Chapter 11
With Professor Horse leading the way, the gallery members began posting comments.
└Water Spirit: You've gotta be kidding me lol
└QueenNeverCries: Did you learn it and cast it right away, in real time?
└IsThatForReal: And you even succeeded?
└MagicSupremacist: The greatest achievement of the primate order, Hikki-nim.
Not a bad reaction.
└NoWorldTreeNoParty: The greatest achievement of the primates is elves, actually.
└GoodAtHousework: Elves are primates?
└NoWorldTreeNoParty: Of course they are. What, are merfolk fish?
└MomThatKidEatsDirt: Yeah, fish, dumbass. What else would they be?
└TreeFucker: Oh, a fish looks like a woman....
└WaterStyleWaterStyle: Nothing but nitpicking lol
I ignored the weird tangent.
Let's just enjoy all the praise I'm getting.
└AngryArtist: Upvote if Professor Horse's brain froze in real time lol
└Ice Bat: Horse, now you know how I feel, right?
└HorsesAreForRiding: ㅋㅋ, unbelievable~
The professors must have liked it, too.
└HorsesAreForRiding: Wait, how did you do that?
└HorsesAreForRiding: Even I couldn't learn it in a day.
As for how I did it.... Well, it's kind of hard to explain.
I was just trying to bind something that looked like a roe deer when it wandered by while I was tossing Water Bombs.
And it worked…?
“Oh no, a roe deer!”
I let the roe deer go after that.
“Sorry. Hurry on home.”
Maybe because I only used a little mana?
“Kyeeeeeeeek!”
The roe deer didn't seem to be hurt, either.
It bounded up the mountain path.
‘I guess the damage really is pretty low.’
I didn't expect it to scamper off so energetically.
The strengths and weaknesses of each kind of magic seem more distinct than I thought.
‘I should write them down.’
I jotted a few notes in my memo app.
Fire magic.
Strength) Can deal massive AoE damage.
Weakness) No CC.
Water magic.
Strength) Good against a single target.
Weakness) Hard to land spells.
Nature magic.
Strength) High-performance crowd control.
Weakness) Lacks killing power.
Hmm.
I made a small change to my notes.
Weakness) Severely lacks killing power.
No wonder the other mages looked down on it.
I finally understood in my heart what I'd only known in my head.
‘But that's fine, isn't it?’
I can bind it and then attack with another element.
Bind it with wood, freeze it with ice, or melt it with a Fireball.
That's a good combo.
Let's try it right now.
***
I entered Floor 7 of the Tower.
It was the same prairie as yesterday.
The objective was to defeat three Dire Wolves.
Seriously, the difficulty had tripled in just one floor.
That's just cruel.
‘Does the Tower ever think about the people climbing it?’
I grumbled as I pushed through the grass.
Meanwhile, I planned out today's tactics.
The overall strategy was simple.
If they were bunched together, take them all out at once.
If they were spread apart, pick them off one by one.
To be honest, picking them off one by one sounded safer.
There was less risk involved.
If I tried to bind all three and even one got away, it could turn into a disaster.
Though I'd have to use Tree Bind and a sniping spell three times each.
Sssssss—
My mana should be enough.
My Mana stat was a whopping 22!
Compared to when it was stuck at 9, that was a whole new world.
Come to think of it, the same thing had happened on Floor 6.
I'd used my slowing spell three times in a row and still hadn't run low on mana.
I'd grown quite a bit before I knew it.
“Heh heh.”
Anyway, where are they?
I'd already crossed several low hills.
As I crossed another one...
Wuuung-
No Affinity began to vibrate.
“Hmm? What's wrong?”
Had it spotted something?
I crouched low to hide myself and looked around.
“Grrrrr-”
Only then did I hear a faint sound.
It was definitely a wolf.
I looked toward the sound and saw it watching me.
‘I've already been spotted!’
If I'd kept walking, it would've ambushed me for sure.
