Vacation

I decided to go see the sea.

Besides, I had nothing else to do.

I'd find an empty beach and build gigantic structures there.

Like a three-meter-tall moving dinosaur.

Of course, if it just moved normally, people might realize it was magic, so I'd have to edit it afterward to make it look like stop-motion animation.

An idea I came up with while watching YouTube Shorts.

This was definitely best-post material. No, it could absolutely make Monthly Best too.

Just imagining it sent a rush of dopamine through me.

But there was a problem.

“Ah, I don't have a car....”

It would take at least two hours by car to reach the nearest west coast from Daejeon.

After the towers appeared and the world turned upside down, social infrastructure wasn't what it used to be.

Public transportation barely managed to stay afloat.

Bus routes from Daejeon to the sea, in particular, had vanished long ago.

“I'm a mage—don't I have some kind of teleport skill or something?”

Just in case, I searched the internet for mages' mobility skills.

The search results were disappointing.

The only thing that came up was flight magic for wind-attribute mages.

Well, of course. For them, flying is all they need.

Then one possibility suddenly occurred to me.

“Huh? I can float sand too, can't I?”

Right, couldn't I just make a platform and fly on that?

I immediately went out to the empty lot in front of my house. After making sure no one was around, I created a sturdy sand platform beneath my feet.

And slowly lifted it into the air.

“Oh, it works!”

It was a success. My body slowly rose off the ground.

The height was about 1 meter.

But my joy didn't last long. That changed the moment I stepped onto the platform.

“Uh... this is scarier than I expected...”

The platform wobbled much more than I'd expected.

My legs were shaking.

Looking down made me dizzy.

If I fell, I'd at least break a bone.

No, with my fragile body, it'd be death.

Screaming, I hurried back down to the ground.

“Did I have acrophobia...?”

It's only one meter...

“No, it's because I've gotten shorter. My usual eye level has dropped too low.... There's no way I'm a coward...”

It was an unwelcome discovery.

I tried lowering the height, but the closer I got to the ground, the stronger the interference with the floor became, making control difficult, so I gave up.

Flying was impossible after all.

But it was too early to give up.

Soon, I came up with a new idea.

“Do I really need to fly there? I can just stick to the ground and go.”

I cast a small-scale desertification skill.

The ground in front of my feet instantly turned to sand.

I stepped onto it.

Then, without moving my own body, I moved only the sand beneath my feet forward.

Swish-.

My body glided forward smoothly. It felt like standing on a conveyor belt.

It felt much easier to control than continuously lifting and moving the sand.

“Oh, this is convenient. Not bad at all.”

But this method had a fatal flaw too.

It left a distinct trail of sand wherever I went.

If I went to the sea like this, my route would be exposed for everyone to see.

“If only I could reverse the weathering....”

If I could restore the sand path to its original state, it would be the perfect movement skill.

Right there, I tried using the skill in reverse.

“Ugh...”

But it was hard. It felt like my brain was about to cramp up.

The very concept of activating a skill in reverse was unfamiliar.

In the end, I decided to use my last resort.

My last resort was to ask the Mage Gallery.

[Title: Has anyone tried using a skill in reverse?]

Author: ㅇㅇ(C33.33D)

I want to use a skill in reverse to turn sand back into its original form. Does anyone know how?

The first to respond to my question were p깟쮸 and 풍뎅이.

ㄴ p깟쮸: Using a skill in reverse? What are you even talking about? Are you saying you're going to rewind time or something?

ㄴ 풍뎅이: There isn't really even a concept of activating a skill in reverse, is there?

Skills just trigger predetermined effects. Maybe you can cancel them before activation, but can you really reverse something that's already happened?

Their reactions were exactly what I'd expected. Was this really an impossible realm after all?

Then 마법은화력 and 냉장고 stepped in.

ㄴ 마법은화력: Hmm, I'm good at putting out a fire that's already started.

Just think, 'Go out,' as strongly as you can, and it works. The important thing is the feeling—picture it vividly.

ㄴ 냉장고: Turning ice back into water is simple. Think about thermal energy and the principles of phase change.

Instead of taking heat out, think of putting it back in. You need to approach it theoretically.

The two of them gave completely opposite advice.

One emphasized sensation, the other theory.

I could feel my head getting even more confused.

In the end, I holed myself up in my room for days, agonizing over it.

The room had long since become covered in sand.

Plastic cups, wooden chopsticks, erasers, and the like I'd bought at Daiso had turned to sand, then piled up on the floor without ever regaining their original shapes.

I kept practicing over and over.

At first, I relied solely on sensation, just as 마법은화력 had advised.

Feeling the sand in my palm, I fiercely wished for it to return to its original cup form.

But the sand only collapsed weakly, as if mocking my will.

Then came 냉장고's method.

Using the Eye Opening skill, I thoroughly analyzed the object's structure and tried to calculate the weathering process in reverse.

I imagined reversing the flow of energy and reassembling the molecular structure.

But the crude theory in my head couldn't budge the real sand.

Theory alone wasn't enough.

“Damn it, what's the problem...”

I tore at my hair.

Both of their suggestions had merit.

But neither was the perfect answer.

It felt like having a lock but the key was split in half.

Time slipped away helplessly.

Since I was cooped up in my room, my sense of time was fuzzy, but seeing it get dark outside and then bright again let me vaguely guess that three or four days had passed.

“Hwaaah....”

At some point, I got exhausted.

My magic had run dry, and my mental fortitude was in tatters.

I flopped flat on the floor.

The sensation of sand grains stabbing my back was unpleasant.

“Should I just give up...”

Why had I even started this in the first place?

