Chapter 155: Five Mountains of Penances (5)

[Ho! Finally!]

[Red. It definitely fits the fire property.]

Yeon-woo looked at the Aura Blade on Carshina’s dagger and glanced at Shanon and Hanryeong.

‘Is there a difference in the color of Aura?’

Shanon grinned and shook his head.

[Not much. The color doesn’t affect the power. Since Aura is just the difference of training.]

‘But?’

[You can slightly see the user’s subconscious with this.]

‘Like?’

[Your Aura is red. That probably symbolizes the Holy Fire and the fire property you have.]

‘Mm.’

[But looking at it now, it looks like fire burning up. Or. Kind of like blood?]

Yeon-woo thought what Shanon was saying was both right.

Red was the color he saw the most on Earth and the Tower.

Explosions. Fire. Bloodstains. Yeon-woo thought he wouldn’t be able to escape from the color.

Yeon-woo observed his Aura Blade with his Extrasensory Perception.

[Alright, let’s continue. Congratulations on making Aura, but this is only the first step. It’ll probably break if you lose your focus even a little bit. Until you’re completely used to it, you have to continue practicing.]

Yeon-woo nodded his head.

[But this time, let’s change it up.]

‘How?’

[What do you mean how? Using it in actual situations.]

Shanon glanced at Hanryeong. Both of them suddenly pulled out their weapons from the subspace like they had planned it beforehand. Shanon his sword breaker, and Hanryeong a sword from his nine swords collection.

Shanon smirked even though he didn’t have a face.

[Sparring.]

***

Clang!

He was a master now, but he still had a long way to go.

Normal players would see that he was pretty skilled, but actually skilled people would see that he was lacking.

The skills and weapons he had weren’t related to his sword technique skills. He could only improve by working hard.

However, he didn’t have a lot of time. So he tried to use the time he had efficiently.

So the place he chose to train was the 20th floor. And to make up for the amount of time, he went through years of time in his mind by himself. It was impossible for normal people to do. It was a fight with himself.

And Yeon-woo added something more to do.

Sparring.

With just his sword, he sparred with Shanon and Hanryeong. It was to proficient use his Writings of Divination and Aura.

Shanon had said before.

That he now only had the basic qualification.

Yeon-woo knew he was lacking a lot, so he tried to make up for it with his quick thinking abilities and his sword.

As metal and metal clashed, sparks flew everywhere.

[Nice! This is fun as I expected! This is it!]

Shanon’s happy voice rang out.

Behind him, Hanryeong tapped, no, struck his sword on the ground as if telling Shanon to hurry up.

***

[Mm. This isn’t it either.]

Victoria swept her hair back with a frustrated face. She couldn’t feel anything, so she didn’t feel the need to shower, but she mentally felt she was dirty. However, she didn’t have the time to worry about that right now.

There were problems in her system.

She had checked over and over again for calculation errors, but her magic this time didn’t work.

She didn’t know how many times, no, how many years it had been.

She entered the Five Mountains because she didn’t want to think about anything else and build her magic to take her to a new level.

But that goal was still far away.

[The calculation isn’t wrong. I’m sure of that.]

Victoria calculated backwards from the area that wasn’t working. But she didn’t get anything.

Then, there was only one reason left.

[The amount of times.]

Sigh. This was so annoying. Victoria cursed for the first time in a while.

This was the problem with rune magic.

One could use this without much setbacks, and it was powerful because of its purity. That was why people who wanted to become war mages like her like this study.

However, for all it’s pros, there was a large con.

Letters. It was made up simple, but if it became even the slightest bit more complicated, it would immediately fail.

For example, the simple command of ‘freeze’ was easy. However, the command to ‘freeze and crack’ was impossible. It was because the two letters clashed.

Victoria supported this con with artifacts. She drew them in the special bracelet that she made and erased one to use it every time she needed.

But not only was this limited in the amount of times it could be used, a large amount of jewels was needed every time the rune letters were written. And because the bracelet only lasted a week, it was extremely inefficient.

So Victoria was researching a solution to this problem.

She was trying to look for a combination of runes that fixed the bracelet once it was used.

It sounded impossible, but she had somewhat finished the theory of it after a long time spent researching.

But that was it.

The calculation was perfect, but everything it was made, it ended in failure.

She became frantic. She was scared she wouldn’t be able to accomplish her goal if this kept her.

Because of the limits of rune magic, she hadn’t been able to climb the Tower, and she might be trapped on the same floor until she died.

But she could assume why it failed every time.

It was because of the amount of times.

There were too many ways the artifact could be damaged. And there were too many different combinations of runes.

Because there were quite a bit of letters, the different combinations also increased in number.

The amount of times that something unexpected would happen eventually reached towards infinity.

Then there was only one method.

To make a combination that could solve whatever came its way.

And to do that.

‘I need to model it after someone who’s proactive.’

Theories flashed by her head.

She needed to imitate someone.

If she could understand their way of thinking into an artifact, it would be able to resist unpredictable situations.

However, the person would have to be quick at learning and proactive.

And thankfully, Victoria knew someone like that.

‘Cain.’

