Chapter 59
‘Mental Fork’
A third-circle mage’s technique for splitting consciousness in two.
I learned it to equip two artifacts at once, but it also had the benefit of enabling ‘Double Casting.’
But.
It seemed that successfully performing Double Casting by drawing two magic circles, as I had just done, was beyond what ‘Mental Fork’ could do.
Also, I was supposed to lose focus and have it deactivate, but in my case, it continued to remain active.
Because of that, Seol Harin concluded that the magic I was using wasn’t Mental Fork.
The gallery immediately erupted with questions.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(384F) : Huh?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(751F) What are you talking about?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(432F) : Was there something else at or below the fourth circle?
Seol Harin soon offered a shocking explanation.
ㄴ Seol Harin : Seoyoon… you learned a fifth-circle spell…
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(384F) : ?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(312F) : Uh, what?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(643F) : What are you talking about…
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(249F) : You mean Newbie learned Persona Divide? LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO
Someone mentioned a spell with that name, and Seol Harin confirmed it.
ㄴ Seol Harin : That’s right… Seoyoon immediately grasped Persona Divide, the higher-stage mind-splitting spell above Mental Fork…
I was dumbfounded.
What I had been training all this time was actually something else.
More importantly, it was a fifth-circle spell.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(710F) : Ah, that does explain why it’s maintained continuously…
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(431F) : No, lol, you haven’t explained the most important part at all!
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(351F) : Seriously, how the hell is a fourth-circle newbie using a fifth-circle spell…
ㄴ Seol Harin : Seoyoon. Are you absolutely sure you have four circles? Check again.
At her question, I focused my consciousness on my dantian.
“I do…”
One. Two. Three. Four.
Four circles were rotating. There was no way I could have miscounted.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(100F)(Author) : I definitely have four.
The gallery users began to suspect me.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(248F) : That’s a little much…
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(650F) : Is this fake?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(346F): We already confirmed Newbie had five, so maybe they’re lying out of embarrassment, lololololololol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(544F) : Are they just hiding their circles to keep baiting us? Aren’t they actually a tenth-circle mage?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(312F) : Humblebragging ㄷㄷ
I couldn’t exactly take the circles out of my dantian to prove it, so I had no way to explain myself.
But I didn’t feel any need to get worked up and prove it.
ㅇㅇ(100F)(Author) : If you don’t believe me, what are you going to do about it?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(311F) : Seriously, lol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(544F) : What?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(346F) : ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(544F) : Judging by that reaction, maybe it really is true…
ㄴ Seol Harin : Seoyoon wouldn’t be lying…!
Seol Harin seemed inclined to believe me.
She immediately brought up a theory that supported my situation.
ㄴ Seol Harin : …I have an idea. One hundred and fifty years ago, when the Blood Demon Dao Venerable was a twelfth-circle mage, he told me how to use a thirteenth-circle spell.
ㄴ Seol Harin : Seoyoon, I think you succeeded with that method…
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(346F) : For real?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(544F) : What is this now?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(321F) : You could use the next circle’s magic???
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(351F) : I think I remember something like that.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(249F) : But didn’t nobody succeed with it, so it was buried as nothing more than a theory? Lol
Apparently, there really was a way to use the next circle’s magic.
ㄴ Seol Harin : …He said that if you overloaded the outermost circle with mana beyond its limit and put it into an ‘excited state,’ the circle would temporarily expand to the next level, allowing you to borrow the realm of the next circle for a short time.
‘An excited state.’
I mulled over Seol Harin’s explanation as I read it.
The attempt immediately before I succeeded with Mental Fork… no, Persona Divide.
There had been a moment when I stopped the first, second, and third circles and rotated only the fourth circle.
That must have been when the thing Seol Harin had described occurred.
But someone immediately pointed out a problem.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(702F) : But isn’t that only possible temporarily? Isn’t it limited to active magic that fires once and ends? Newbie’s is being maintained continuously…
ㄴ Seol Harin : …It seems Seoyoon learned a fifth-circle spell while in an excited state, then internalized it completely. Maybe that’s possible because it’s a passive spell…
Seol Harin’s explanation was followed by these reactions.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(650F) : Isn’t that beyond Blood Demon Dao Venerable’s theory?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(346F) : Blood Demon Dao Venerable would flip out if he found out, wouldn’t he? Lololol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(249F) : Since Newbie is the only person besides him to succeed with the concept itself, he’d probably just be amazed.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(312F) : Blood Demon Dao Venerable has been gone from the gallery for so damn long that he may have already learned it.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(461F) : If he hasn’t learned it, didn’t Newbie surpass Blood Demon Dao Venerable’s magical talent? Lol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(248F) : So Newbie wasn’t merely his equal, but actually surpassed him?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(351F) : Holy shit…
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(578F) : No, this is seriously insane.
‘Hmm…’
I had felt this since last time, but the gallery users always seemed deeply interested in the idea of ‘talent.’
That was probably because so many people were stuck on a single floor due to their growth limits.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(346F) : Newbie!! You seriously can’t leave the gallery!!! We’ve built up a bond by helping you all this time!!
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(436F) : What’s this all of a sudden? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(311F) : Where was your conscience when you were seriously suspecting Newbie just now?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(246F) : What did we even help Newbie with? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(249F) : It does feel like Newbie learned everything alone… lol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(397F) : Seriously, there’s a reason all the vanguard members left the gallery.
What the last commenters said might have been true, but that wasn’t true—at least not yet.
I still had far too much to learn.
Amid the uproar, Seol Harin added in a bitter tone.
ㄴ Seol Harin : Now I can’t even really claim that I helped Seoyoon…
ㄴ Seol Harin : I guess I wasn’t cut out to teach Seoyoon either. I never imagined Seoyoon would master a fifth-circle spell with only four circles…
Right as she was disparaging herself,
someone pounced on the opening right on cue.
