Necromancy was a massive school of magic within the Tetradia Magic Tower, second in influence only to elemental magic.
This didn’t mean it was merely one of the top two; rather, since elemental magic was divided into various sub-schools, Necromancy held the position immediately following them.
And Furnel Pencheff was the Magician who served as the Deputy Head of that Necromancer school.
Since he had introduced himself as such, his status was likely no lower than that, and certainly no higher.
After all, who would introduce themselves with a lower rank than they actually held?
There was no reason for Furnel to go out of his way to deceive Hio, either.
However, a small ripple formed in Hio’s thoughts because of a few words from Kreutzvalt.
“Furnel Pencheff, Deputy Head of the Necromancy school… I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of him.”
This much was to be expected.
‘How could Kreutzvalt, who was thought to have died long before Furnel’s era, remember someone who wasn’t even the head of a school, but merely a deputy?’
It was only natural that he didn’t know him.
“But it is strange.”
The problem started from there.
“Did you say that ghost taught you up to the 5th Circle?”
When Hio nodded, Kreutzvalt shook his head, insisting that it was impossible.
“It is impossible.”
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s impossible.”
“No, it is impossible. Someone at the level of a 5th Circle grimoire would have more than enough skill to serve as a Branch Manager overseeing a Magician’s House. Yet you’re telling me he was not only beneath that rank, but was defeated and turned into a Specter? To me, that sounds like nothing but a nonsensical lie.”
That wasn’t all.
“Furthermore, if he were capable of teaching you without any obstacles, he would have reached the level of a mature Magus or even higher. On top of that, you claim he was well-versed in elemental magic, spatial magic, and summoning magic? That is simply impossible.”
“Well… it wasn’t exactly that he was deeply well-versed…”
“Did he not give you instructions?”
“He did, but there were also magic books…”
“You trust that ghost quite a bit.”
“…”
When Hio fell into deep thought without answering, Kreutzvalt soon gave a faint smile and leaned back against the sofa.
“Well, do as you please. However, you shouldn’t believe everything so blindly. Just based on your story, that ghost’s identity is suspicious beyond belief.”
It was a funny thing to hear.
To be told not to trust the words of Furnel, with whom he had seen the best and worst of things and grown together over the past year.
Especially when the one saying it, Kreutzvalt, had been someone he’d met less than a day ago.
“…Anyway, you’re saying Furnel was dropped automatically because he didn’t have the qualification?”
“That’s right. To be precise, my magic only permitted you, Pavlenko.”
“Furnel wasn’t annihilated or anything, right?”
“Didn’t you say he has a main body elsewhere? Then he would have naturally returned to it. Do not worry.”
“If so, that’s a relief.”
As Hio nodded in relief, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.
If Furnel had a main body, it was in the Magic Tower.
And the Magic Tower was located in the very center of the city of Tetradia.
Furthermore, Tetradia was currently located here, in the place called the End of the World.
That meant if he headed toward Tetradia and went to the Wizard’s Tower, he could enter and check if Furnel was truly alright.
But the problem was…
“You said I can’t enter Tetradia with my current skills.”
“That is certain. Even if you use your skills, it is still too much for you right now.”
The problem was that he couldn’t go immediately because he didn’t know the distance to Tetradia, nor how many or how strong the Strange Entities lying in between would be.
“Hmm…”
“What is it?”
“Well, Furnel’s main body is inside the Magic Tower. I wanted to check if he was okay.”
Keeping his head still, Hio slightly lifted his gaze to look at Kreutzvalt, who was watching him with a smile.
“If you are asking me to check for you, I refuse.
On the contrary, if you make that your goal, it will be good motivation for you.”
“I already have more than enough motivation.”
“The more goals you have, the better.”
“…”
‘So he’s saying he’ll oversee my magic until I can enter the Magic Tower on my own?’
Kreutzvalt nodded.
Whatever the reason, there was no cause to refuse an offer to look over his magic.
