Training Addict Magician in a Growth-Focused Story

Training Addict Magician in a Growth-Focused Story

EP.28 The Lair of the Ancient Magician (5)

Leon raised his eyebrows as he contemplated his condition. It had been four days since he endured the pain that felt as if his flesh was being torn apart due to the forced expansion of his core. Although Leon was fully conscious, he found himself in a strange state, feeling somewhat hazy. He did not experience the clarity of consciousness or the sensation of his senses widening that usually accompanied an increase in realm. It was unclear whether his realm had increased or not… The sensation was ambiguously indistinct, as if he was halfway through something.

It was only when a semi-transparent window appeared before him that Leon realized his realm had indeed increased.

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[Growth Assistant]

Information

▶ Name: Leon

▶ Rank: Apprentice 5th Grade

▶ Mana Quality: D-

▶ Attribute Constitution: All-Attribute Constitution (Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Wood, Electricity, Light, Darkness)

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In the meantime, after consuming 30 elixirs, his mana quality had also improved from E+ to D-. It seems he had no time to feel the exhilarating and pleasant sensation that usually comes with an increase in mana quality. Leon also checked the rewards for his realm increase.

▶ Reward probabilities have increased due to rank ascension.

▶ 500 hours of the Time-Space Orb have been provided.

▶ Please select an additional rank ascension reward.

▶ Elixir (C+ Grade Balance Crystal) / Artifact (C+ Grade Lightning Staff)

‘Hmm…’

Up until now, the grade of the additional rewards had been increasing, but this time, the reward was the same C+ grade as before.

‘That’s not what’s important.’

The C+ grade Elixir, the Balance Crystal. It was neither essence nor extract. Although he could not ascertain its precise function from the name alone, it was a name that captured the attention of Leon, whose core was unstable. Was there an elixir that could stabilize mana? Leon had never heard of such a thing. And then, Leon felt a sense of unease. Was it a coincidence that such an elixir appeared precisely when he needed to stabilize his mana?

Leon reviewed the additional rewards he had received so far. The Refined Extract when he was in dire need of an elixir, the Guardian Golem when he required a means of protection, and the Lightning of Glory from the Raidera lineage when he urgently needed a spellbook. And now, when he needed mana stabilization, the Balance Crystal appeared.

‘It seems that what I need is being provided to me…’

“Does this reward system have ‘intent’?”

While he might not know about the regular quest rewards, the rewards given ‘directly’ as additional rewards were blatantly obvious.

‘This is just openly… helping me.’

And then it occurred to him…

‘The All-Atribute Constitution that appeared as the 300th reward might not just be due to my luck.’

Even though he had only received F-grade rewards continuously, he thought he was lucky because his body manifested the All-Atribute Constitution.

Leon, with his mind growing complex, chose the Balance Crystal.

For the rewards of the regular quests that automatically completed when the realm was broken through, he switched to an artifact.

It was in preparation to face the golem outside.

▶ You have acquired a one-time use Explosion Scroll (D-).

As the probability of rewards increased, a D-grade reward appeared, which was considered ordinary.

Leon gazed at the Balance Crystal placed on his palm.

It was a hexahedral crystal the size of a thumb, transparent in color, but inside, light blue and purple mixed together, swirling around.

Upon examining it with appraisal magic, it was an elixir that could repair damage to the core and calm unstable mana.

Although Leon’s core was not in a severely damaged state, consuming it could calm his currently unstable mana state.

Leon decided not to consume the crystal right away and set it down.

Leon’s original plan was to use the time from the Orb, which he would receive after increasing his realm, to secure time for the enlightenment he lacked.

A strategy known colloquially as ‘borrow and pay back.’

Now, the time Leon had with the Orb was 673 hours.

It was about 28 days that he could stay inside the Orb.

During this time, he planned to elevate his consciousness, which had not yet caught up with his increased realm.

‘If it weren’t for the Balance Crystal…’

Leon checked the remaining essences.

14 C-grade essences.

5 B-grade essences.

1 A-grade essence.

Leon placed 8 C-grade essences on his palm and fell into contemplation.

The grade of the ‘Balance Crystal’ was C+.

C-grade essences were effective even at the Arcane rank.

It felt wasteful to consume them at the Apprentice 5th Grade realm.

‘I think I can manage until the Arcane rank.’

Leon then put the 8 essences back into his mouth.

“Ugh…”

The essences had no taste, but for some reason, he felt like gagging.

And then, another two days of pain passed.

On Leon’s palm, who was sitting cross-legged, there were now 3 B-grade essences.

“Haha…”

For some reason, he felt like laughing.

