Chapter 18
“……Ah! An Artifact.”
The moment Sammael disappeared, I rushed towards the deepest part of the dragon’s nest.
Even though we had taken over the Achilipthus Forested Area without engaging in battle against that fellow, it was certainly something to rejoice about, but I couldn’t afford to forget the real purpose of coming here.
I quickly sparked thunderbolts to turn the dragon’s corpse into ashes, then started rummaging through the numerous treasures and magical materials lying underneath.
There was a good reason for my hurried actions.
The duration of [Blossom] had less than a minute left…
While moving to load the treasures into the cargo hold, I had to make sure to prevent the unfortunate scenario of the artifact belonging to someone else.
All the glittering treasures catching the starlight were nothing more than stones to me right now.
‘I’ve found it!’
Among the unnecessarily flashy piles of gold, I spotted a red-brown crystal emanating an alien energy, and I couldn’t help but celebrate inwardly.
The pristine red-brown crystal, as if freshly polished by a skilled gem cutter, had not a speck of dust and was in the form of a perfect octahedron. And this artifact, in fact, possessed fairly modest power among the artifacts of this game.
[Inflicts magical attacks proportional to the character’s mana stat.]
Compared to artifacts capable of summoning massive pillars of fire, allowing resurrection, or letting you steal someone else’s memories, its impact was quite lacking.
An average mage would say, “It’s just like adding extra damage to bolts… It’s a bit disappointing for an artifact, isn’t it?”
An average mage, that is…
“I can finally deal with minions too…!”
One-shot mages have no basic attacks to handle the countless minions scattered across the world because they can’t use any magic available in the world outside of Blossom.
Moreover, due to my physical stats such as strength, agility, and stamina being set to 1, it’s impossible to knock out an opponent by striking with a staff.
Thus, the importance of this artifact, acquired as a reward for slaying the young dragon, in my bizarrely twisted magic build diverges from that of ordinary mages.
They could simply fire bolts at minions, but I could only sit quietly and cheer for our team to win.
“But, that’s a thing of the past now…!”
I thrust my thin arm into the pile of treasures and tightly grasped the red-brown crystal shaped like an octahedron.
The crystal shattered into tiny fragments almost instantly and started climbing up my arm, hovering around my heart.
The fragments seemed to prepare something as they hovered before my chest, then abruptly pierced through my clothes and seeped into my skin.
“Huh? What is this?”
In the game, it would simply display “(Belonged)” and the artifact would be stored in my inventory, so I didn’t expect such an event to occur.
Though thousands of crystal fragments entered my skin, I felt no pain.
However, I did feel a strange sensation unlike anything I had experienced before.
It felt as though something foreign had lodged itself somewhere near my heart.
I focused on this sensation.
It didn’t feel harmful to my body; in fact, as I concentrated on it, I felt a clarity of mind and tranquility.
“Oh… Manifestation?”
My instincts told me that if I just spoke this way while focusing on the foreign sensation, it would work.
As I mumbled these words, the red shards hidden under my skin began to float in the air.
They coalesced, combined repeatedly, and soon returned to the perfect octahedral crystal form.
The crystal floated above my left shoulder.
‘It works. So from now on, I’ll leave the minions I encounter to this guy…’
As I reached out my hand to the crystal hovering above my shoulder to smile contentedly, my consciousness was abruptly dragged back to the familiar place again.
I collapsed limply onto the pile of gold, losing my balance, and at that moment, I could feel the crystal shattering and disappearing back under my skin.
…Five minutes had passed.
*
“Goodness…”
Alter Heinzel stared in amazement at the boy who was peacefully sleeping on a pile of gold and silver.
Five minutes.
In just five minutes, the boy proved his worth and demonstrated that he was a genius who would become the future of humanity.
When the boy had first marched confidently into the dragon’s lair, Alter had been filled with nothing but hopeful anticipation.
Having indirectly felt the boy’s talents while teaching him for the last seven days, he could tell that a young dragon would be no match for the boy.
As expected, the boy silenced the young dragon in one decisive strike, targeting its vital points.
It was a beautiful strike.
Lightning, by its very nature, tends to spread through the surrounding air.
Controlling that tendency shows the skill level of a storm mage.
What good is it to produce 100 units of lightning with magic power when only 60 reaches the opponent, and the remaining 40 scatters into the air?
From this perspective, the boy’s strike was nothing short of perfect.
A single line of lightning pierced through the dragon’s hide as easily as tearing paper and stretched forward without a single stray branch.
It was a straight line that seemed drawn on a canvas, leaving a white streak in the night sky before it vanished.
Not a single spark of thunder fell on the silent wheat fields. Control of this level of precision was something not even Alter himself, an 8th Tier senior mage, could confidently claim to master.
‘That high-ranking marauder… What exactly was it?”
But the astonishment didn’t stop there.
The sudden appearance of a high-ranking marauder in the sky.
The boy didn’t panic; instead, he grinned leisurely as if he had stumbled upon a bag of gold.
As if he could kill that marauder whenever he wished.
A high-ranking marauder that even Alter couldn’t guarantee he could defeat.
‘…He seems to have more hidden power.’
Moreover, the boy had the cold judgment to refrain from wielding his full strength on the battlefield.
The Enker High Plain supplies food to the entire continent. If a storm mage were to engage in battle against a high-ranking marauder here, valuable food supplies could all be burned by the lightning.
There are many who possess power, but few know when and how to wield it.
And the boy knew. His magical talent was not the only thing that stood out.
His sharp insight to coldly analyze the surrounding terrain and the dynamics of war, his composure in front of a high-ranking marauder, and his skill to force the opponent into a position where the strategically important Achilipthus Forested Area was taken without bloodshed…
The boy’s potential was beyond what even Alter, an 8th Tier mage, could fully grasp.
“Sir General! General Bin! Why are you doing this?!”
“… This happens after the duration of ‘Blossom’ ends. It’s a reaction caused from releasing all the mana in your body in a short period.”
Alter calmed down the platoon leader who was shouting while gripping the boy’s small shoulders.
‘But why of all spells, ‘Blossom’?’
Blossom is considered the least practical among all the spells in the storm mage system.
Though the power released within 5 minutes is undoubtedly strong, the significant backlash it causes means that few mages deeply study it.
It’s the type of spell that is learned only as a last resort.
Yet, the boy’s Blossom displayed a level of completion entirely different from the ordinary mages.
The spell possessed a mastery akin to Alter’s lifelong perfected “Bolt.”
It was understandable why the Grand Marshal had mistaken the young boy for a high-ranking mage and came to kill him himself.
‘Did he only study Blossom deeply? No, the boy never properly learned magic, didn’t he?’
It was a natural talent.
“Of all spells, the boy ends up with Blossom…”
Each mage is naturally suited to a specific spell since birth. In Alter’s case, it was ‘Bolt’ and for his apprentice Lir, it was ‘Lightning.’
Though being naturally suited to a spell like ‘Blossom’ could certainly be an obstacle…
‘But that obstacle is nothing compared to the magnitude of his talent.’
A boy with such talent wouldn’t take long to elevate spells like ‘Bolt’ or ‘Lightning’ to the current level of his ‘Blossom.’
Alter smiled proudly, knowing he was now tutoring a genius mage who would leave a legacy in human history, and gently carried the frail body of the boy.
“To return then. It looks like all our tasks are done.”
Even the frail Alter could lift the boy with ease, his body was that lightweight.
