Chapter 14
#14. Magic Tower (2)
“Haa...”
One of the full professors at the Gray Magic Tower, Choi Young-ok, had recently been racking her brain over research that had stubbornly refused to progress.
She could no longer summon the flashes of inspiration or confidence in her research that she once had.
It was what people commonly called a creative slump.
It was a state of losing interest, originality, and freshness through the repetition of a meaningless daily routine or work, something common among those engaged in the arts—and among mages, who needed both mathematical knowledge and artistic sensibility.
The way to overcome a slump was simple.
Break free from a tedious routine and receive some new stimulation.
But that was not easy while holed up in the Magic Tower.
The Magic Tower was unquestionably a utopia for mages. Apprentice mages could attend lectures by outstanding mage professors, while the professors could conduct research freely with the tower's support.
That was the problem.
Life at the Magic Tower was an endless succession of days that were hardly any different from one another.
Prepare lectures, give lectures, and conduct research.
Aside from other trivial matters, she never strayed from those three major cycles.
Of course, seeing students with outstanding talent was enjoyable.
Her own granddaughter, for instance, was already a genius who had reached the Third Circle.
But there was still no sign of her own slump being resolved.
Why?
Was she looking for stronger stimulation? Did she secretly want to see something a little more shocking?
Like a refrain, the same concerns had continued for days, yet no satisfactory answer had emerged.
"Perhaps I should go out for some fresh air...?"
After letting out yet another heavy sigh, Choi Young-ok stepped out of her workshop.
There was nothing like taking a walk when something remained unresolved.
Even if it did not provide a direct solution, the cold air helped cool her muddled head considerably.
However, even a walk like this could no longer ease her heavy heart or untangle her complicated thoughts. Her troubles were not the kind that could be taken lightly.
She simply walked down the quiet hallway with heavy steps.
Without even deciding whether to go to the rooftop or head downtown.
'Maybe it's because it's vacation? There's no one around.'
The Magic Tower had school vacations as well. During the summer and winter breaks, all the students left the tower to return home or traveled in search of new inspiration.
Of course, the entire Magic Tower was not empty just because there were no students.
Various mages, including full, assistant, and associate professors, along with teaching assistants, would still be around.
But the hallways remained quiet. Perhaps that was only natural for mages who were like shut-in fairies. Those fellows who thought even mealtimes were a waste and hastily ate in their workshops were not about to wander around at a time like this.
Such silence might help with contemplation, but it was no help to her right now.
It would have been better if the place were packed with noisy students.
Perhaps because her worries had dragged on so long? She felt that it was becoming harder to stop herself from occasionally being swept up in negative thoughts.
'Get a grip, get a grip. This won't do. Maybe I should go shopping for a while...'
“Hey, did you hear?”
Just as she was turning toward the elevator to head downstairs.
“The lobby just contacted us. Apparently some guy who's not even a chaebol's third-generation heir came here to register as a mage.”
“...Isn't he a con man?”
“Hey, if he had nowhere else to scam people, would he really come to the Magic Tower to scam them?”
“I suppose not... But if he's not a chaebol heir, then what is he? Did someone teach him magic privately? If so, why is he registering only now?”
“How should I know? Anyway, I'm going to take a look. Want to come?”
“Of course...”
Grab—The man jumped at the hand gripping his shoulder and turned around.
“Could you tell me more about that?”
***
Following the female employee I met in the lobby, I arrived at a place that looked like a reception room.
The whole atmosphere practically screamed, We dumped a shitload of money into this place~—and seemed eager to flaunt it.
I tried not to show it, but in all my twenty-one years, I had never actually been somewhere like this, so I couldn't help feeling a little nervous.
Of course, whether I cared or not, the female employee who had guided me here disappeared after telling me to wait for a moment.
How heartless. So heartless.
With no other choice, I decided to enjoy a simple tea break with the snacks and beverages set out on the desk.
...But it's okay to eat these, right?
For a moment, I wondered whether I should eat them, but surely they wouldn't complain just because a guest had eaten a few snacks, right? But am I even a guest?
“Wow... Why are these snacks so damn delicious?”