‘Besides, a Wizard’s Tower that you enter from the outside?’
Considering how he could never descend to the first floor no matter what he tried inside the tower, he absolutely had to go there.
‘There must be a secret there.’
If not, there would have been no reason to block people from descending to the first floor from the inside.
‘Ah, did they just do it to prevent people from going out? Because the outside is in this kind of state?’
When he asked Kreutzvalt that question, the man simply let out an inscrutable laugh and gave no answer.
“Now that you understand, call me Master from now on.”
“Master…”
‘Was there any other Magician who had swapped between three masters in just a little over one year?’
No, the expression “swapped” wouldn’t be correct.
After all, Berga and Furnel were still his masters.
This fact wouldn’t change until the moment Hio died.
“Well… I’ll be in your care.”
And so, he had just gained his third master.
‘How far would this monster Magician, who had lived for roughly 1,300 years, be able to raise him?’
“What should we start with, Master?”
As if asking why he would even bother to ask such a thing, his third master stood up and picked up the staff leaning against the wall.
“We must create the sixth circle.”
***
Once they stepped out of Kreutzvalt’s old house, the world was still shrouded in darkness.
A sphere of light about the size of a fist emitted a glow from the tip of the staff, but it only illuminated a radius of a few meters.
Beyond that, everything was swallowed by an Abyssal Depths thicker than light.
“…It’s even hard to breathe.”
Between the ash falling gently like snow and the unpleasant Abyssal Curse brushing past his cheeks, even breathing was uncomfortable.
It felt as if the air was filled with things that were filthy and harmful to the body.
Walking beside him, Kreutzvalt breathed in that unpleasant air calmly and spoke.
“If it is that uncomfortable, why not cast a purification spell?”
Hio, who was covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve and walking carefully to avoid kicking up the ash piled nearly to his ankles, looked intently into the darkness ahead and replied.
“A purification spell? If you mean Purification, that’s a spell that targets a specific object and activates temporarily, right?”
“…”
“It’s a spell, Master.”
“Tsk, tsk… That’s right. You know it well.”
Kreutzvalt was definitely more of an old-timer than Furnel.
This wasn’t Korea, and in the meritocratic society of Magicians, it was common for talented disciples to interact and discuss things with their masters without formality, like friends.
Yet this old man, who had lived for nearly 1,300 years, had insisted on being treated with the utmost respect ever since becoming his master.
If Hio didn’t use formal speech, the man would refuse to answer, just like now.
“However, there is no single right answer to magic. That method is simply the most widely used and efficient in ordinary situations. In an environment like this, shouldn’t you modify the magic to fit?”
“…You make it sound so easy.”
“Is it not simply a matter of setting a range, changing the method to a sustained type, and then transferring the purification effect into that range? Think of it as combining Purification with a barrier spell.”
“Is that even possible? Well, I suppose it’s possible, but who knows how many days it would take just to research it…”
As he had felt when modifying the Dragon Summoning Magic last time, altering magic was not an easy task.
He had to decide which Circle Inscriptions to use, whether the compatibility between the new inscriptions and the existing ones was sufficient, and if there were any side effects.
An inscription he removed thinking it was unnecessary might actually have been serving a different, unknown role.
Even if he somehow managed to pick out the inscriptions, he then had to research and find out how much Magic Power to distribute to each inscription.
The modification of the Dragon Summoning Magic had only been fast because it was a process of simplifying an incredibly complex, unfair slave contract summoning spell.
The magic modification Kreutzvalt was demanding was, at first glance, a task of much higher difficulty.
But Kreutzvalt was firm.
“It is possible. It is difficult for ordinary people. As you said, it is a complex task that could take an unknown number of days. But are you and I not different?”
Kreutzvalt came to a halt.
They had stopped right in front of the barrier.
It was the edge of the boundary that prevented the Strange Entities active during the ‘night’ from perceiving Kreutzvalt’s domain.
One more step, and they would enter the territory where Strange Entities wandered about as they pleased.
