Chapter 513 – Stage of Dialogue (2)
The head Dahit had brought bore a face twisted as if it had endured terrible agony just before death, yet outwardly there were no signs of damage.
But that face was not unfamiliar.
Within Verden's calm blue eyes, old memories swiftly resurfaced.
'…Horace?'
A 3rd-tier high-ranking Mage of the Bohemirn Magic Tower.
He had not taken part in Balrog's unofficial experiments—meaning, he was an ordinary member of the tower without the compulsory magic circle, Coercion, engraved upon him.
Yet he had belonged to the malicious group that never missed a chance to ridicule and scorn Verden.
'I had heard that Balrog discovered a Black Hour spy within the tower, and used that as a pretext to launch the war against Dahit.'
So, that spy was Horace.
It seemed that amidst the chaos, he had miraculously evaded pursuit from both Black Hour and the Bohemirn Magic Tower, only to finally be captured and executed.
Verden raised his gaze without a flicker of emotion.
"Bringing me a severed head so suddenly, what are you trying to prove? A distasteful hobby."
"…"
Dahit's brow twitched.
No matter how he sharpened his insight, probing the intent of a Transcendent was no easy matter.
Moreover, Dahit's perceptive power specialized in outward intuition.
"Well, it doesn't matter either way."
Whoosh.
Pitch-black flames ignited, engulfing the headless corpse.
In the blink of an eye, Horace's remains vanished from existence, leaving not even ash behind.
"In any case, the one who destroyed Bohemirn Magic Tower's power source must have been you. Am I wrong?"
"…"
This time, Verden remained silent.
He thought about what clues Dahit Wethroel might have used to reach that conclusion.
'As I suspected, the Diamoon Magic Tower.'
Though he had never seen it directly, it was said that the power sources installed within the ten magic towers were all identical.
If Dahit had once examined the source at Diamoon Magic Tower, then comparing it to Verden's magic power might well have revealed similarities.
The senses of a Transcendent could themselves serve as strong evidence.
At that moment, Dahit spoke.
"I have a proposal."
"I am listening."
"Don't you think it meaningless for us to sit here concealing our intentions, merely probing one another? It would only waste precious time. As Transcendents, we ought to proceed efficiently. Surely you, too, have matters you wish to learn from me."
The method of dialogue Dahit described was thus:
First, the one who held initiative as the questioner would pose multiple inquiries, and the respondent was obligated to answer, though he possessed the right to refuse.
When the roles reversed, the new questioner could ask as many questions as the previous total, but the new respondent could exercise only as many refusals as his predecessor had.
For example, if the questioner asked four questions and the respondent refused two while answering two, then the new questioner could pose up to four, while the new respondent could refuse only two of them.
Of course, answers could not contain lies.
Nor could either side disrupt the proceedings altogether.
The only restraint was their dignity as Transcendents.
'Turn-taking, hm.'
Though Dahit Wethroel pursued efficiency to the utmost, he was not one who would tarnish his own prestige.
He would not break his word.
Then, was it more advantageous to ask first, or to answer first?
The deliberation was brief.
Creak.
Verden sat down opposite Dahit.
"I will yield the first turn."
He intended to let Dahit determine the number of questions, while minimizing his refusals to secure firm answers.
The rules were set.
The dialogue resumed.
The two Transcendents of magic, who had once waged a lethal duel deep within the Great Hall, now sat in tranquil focus as though nothing had happened.
Setting aside matters such as Black Hour, they prioritized magical questions.
"Then I ask again. In the Great Hall, I confirmed that your magical properties closely resembled those of the tower's power source. Are you truly the cause of the runaway incident?"
So he intended to receive a definitive answer.
There was no reason to refuse.
"As you surmised."
After all, Dahit did not even know who Verden truly was.
"And what then?"
"What then? Hearing you admit it so brazenly makes me want to kill you on the spot."
Despite the oppressive threat, Verden remained utterly unfazed.
Truthfully, he bore no fault.