The savory flavor that clung to my tongue and the subtle sweetness were like a meteor-class shock to someone like me, who had done nothing but buy and wolf down bags of 1,500-won potato chips.
Curious how expensive they had to be to taste this good, I searched them on my phone and found that they were not too expensive to buy, but were quite expensive for a snack.
“...Ah, so this is the price for an individual package, not for the whole bag?”
There had been twelve packages inside when I opened it... Oh, shit.
The Magic Tower was definitely full of lunatics.
Would they really spend half a year's rent on snacks?
No matter how rich they were, I couldn't forgive this kind of extravagance.
Before anyone else arrived, I stuffed the snacks into my mouth while thinking that, damn, they were really delicious.
“What on earth did they put in these to make them taste this good?”
Did they mix in gold dust or something?
“They're made by mixing in Magic Pistachio powder from the Botanical Garden in the D-rank Gate Hwarugal.”
“?!”
I immediately turned my head at the voice right beside my ear.
“Oh my, I'm sorry. Did I startle you?”
Yes. Very much.
The sweet, candy-like voice at my ear belonged to a middle-aged woman with faint smile lines. Her neatly braided red hair and red eyes stood out.
Judging by the robe she was wearing, she was clearly a mage.
“It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kang Hyunwoo.”
She smiled kindly and met my gaze.
But somehow, my heart did not flutter.
Her aura and appearance were certainly beyond those of a well-maintained middle-aged actress, but the moment I saw the wrinkles on her face, she was far beyond my age range.
“I'm Choi Young-ok. I've been assigned to handle your case today, Mr. Hyunwoo.”
How she knew my name was not important.
I had filled out all my personal information at the counter before coming here.
“It's a pleasure to meet you.”
I gave her a slight bow.
“Hehe, you said you came to register as a mage, correct?”
“Yes. If possible, I'd like to enroll in the Magic Tower. Would that be possible?”
Enrolling in the Magic Tower was a title considered equal to—or even better than—winning a lottery with absurdly high odds of success in the eyes of society.
As I said before, the Magic Tower had so much money that it practically flowed out of it, and its support for its members was incredibly generous.
I could receive living expenses and the like until I entered a Gate, or perhaps obtain something that might help Iris later on.
“Of course. We welcome anyone with talent at any time.”
Choi Young-ok treated Kang Hyunwoo to a rare smile full of genuine goodwill rather than mere courtesy.
No wonder. From the moment Kang Hyunwoo entered the reception room, she had noticed that there was something unusual about him.
‘...This is unbelievable.’
It was as if all the mana in the room had gathered around him and was courting him.
A high degree of concentration was needed to absorb mana that had blended into nature. The process of making it one's own was the same.
Yet he seemed able to absorb mana while breathing and thinking as naturally as ever.
No, he really could.
He was clearly preventing excessive mana from entering his body unconsciously; instead, the mana circled around him.
It was an overwhelming talent beyond explanation.
His affinity for mana was on an entirely different level from that of other mages.
‘Just where did a genius like this... No, where did a monster like this come from?’
Choi Young-ok became certain of one thing.
“Mr. Hyunwoo? May I ask you something?”
“Pardon? Well, I don't mind.”
She could escape her slump simply by watching him grow.
“Who taught you magic?”
In a way, this was the most important part.
Magic was nearly impossible to learn independently—not a field of study, but something that existed beyond both scholarship and reason. There had to be someone he could call his master.
From that perspective, it was inexplicable that he had come to the Magic Tower.
For mages, a disciple with outstanding talent was someone who could greatly aid the development of their own magic as well.
Even while learning the exact same magic, such a disciple could view and interpret it from an entirely different perspective. They might even grant their master an epiphany through an original idea the master had never once imagined.
Talent was never the only thing a mage considered when choosing a disciple, but it was undeniable that seeing someone exceptionally gifted stirred up greed.
For someone with that level of affinity for mana, the normal thing would have been to keep them all to oneself and raise them somewhere no one else could reach.
“Uh...”
Kang Hyunwoo could not immediately answer Choi Young-ok's question.
If he said, “My master is the former elven queen from another world!”, he might end up in a white house on a hill rather than in the Magic Tower.
