Chapter 113: Identity of the 9th Circle Mage

“Ngh…”

I dreamt.

I dreamt that I fought an Ice Queen on a frigid, blustery land without a single piece of clothing on my body. I was fighting, but no magic was fired, and no sword was swung. I simply endured the Ice Queen’s glacial storm with my bare body.

At some point, the Queen planted an aggressive kiss on me against my will, and it brought me to my limit. I fainted. I couldn’t bear the chill gripping me from head to toe and lost consciousness.

‘W-Where am I?’

Because I didn’t die, I opened my eyes. When I opened my eyes, memories washed over me. In order to save the mana addicted Lokoroïa, I had put my lips to hers, and I remembered grabbing the relic of the very first 9th Circle mage in history, a black mage named Tarkania.

“Ugh…”

The building where I unconsciously ended up in was covered with ice all over, as if the Queen of Ice really did descend.

‘What happened?’

I fainted, so I couldn’t remember a thing. The only evidence of what happened were the ruins around me, which showed traces of a battle like in my dream.

“Ngh…”

As I woke up and sensation returned to my body, I felt something smooth in my hands and heard a groan.

‘L-Lokoroïa.’

Lokoroïa, the young ruler and Great Shaman of the Temir people, was in my arms. And with just one piece of underwear, no less.

‘Haah, is it really alright for me to do this?’

I heard from my friends that some of them were dating middle school girls, but I never expected that I would end up in a similar situation.

‘So this is what a woman’s body is like.’

Even though I knew that it wasn’t morally right, the smooth skin I could feel from my hands and body made my mind grow fuzzy and warm with elation.

‘She had her coming-of-age ceremony, so…’

I quickly came up with an excuse. She might be a minor in Korea, but in the eyes of the Temir, Lokoroïa was definitely already an adult. She was a full-fledged woman with the right to get married and have kids of her own.

Whirr~ Whirr~ Whiirrrr.

“Ah!”

While I was lost in the fascinating sensation of a woman’s body, I felt vibrations from my right hand. They bored into my hand and startled me awake.

‘The relic of Tarkania.’

In my hand was the 1-meter long black mana staff called the Staff of Despair.

The moment I looked at the transparent crystal ball the size of a volleyball, I could feel the shock of my soul getting sucked in.

‘So this is a relic of a 9th Circle mage.’

This mana staff could use 9th Circle magic, an unimaginable feat. It was standard course for regular mages to use a staff to concentrate magic power and increase the efficiency of their mana activation. But for the most part, a staff was just an auxiliary apparatus used to boost your existing ability in magic. The mana staff in front of me, a staff capable of using 9th Circle magic, was different.

‘Ah!! I-It’s interacting with my mana core!’

After shaking off the shock to my consciousness, various sensations returned one by one to my body. To my shock, I could feel the mana staff and my mana core communicating.

‘No way, right??’

A certain possibility was drawn in my head. I tried moving the mana in my mana core with disbelief.

Whiiiiiiiiiiirr.

The mana responded immediately to my summons.

“…”

But the feeling was different from before.

“Th-they’re mixed!” I exclaimed in shock.

The mana in my body had changed. For whatever reason, after coming here, I lost all my mana and ended up absorbing new yin-attribute mana. I had no idea when, but my previous mana had returned and was mixed with the yin-attribute mana in my core. And even more shocking was that they weren’t repelling each other like water and oil, but flowing harmoniously together in my mana core.

“Eugh.”

The distinct feeling of two different kinds of mana gave me goosebumps. The magic knowledge I possessed could not possibly explain this phenomenon. The mana I had absorbed so far was regular mana found in the air, optimized for regular magic, aka white magic. But currently, yin-attribute mana suitable for using black magic was flowing inside my body even though I wasn’t a black mage.

These two manas had completely different attributes. Unlike regular mana, yin-attribute mana was said to exist invisible to the human eye in the Middle Realm. It could be accumulated just like regular mana. Yin-attribute mana was the type of mana that black mages or evil necromancers absorbed with special methods.

So it was shocking that such mana was swimming around in my mana core like an obedient servant. It was common knowledge that a mana core could absorb only one attribute of mana, but my unique mana breathing technique had brought about this stunning result.