It was Dahit's own mistake, allowing a Black Hour spy to infiltrate the Bohemirn Magic Tower and then misjudging the situation, that had led to this.
"Hm."
Yet despite identifying the true culprit who had sparked the war, Dahit did not seem particularly enraged.
"How did you do it?"
"Isn't your question too broad?"
"You were deliberate. On the day of the Magic Festival held every four years, when Balrog and the elders departed with the tower's seniors, you made your move. By the circumstances, you must have been someone with detailed knowledge of Bohemirn's inner workings. I found nothing substantial from Horace, though."
Dahit had plundered Horace's memories over and over, but gained almost nothing of value.
Balrog's third and fourth disciples.
Mages of the tower.
Tower workers.
Even a talentless wretch whose limit was the 1st tier yet still became a researcher, only to be caught stealing the thesis on Multi-dimensional Continuity Theory.
Among all those Horace had encountered, not one was noteworthy.
"But if you were an insider, and even Balrog, that half-wit, did not suspect you in the least, then you could not have been anyone significant. And yet, you managed to interfere with the power source's magic? A feat even I, a Transcendent, could not achieve?"
"Is it the certainty of success you wish to question?"
"What I want to know is the method."
Dahit stroked his short beard.
"No matter the possibilities, to manipulate the infinite magic of the power source from the outside is impossible. I declare, there is no way to topple such perfection. The only method would be to assimilate with that perfection itself…"
Their eyes met.
"Did you drive the connection of the power source into your very heart?"
"I nearly died doing so."
"In the Great Hall, I was uncertain, but now I am convinced. Without doubt, you are more insane than Ignacia."
At Verden's answer to his second question, Dahit shook his head.
"That makes it even harder to understand. Inevitably, the body should have been torn apart by the infinite magic. Even if you somehow endured, that still wouldn't grant you a means to control the power source. What trick did you use?"
"If the body cannot endure, then one simply reconstructs the body to match."
"…Reconstruct?"
Dahit's brows furrowed.
In that fleeting instant, he drew upon all knowledge, unraveling the meaning of that word.
His eyes then shook violently, emotions stirring with rare and powerful turbulence.
"That's possible?"
"Your knowledge is not the whole of it."
Verden revealed his magic eye.
Within Dahit's vision—partially able to pierce through the
A piercing intuition.
Dahit understood that this circle was the key that had interfered with the power source's magic.
Verden withdrew his magic.
"This is as far as I can tell you. Even dozens of questions wouldn't be enough to properly explain this, so let's move on."
To the question of how he had handled the power source's magic, Verden had answered that he reconstructed his body, and to the question of whether such reconstruction was possible, he had shown the Defying the Heavens magic circle in place of words.
Thus, the third and fourth questions had concluded.
Though his answers were brief, Dahit did not raise any objections.
"…"
The hut was steeped in silence.
Dahit tapped the table lightly with his fingertip, rousing himself from his thoughts, before speaking in a low voice.
"As I mentioned earlier, during the power source runaway you were certainly not yet a Transcendent. You weren't that strong, either. Otherwise, you would have easily erased those sent to find Harkan Dazest without leaving a trace."
The Grand Duchy of Riviant, the Vard Mountains.
For precise information, Dahit had often made sacrificial humans witness the places where Black Hour mages had vanished, then stolen their memories.
There, he had found traces of a spell weaker than
If it had been Harkan's desperate outburst, given his broken mana circuits, it could be understood. But for the Transcendent before him to have caused it seemed far too much.
In other words, back then his level had been so low that he had needed to go that far, even against two 4th-tier Mages and one 3rd-tier Mage.
"No matter how quickly you grew afterward, at most, you reached the realm of Transcendence within two years. And yet, you matched me?"
Verden tilted his head.
"Is that a problem? As fellow Transcendents, I don't see anything strange in that."
"As expected of a newly born Transcendent, your experience is shallow. You don't even know much about your own realm. Think carefully. Do you imagine that merely awakening grants one the strength befitting it right away? Far from it. Especially for those of us who walk the path of magic."
