## Chapter 256 – 256. A Cold Reunion
#256. A Cold Reunion
After the sparring session, I followed Choi Hye-na to her private workshop.
“What do you think?”
“…It’s huge.”
It was four stories tall just from the outside, and she said it had three basement levels as well.
I was struck anew by how impressive it was that I had reached the 5th Circle while using a room smaller than 10 pyeong as my workshop.
Of course, the working environment for a mage specializing in combat like me and a mage researching theory like Choi Hye-na were bound to be different.
When it came to magical knowledge alone, I couldn’t even compare to Choi Hye-na.
“Come on in.”
I followed Choi Hye-na, who seemed to be in a good mood, into the workshop. From the first floor, it wasn’t a workshop but a botanical garden that unfolded before my eyes.
“The scent is nice, right? I’ve been growing various flowers lately.”
“It is nice… but these don’t seem like ordinary flowers?”
Every single one of them didn’t seem like a plant from Earth.
At my question, Choi Hye-na slightly raised the corner of her lips, and then broke off a flower and handed it to me.
“That’s right. All the plants here are species that come from beyond the gate.”
I stared intently at the flower she handed me.
Mysterious blue petals, unique thorns covering the stem, and a sweet fragrance that made me want to keep smelling it.
It was clearly a Liberia, mainly harvested from D-grade gates.
I heard it was used to make perfume?
“Even if they look like weeds, you can think of everything here as being used as ingredients for alchemy.”
“Alchemy? Weren’t you majoring in elemental studies?”
I didn’t know much, but I knew that the Seongbuk Choi Clan had been majoring in elemental studies for generations.
Especially when it came to the element of fire, their authority in academia was immense.
“To inherit the position of head of the family later, this much is basic. There isn’t a single one of the family’s businesses that doesn’t utilize alchemy. Of course, the researchers will take care of the research, but I need to have basic knowledge to receive reports and make decisions.”
That made sense.
Unlike me, who didn’t have any particular worries about the future, she had to become the head of the Seongbuk Choi Clan someday.
She had too much on her shoulders to just focus on elemental studies without a care in the world.
Suddenly, I wondered if the reason her level was lower than her talent might be due to worries and concerns about the future.
Anxiety, unease, worry, fear, regret, etc.
For a mage who was greatly affected by their mental state, these negative emotions were like a deadly poison.
Even if they looked fine on the outside, you could never know a person’s true feelings unless you were a god.
‘If I reach the 4th Circle, I’ll be able to worry a little less.’
Whatever the case, the most important thing for a mage was their level.
If the head of the Jinryu Han Clan was a Tower Lord who had reached the 7th Circle, then Choi Hye-na, who would become the head of the same Three Great Clans, needed to reach a level comparable to that.
Even if she couldn’t reach the 7th Circle, she had to at least reach the 6th Circle like her grandmother, Choi Young-ok, the current head of the family.
If not, they would eventually be pushed back by the Jinryu Han Clan.
Of course, that wouldn’t happen as long as I was around.
I was planning to help Choi Hye-na advance to the next level. Of course, there were some points that were still theoretical, so I was a little uneasy.
‘It’s better than doing nothing.’
By the way, the concentration of mana in the air had been unusually high since I entered the workshop.
As I looked around the botanical garden, I soon realized the reason.
‘That’s… a mana tree?’
A tree that had grown to the ceiling caught my eye. It looked like a well-maintained ordinary tree, but a mage sensitive to mana couldn’t possibly not know its true identity.
Mana Tree.
A tree rarely found in gates of C-grade or higher, and a rare species that was auctioned off for hundreds of millions to billions of won per tree.
If ordinary trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and emit oxygen, that thing emits mana.
You might say, what’s so great about that that a single tree costs billions of won, but basically, plants that are used as ingredients for alchemy don’t grow if the mana concentration is low.
This was because the mana concentration beyond the gate was higher than on Earth, and mana trees were essential to stably supply alchemical ingredients.
‘I heard that even decent-sized companies only have one at most…’
To plant something like that in a personal workshop.
I suddenly wondered if I had underestimated the wealth of the Three Great Clans too much.
“Do you want me to get you one if you need it?”
“…Really?”
My ears perked up at Choi Hye-na’s words.
I wasn’t planning on leeching off my girlfriend, but refusing goodwill wasn’t polite to the other person.
“Do you like it that much?”
Choi Hye-na’s eyes curved beautifully as I nodded my head vigorously. It was a smile so lethal that my heart ached.
Yeah, I fell for that smile.
“I can’t just give it to you, I’ll decide after seeing what you do today.”
I immediately prostrated myself.
Choi Hye-na burst into laughter at the sight.