‘But this chocolate vanilla swirl mana, isn’t it dangerous?’

Thanks to the addition of yin-attribute mana, my already expansive mana core had doubled in size. The mana core rotating around my waist was a size that other mages couldn’t even dream of.

‘With this much mana, a 7th Circle mage will be no match.’

I wasn’t sure if this choco vanilla swirl mana was a blessing or a curse, but for now, it was clear that I had cheat-levels of mana quantity, nearly double the amount I had before.

‘Yin-attribute mana or yang-attribute mana, they’re both mana, right?! They just occupy different domains, like the sun and the moon, but otherwise, they’re the same.’

Yin-attribute mana wasn’t different from regular mana just because it was used by black mages. I also used yin-attribute mana when casting magic to deal with the three black mages threatening me and Lokoroïa.

‘Huhuhu, for now, the more mana I’ve got, the better.’

With this much mana, I could fire way more 6th Circle spells than a typical mage at the same circle could. It was a huge boon to have more mana.

I was a little uneasy about having yin-attribute mana mixed into my mana circles, but I decided to take comfort in the fact that my mana quantity increased. Just then, the girl in my arms stirred with a groan.

“Hnngh…”

‘What do I do about this? Damn.’

As Lokoroïa shifted, my eyes caught full sight of her breasts, which were pressed into my chest. An animal of a man might have already attacked her, but I hadn’t fallen so low yet. At the very least, I wanted to offer my virginity to a woman I loved—that was my wish as the last remaining hot-blooded young man out there. Of course, that was just my vain wish, and there was no guarantee it would come to fruition.

Cold sweat ran down my back.

And then, Lokoroïa’s eyes opened.

“Ah…”

Seeing me, a small cry burst from her lips.

“Did you sleep well?”

Somehow, I ended up saying something an affectionate brother would say. Lokoroïa flashed a coquettish smile my way as a response.

‘Eh?’

I was gentle in case she panicked, but the girl’s sexy laugh was way out of left field.

“Thanks, Great Guardian Warrior.”

‘Great Guardian Warrior?’

Lokoroïa’s sudden title for me was unexpected too. I suppressed the desire to ask her what that was. Since I saved her life, she probably used one of the titles from Temir culture.

‘But girl, why the informal speech? You’re younger than me, oi!’

I was the older one, but Lokoroïa spoke casually, as if it were natural. For a moment, I wondered if I should scold her, but we had already exchanged a kiss, so unfortunately, I couldn’t freely act the elder and dole out punishment. Moreover, I knew that any man who would hit a young girl was the most despicable scum in the world, so I discarded all thoughts of scolding.

“Lokoroïa, where is this place?”

I ended up in this weird place impulsively trying to save Lokoroïa. The golden-haired guardian woman had melted away without a trace, and the black mages had become ashes due to my Fire spell, leaving three mana staves behind.

Lokoroïa and I were lying in a fairly large and ancient place. The murals and building style didn’t suit the Temir at all. There were unmelted shards of ice everywhere, but this was obviously an enormous building.

“Father’s Palace… This is the palace of the Father who brought the Temir people into the world.”

Following my gaze, Lokoroïa calmly gazed at the Palace of the Father.

‘Huh?’

While glancing all around the “Palace of the Father,” I noticed some doors. In this fairly large space, there were doors everywhere.

‘Treasure chamber?’

In the movies, these kinds of places always had treasure. Moreover, the previous owner of this building was a 9th Circle mage.

‘Huhu, alright. I protected you with my life on the line, so I should get some reward for my effort, right?’

“You smell good. So this is the smell of a man.”

I was happily imagining all the treasure when Lokoroïa’s warm voice snaked into my ear. She was awake, but hadn’t made any moves to get out of my arms. After taking off my airplate, only a single thin shirt was between me and Lokoroïa’s warmth. She wasn’t even a puppy or anything, but Lokoroïa was breathing on the particularly sensitive part of my chest.

‘You’re pouring oil on a burning house, ma’am.’

I was already enduring with great patience, if you could call it that, but Lokoroïa was jumping around on the taut line that was my sense of reason.

“The danger has not completely passed, so stay here. I will go take a look.”