A Transcendent of qi attains their realm through physical instincts and senses, honing their transcendent techniques accordingly.
That was why, in rare cases, someone like Arnak with his sword could instinctively wield a transcendent technique immediately upon awakening, without any process.
And Transcendents of the Luas Church awaken only by being chosen by the Four Divine Relics—blossoming as divine beings in accordance with doctrine.
Among them, the saintess, granted supreme faith by the God of Light, could even resurrect the dead.
But a Transcendent of magic must focus on reason, adapting to their realm through knowledge.
They must study the known 7th-tier spells in the magical world, comprehend them, endure repeated trial and error, and directly conceive and create their own unique and super-tier magic.
No matter how high one's tier, without knowledge of the corresponding magic… aside from possessing the aura of a Transcendent, they would merely surpass a 6th-tier Magus in basic magical capacity alone.
"Adapting to the realm of Transcendence cannot be done in a mere few months. For Mages, time is indispensable. That was the reason I waited."
A Transcendent possesses a clear ideal, leaving no doubt in their direction.
And yet Dahit had concealed his strength.
He had judged that, as an inexperienced Transcendent, he could not have overcome the original members.
"It took me seven full years to become something wholly different from a 6th-tier being. Even though I focused solely on adaptation."
Dahit's eyes narrowed.
"And what about you? From the very beginning, you seemed to embody the dignity of Transcendence… Could it be that reconstructing your body and absorbing the power source's magic granted you some kind of acquired trait?"
***
Dahit's explanation of a Transcendent's adaptation was fascinating, even shocking. After all, Verden had never before had the chance to encounter such knowledge.
And yet, that was all.
To be honest, it was something he had already partly anticipated.
The difference.
Unlike other Transcendents, Verden had chosen Transcendence for himself.
However.
"I do not know either."
It was not refusal, but the truth—that the causal link remained a mystery.
Among the results of his body's reconstruction were things wholly unforeseen: the ashen hair, the blue eyes, and the infinite magic within his heart—the secrets held by the tower's power source were still unresolved.
Thus, he had no way of giving a definitive answer to Dahit's question.
"You cannot say? It seems that is the secret you wish to conceal."
Of course, Dahit had no intention of understanding Verden's sincerity.
This brought the fifth question to an end.
"I will stop here. Your turn."
Dahit seemed satisfied, as though his curiosity had been appeased.
The total number of questions was five.
In the end, Verden could demand answers to four of them, while Dahit could refuse only one.
Verden had already decided where to begin.
"Among your experiments, I found some that intrigued me. Including the one regarding the frozen ancient Mage."
Dahit twisted his lips faintly.
"So, you really did open the [Hourglass of Perpetuity] with pure power source magic. You must have found only fragments of the research records, though the volume must have been considerable. Fortunate or foolish of you. So, what is your point?"
"You questioned whether the frozen ancient Mage's mana circuits were natural. Why did you doubt they were 'natural'?"
"Straight to the heart, hm. Very well. But to explain, I must begin with the concept of tier itself."
Dahit crossed his arms.
"Don't you find Mages far too stable?"
"What?"
"The limit tier measures future potential in numbers, and the mana circuits allow only magic that the body can withstand. Unless one recklessly seeks death, one rarely dies. Even when forcing higher-tier magic, it merely fizzles out midway. Isn't that strange?"
Verden countered.
"The magical tiers are a system created by the first magic tower, based on mana circuits. Of course they're stable."
"Stability is protection, but also a shackle. Put differently, it means confinement within a framework that shields one from danger. Indeed, by being restrained by tiers, Mages have grown gradually stronger, their survival rates drastically increasing."
Dahit jerked his chin toward the world outside the hut.
"Look. Compare the number of Mages now to ages past. Certainly, it means the magical world has advanced. But in my research, I wondered—how is this different from herding sheep into a pen to multiply them?"
Restrict, nurture, proliferate.
"Doesn't it resemble a breeding farm?"
Dahit shrugged.
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