Chapter 14
Chapter 14
At that moment.
The crown prince was engaged in a fierce battle with the lich, along with the special mission leader.
Whooosh.
An immense formless force pressed down on the crown prince’s body, trying to bind him.
And dozens of ice arrows flying towards him.
“A large-scale gravity weighting magic? Even the court magicians can barely do that…! Hmph!”
The astonished crown prince quickly gathered his energy and dispelled the falling gravity, shaking his hand in the air.
A gust of wind whipped like a whip, knocking away all the ice arrows from the air.
Boom boom boom.
On the other hand, the special mission leader distanced himself from the lich and began to draw out his mana and spread it around.
Sssss.
His surroundings began to darken as if a dark cloud had settled low.
“Dark Dragon!”
With a shout, the black energy coalesced and began to take the shape of a dragon.
Roar roar roar!
The symbol of the special mission team, the Dark Dragon, revealed itself.
The special mission leader’s secret technique.
Dark Dragon Summoning.
The special mission leader quickly infused his will and formed hand seals.
A dark dragon that seemed to be at least ten meters long moved according to his will and began to twist its tail.
It felt like the world was shaking.
Crash! Crash!
Roar roar roar!
The dark dragon swiftly devoured or knocked down the ice arrows and hailstones that came from everywhere.
Thanks to that, the crown prince was able to back away.
“Whew, whew. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a hard time.”
The crown prince forced a smile.
Otherwise, he would have felt afraid.
“…Shouldn’t we call the dukes for this?”
The special mission leader mentioned the four dukes, the pinnacle of the imperial knights, as the situation was dire.
The dark dragon’s mana was dwindling as it faced the magic.
The mana depletion was so severe that the color of the dark dragon was gradually fading.
“If we keep fighting like this, we will lose.”
Kraaaaa!
Just then.
The lich let out another scream, and dozens of magic circles appeared around him again.
“Ha, haha. He’s crazy, he’s crazy.”
The special mission leader felt a moment of despair as he saw that.
The number of magic he had destroyed so far was already enormous.
But he still pulled out more magic than that?
Does he have an infinite amount of mana to use?
Whizz.
The magic circles rotated and drew hundreds of fireballs. The heat felt like it reached here.
“If the continent is destroyed, this would be the scene, I guess…”
The crown prince also let out a wry laugh.
Then he hardened his expression.
‘If he keeps rampaging, he will cause great damage to the empire beyond this training ground.’
There were three domains adjacent to this area.
It was obvious what would happen next.
‘Many imperial citizens will die.’
As soon as he thought that far.
Whooom.
A brilliant golden glow burst out of the crown prince’s body, incomparable to before.
He had thought of capturing the monster and finding out how he had flowed into the Blade Mountain Range, but he gave up.
He had to kill him with all his might.
Dragon’s Breath.
Secret Art, Golden Dragon Descent.
The crown prince activated the secret passed down by the royal family and raised his power to the limit.
As he was about to leap forward for the final battle.
-Special mission leader, there is something I want to check.
But there was something he had to check before that.
-What is it, Your Highness?
The special mission leader asked with a question in his head.
His voice was very tired from the long battle.
-This monster… The magic he uses is getting stronger and stronger. Did you feel it?
That was the question the crown prince had felt while fighting the lich himself.
A mage would suffer a significant penalty when fighting a martial artist or a close combat.
He had to cast multiple magic very quickly, so he could only use simple formulas of low-level magic.
But this lich was different.
The resistance and recoil he felt every time he tore the magic circle got stronger and stronger, and the magic he activated also increased in difficulty.
At first, he only used basic magic like <Fireball> or <Magic Missile>, but now he occasionally manifested high-level magic like <Storm>.
Bang bang! Bang bang!
The special mission leader also realized that fact firsthand, so he nodded.
-Yes, I feel it deep in my bones.
-He doesn’t seem to have any reason or intelligence at all… How can he use such a variety of magic? Isn’t it strange?
At that remark.
‘Could it be?’
The special mission leader’s eyes were filled with doubt for the first time.
* * *
Squeak-
The door, decorated with all kinds of antique patterns, opened.
And Yan revealed himself.
“…Huh.”
Yan let out a hollow laugh as he looked around the interior of the lair.
He had expected that the monster, who had lived for a very long time, would have collected quite a lot of things…
But this was far more than he had anticipated.
It was literally a different world.
It was as if the lair had been <spatially expanded>, with the size of a special forces training camp.
Inside, there were four large rooms.
From a library filled with books, to a warehouse displaying dazzling treasures, a white laboratory, and a dark chamber.
Yan walked along the marble-paved corridor.
“A library?”
The first place he entered was the library.
Then Yan burst into laughter.
“This seems to have way more books than the imperial public library, doesn’t it?”
About seven stories high. Along the spiral-shaped stairs, hundreds of bookshelves were lined up on each floor.
He looked at the book titles to see if there was anything worth reading.
“…What kind of letters are these?”
They were full of unfamiliar letters.