Creepy.
If it weren't for my trusty Moo-sang, I'd have been in real trouble.
“Thanks, Moo-sang.”
Wung-wung-
I stroked it, then got my mana ready.
“Awoooooo─”
A Dire Wolf howled.
It was calling its pack, right?
I had to take it out quickly.
I was supposed to ambush it, but that hadn't worked out.
Even though ground-targeted spells were the best way to hide mana,
it might dodge them easily if it was already on alert.
‘I'll throw in a little misdirection.’
I floated a clump of mana into the air without adding any element to it.
“Grrrr-”
The Dire Wolf reacted to the plain mana.
Its gaze was fixed on the clump of mana.
‘That's right. Keep your eyes on that.’
Meanwhile, I sent mana flowing into the ground.
Carefully.
Quietly.
A mana pool just big enough for a giant wolf slowly pushed through the earth.
When the mana finally reached beneath the wolf's feet...
“Tree Bind.”
Pop-!
Pah-pah-!
Thick tree trunks burst through the ground in an instant.
“Yip?!”
The wolf tried to pull away quickly, but—
Creeeak-
the trunks had already seized its ankles.
Wriggling this way and that did no good. The more it struggled, the tighter they bound it.
“Yip....”
The wolf finally gave up and let its body go limp.
I did it!
It didn't look like I'd hurt it physically at all, but I'd managed to keep it from moving.
“There aren't any others, right?”
I checked my surroundings.
I couldn't sense any other wolves nearby.
‘I can focus on that one.’
I immediately prepared an Ice Ball.
I boldly made it bigger this time.
Crack-! Crackle-!
Ice piled up on top of the ice ball.
It was practically a cannonball now.
Wouldn't even a light tap with my hand pack quite a punch at this size?
I took aim, feeling the weight of the mana.
The wolf was easy to aim at.
It was still bound, only whimpering.
“Whine....”
“……”
Why was it whining so sadly?
It was making me feel bad....
Wuuuuung- Wung-!
You mean I need to focus?
Right, that's true.
A Dire Wolf was a monster in the Tower, after all.
If I didn't take it down, it'd come after me.
I focused mana into the ice ball again.
Sorry, Wolfie.
‘Have a more agile day next time.’
Thwack-!
With a heavy impact, the wolf crumpled to the ground.
“Whew....”
That was one down.
Two wolves left.
Finding the next targets was easy.
Thanks to the first wolf's howl, the second and third had come right to me.
The two of them were walking together down the hill.
‘This time, I have to strike first.’
I'll attack before they reach the first wolf.
They might go berserk when they see what happened to their packmate.
I crouched low and gathered mana.
There were two wolves, so the mana pool had to be that much bigger.
If the radius is doubled.... How much bigger does the mana pool get?
‘Is it, is it double that too?’
Either way, I needed more mana than before.
Srrr-
I poured mana into the nearby ground.
It kept taking mana without end.
Three times as much? Four?
Who cares?
What matters is that I made a patch of ground big enough!
I moved the patch of ground where the tree trunks would rise.
Into the wolves' path.
To reduce the variables, I chose the flattest spot I could find.
“Grrrrrr-”
“Grrr, grrr.”
Everything was ready, so I waited like a fisherman.
Fortunately, the wolves walked straight into the trap I'd laid.
“Tree Bind!”
Creeeeeeak-!
This time, I used Tree Bind a little more precisely.
I caught them by the ankles right away so they couldn't pull free.
I caught both of them perfectly.
“That's it!”
I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.
Now let's finish them off.
If I kept watching, I'd only feel worse.
I squeezed my eyes shut and prepared a spell.
This time, a Fireball.
Once again, I made it a little bigger.
The blazing flames made my cheeks feel hot, too.
I had to open my eyes again to throw the spell.
‘If I could sense my opponent's mana, I could fight with my eyes closed, too.’
With that thought, I threw the Fireball!
