Necromancy was a grand school within the Tetradia Magic Tower, second in influence only to Elemental Magic.
That didn’t mean it was counted on two fingers; rather, since there were multiple schools even within Elemental Magic, Necromancy simply came next in line.
And Purnel Penchev was a mage who had served as the deputy branch head of that Necromancer school.
Since he had introduced himself as such in his own words, he couldn’t be of a higher position than that; if anything, he could only be lower.
Who would downplay their own position when introducing themselves?
There was no reason for Purnel to go out of his way to deceive Hio.
But a small ripple passed through Hio’s thoughts.
It was because of a few words from Kreuzvalt.
“Purnel Penchev, deputy branch head of the Necromancy school... I don’t know. Never heard of him.”
That much was only natural.
In Purnel’s era, Kreuzvalt was already known to be dead—why would he remember a mere deputy branch head when he didn’t even remember the school head?
Not knowing was only to be expected.
“However, it is strange.”
The problem began from here.
“That ghost taught you up to five rings, you say?”
When Hio nodded, Kreuzvalt shook his head, saying that couldn’t be.
“Impossible.”
“It’s not that impossible.”
“No, impossible. The level of a 5th Circle grimoire is a level of skill more than sufficient to take the seat of a branch head who oversees an entire mage’s house. Yet not only was he beneath that, but he was defeated by him and became a specter. To me, it sounds like nothing more than a preposterous lie.”
It didn’t end there.
“And that’s not all. If he was capable of teaching you so flawlessly, he must have reached the level of an accomplished sorcerer, or perhaps even higher. And on top of that, he was deeply versed in Elemental Magic, Spatial Magic, Summoning Magic, and so forth? Impossible.”
“No... it wasn’t to the extent of being deeply versed.”
“Did he not teach you?”
“He did, but there were also magic tomes...”
“You trust that ghost quite a bit.”
“...”
Lost in deep thought without an answer, Hio remained silent; Kreuzvalt soon smiled faintly and leaned his back against the sofa.
“Well, think what you will. However, you must not believe it all so blindly. From what I’ve heard, that ghost’s identity is infinitely suspicious.”
It was a laughable thing to say.
After spending the past year together, seeing everything there was to see, growing together—now he was told not to trust Purnel.
And Kreuzvalt, who said such things, had met him less than a day ago.
“...Anyway, so Purnel was automatically cast aside because he wasn’t qualified?”
“That’s right. To be precise, my magic permitted only you, Pavlenko.”
“Purnel didn’t get extinguished or anything, did he?”
“Did he not say he had a main body? Then he would have naturally returned to it. Do not worry.”
“...Then that’s a relief.”
Nodding in relief, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
If it was Purnel’s main body, it was in the Magic Tower.
And the Magic Tower stood in the very center of the city of Tetradia.
Moreover, Tetradia was located in this very place called the end of the world.
Then if he headed to Tetradia and went to the Magic Tower, he could enter the Tower and check if Purnel was truly alright.
But the problem was...
“You said I can’t get into Tetradia with my current skills.”
“That is certain. Even using your Skills, it would still be too much.”
The problem was that he couldn’t go right away, since he didn’t know how far it was to Tetradia, nor how many abominations lay between here and there, nor how powerful they might be.
“Hmm...”
“Why do you make that sound?”
“It’s just, Purnel’s main body is inside the Magic Tower, you see. I wanted to check if he’s safe.”
Keeping his head still, Hio lifted his gaze slightly to look at Kreuzvalt, who was looking back at him with a smile.
“If you’re asking me to check on him for you, I shall refuse. Rather, making that your goal would serve as good motivation for you.”
“I already have more than enough motivation.”
“It is good to have many goals.”
“...So you’ll look over my magic until I can enter the Tower under my own power?”
Kreuzvalt nodded.
For whatever reason, there was no reason to refuse when someone offered to look over his magic.
Moreover, a Magic Tower entered from the outside?
Thinking about how he hadn’t been able to descend to the first floor no matter what he tried inside the Tower, he definitely had to visit it.
There was surely some secret there as well.
Otherwise, there would be no reason to block access to the first floor from inside.
Ah, could it be that they simply did it to prevent people from going outside?
Because the outside was in such a state?
When Hio asked Kreuzvalt such a question, he only let out an inscrutable laugh and did not answer.
“If you understand, call me Master from now on.”
“Master, you say...”
Could there be a mage who had gone through three masters in just a little over a year?
No, “gone through” wasn’t the right expression.
Berga and Purnel were still his masters, after all.
That was something that would not change until the moment Hio died.
“Well... I look forward to your guidance.”
And now, he had just gained a third master.
What heights would this monstrous mage, who had lived for roughly one thousand three hundred years, raise him to?
“What shall we start with, Master?”
His third master rose from his seat as if to ask why he would ask such a thing, picking up the staff leaning against one wall.
“We must create the sixth ring.”
* * *
Beyond the confines of Kreuzvalt’s old house, the world was still shrouded in darkness.
A sphere of light roughly the size of a fist diligently emitted radiance from the tip of the staff, but it only illuminated a radius of a few meters at best.
Beyond that, one would be swallowed by an abyss darker than the light itself.
“...It’s hard to even breathe.”
It was uncomfortable to breathe thanks to the ash fluttering down like snow and the unpleasant abyssal energy brushing past his cheeks.
It felt as though the air was thick with filthy, harmful things.
Kreuzvalt, walking alongside him, inhaled the unpleasant air calmly and spoke.
“If it is so uncomfortable, why do you not cast Purification Magic?”
Hio, who had been covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve and walking carefully so as not to stir up the ankle-deep ash, studied the darkness ahead closely as he replied.