“Are you going to be my personal butler or something?”
“If you want.”
“Hmm… but rather than a butler, I think a manservant would be more fitting?”
With those meaningful words, Choi Hye-na stared intently between my legs.
As my dick reacted to the blatant gaze, a faint blush bloomed on Choi Hye-na’s face.
“Then, shall I give you your first order? Carry me up to the fourth floor.”
“As you wish.”
I held Choi Hye-na in my arms and climbed the stairs. There was an elevator next to us, but I wasn’t that clueless.
The fourth floor of the building was her personal workshop, and unlike the botanical garden on the first floor or other places where materials and various tools were stored, it was a space solely for research.
‘Wow… that’s A Corporation’s mana particle controller? I heard the main unit alone costs hundreds of millions.’
As expected of the personal workshop of the next head of the Seongbuk Choi Clan, equipment costing at least hundreds of millions to billions of won was installed everywhere.
Now I understood why Choi Hye-na didn’t even glance at the workshop supported by the Magic Tower.
‘By the way, it’s really messy.’
There was no room to step on the floor due to the scattered reagents and papers.
Choi Hye-na avoided my gaze and blushed.
“…It’s not usually like this. It’s like this because I was researching until yesterday.”
I quietly nodded my head.
Anyway, I wasn’t clean enough to point out the cleanliness of someone else’s workshop.
Choi Hye-na cleared her throat and took me to the inner part of the workshop. There was a door there.
When I opened the door and went inside, a spacious and clean bedroom appeared. Judging from the subtle signs of life, it seemed to be a space that Choi Hye-na used when she stayed overnight at the workshop.
“…So.”
Thump.
Entering the bedroom, she sat on the edge of the bed, looked at me, and twisted her hair. Her face was even redder than before.
She looked like a new bride waiting for her first night.
“What’s the thing you wanted to talk about in private?”
“Huh?”
Ah.
In that moment, I realized that I had made her misunderstand when I left the training room.
Well, if I said, “Let’s go somewhere where we can be alone,” it could only be heard as a sex appeal.
If it were any other time, I would have jumped at the chance.
But now I needed to restrain myself. There was something more urgent and important.
Clearing my throat, I spoke again so that Choi Hye-na wouldn’t misunderstand.
“First, take off your clothes.”
***
When looking at the world as a whole, it wasn’t unprecedented for someone’s level to be raised by another person.
Among the most representative examples was ‘Internal Energy Transfer.’
It was a technique of transferring one’s internal energy to another person, and it was usually done by a master who didn’t have much time left to live to their disciple.
Of course, there were many restrictions that came with it.
Half of the internal energy being transferred would evaporate along the way, or it was only possible if they had mastered the same internal energy cultivation method, etc. Most of them came with strong penalties.
If that wasn’t the case, the effect was insignificant.
But I was different.
“…I’m ready.”
Choi Hye-na covered her chest with her hands and sat with her back turned. I placed my hand on her back. I could feel the smooth texture of her skin beyond my palm.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
I slowly pushed my internal energy into Choi Hye-na’s body.
“Ugh…”
The moment the aura of the Vajra Body enveloped her, I used Thought Acceleration.
In the extremely compressed flow of time, I observed Choi Hye-na’s body. I could see the three rings entangled in her heart and the magic circuits connected to her entire body.
And even the meridians that had never been used even once.
‘As expected, it’s completely blocked.’
Basically, humans accumulate impurities in their meridians due to the dirty air of the secular world and cooked food.
It goes without saying, but this was a fatal problem for martial artists who needed to circulate the internal energy of their dantian throughout their body.
As such, the descendants of prestigious families receive ‘Bone Tempering and Marrow Cleansing’ from the family’s experts early on to remove the remaining impurities and transform their bodies into ones suitable for learning martial arts.
But mages are not like that. Magic circuits and meridians are separate.
Meridians are something that all humans have, while magic circuits are the exclusive property of mages.
In the first place, impurities don’t accumulate in magic circuits.
But even so, it wasn’t that meridians weren’t important to mages. After all, they were still part of the body.
‘Hoo…’
Taking another deep breath, I pulled up the Vajra Body.
From now on, I was going to use Black Flame to forcibly burn away the impurities blocking her meridians.
It was a kind of Bone Tempering and Marrow Cleansing.
Others would say I was crazy if they saw me. In the first place, Bone Tempering and Marrow Cleansing was a technique that could only be done by martial artists who had reached at least the Transcendent Realm.
Moreover, Bone Tempering and Marrow Cleansing was something that was done for young children, and it wasn’t something that could be done for fully grown adults like Choi Hye-na.
Even so, I didn’t hesitate.