Then I immediately turned around.
Kaboom-!
I heard an explosion behind me.
I imagined a huge mushroom cloud or an enormous fireball erupting back there.
“That was just like a movie, wasn't it?”
Wung-
I didn't need to check whether I'd taken the wolves down.
[Floor 7 cleared.]
The status window told me.
My score should be coming up soon, right?
[Hell Difficulty Bonus]
[A 1.5x multiplier has been applied to your score.]
[6728 points]
[SSS-rank]
[First SSS-rank clear of Floor 7!]
Over six thousand points?
Wasn't that the highest score ever?
‘Isn't there a bonus for getting 6,000 points?’
[Global Hunter Ranking: 1st!]
[Korean Hunter Ranking: 1st!]
Guess not.
Don't get greedy, Ji-min.
It's not like I was owed a bonus. Right?
[One additional Piece of Growth has been awarded.]
[One additional Piece of Growth has been awarded.]
[One additional Piece of Growth has been awarded.]
The regular clear reward, the rank reward, and the difficulty reward.
Three Pieces of Growth were plenty as it was.
If I posted this on Hunter Gallery, I'd get banned for thirty-one days for humblebragging.
Maybe I'd only get another Piece of Growth if I scored over 10,000 points.
Anyway.
I invested them all directly in Mana, reaching 25.
‘I should post this on Archmage Gallery.’
Mages were serious about increasing their stats, after all.
If I told them my Mana had tripled in just ten days, wouldn't they be thrilled?
Wuuuuung- Wung-wung-
What, you want to know why I'm giggling?
You don't need to know.
“Hehehehe-”
***
Pop-
I returned home.
I was starting to get used to traveling to and from the Tower.
“You did great today, Moo-sang!”
Moo-sang had done a lot of work today.
I dampened a soft cloth with disinfectant and carefully wiped it down.
After brushing off all the dust from Floor 7, I put it on my pillow.
I took a nice, clean bath too, then lay down on my bed.
I uploaded the recording of my climb to Archmage Gallery.
Then I immediately made a new post.
[How do you guys train your magic, anyway?]
[Hikki]
Since I can increase my Mana by clearing the Tower, I never really thought about training it separately lol
I started at Mana 9 and now I've raised it to 25....
Would it go up more if I kept practicing at home?
└Ice Bat: Wait, Mana isn't something you can just raise with a click....
└Ice Bat: Sigh, never mind.
└BearDoorBearDoorBear: Is this a humblebrag? Is this asshole humblebragging right now?
└MomThatKidEatsDirt: I want to climb the damn Tower too!!!!
└Illegal: If our little up-and-coming Illegal mage had a Tower, he'd have reached the 9th tier by now ㅜㅜ
└└AngryArtist: No, I already told you I'm 9th-tier, damn it.
└└Illegal: Yeah, right.
└AngryArtist: And I'm not jealous of any of that. A proper mage should build their skill through meditation, research, and practice. If you get stronger through a lucky break, you'll never have a solid foundation.
└└Illegal: For real?
└└AngryArtist: No, actually, I'm insanely jealous. Fuuuuuck, I'm turning so damn black with envy!
They're funny people, anyway.
I spent a while looking through the gallery like that.
When the topic started to die down, I closed the gallery.
Now I had something else to do besides browse the gallery!
"I can even watch WTube, you know."
As long as I stayed out of the comments, the restrictions were pretty reasonable.
I opened the app right away.
Videos appeared based on the algorithm I'd been carefully cultivating.
The first video that caught my eye was-
"Eek?!"
[Promising Nonhuman Hunter Hikki Already Defected to the U.S.?]
[We Will Arrest National Traitor Hikki! Eliminate the Pro-Japanese Hikki!]
['We Shouldn't Have Brought Hikki Here!' The Real Reason China's Hunter Association Regrets It]
They were bizarre fake news stories.
‘Did I go abroad?’