I quickly set Lokoroïa down, fearful that I would turn into a wolf I couldn’t take responsibility for if she stayed in my embrace any longer.

‘It’s an underground chamber that was protected by a guardian. And the owner was a 9th Circle mage from several thousand years ago…’

I pieced together a deduction from what the black mages said. There was no way that this 9th Circle mana staff was the only thing in this palace.

“Lokoroïa, what do the Great Shamans do after coming here for their coming-of-age ceremony?”

While heading to one of the doors, I asked Lokoroïa a question that was on my mind.

“Dunno. I was merely told that the door to the Palace of the Father would open on the day of the ritual, and all I had to do was go inside.”

Despite occupying the position of Great Shaman, ruler of the Temir folk, Lokoroïa couldn’t tell me anything useful. She stretched like a girl who woke up after a long, nice nap and looked at me with a relaxed gaze.

“Father’s Protector is also gone… I don’t know what to do now. Great Guardian Warrior, do something about it.”

‘Jeez, you want me to take responsibility for your entire life just because we kissed once?’

* * *

The girl with the unique violet eyes asked me to resolve this confusing situation, apparently not at all concerned or dispirited by the flow of events.

‘A 9th Circle black mage hidden from history.’

Turning away from this useless girl, I walked towards the door.

‘Dragon?’

The doors made of white stone all had carvings of a golden dragon on them. The golden dragon before me was sculpted with such detail that it felt as if it could peel away from the door and fly away. The dragon’s golden body and eyes glared at me as I stood before the door.

‘If even this sculpture is gold, then how much treasure could be inside… Huhu.’

The thought was electrifying. I carefully opened the closed door.

The heavy, stone door opened smoothly.

‘Treasure, my trea—geh!’

I was ready for treasure to grace my eyes with the opening of the door, but…

‘N-Nothing. There’s nothing here?!’

It was completely empty. The door opened up to a fairly large room about three times the size of my office at the covert. But the inside of the room was completely empty, without even a single speck of dust.

‘It can’t be…What about the other rooms?’

I dashed out of the room in a daze. I almost lost my life and even lost my mana for a moment. But it was difficult to calculate my life and efforts with money.

“Dammit.”

It was a bust. This place was still technically once the residence of a 9th Circle mage, wasn’t it?! Even if there wasn’t treasure, shouldn’t there be a magic item or at least a single low-grade magic crystal rolling around? The only thing here was the 9th Circle magic item, the black mana staff.

‘Not this one either?’

The door to the last remaining room opened. I had no expectations left.

‘Huh?’

The door opened smoothly to a welcome sight.

‘A book? Ohhh, magic tomes!’

Inside the wide room, books were lining stone bookshelves.

‘If there are 9th Circle magic formulas… Huhuhu.’

Even Master didn’t puzzle out all of the 8th Circle formulas, but there was the promise of 9th Circle magic in those books.

It was a jackpot. The tomes were clearly very old—they most certainly held magic knowledge left by the 9th Circle mage.

‘Let’s take a look at the contents, shall we?’

I hadn’t even reached the 7th Circle yet, but I knew 8th Circle magic. I plucked out one of the books with great confidence.

“Kek!”

However, the moment I opened the book, I coughed.

“Runic from the Magic Era…”

Scrambling, I hastily opened one book after another, but they were all the same.

‘To think they’re all written in the ancient Magic Era language!’

The language was from the magic civilization that existed before the current time. The exact details were unknown, but it was said that the occasionally unearthed dungeons of the Magic Era were from at least thousands of years ago. There was no doubt that the tome in my hands was written in the language from that ancient time.

Master ended up dimensionally traveling to Earth because of a magic circle from the Magic Era. And because Master had deciphered the language, I, too, could read it.

‘A slate?’

Between the bookshelves was a slate made of gold about the size of an adult.

Drawn by some inexplicable force, I approached the golden slate, my eyes falling on the writing of the ancient Magic Era engraved on the slate. 

It was said that in the Magic Era, most people could use mana. The common people were so outstanding that such a complicated rune language could be used as the everyday tongue. The words burrowed into my eyes with complicated shapes.