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : Tsk! Have you only realized that now? If so, withdraw at once.
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : Nothing in this tower is more astonishing than the fact that one body contains two Death Sentences, so do not make such a fuss.
‘So having two instant-death skills was even more surprising…’
There were so few Reapers that not many people knew about them, which was probably why the reaction was muted.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(312F) : You’re saying it’s not surprising that a fourth-circle mage learned a fifth-circle spell? Lol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(431F) : Seriously, you’re a black mage too, so you must have been freaking out inside, lololol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(643F) : Looks like they’re terminally afflicted with thirteenth-circle cool-guy syndrome, yeah.
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : Successfully leaping a circle is indeed theoretically astonishing, but it is merely a fluke that occurred at a lower stage, before even surpassing the sixth circle, so it is not something that warrants genuine astonishment!!
Someone then said this.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(249F) : Newbie, show them right away! Nonstop fifth and sixth circles, go go!
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : Katsu!!!!!!!
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : Absolutely not! You must follow the proper order!
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : Now that you have obtained the third and fourth circles, you must first learn the instant-death skill derivatives appropriate to them!
A discussion about what I should do next immediately followed.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(741F) : First of all, with vacation almost over, isn’t getting another circle now a bad idea?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(349F): Can’t you just leave one consciousness behind while meditating?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(100F)(Author) : Wow, you can do that too?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(349F): Yeah. Since it’s multitasking, you can keep one consciousness awake. If you really did learn Persona Divide.
‘Does this mean the risks of meditation are gone now…’
Persona Divide seemed to have more benefits than I had expected.
That was probably because it was a fifth-circle spell.
But diving in to obtain another circle right away felt awkward. It wasn’t only because of the remaining vacation time; there was something I needed to do first.
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : Disciple! You realized something while learning ordinary magic too, did you not!
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : I sent you to Seol Harin so that she could enlighten you!
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(461F) : Enlightenment ㄷㄷ
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(351F) : What did she make Newbie realize?
Indeed.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(100F)(Author) : That’s right. I did realize something, just as Master said.
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : How gratifying!
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(643F) : Look at Newbie playing along with their master, lol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(100F)(Author) : No, no, I really mean it…
I wasn’t trying to curry favor with my master.
I had truly realized something.
Spells that fired missiles, launched spears, and created walls of fire.
After learning those Dragon Magic spells one after another, I understood that clearly.
‘Death Mark was a truly absurdly broken skill.’
As long as I watched from a distance and built up stacks, I could instantly kill any monster, no matter its tier.
But Dragon Magic didn’t have that kind of overpowered feel.
Death Mark could even be learned at only the second circle.
Comparing it with ordinary magic made me realize just how overpowered black magic based on instant-death skills—which normally only Reapers could use—actually was.
That seemed to be why my master had sent me to Seol Harin in the first place.
Seol Harin seemed slightly stung by that and left a comment.
ㄴ Seol Harin : Seoyoon… Dragon Magic only gets serious starting at the double-digit circles…
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(100F)(Author) : I figured as much.
I had already anticipated that fact as well.
After all, the user with the highest current floor had said that they used Dragon Magic.
ㄴ Seol Harin : The Blood Demon Dao Venerable is a black mage who uses blood magic, but he combines it with elemental spells from Dragon Magic. So you absolutely mustn’t neglect elemental magic.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(100F)(Author) : Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll learn all of it eventually!
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(643F) : Are you really going to do as Grand Void Immortal said? Lol
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(539F) : If it’s Newbie, they probably can…
But there was an order in which to learn things.
From the beginning, I had planned to master instant-death-based black magic first.
I had only dabbled in Dragon Magic so that I could equip two artifacts.
Along the way, I was also able to learn various third-circle utility spells.
“I got a lot out of it.”
I checked the time.
[Guardian duty will be temporarily deactivated for 00:28:45!]
I had only about thirty minutes of vacation time left.
I had to learn at least one more thing in that short time.
Once my vacation ended, I would enter the 101st floor.
I should read the walkthrough guide before then as well.
The moment I thought it would be nice if I could learn black magic based on instant-death skills, my master spoke.
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : I shall now teach you black magic based on the fourth-stage instant-death skill [Death Sentence - Sight]!
“Huh? The order’s weird.”
I tilted my head as I read the comment.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(100F)(Author) : Master, I have a question. Aren’t I going to learn black magic based on the third-stage instant-death skill?
At that point, an anonymous Reaper from the 710th floor answered in his place.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(710F) : There aren’t any Reapers in the gallery who know that.
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : The proper method is not to awaken Slash, the third stage, but to continue training and proceed directly to Sight, the fourth stage. Therefore, this master does not know any black magic based on the third stage!
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(643F) : They’re saying they don’t know it with an unbelievable amount of confidence, lol.
I remembered.
Slash wasn’t a black-magic-based path but a close-range physical combat path involving directly swinging a scythe, and I had been told that the Reapers had abandoned that branch.
‘Slash is my only remaining instant-death skill. It would be nice if there were something to supplement it…’
I wanted to learn anything related to Slash first.
Slash was my only trump card at the moment. Sight still had seven years left on its cooldown.
I had heard that techniques based on an instant-death skill had points that synergized with that skill.
If so, they should help me use Slash as well.
But apparently, I couldn’t learn anything related to it right now.
Just as I was lamenting that,
ㄴ Sword Venerable Jihee : I’ve been waiting! At last, it’s my turn to take the stage!
ㄴ Death Note Tripitaka : ?
ㄴ Seol Harin : ?
ㄴ SSS-Rank Item Abuser : ?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(643F) : Strike three, lol.