He was proud of knowing quite a lot of foreign languages as a special forces commander, but he couldn’t make sense of the titles of the books in the library.
There were many characters he had never seen before, and some of them were presumed to be rune letters of the wizards who had already disappeared.
He searched around to see if there were any books written in imperial language, and he could barely find a few.
[Mana Heart Research Journal]
[Summary of Low Magic]
[5th Circle Magic Summary]
[6th Circle Magic Summary]
[A Small Study on the Cycle of Creation and Destruction]
.
.
At a glance, they were mostly magic books.
Most of them were summaries of high-level magic that were hard to obtain.
If they were wizards, they would have flipped their eyes.
Unfortunately, he was not a wizard.
Of course, there were some books that caught his eye.
[Mana Heart Research Journal]
The book was stained with dirt, as if the lich had written it when he was alive.
Yan turned the bookshelf.
He was curious.
Could he combine the dan tian and the mana circle?
The stable flow and endurance of the dan tian. And the explosive amplification and absorption of the mana circle.
If they were combined…
It would be like opening a new chapter in this rigid system.
“Wow, this seems pretty amazing.”
Yan exclaimed as he read the contents.
He had always thought that the dan tian and the mana circle were separate things, but the owner of this place didn’t seem to think so.
But as he turned the bookshelf, Yan’s expression gradually hardened.
Familiar names began to appear.
So I asked my friend ‘Bahamut’ for permission and used his body to start researching the mana heart.
“Bahamut? Don’t tell me… you mean the founding festival?”
Yan couldn’t help but be a little flustered.
The lich, whom he had thought of as an ancient monster, was friends with the ‘founding festival’?
And he used his body for experiments?
As he read one page after another… until the last page.
“Ha, haha. What did I just see?”
Yan laughed as if he couldn’t believe it.
He just came to find a treasure that would fill the shortcomings of the ‘dragon’s breath’…
When the research was finished, Bahamut thanked me and decided to call it ‘mana heart’.
And Bahamut and I created a martial art that could utilize it.
The name was based on Bahamut’s and my wishes.
We called it 『Dragon’s Breath』.
He accidentally saw the process of creating the ‘dragon’s breath’.
The moment he realized this, goosebumps ran up his arms.
What if he didn’t know this and just tried to make a mana storage?
‘The dragon’s breath and the mana storage would have collided and blown up my body. Or even if not, my condition would have worsened to the point where I could never learn mana again.’
The ‘dragon’s breath’ was a technique that could only be applied to the mana heart.
The research journal said that even the flesh of the founding festival, which was a dragon body, collapsed several times before making the mana heart.
It was needless to say for his current state, which was beyond mediocre and even lacked talent.
He checked the first page carefully to see if there was anything else written about the dragon’s breath, but there was nothing but the last page.
Still.
“I’m so lucky. This.”
Yan sighed with relief and took only the mana heart research journal and left the library.
The next place he headed to was a dazzlingly decorated room that looked like a treasure warehouse.
At a glance, it seemed like a great weapon.
Swords that looked like they would cut even if they grazed, staffs that lumped together heavy jewels, and artifacts that had unusual shapes and unknown uses.
“Hahahahaha! Euhahaha! This is it, this!”
Yan’s voice grew louder. His footsteps were light as he headed towards the displayed treasures.
But.
-Beep, the mana quality is different.
A voice with a warning sound as he approached.
When Yan ignored it and reached out.
Shiver.
He felt a chill on the back of his head.
Yan looked around the exhibition hall.
Woo woo. Woo woo.
Light was leaking from the countless magic circles on the ceiling.
‘If I force it out… they will all activate, right?’
The contrast with the magic circles outside, which had lost their light and broken.
‘These are all working.’
He felt a cold sweat as he thought so.
Well, I can’t take it so easily, can I?
What a stingy kid.
Yan sighed at the lich’s ungenerous personality and turned his body.
The next place he went to was a dark chamber that seemed to have something.
Yan took off a night light from the wall and lit up the inside.
“He must have only slept here.”
A splendid coffin.
It looked like he slept here, as there was a cotton blanket inside.
He searched around with sparkling eyes, hoping to find something more, but there was nothing special.
There were tons of jewels and gold.
But that was useless to Yan right now.
So he left the room and headed to the last remaining laboratory.
The door of the laboratory was black, but the inside was white.
It was so clean that there was not a speck of dust.
‘Is this a joke, this lich, does he have OCD or something?’
On the innermost shelf, there were suspicious-looking potions and green gems.
“First of all, this seems to be the treasure that Valdes was talking about…”
Yan walked over, recalling what Valdes had said.
“A life vessel? It looked like a green gem. I felt something as soon as I saw it.”
“I found it.”
The life vessel was placed next to the potion.
Yan laughed as he looked at them.
The things he needed were gathered together. How grateful he was.
But.
There was one problem.
“How do I get in here?”
There was a transparent barrier in front of the shelf.
As if it would not allow anyone’s intrusion.
