Chapter 155
The black mage gave his diagnosis for Chohogi's indigestion.
[Force your mana to circulate by yourself.]
"... This is going to be tough."
I was confident in my mana control, but this was a whole different level of difficulty.
It was like being told to control the blood flowing through someone else's body.
[If you keep practicing steadily, there's nothing that can't be done, but if you want a quick fix, learning a new word spell this time wouldn't be a bad idea.]
"A word spell? I tried one earlier, but it didn't work."
[The situation is different, so you need a different word spell. This time, I recommend the character gi (氣).]
"Gi...."
[If the last word spell was one that drew power outward, this one is one that draws power inward.]
I suddenly remembered a famous educational comic I used to read as a child.
"If this advances, can you use whole words or sentences too? Like a four-character idiom?"
[I don't know what a four-character idiom is, but.... Word spells are originally used in phrase units, not individual characters. Naturally.]
"So if I learn this one, with two characters, that makes one word."
[It doesn't work that easily, but with your talent, it might be possible.]
"Okay, then.... Wait."
The first word spell I'd learned last time, bal (拔).
The character gi (氣) I was going to learn this time.
If I combined the two characters?
"......ba, bal."
My face flushed red.
"Hey! You crazy bastard!"
I ran to the kitchen and came back with a blender. Apparently, some mental reeducation was in order.
"You're dead, seriously. Of course a black mage would pull some creepy, sleazy sexual harassment crap like this?"
[That's a misunderstanding!]
"Sex offenders all say the same thing. Go explain that at the station."
The black mage protested, swimming furiously inside the fishbowl.
[The meanings are different to begin with! And I never told you to use them together!]
"What's different? The pronunciation is the same."
[It's just an error that happened during translation because your language and mine are different! This is unfair!]
"Is that so? I'll look it up right now."
I huffed and pulled out my phone to search the word.
Sure enough, none of the Chinese characters overlapped with the "word" I'd had in mind.
"Ahem.... Seems there was some misunderstanding after all."
[All shameless bastards say the same thing. Those guys need to be made to explain themselves somewhere too.]
Feeling awkward, I set the blender down and began practicing the new word spell.
"Gi! Gi! Gi! ... This really is hard."
More than anything, reaching out into thin air and shouting to myself made me look like an idiot. It was embarrassing too.
But I didn't give up and kept practicing.
Since it had taken half a day to learn the first word spell, this one should take less than that.
Several hours passed in the blink of an eye.
"... Why is this taking even longer than last time?"
[Heh heh. Fool. The last one was the easy one. Projecting power outward and using external power are different things. Naturally, the former is simpler.]
"The fact that you couldn't resist butting in means you have a method, don't you?"
[...You're quick on the uptake. I was going to enjoy watching you struggle for a few more days before telling you.]
Have I been spoiling the black mage too much lately? Should I toss him back in the fridge?
Whether he knew what I was thinking or not, he went on about a new training method.
[This time, don't shout into empty space. Pick a target to practice on. Naturally, a living thing would be best.]
"That's not happening."
[I knew you'd say that. Then try it on the core at the tip of your staff.]
"This?"
I took out the World Tree's root.
In the groove at its end was embedded a black gem carved from the ambergris we got from the whale last time.
A mana battery that normally stores up the surrounding mana for large-scale magic.
You want me to use a word spell on this?
[There's a reason mages drool over good materials. Go on, give it a try.]
"Okay."
I sensed the flow of mana around the gemstone.
The black gem was sucking in air like a pump.
I imagined adding force to that flow, and poured mana into my voice as I shouted.
"Gi!"
Woooooong!
In an instant, tremendous suction force erupted from the core.
A small typhoon in the basement.
Air and mana, and even bits of junk, were drawn toward the tip of the staff.
"Ugh...!"
Suddenly my breath caught. The pain of suffocation surged in.
There wasn't enough oxygen. And mana, either.
"Stop!"
I hurriedly controlled the core, reversing the air and mana it had sucked in.
KWAANG- !
The compressed air burst out, and fresh air filled the space again.
"I really almost died in the dumbest way...."
I rested a hand over my chest and caught my breath for a moment.
My body no longer relied on oxygen alone to breathe.
For survival, it needed both oxygen and mana. If I had to put it in ratio terms, maybe 3:7.
It seemed to be a side effect of drifting away from a human body.
"Anyway, success."
Around the black gemstone at the tip of the staff, I could see a faint whirlpool still spinning.