Oh, right. The sea.

I was going to go to the sea, make gigantic sand sculptures, and show them off in the Gallery.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

Without thinking, I turned one of my fingers into a sand bullet.

And then I turned it back into a finger. Such an easy, natural process.

“Huh?”

It was then.

A realization flashed through my mind.

I sprang up.

Why does my finger turn back so easily?

“This was it...”

I already knew the answer. It was something I did naturally every day.

The answer was simple. Because it was part of my body.

Because that sand hadn't forgotten its true nature as a finger.

But the sand scattered on the floor was different.

They didn't remember whether they'd once been cups or erasers.

“I was the one who had to teach them.”

First, I used the theoretical method.

Through Eye Opening, I memorized an object's structure perfectly in my head.

And then, using the sensation camp's method, I forcefully imprinted that memory onto the sand and commanded it to become its true form.

Theory and sensation. Combining two half-keys into one.

I picked up the last coffee cup left on the table. Then I cast weathering.

Swish.

The ordinary ceramic cup instantly turned into a handful of fine sand, spilling into my palm.

Now I had to turn it back.

I closed my eyes. I recalled everything about the cup I'd memorized through Eye Opening.

And I sent that blueprint of memory into the sand in my palm.

‘You are a cup.’

The sand in my palm began to wriggle.

Gradually, it clumped together and returned to its original shape.

At last, the same coffee cup as before was resting in my hand.

“I did it...!”

I immediately moved on to the next step.

I picked up the cola can on the desk.

An aluminum can, harder to restore than a ceramic cup made from clay.

Once again, I tried reverse weathering.

This time, it was much harder.

I failed over and over again.

Turning it into sand was easy, but turning it back into the original metal was a problem on an entirely different level.

I refused to give up and started with materials similar to sand, gradually ramping up the difficulty.

Glass cups, plastic spoons, iron chopsticks.

Countless failures piled up and became experience.

The failures kept coming, but I didn't get discouraged.

My original goal of posting proof in the Gallery and going to the sea had long since vanished.

Right now, I simply enjoyed the discovery itself, this process of testing my limits and pushing past them.

‘Did I always have this kind of thirst for knowledge?’

I don't know.

Maybe becoming a mage had awakened something inside me that I hadn't even known existed.

Time passed.

The number of objects I could successfully restore kept growing.

Gradually, I started challenging more difficult items.

The final hurdle was the old CSAT watch in my desk drawer.

A precision machine made of dozens of tiny gears, mainsprings, and screws.

It was the most complex object I'd handled so far.

I pushed the power of the Eye Opening skill to its limit.

I scanned everything about the watch.

I let mana flow through it in minute amounts, identifying the internal structure, materials, and even the movement of each individual part.

A perfect blueprint formed in my head.

A feat the old me couldn't even have imagined.

A task that far exceeded my original brain capacity.

Before I knew it, blood was streaming from my nose.

But I didn't stop.

I focused. I turned the watch to sand, then clumped it back into its original form.

One, two, three... the fiftieth attempt.

In the meantime, fifty CSAT watches had turned to sand and disappeared.

And at last, I succeeded in recreating a perfectly functioning watch with my own hands.

“I did it!”

I cheered.

It was a different kind of exhilaration from climbing the tower.

I looked at the phone and computer on my desk in turn.

I was certain that if I understood these too, I could do the same thing.

Of course, the thought of wrecking dozens of phones made me dizzy, so I didn't feel like trying.

“Could it work on living things too...?”

Suddenly, I remembered the time not long ago when I tried and failed to make a sand pigeon.

Maybe, just maybe, that could be possible too. As long as I was willing to pay the price....

“No, that's not it.”

I shook my head and brushed off the chilling thought that had just crossed my mind.

It was too terrifying to even imagine.

“This is already a big enough discovery.”

Let's settle for that.

I logged into the Mage Gallery with a smile.

It was time to thank them for showing me the answer and to boast about my discovery.

[Title: Figured out reverse weathering. Thx thx]

Author: ㅇㅇ(E5E.5F5)

(video of turning a watch into sand and then restoring it.gif)

Thanks to you guys, I succeeded.

Especially thanks to 마법은화력 and 냉장고.

Since the original skill was weathering, I was going to name the reverse version deposition, but it sounded off, so I dropped it.

Skill name suggestions welcome.

ㄴ 냉장고: No, how the hell did you do something like that?

ㄴ 마법은화력: What I taught you was just how to put out a fire...? That's on a completely different level.

Everyone in the Gallery who saw my post was stunned.

Even the very people who'd taught me how to do it were shocked.

ㄴ p깟쮸: Eventually, you'll be making people too.

ㄴ 풍뎅이: You're already making clones of yourself.

ㄴ p깟쮸: No, not that.... I mean a real, living person.

ㄴ 냉장고: People are too far, but maybe something like a small animal is possible. There are skills like that too.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ(E5E.5F5) : Didn't you guys all do it too?

ㄴ 냉장고 : Hey, is turning water into ice the same as turning a watch into sand and then back again? Do you think that'd work?

ㄴㅇㅇ(E5E.5F5) : lol, even I think this one was pretty insane. Admit it? Yeah, I admit it~

ㄴ 냉장고 : ...I have to admit, this guy's bragging skills are something else, anyway.

I could once again have it confirmed just how incredible a feat I'd pulled off.

I didn't know whether this was a feature of earth-attribute magic or thanks to the Eye Opening skill.

Either way, it didn't matter.

What mattered was that I'd done it.

“...Come to think of it, I still hadn't gone to the sea.”

By the time I came to my senses, the end of Korea's tower blockade was drawing near.