I had something that even martial artists of the Transcendent Realm didn’t have.
Whoosh-
“Ugh…?!”
Choi Hye-na let out a painful groan at the heat flowing through her meridians.
Even so, I silently moved forward, burning away the impurities that had settled in her meridians.
It took some time because I was being careful not to hurt her as much as possible, but once I got the hang of it, the rest was easy.
‘…This should be enough.’
Before I knew it, the surroundings had become a mess due to the impurities flowing out of Choi Hye-na’s body, but the important thing was from now on, so I didn’t let go of my tension.
Astral.
A kind of inner world created by a mage based on their enlightenment in order to reverse the phenomena that make up the world as they please.
It’s also called the mental world.
In terms of martial arts, it would be similar to Mental Imagery.
The ideology that encompasses the mental world that I built as I reached the 5th Circle is harmony.
-I seek transcendence based on the harmony of all things.
Just as will can be contained in sword energy, it is also possible to contain will in magic power.
The magic power containing harmony met the internal energy in the dantian and merged into one, and this once again met in Choi Hye-na’s meridians and permeated her magic circuits.
Basically, interfering with another mage’s magic circuits was limited to reversing the flow of magic power to attack.
This was something that only I, who had harmony as my ideology, could do.
Burning away the impurities was part of the process to easily make contact with her magic circuits.
The Choi Hye-na’s magic circuits that I reached were vast and complex. It was like looking at a complex maze.
But without the slightest hesitation, I entrusted myself to the flowing stream of water and flowed along with her magic power.
The reason I used Thought Acceleration when I first pushed my internal energy into Choi Hye-na was for this moment.
To completely grasp the structure of her intricately intertwined magic circuits.
Soon, I reached Choi Hye-na’s mana circle and used Thought Acceleration once again.
This was the climax.
From now on, I was going to guide the magic power contained in Choi Hye-na’s mana circle to help her create the fourth ring.
Was that possible?
It was possible.
The important thing was Choi Hye-na’s own will.
Besides, I had already reached the 4th Circle before. Adding a hand to that was nothing.
Of course, it was easy from my perspective, but it wouldn’t be possible for other mages.
Whoosh-
At that moment, magic power began to fluctuate around Choi Hye-na’s mana circle, and a tremendous heat began to fill the room.
It felt like my palm was getting burned, but I didn’t back down.
Because Choi Hye-na’s warmth felt more distinct than ever beyond the skin that was touching.
There were three things needed to advance to the next level.
A solid foundation, talent, and a small opportunity.
The foundation that Choi Hye-na had prepared for 21 years was ready to build a building that would never collapse, and she even had the talent to draw up her own blueprints.
Now, all that was left was for me to become the opportunity and promote her growth.
Although the process couldn’t be said to be easy, I continued to challenge myself over and over again.
It wasn’t just me who didn’t give up.
˙
˙
˙
How much time had passed?
I wiped away the cold sweat and got up.
Aside from being covered in sweat, the consumption of magic power and internal energy was so severe that I felt like I was going to collapse at any moment.
To start with the result, Choi Hye-na succeeded in reaching the 4th Circle. The wave of magic power felt in her mana circle was proof of that.
“I can’t do that twice.”
I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve been this exhausted.
I was so tired that I couldn’t even move a finger, but the smile didn’t leave my lips.
Because the action I started to help Choi Hye-na clearly brought benefits to me as well.
‘The magic circuits have been further expanded.’
It was like looking at a wider highway than before.
Now, the magic circuits had become strong overall to the point that they wouldn’t overheat even if I used 5th Circle magic in succession.
Besides, if it was just once, I thought it would be okay to try 6th Circle magic.
Of course, after using it, the magic circuits would overheat and I wouldn’t be able to use other magic.
Still, I felt good about the unexpected gain.
But that was only for a moment, my nose wrinkled at the foul smell coming from my body.
‘Did some impurities come out of me too?’
I thought I had discharged all the impurities while training, but I didn’t know there was still some left.
Maybe the Black Flame burned away even the remaining impurities.
I felt good about the unexpected second gain, but it seemed necessary to wash up first.
‘Wow, the smell is really foul.’
The moment I was about to head to the bathroom with my heavy body.
“?!”
Someone grabbed my arm from behind. I was on the verge of collapsing, so I couldn’t even react and was dragged away.
Thump.
I fell on the bed and looked at Choi Hye-na who was on top of me.
“You’re already…?”
At that moment, I felt a sense of incongruity that I couldn’t identify.
Blue eyes and a faint chill.
She wasn’t Choi Hye-na.
“…Wendigo?”
“Hehe, it’s been a while, Hyun-woo.”