At first, she considered Kahn. Since he was young and motivated. However, he spent more time on meditating than training, like he was researching something like she was.

Yeon-woo was different.

He only spent the first month in meditation, and after that, he continued to train moving his body. Making anyone who watched think his body would be ruined.

And he quickly progressed. Even she, who didn’t know too much about martial arts, could tell that he was improving everyday.

Like what was a day to everyone else was a month for Yeon-woo. She saw a deep understanding that would take others a few months to comprehend from Yeon-woo.

[I hope he does this favor for me.]

The problem was that people didn’t like having their thinking patterns analyzed. Because their weakness might be shown.

It was why she didn’t consider the other high rankers including Kindred. The moment she brought it up, her head would be blown off.

But she wouldn’t know if she didn’t try with Yeon-woo. After organizing her thoughts, Victoria slowly stood up. She found where Yeon-woo was with her senses.

Fortunately, he was near where he was staying.

As she erased the rune for Blink, she quickly transported to where he was.

And as she moved, she was surprised.

‘What’s this?’

The entire forest around Yeon-woo’s little house was a wasteland.

Like Hermes’s symbol, the boa had slid past it. It looked like something had pressed down on it.

The problem was that even though it was like this, she couldn’t feel any traces of magic power.

‘Then…he did this purely with his strength?’

She thought he was impressive when he released his magic power against Kindred. But this was incomparable to before.

Victoria estimated where Yeon-woo was based on the hints she found. And she became even more sure.

She arrived at a small pond at the end of the forest.

Yeon-woo was bathing himself. She could see that his body was incredibly firm. Muscles without any imperfections. They were muscles from training.

Victoria was about to smile and froze. She saw all kinds of scars on his muscles. Just what had he been through to…..?

[What brings you here?]

Then, Yeon-woo turned towards Victoria without any signs of being surprised.

Victoria felt the color come back to her face and slowly smiled.

[A woman came to sneak a look at you but you don’t seem too surprised.]

[Since you can’t see anyway. But can you wait a moment so I can get dressed.?]

[Then can’t you just stay naked?]

Yeon-woo ignored her and entered the forest on the opposite side. It was to get his clothes.

[Boring.]

Victoria grinned, then narrowed her eyes.

[I can feel the remnants of magic. The energy of darkness? But there shouldn’t be any undeads on the 20th floor. Is it a power of Cain?]

Did he have more than physical strength? She was curious, but she couldn’t ask. Since that was the unspoken rule around here.

Then, with the sound of rustling, Yeon-woo came back.

[Please speak now.]

***

[So you want to make my thinking patterns into an artifact?]

Yeon-woo asked Victoria after hearing her explanation. He was resting while bathing after sparring with Shanon and Hanryeong. Then, Victoria had come.

[Right.]

Victoria nodded her head.

[And you know how rude that is to ask of a martialist.]

[Right. So I want to offer a trade.]

[A trade.]

During the time he spent on the Five Mountains, he became closer to Victoria speaking with her when they saw each other. But that was it. They weren’t close enough to ask for a favor this rude.

But Yeon-woo thought this wouldn’t be too bad.

‘Because whatever she tries, she won’t be able to imitate my way of thinking.’

Yeon-woo was confident in his mind blocking. His Cold Blooded skill was like the greatest enemy of mental magic. And so was his mind after awakening his Dragon Body. His subconscious was no different than a dragon’s now.

If she tried to interpret his mind, it would be as hard as interpreting a dragon’s mind. It was clear she would fail.

On the other hand, Yeon-woo had a lot that he wanted from her.

Rune magic. It was simple to use, and if he could only learn attack magic.

‘Blink, Heist, and Magic Power Strengthening. I want to learn at least these 3. And it’s nice if I can understand other magic as well.’

Blink, to quickly change his location. Heist, which would provide his fast movement. And Magic Power Strengthening to increase his magic power.

And more than anything, rune magic would greatly help Boo.

[If you want, I’ll even give a demon’s contract. So I request this of you.]

A demon’s contract was summoning a high demon and having him grant a wish. It was incredibly expensive. That was how serious Victoria was.

Yeon-woo pretended to think about it carefully and nodded his head.

[Alright. But instead, I want to learn the language of runes. Is that ok?]

[Rune language?]

Victoria’s eyes widened. It was something she thought was too weak of a condition.

And even if you learned rune magic, it was hard to learn right away. It was hard to use the magic of the gods.

She brightly smiled, thinking that she had found a pushover, not knowing that Yeon-woo had Dragon’s Knowledge.

[Good. Then I’ll tutor you. I’ll leave it in your hands.]

[Thank you.]

Yeon-woo smiled while shaking her hand. It was a smile for when one saw a real pushover.

They both put extra strength on the hand that they were using to shake.

***

And meanwhile.

[You are the first person to enter the dungeon ‘King Mifune’s Palace.’]

Kindred entered a cave that was on the top of the 5th mountain.

It was a cave that no one had found before. The reason why he had spent 10 years on the 20th floor was right in front of him.

A lake filled with water. And a door past it. The golden door was sparkling, lightning up the entire cave.

“Found you. Magic Stick.”

Kindred smiled wide enough for his canines to be showing.