“I, Tarkania, a human who is not a human, leave this to my descendants…”

The slate was written with riddle-like words from the very first line.

“Mm…”

Struck by the feeling that I had stumbled upon an unimaginable truth, I hummed.

『 My beloved children, I, Tarkania, one who had feelings one should have never dared to feel towards the people, will uphold without fail my final duty to you, my poor children. As I return to mana, with this body that could not obtain human form in the end, I leave you magic of the 9th Circle, magic gained by discarding the omnipotent power of the entire race… I solemnly advise and beg that you use it only for your safety. 』

‘A human who is not a human, one with feelings he should have never had towards the people… Omnipotent strength. Is Tarkania the dragon who went out to amuse himself and ended up founding the Temir?’

I thought back to the legend of the Temir people that the Elven Elder had told me. The Temir were the descendants created from a union between a dragon amusing himself and a human, and such descendants were called dragonia.

‘I think I get what he’s saying now.’

I understood the entirety of the message Tarkania had inscribed on the slate. I remembered reading in a book that dragons were not allowed to have any kind of emotions towards descendants born during their amusement in the Middle Realm. Using the 9th Circle Polymorph spell, they transformed themselves into humans or various other lifeforms and were supposed to treat such descendants not as dragon kin, but polymorphed races. However, it seemed that unlike other dragons, the dragon named Tarkania came to love the descendants he created.

『 Finally, I beseech you… Know that the 9th Circle is neither unreachable nor difficult. With indiscriminate mana and a human’s inborn abilities, those who are faithful to their emotions can reach the 9th Circle. I shall leave the entirety of my wisdom and knowledge here, so I ask that you make use of it with a warm heart and cool-headed reason. 

From:

Your loving Father 』

The contents were short, but the dragon Tarkania’s short message was filled with affection for the Temir folk. It was even signed with ‘Your Loving Father.’

“Haah…”

I had heard that dragons existed, but this was my first time coming into contact with a relic actually related to one. Similarly, the 9th Circle was known to exist, but not a single human had achieved it. According to Tarkania, it was possible for someone true to their feelings with indiscriminate mana and the inborn ability of a human to reach the 9th Circle.

‘So these books are magic tomes published by a 9th Circle mage, huh…’

Any other mage would have gone mad with excitement, but for them, this was only a pie in the sky. Master was able to learn ancient Runic by coincidence after falling into the trap of other mages, but anyone else in his position wouldn’t have been able to achieve the same feat. Each word of ancient Runic had multiple meanings.

I felt full just looking at the magic tomes lined on the shelves. For me, magic knowledge was more valuable than any pile of treasure.

“What’re you doing in Father’s Knowledge Storehouse?”

“Father’s Knowledge Storehouse?”

I didn’t hear her come in, but Lokoroïa’s purple eyes were sparkling with interest.

“Yeah, Father’s knowledge. The book you have in your hand has Study of Mana in 4D on it.”

“Y-You can read this?”

“Of course. I’m Lokoroïa, the Great Shaman and Protector of the Temir.”

This is why you shouldn’t look down on people. I thought Master’s knowledge would put me head and shoulders above the rest on the continent, but Lokoroïa could read ancient Runic. It made me see her in a different light.

‘But can’t you put on some clothes, miss?’

Lokoroïa was standing there with a haughty expression, but her prideful claim was undermined by her completely exposed chest and the tiny scrap of underwear she was wearing. She was still “dressed” for the coming-of-age ceremony.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Nope. Mana is overflowing in my body. Hoho.”

‘Mana?’

When I first met her, the girl didn’t have much mana, but now, there was so much mana rippling off her body that I could clearly feel it from a distance.

“Stay still for a moment.”

I quickly placed a hand on her back.

“!!”

The moment I sent a thread of mana into Lokoroïa’s body, I discovered a shocking truth.

‘Why is she the same as me?! Why the hell is the mana in Lokoroïa’s body the same as mine?!’

To my shock, Lokoroïa had the same swirl mana as me. I could feel familiar mana from her mana core, which was positioned at the heart rather than the waist, mana mixed with yin-attribute mana. She had nearly as much mana as a 6th Circle mage, too.

‘Did mana inheritance occur??’ 