Despite the smile on his face, Leon hesitated to put the essences into his mouth.

“Haha… ha…”

With his eyes tightly shut, Leon shoved the 3 B-grade essences into his dry mouth.

The essences melted in his mouth, sublimating into mana and penetrating deep into his body.

Since the uncontrolled mana was already rampaging and making his whole body ache, the sensation wasn’t significantly noticeable.

And suddenly, his mind became hazy.

Forcing his way through a moment that required enlightenment left him feeling dizzy.

In the consciousness that seemed to flicker on the verge of breaking, Leon struggled to regain his senses, but it didn’t go as he wished.

Just before his consciousness completely faded, Leon instinctively swallowed the Balance Crystal.

The moment he felt something begin to permeate the rampaging mana, Leon lost consciousness.

When Leon opened his eyes, in his dazed state, he realized that he had reached the Arcane realm.

‘…It’s just like when I reached the 5th Grade.’

A state where it was ambiguous whether he had truly reached the Arcane rank or not.

A state that could be described as ‘halfway there.’

But Leon was satisfied with this state.

If it weren’t for the Balance Crystal, he might have failed to increase his realm, let alone reach halfway.

In that case, he would have had to consume all the remaining essences.

‘I can’t do this anymore…’

No matter how much of an All-Atribute Constitution he had, if he continued this way from Arcane to Mystic, the imbalance between his consciousness and core would become much worse.

‘Getting more essences to do that would be difficult anyway.’

The surface of the core, which had grown more than twice its size since he was at the 5th Grade, was covered with thin thread-like things undulating over it.

Among these threads, three were extended long and connected to Leon’s head.

This was a characteristic called the Threads of Will, unique to magicians at the Arcane rank.

Leon realized that having only three of these threads was an abnormal number.

And not in a good way.

Normally, a magician with average talent reaching the Arcane rank would have 2 to 3 threads pulled from the core and connected to the head.

These threads enable multiple spell casting.

If Leon, with his talent, had normally reached the Arcane rank, he should have had at least 9 to 10 threads connected to his head.

This meant he could have performed ninefold or tenfold spell casting.

Because he had not gained proper enlightenment and ascended to the realm, Leon’s ‘will’ had not yet caught up to the Arcane rank.

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[Growth Assistant]

Information

▶ Name: Leon

▶ Rank: Arcane Beginner

▶ Mana Quality: D-

▶ Attribute Constitution: All-Attribute Constitution (Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Wood, Electricity, Light, Darkness)

General Quest

▶ Basic Magic Training (Completed)

Reward

▶ Artifact (Changed)

Breakthrough Quest

▶ Realm Ascension (Completed)

Mileage Exchange Shop

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▶ The Mileage Exchange Shop has been added.

▶ Reward probabilities have increased due to rank ascension.

▶ 1000 hours of the Time-Space Orb have been provided.

▶ Please select an additional rank ascension reward.

▶ Spellbook (B+ Grade Wood Magic ‘Amonea Series Ten Thousand Leaves’) / Artifact (B+ Grade Mirror of Truth)

In fact, the additional rewards were somewhat different from what Leon had hoped for when consuming the B-grade essences.

He wanted a powerful artifact, but the Mirror of Truth… just from its name, it didn’t seem like an artifact with powerful capabilities.

On the contrary, the spellbook was a more necessary reward for Leon at the moment.

‘Is it not simply what I want, but what I need the most right now that appears?’

Leon fell into contemplation in front of the rewards.

Indeed, upon reaching the B-grade, the rewards on both sides were so attractive that it was hard to choose.

The Mirror of Truth seemed to be an artifact with the ability to detect lies or see through hidden opponents.

On the other hand, the B+ grade Wood Magic was a spell usable up to the Mystic rank.

Moreover, it was an Atribute magic that Leon currently did not possess.

In the end, Leon chose the ‘Ten Thousand Leaves.’

A book with a green cover fell onto Leon’s palm.

Before examining it, Leon checked the Mileage Exchange Shop.

Mileage Exchange Shop

▶ F (0/5)

▶ E (0/5)

▶ D (0/5)

▶ C (0/5)

▶ B (0/5)

▶ A (0/5)

▶ Collecting 5 rewards of the same grade provides an opportunity to exchange for a higher-grade reward. The exchange result is determined by probability.

‘Collecting 5, huh…’

Considering the meaning of mileage, it seemed like a system that allowed the exchange of useless rewards.

Leon first received the general quest reward.

▶ You have acquired Triple Acceleration Golden Wings (C+) (Confirm / Cancel)

Leon immediately noticed the change.

Instead of simply acquiring it, he could choose whether to accept it or not.