The effect of the word spell had been etched in, semi-permanently.
Since I was at it, I decided to test it right away.
"Come here."
I held up the staff and controlled its power. Unlike when I'd opened it fully before, this felt like gently turning a faucet.
It worked. The phone that had been far away flew toward the tip of the staff.
I caught the flying phone in my hand and smiled in satisfaction.
An unexpected extra function. It looked like it would be useful in battle too.
[As this body predicted. Make sure you remember this debt.]
"Sure. I'll definitely make sure to give you a bonus later."
From now on, the black mage was a special consultant at One-Star Management. I had just decided that.
"Then let's try it in actual combat."
I approached Chohogi again.
I placed my finger on the congested part of its back.
"Break through."
The moment I spoke the word spell, the mana inside Chohogi began to circulate naturally.
From the chest to the head, from the head to the sprout.
Burp!
Chohogi let out a small burp.
And at that moment, the final leaf sprouted.
The changes didn't stop there.
"Huh?"
I could see the flow of mana extending even farther upward without stopping.
Upward, higher and higher.
Mana gathered above the sprout and soon became a small orb.
It was shaped like a red, ripe cherry tomato.
It was a phoenix fruit.
"It can go this far all at once?"
I had thought it would just grow one leaf and be done, but an unexpected jackpot had fallen into my lap.
Moved with emotion, I was about to harvest the fruit when I hesitated for a moment.
Is it okay to detach this? More importantly, how do I process it?
It was then.
[I know how to handle that. In fact, you could say this had all been arranged by this body....]
The black mage butted in again, full of bluster.
I narrowed my eyes and glared at him.
"Hey, when you showed it to me as a seed, I didn't even know what it was."
[.....]
"Even the elf elder only knew for sure after the sprout came up. How would you know?"
[W-well, of course. Eating a lot of meat doesn't make you a veterinarian, does it.]
The black mage answered shamelessly.
[If I see the fruit itself like this, it's a different story. I don't know plants, but I've handled fruit quite a bit.]
"Hmm...."
[Believe me. This body is a great lich. Besides, every black mage is basically an excellent alchemist.]
"Hmmmmm...."
[That gate-closing scroll you wanted! That alone was already the crystallization of alchemy. For me, who could make that, processing a fruit like this is nothing.]
"So?"
I kept looking at the fishbowl with suspicious eyes.
"Looks like you want something."
[Give that to this body too.]
The black mage's eyes gleamed.
What he was talking about was the fish gems Teech had been diligently gathering on the 47th Floor.
"That? Why?"
[...If I eat it, I feel like my arm will grow back.]
"You keep trying to pull something, don't you."
[No! You can't make it anyway, can you? I need limbs too if I'm going to help you!]
"Why can't I make it? I just have to follow exactly what you tell me."
[Hmph, you're confident, are you? And it's the only material we have.]
I flinched at his provocation.
Sure enough, this phoenix fruit was still the only one.
It would probably grow back after some time, but I didn't know the cycle.
If I failed, that would be the end.
[That's convenient. We can test it with that.]
The black mage rolled his eyes around inside the fishbowl and scanned the spoils from this floor laid out on the desk.
What he meant was the sea anemone's eggs.
"That? It just looks like a poison sac."
[Everything in this world is poison. Only the dosage determines whether it becomes medicine or poison. Use that to test your skill.]
"All right, fine, I'll give it a shot."
My competitive spirit suddenly flared up.
It was time for a double-class change, from genius mage to genius alchemist.
From that day on, I started buying alchemy equipment for the basement.
A few days later, after all the setup was complete, I went down to the basement in a lab coat, safety goggles, and latex gloves.
"Why is this stuff so expensive...."
The equipment easily cost tens of millions of won apiece.
Even the glass cylinder that looked completely plain on the outside cost over ten million won.
Apparently it wasn't just glass; everything was handmade.
But I wasn't about to skimp on the investment.
"All right, let's begin."
I picked up one of the sea anemone eggs.
[First, slowly peel off the shell. It's very thin, so be careful. Yes, imagine you're sewing a balloon.]
"Ugh...."
It was a hurdle from the very first step.
I turned my fingertips into tiny blades and slowly began to move them.
Tremble, tremble.
A bead of sweat trickled down the bridge of my nose.
"I-I can't lose. To a mere sea urchin...."
I bit my lip hard enough for blood to seep out and moved my hand carefully.