Mana inheritance was theoretically possible, but completely impossible to achieve in practice. The lost art of mana inheritance was something that existed in the ancient Magic Era, when a mage would pass down their mana to their disciple before they died.

My eyes moved naturally to the black staff Lokoroïa was holding in her right hand.

‘When our lips met, that thing activated.’

I had the foreboding feeling that my mana and the staff’s mana mixed before going into our mana cores. I couldn’t be 100% sure, but this was still a 9th Circle magic item in name, so the possibility was high.

‘Come to think of it, the mana here is flowing with that thing as the focus.’

The mana inside the palace was circulating around the staff, which bore the ghastly name of ‘Staff of Despair.’ It was as if the staff was the progenitor of all mana—mana flowed into the staff before rippling back out.

“Want me to teach you? As a Great Guardian Warrior, you certainly have the qualifications to acquire Father’s knowledge.”

‘Just what the heck is a Great Guardian Warrior?’

“Lass, I mean, Lokoroïa. What does ‘Great Guardian Warrior’ mean?”

“T-That is…”

At my question, Lokoroïa reddened and ducked her head, which meant it was something that even this fearless girl couldn’t mention lightly. Cold sweat ran down my back as an ominous feeling gripped me.  

“For now, let’s go outside. I’m hungry too…” I said, taking one last glance at Lokoroïa’s (laughable) chest. The unruly bastard inside my body was acting up again with zero regard for my will.

“Got it, one moment.”

She spoke as casually as ever, but the lass had become much more obedient to my words. With the Staff of Despair in her hand, she walked slowly towards her original location.

‘H-Heyyy!’

The 9th Circle magic item, the only one of its kind…

…was slotted right back into a place that looked like an altar, without hesitation.

Flaaaaash!

Once the staff clicked into place, cold yin-attribute mana gusted wildly through the room.

“You’re not taking it out?”

“This is a legacy left by Father to protect our people. It must stay here for my descendants,” Lokoroïa said, wearing a noble expression that didn’t suit her age in the least.

‘Argh, that thing would make big bucks outside.’

I’d have to feel it out to be sure, but my guess was that the crystal ball on the top was a special-grade magic crystal. It was also huge, a magic crystal of unprecedented proportions. Any magic tower or empire that laid eyes on it would come loaded with bags of money, begging to buy it. The magic formulas engraved on the body of the staff itself were nothing to scoff at, either. Researching those could lead you over the 8th Circle right into the 9th Circle.

However, I couldn’t ask her to give it to me. This staff was an important relic that protected the Temir, people living in a desolate and difficult environment. I was sure that the next Great Shaman would come here and receive mana inheritance from that staff, too.

‘I can just come back next time, so whatever. It’s not like the lass is going anywhere.’

This place was overflowing with clues regarding the wall of the 9th Circle, something even Master had not overcome.

“Let’s go back now.”

Squish.

‘Geh!’

While saying we should leave, Lokoroïa sidled up and hugged my arm. The squishy, bouncy feeling of her chest drove me insane.

‘I was dragged in here all of a sudden and ended up like this… Gawd…’

In this little adventure, my expensive airplate got destroyed, and untrustworthy yin-attribute mana invaded my body. No matter how I sliced it, the losses I suffered were not insignificant.

“Father, Mother. We are going back now. We will come back to play next time.”

‘Father, Mother? Ah!’

Lokoroïa’s directed her words to the Staff of Despair, and finding it curious, I turned and saw something shocking.

‘D-Dragon?’

An image was projected around the place where the Staff of Despair stood. Clear to the eye was an incredibly huge face of a golden dragon, a creature I had never even dreamed of seeing, and an image of the golden-haired guardian woman who was melted down by the Staff of Despair.

She was smiling at us.

As I watched in awe, the frozen, destroyed building began to restore itself. Almost as if rewind magic was cast, the building slowly returned to its original grandeur.

‘Haah…’

I sighed inwardly with admiration. Simply witnessing 9th Circle magic was the definition of a marvel.

‘Someday, I, too…’

Resolve surged inside my heart.

The wall of the 9th Circle was said to be impossible for humans.

One day, I would break down that wall with my own hands, without fail!