‘If I press cancel, will it accumulate mileage?’

However, the reward was too appealing to cancel.

Although the probability of receiving F-grade rewards had decreased, the fact that he could exchange them for mileage if they did appear was a good feature.

When Leon pressed confirm, three pairs of golden wings fell onto his palm.

The wings were small enough to fit in his hand, but when he infused them with mana, they grew large enough to attach to his back.

Upon examining them with appraisal magic, he found that they were an auxiliary artifact for levitation magic.

They reduced the mana consumption of levitation magic and could dramatically increase speed three times.

After three uses, the acceleration feature could not be used for a day.

‘The color is a bit… not to my liking.’

The golden color was too conspicuous when attached to his back.

However, he was satisfied with the fact that it could help him escape dangerous situations.

There was one more change.

General Quest

▶ Training (0/10)

The general quest had changed from Basic Magic Training to just Training.

“Does this mean even basic training methods will progress the quest?”

Was it a sign that now he could train freely since he had been given some direction?

Thinking that the system had some intent behind it seemed strange, but considering everything that had happened so far, it was a reasonable guess.

The surface of the Time-Space Orb displayed the white number 1693.

This included the 1500 hours obtained as a reward for realm breakthrough and the additional 20 hours from the completion of two general quests.

“Huh?”

Leon noticed there were 10 more hours than he had calculated.

‘It must have increased to 20 hours for a general quest reward now that I’ve reached the Arcane rank…’

It seemed that as his realm increased, so did the time allocated for training, which was reflected in the increased reward.

Leon finished reconciling and gripped the Orb tightly.

It had been two weeks since he entered this training room.

‘Now it’s time to pay it back…’

Leon entered the Orb and did not come out for two months.

He had brought a pottery filled with nutritional fruits directly into the Orb.

During the first two weeks, he spent time stabilizing the mana that had increased upon reaching the Arcane rank, and the next month was spent training the four-star and five-star basic magic of Arpina, which he had not been able to practice due to his focus on raising his realm with elixirs, to fill in the gaps in his enlightenment.

The last two weeks were spent slightly touching upon the Arcane rank magic, Raidera’s Glory of the Thunderbolt, while concurrently practicing Arpina’s basic magic.

Glory of the Thunderbolt was not a spell to be systematically trained from basic magic; it was explicitly stated to start at the Arcane rank.

It dealt with basic magic only at the one-star rank, and from two-star onwards, it handled high-rank magic.

Upon reaching three-star, one had to immediately refine Arcane magic.

Arcane magic could be used perfectly at the end of the Arcane Beginner rank, and it was a spell with a powerful single strike.

The Arcane magic that could be used at the Arcane Beginner rank was ‘Dawn’s Thunder.’

Although weaker in range and power than ‘Glory of the Thunderbolt,’ which could be used at the advanced rank of Arcane, it was still a sufficiently powerful spell.

‘I can’t use it yet…’

He hadn’t fully entered the Arcane realm even after two months.

‘If I leave the lair, I’ll have to be stuck in the training room for about three months…’

Although he hadn’t reached the stage where his consciousness directly manifested magic, it was encouraging that the incantation process had significantly shortened.

The remaining Orb time was 250 hours.

He decided to save this time for any unforeseen circumstances.

Back in reality, Leon extended his index finger.

“Thunderbolt.”

A small bead of electricity formed on Leon’s index finger.

When he threw it at the wall, the bead spread across the entire wall with a crackling sound.

Thanks to the protective magic circle on the wall, it didn’t leave any significant marks.

“Fall.”

As he drew his finger from top to bottom, a small lightning bolt appeared and fell from the previously empty ceiling.

“Not bad.”

These were all 2-star spells of Glory of the Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt and Thunderstrike.

The 1-star spells of Glory of the Thunderbolt were Spark, which generated small electricity, and Lightning Bolt, which could shoot the generated electricity like an arrow. All of these were basic spells necessary for learning the 2-star spells.

He didn’t handle other basic electric attribute spells because they weren’t needed for learning Glory of the Thunderbolt.

Having mastered the 1-star spells in two weeks, Leon was now gradually touching upon the 2-star spells.

“Although the power is still weak… it’s definitely stronger than apprentice-rank magic.”

The inherently offensive nature of Glory of the Thunderbolt made it feel even more so.

Leon spent four more days in reality mastering the 2-star spells of Glory of the Thunderbolt.

He planned to acquire some artifacts as general quest rewards before heading out.

Spending 20 hours in reality and 10 hours inside the Orb each day, Leon spent four days getting familiar with the 2-star spells before standing up.