerating them as one? But how is such a thing possible? How far is it possible… well, that kind of curiosity has simply arisen.

“What? You’re more straightforward than I thought? I was expecting… ‘This isn’t the kind of administrator I was thinking of! Die!’ or something like that.”

Kaisel’s branch trembled with the spirit’s laughter.

-What do you take me for?

“What else, a calamity that smashes the whole world.”

-That’s not something you should be saying.

“Well, that’s true.”

-I’m just… realizing that a very long time has passed. That everything… even the definition of ‘administrator,’ which seemed like it would never change, has been altered over such a long time. I’m looking forward to seeing how far the new administrator lords will accomplish.

“Ah, then you can look forward to it.”

Kaisel stood up, tapping the World Tree’s branch with her hand.

“Divine Wizard, that crazy bastard—every time I don’t see him for a moment and look again, he’s always developed in some ridiculous way. If it’s him… he’ll truly shoulder the work of creation.”

-The work of creation… that’s a nostalgic name. I had completely forgotten.

“Right. So… shall we start getting to work too? The younglings are being pushed back more and more frequently.”

-Indeed.

Kaisel and the Spirit of Raging Storm looked side by side beyond the borders of Floating Island Sion. Toward Floating Island Sion, the Outer God’s minions were pressing in endlessly. No matter how many they killed, far more enemies swarmed in immediately. The brief moments of rest that had continued like this were getting shorter and shorter… at this rate, it seemed like a moment would soon come when they couldn’t rest for even a single instant.

-Grrrrowl!

The sleeping dragons also opened their eyes. Kaisel climbed onto the neck of the red dragon among them.

“It’s still manageable for now, but it’s starting to get scary, so don’t be too late, Baek Jun-woo.”

Kaisel stroked the World Tree’s branch once and muttered, casting her gaze toward the front lines. Understanding her intent, the dragon spread its wings wide and pressed firmly against the World Tree’s branch, and

Boom!

Flap!

With one push of its feet and one flap of its wings, it shot out like a cannon.

The World Tree’s branch that had launched the dragon swayed back and forth.

* * *

“Hmm… I see.”

The World Tree’s roots tore rifts in dimensions and extended even into the dimensional workshop.

Thanks to this, from within the workshop, I could intervene to some degree in the outside through the World Tree.

Usually I ignored the outside information transmitted through the World Tree, but today the conversation between Kaisel and the spirit was quite interesting.

Because it connected with the research topic I was pursuing to ascend to the 10th Circle.

Magical power consists of five colors. Red, blue, green, white, and black.

But the magical power neural networks of myself and <Samantha>, having reached the end of the 9th Circle, discovered a new fact.

‘Even if they’re the same color magical power, they’re actually not the same magical power.’

Among the gods of the past, the upper administrators who held high positions mainly had colors of white, green, and blue, while the lower administrators mainly had black and red. But that was merely a rough classification of them. A white rose that drinks blue water will bloom blue flowers. But a red rose, even if it grows drinking blue water, won’t become quite so blue. Well, that kind of difference.

Fundamentally, all magical power was different from each other.

Just as identical-looking hair can be classified through genetic testing, all magical power was the flesh of different gods.

The key to the 10th Circle lay in distinguishing each one.

That’s why before me now sits the ‘Divine Body Sculpting Equipment’ all by itself. A pristine white operating table.

“…Hmm. Kaisel was in tremendous pain back then.”

I had once tied Kaisel to that operating table and chopped her magical power into pieces. Now I had to perform that surgery on myself. To decompose my mixed magical power by type.

Gulp.

Saliva went down. Strong will isn’t about becoming numb to pain and fear. Rather, it’s about feeling those things more acutely than anyone while still overcoming them. A mage is a being who spends a lifetime practicing how to use pain and fear.

“Huff! Huuufff!”

Breathing out sharply, I brought the necklace to my handbag. The bag opened with a clatter! and <Samantha> rose up. Cold metal covered my entire body, and magical power blazed soon after. Originally, the moment I donned <Samantha>, nothing felt fearful and I trembled with omnipotence…

Now my heart was pounding.

My hair was standing on end from excitement.

Right. Let’s not think too long…!

“Huff!”

With one breath, I leaped onto the operating table.

[Telekinesis]

Using the telekinetic power that Hwarin once used, I lifted the scalpel.