On the other hand, if he invented a fictional master and lied, that lie would never last long among the mages, who made up less than one percent of the world's population.
“...It's a secret.”
So he could only resort to the screw-it-and-let-them-deal-with-it strategy.
“Ah... Then how long have you been learning magic...?”
She wanted to know who had taken such a child as a disciple, but it would be rude to press someone she had just met when he clearly did not want to talk about it.
“A day...?”
“......Pardon?”
This was not a lie. Lying was bad, after all. If anything, he had generously rounded it up from half a day to a full day out of modesty.
Choi Young-ok looked as if her soul had left her body at the utterly unbelievable answer.
But that lasted only a moment. Rather than panic, the experienced mage decided to focus on the truth.
She increased her magical power to heighten her sensitivity to changes in the situation, then looked at Kang Hyunwoo once more.
Changes in the body such as the pupillary reflex, eye movements, sweat, pulse, breathing rate and rhythm, and blood pressure were excellent evidence of whether someone was lying.
‘It... doesn't seem like a lie...’
Of course, it was not one hundred percent accurate. Trained professionals could skillfully hide such signs.
But judging by his appearance, the chances that Kang Hyunwoo was such a professional agent were extremely slim. No organization would try to infiltrate someone this way in the first place.
‘Then did he really create a mana circle after only one day of learning magic?’
Even a novel written this way would be criticized for lacking plausibility.
Only a tiny number of children with proven talent at the age of ten were admitted to the Magic Tower. Of course, even those children went through another filtering process.
On average, it took those children eight to nine years to create a mana circle. Quite a few devoted even more time to it, and some were expelled from the Magic Tower.
Choi Young-ok's granddaughter, who had shortened that process to six years, was hailed as a once-in-a-generation genius, and even the master of the Gray Magic Tower had taken three years.
Of course, the world was vast, and there were many geniuses.
Looking through history, there had been records that surpassed the tower master's, and there was plenty of possibility that another such genius might appear in the future.
But one day?
“Heh, hehe...”
Choi Young-ok could not help laughing.
Then she calmly thought of the best proposal she could make to him.
“Mr. Hyunwoo?”
With the most amicable smile yet, she clasped his hand tightly.
“Would you like to meet my granddaughter?”
After all, one of the most important principles of investing was buying low.
If Kang Hyunwoo's overwhelming talent and the blood of the Choi family came together, it was not impossible for her family to become known as the greatest magical house in Korea—or in the entire world.
“Uh...”
Of course, from Kang Hyunwoo's perspective, the situation made him wonder what the hell she was talking about.
Her granddaughter?
She had a granddaughter—with that face?
She wasn't an ajumma, but a granny??
‘Wow, her mana really is something.’
More important than the fact that she had a granddaughter was the fact that the granddaughter was old enough to be introduced to a twenty-one-year-old man.
If the granddaughter had been a newborn, I could have assumed her daughter had gotten pregnant young, but if she was over twenty, then roughly speaking, her age would be...
There was no need to think any further. Mana really was godly.
As he once again felt the greatness of mana, his thoughts grew complicated.
In the past, he would have started preparing for the wedding immediately, but now the words blind date made Iris's face appear first in his mind.
Was it really the right thing to do to go on a blind date while leaving Iris, who was probably still waiting endlessly for him in that dark place, all alone?
‘...But isn't time stopped in that world too?’
Just as time on Earth had nearly stopped while I was in that other world, it was reasonable to assume that time in that world had stopped while I was on Earth.
After thinking of it that way, he felt as if his guilt had eased a little...
‘What the hell do you mean, your guilt's eased, you crazy bastard? Are you abandoning Iris?’
Absolutely not. Never.
Kang Hyunwoo was a man overflowing with loyalty, every bit as much as Iris was with maternal affection.
There was no way he was going to get distracted by a blind date now...
“This is a picture of my granddaughter. Why don't you take a look?”
On the screen of Choi Young-ok's phone was a beautiful mage with sleek red hair, which she suddenly showed him as she leaned closer in a friendly manner.
“...Should I call you Grandma?”
“Hehe, then I suppose I can call you my grandson-in-law.”