“Purification Magic? Purification is a spell activated by designating a temporary, clear target.”
“...”
“It is magic, Master.”
“Tsk, tsk... That’s right. You know it well.”
Kreuzvalt was definitely more of a stickler than Purnel.
They said that in mage society, which prioritized ability above all rather than being someplace like Korea, it was not uncommon for talented disciples to debate informally with their masters as if they were friends.
Yet this old man, who had lived for nearly one thousand three hundred years, demanded honorifics without fail ever since becoming a master.
If one didn’t use honorifics, he wouldn’t even respond, as was the case now.
“But there is no single correct answer in magic. It is simply that in normal situations, it is the most commonly used and efficient. In an environment like this, shouldn’t you modify the magic to suit it?”
“...You make it sound so easy.”
“It is easy. Set a range, change the method to maintenance, and transfer the purification effect directly within that range—is that not all there is to it? Think of it as grafting Purification onto Barrier Magic.”
“Is that even possible? Well, I suppose it is, but just how many days would it take to research...”
He had felt it when modifying the dragon summoning spell before, but altering magic was no easy task.
Which runes to use. Whether the modified runes were compatible with the existing ones. Whether there were side effects.
The rune one thought unnecessary and removed might have actually held an unknown, separate role.
And even if one somehow selected the runes, one still had to research and figure out how much mana to allocate to each.
The dragon summoning spell had only been quick because it involved simplifying an incredibly complex, unfair slave contract summoning magic.
The magic modification Kreuzvalt demanded was one of far greater difficulty at a glance, was it not?
But Kreuzvalt was firm.
“It is possible. Difficult for the ordinary, yes. As you said, it is complex work that may take several days. But you and I are different.”
Kreuzvalt stopped walking right there.
The place they stopped was directly in front of the ward.
Directly in front of the ward that prevented the abominations active in the ‘Night’ from detecting Kreuzvalt’s domain.
One more step and they would enter the territory where abominations roamed freely.
“Do not look upon the world with the ordinary eyes of ordinary people, Pavlenko. You are special.”
“I’m grateful you say that, but...”
“Watch.”
In his hand was an ordinary mage’s staff, slightly taller than Hio.
Kreuzvalt lightly struck the ground with his staff.
At this act, the ash piled on the ground scattered like dust, but Hio’s gaze was not fixed on that.
The mana surging from the staff, from Kreuzvalt himself.
Hio watched that flow—ecstatic yet precise, meticulous yet cascading like a waterfall.
The emotion he felt simultaneously was awe.
“Ordinary mages are too busy casting a single spell. They focus solely on manifesting it accurately and swiftly, and even that is not easily done.”
Just how many runes was he activating simultaneously?
The light of the overlapping runes shone with such brightness.
The simultaneously occurring flows numbered several branches; there was no need to even speak of the magnitude and stability of each individual flow.
“But we need not be like that. Why should we use magic in the same way as them, from the perspective of the ordinary?”
It was a kind of thought he had never considered before.
And naturally so.
All the magic he had learned was the basics through Berga.
And increasing his Circles through Purnel’s advice and magic tomes—that was all.
He was saying that this was the first time he had seen a far superior mage cast magic right beside him.
Thus, awe came over him naturally.
“There are many runes you can use, and you possess the overflowing capacity to utilize them. Why do you not use them? It is not even that difficult.”
Five diverging flows.
Each and every one of them was a spell.
“The reason other mages cannot do this is simple: they cannot see. Seeing mana—seeing that flow—is what makes this possible.”
The five unleashed spells shot out beyond the ward simultaneously.
The result was obvious; there was no need to even look.
An abomination passing by must have been annihilated in an instant.
Its body bound by the first spell, its means of attack stripped by the second, its body finely shredded by the third.
The fourth would pulverize the remaining corpse into dust, and the final spell would blow even that dust far away.
Such was the flow.
Though they were spells he had not learned and was seeing for the first time, he could understand them merely by watching.
So that’s what that one is for.
What kind of result would unfold.
“Pavlenko. As expected, you can see it too. The flow of mana.”
Kreuzvalt, who could see mana itself with his own eyes, just like Hio.
Perhaps this could be his own near future.
“This is how grand it is to be able to see.”
In fact, when he had poured out magic endlessly, every single second, on the infinite floors.
Purnel had called Hio a monster and worried for his sanity, but to Hio, it had not been particularly difficult.
Because he had been able to see.
Because he could see mana and could see with his own eyes how magic manifested.
It had been nothing more than repetitive work where he simply had to do as he saw.
“First, aim to manifest two spells simultaneously.”
The simultaneous manifestation of two spells.
It was no mere trivial matter of firing off two spells at the same time.
Depending on which spells were combined and how they were used simultaneously, their effects and utility would be boundless.
What flashed through his mind was the combination of Spatial Magic and Elemental Magic.
If he could use these simultaneously...
“Tsk, tsk... It seems you’ve finally caught fire properly.”
“I’ve always had motivation to spare.”
“Yes, let us leave it at that.”
Kreuzvalt raised his staff and pointed beyond the ward.
Once again, outside was the ‘Night.’
A night when abominations could leap out from anywhere at any moment.
“Go out and catch one abomination.”
“Using only magic?”
“...”
“Using only magic, Master?”
“You ask the obvious.”
“Well, something like that should be easy enough.”
No matter what anyone said.
Could he not hunt a mere single abomination?
He was the one called Hero Hio Pavlenko outside, after all.
And so Hio stepped out past the ward with a confident stride.
Exactly seven minutes later.
“Uwaaaack!”
Covered from head to toe in ash, he came scrambling back inside the ward.
“Those bastards are strong as hell!”
The path of a mage was still long and arduous.