Carefully observing my magical power, which was a chaotic mix of red, blue, green, white, and black, I distinguished the magical power with different personalities even within the same colors, and

Stab!

I pierced!

“Graaaaaaah!”

It’s, it’s too painful!

Following the grain of the magical power, I tore it apart. It wasn’t just physical pain. The feeling of me—who had commanded Ki-blood and Circles reaching the 9th Circle and felt omnipotence—destroying myself! The miserable and desperate feeling of inserting a scalpel into delicate structures that should never be broken and butchering them, breaking my own status!

“Graaaah!”

Still, the scalpel never stopped for even a moment. My eyes stayed wide open too. Dozens, hundreds of times per second, I slashed and chopped my magical power into pieces.

The blazing white magical power was sliced this way and that, crumbling like grains of rice, and the blue, green, white, and black magical power hidden beneath the magical power skin couldn’t escape the scalpel either. The magical power skin disappeared, the magical power organs and Ki-blood disappeared, and <Samantha>’s metal body was laid completely bare.

“Huff… huff…”

After finishing the procedure, there was no strength left in my fingertips. The source of the authority that could move the world with a single word… had all fallen away from my body. It felt like losing wings, like being taken out of water.

“Whew… not yet. I have to reassemble it all before I can lie down…”

Pushing away the feeling of wanting to collapse and lie down immediately, I examined the completely disassembled magical power. I put all my strength into my dimming eyes.

“Forty-seven types of white magical power. Thirty-nine blue magical power, thirty-two green magical power, forty-one red magical power, forty-five black magical power gods… so it was magical power left behind by a total of 204 gods.”

Like genetic testing, the former owners of the magical power I possessed were classified in detail. 204 chunks of pure magical power divided by type.

-Strange. It feels like multiple administrators are together. Such a complex scent, really fascinating.

Wind spirit Ari, who had hidden back into the necklace after I dismantled not only my magical power but <Samantha>’s magical power as well, chattered away.

Woooom—wooooom—brrrrr—!

<Samantha>’s reaction was also different from usual. The creature that had been docile like a small beast now trembled and squeaked and tilted unpredictably. The 204 torn fragments of magical power snarled at each other, causing collisions.

‘Well, naturally. Since I’ve separated the magical power of 204 gods individually… their wills would clash with each other and create discord.’

When they had been all mixed up before, they had been swept this way and that, not knowing who was who, forming one major current. Now everyone was standing a few steps apart from each other, all shouting at each other.

But to ascend to the 10th Circle, I absolutely had to go through this process.

“Whew… now I need to ‘organize’ them.”

I lay on the operating table and picked up thread with trembling hands.

Come on, come on, pull yourself together. What I have to do now is much more difficult than ‘disassembly.’ Since I’ve completely separated the chaotically mixed magical power, now I need to properly ‘organize’ it. I need to weave the individually separated magical power finely according to each other’s characteristics. I need to design them so they don’t fight each other but form a single society, a collective intelligence.

Just as the human frontal lobe processes high-dimensional judgments, the 10th Circle neural network had to be wired very complexly and delicately. The chaotically mixed magical power couldn’t create such delicate structures, which is why I had performed this ‘disassembly.’

“Here we go.”

I stopped the sharp breaths I’d been taking.

My trembling hands stopped too.

I reached out with the needle toward the disassembled magical power.

Gently.

The first white magical power chunk was drawn out much thinner than hair and dangled from the needle’s tip. I lifted the needle before my eyes and examined the fine thread of magical power. If there had been magical power from the Supreme Administrator called the Designer, I would have used his magical power… but finding his traces, completely erased from the world, was impossible. So instead of the Designer, the magical power I chose. The very being I selected, beating out such distinguished competitors as Hephaestus and Gaia.

“As expected… you’re the only one who can handle the neural network’s central core.”

The thread of magical power swaying this way and that following the needle. I still don’t know the owner of that pristine white magical power. But even so, I was certain this decision was the best. My ‘intuition’ told me so.

“Thank you. I don’t know how many times you’ve saved my life.”

‘Saíl.’

The primordial spell I had first collected. I didn’t know it then, but now I know for certain.

The divine body left behind by the owner of that miracle was precisely this.

The moment I obtained the primordial spell, the trace amount of magical power that had entered my body along with it was still here, remaining in this place.