“Do not look at the world through ordinary eyes to match ordinary people, Pavlenko. You are special.”
“I appreciate you saying that, but…”
“Look.”
In his hand was an ordinary Magician’s staff, slightly taller than himself.
Kreutzvalt lightly tapped the ground with it.
The action caused the ash piled on the ground to scatter like dust, but Hio’s gaze was not on that.
He was watching the Magic Power beginning from Kreutzvalt and erupting from the staff.
He watched that flow, which was enchanting yet precise, delicate yet pouring out like a waterfall.
The emotion he felt simultaneously was awe.
“A typical Magician is too busy just trying to use a single spell. They focus only on manifesting it accurately and quickly, and in truth, even that is often too much for them.”
‘Just how many inscriptions was he activating at once?’
The light from the inscriptions overlapped, emitting such a brilliant glow.
Just how many strands were in the flow occurring simultaneously, and there was no need to even mention the size and stability of each individual flow.
“But we have no need for that. Why must we use magic in the same way as ordinary people, from their perspective?”
It was a line of thought he had never considered.
It was only natural.
His experience learning magic consisted only of learning the basics through Berga and increasing his Circles through Furnel’s advice and magic books.
This was the first time he was seeing a Magician far superior to himself casting magic right beside him.
Naturally, he was struck with awe.
“There are many inscriptions available, and you have more than enough capacity to utilize them, so why not use them? It shouldn’t be that difficult.”
Five strands of the flow reached out.
Each and every one of them was a spell.
“The reason other Magicians cannot do this is simple. It is because they cannot see. This is what it means to be able to see Magic Power and its flow.”
Five spells poured out simultaneously, shooting past the barrier.
The result was obvious without even looking.
A passing Strange Entity must have been annihilated in an instant.
Its body would have been bound by the first spell, its means of attack lost to the second, and its body sliced into pieces by the third.
The fourth would have turned the remaining corpse of the entity into powder, and the final spell would have blown even that powder far away.
That was the flow of it.
Even though it was a spell he hadn’t learned and was seeing for the first time, he could tell just by looking.
‘That one must be for that purpose.’
‘That’s the kind of result that’ll happen.’
“Pavlenko. As expected, you can see it too. The flow of Magic Power.”
Kreutzvalt, who could see Magic Power itself with his own eyes just like Hio.
Perhaps this could be his own future in the not-so-distant time to come.
“Being able to see is such a magnificent thing.”
In fact, when he had infinitely poured out spells by the second in the Infinite Floor, Furnel had called Hio a monster and worried about his mental state, but it hadn’t been that difficult for Hio.
It was because he could see.
He could see the Magic Power and he could see how the magic was coming out.
It was merely a repetitive task where he just had to do what he saw.
“First, aim to manifest two spells simultaneously.”
The simultaneous manifestation of two spells.
It wasn’t a trivial thing like simply firing off two spells at once.
Depending on which spells were combined and used together, the effects and utility would be endless.
What flashed through his mind was the combination of spatial magic and elemental magic.
If he could use those simultaneously…
“Tsk, tsk… It seems you’ve finally caught fire.”
“My motivation was already overflowing.”
“Right, let’s go with that.”
Lifting his staff, Kreutzvalt pointed toward the outside of the barrier.
To say it once more, it was ‘night’ outside.
A night where one never knew when or where a Strange Entity might pop out.
“Go out and catch one Strange Entity.”
“Using only magic?”
“Do you mean using only magic?”
“You ask such an obvious thing.”
“Well, that much should be fine.”
Even so, surely he could hunt at least one Strange Entity.
Back in the outside world, he was the hero known as Hio Pavlenko.
With that, Hio stepped out of the barrier with confident strides.
And exactly 7 minutes later.
“Aaaagh!”
Covered from head to toe in ash, he scrambled back inside the barrier in a frantic rush.
“Those bastards are freaking strong!”
The path of a Magician was still long and arduous.