"Haaah…"
Choi Young-ok, a full professor at the Gray Magic Tower, was racking her brain over her research, which had been making little progress lately.
The flashes of inspiration and the conviction in her work that once came so easily had vanished.
It was a condition known as mannerism.
A state of losing interest, originality, and freshness from the repetition of meaningless daily life or work. It was common among artists, but it was also frequent among mages, who required both mathematical knowledge and artistic sensibility.
The way to overcome mannerism was simple.
Escape the tedious daily routine and find new stimulation.
But that was no easy task while cooped up in the Magic Tower.
The Magic Tower was undoubtedly a utopia for mages. Apprentice mages could attend lectures by brilliant professors, and professors could conduct their research freely with the tower's support.
And that was the problem.
Life in the Magic Tower was a continuous series of days that were largely the same.
Prepare lectures, give lectures, conduct research.
Aside from other minor details, her life never strayed from that three-part cycle.
Of course, it was a pleasure to see talented students.
Her own granddaughter, for instance, was a genius who had already reached the 3rd Circle.
But her own mannerism showed no signs of resolving itself.
Why?
Am I hoping for a greater stimulus? Am I subconsciously wishing to see something more shocking?
The question repeated in her mind like a refrain for days, but no suitable answer emerged.
"Hoo… Maybe I should get some fresh air?"
Letting out another heavy sigh, Choi Young-ok left her workshop.
When something felt unsolvable, nothing beat a walk.
Even if it wasn't a direct solution, the cold air helped clear her complicated thoughts.
However, even these walks could no longer ease her heavy heart or her cluttered mind. Her worries were not of a light sort.
She simply walked down the quiet corridor with heavy steps, undecided on whether to go to the rooftop or head into the city.
Is it because it's vacation? There's no one here.
The Magic Tower had vacations, too. During the summer and winter breaks, all the students would leave the tower, either returning to their hometowns or traveling to find new inspiration.
Of course, just because the students were gone didn't mean the entire tower was empty.
Various mages, including full professors, associate professors, assistant professors, and teaching assistants, would still be around.
But the hallway remained silent. Was this just how hermit-like mages were? The types who found even mealtimes a waste and just ate something simple in their workshops were unlikely to be wandering around at this hour.
This silence might be helpful for contemplation, but it wasn't helping her right now.
It would have been better if the halls were filled with noisy students.
Was it because she'd been worrying for too long? It seemed to be getting harder to stop her mind from spiraling into negative thoughts.
Get a grip. I can't go on like this. Maybe I should go shopping for a bit…
"Hey, did you hear?"
Just as she turned to head toward the elevator to go downstairs, she heard voices.
"The lobby just called. Some guy who isn't even a third-generation chaebol showed up wanting to register as a mage."
"...Isn't he a con artist?"
"Dude, you think he'd try to pull a scam at the Magic Tower of all places?"
"True... But if he's not a chaebol, then what is he? Did someone teach him magic privately? If so, why register now?"
"How should I know? Anyway, I'm going to check it out. You wanna come?"
"Of course..."
Thump— The man startled and spun around as a hand clamped down on his shoulder.
"Could you tell me more about that?"
*
Following the female employee I met in the lobby, I arrived at what looked like a reception room.
The whole atmosphere practically screamed, "We spent a fuck-ton of money on this place."
I didn't show it, but it was my first time in a place like this in all my 21 years, so I couldn't help but feel a little nervous.
Of course, regardless of how I felt, the employee who guided me here simply told me to wait for a moment and disappeared.
So cold.
With nothing else to do, I decided to have a little tea time with the refreshments and drinks laid out on the table.
...It's okay to eat this, right?
For a moment, I hesitated, but they wouldn't scold a guest for eating a few snacks, would they? Then again, was I even a guest?
"Whoa... Why are these snacks so delicious?"
The savory, subtly sweet flavor that clung to my tongue was a meteor-level shock to someone like me, who had only ever eaten 1,500-won bags of potato chips.
Curious about how expensive they must be to taste this good, I looked them up on my phone. They weren't unaffordable, but they were quite pricey for a snack.
"...Ah, that's not the price for a whole bag, it's the price for one individually wrapped piece?"
There were twelve of them in the bag I opened... Oh, shit.
The people at the Magic Tower were definitely insane.
They spend half a year of my rent on snacks?
I couldn't forgive this kind of extravagance, no matter how rich they were.
As I stuffed the snacks into my mouth before anyone else arrived, I thought to myself that they were, in fact, ridiculously delicious.
"What the hell did they put in these to make them taste so good?"
Was there gold dust in them or something?
"They're mixed with Magic Pistachio Powder from Hwargal's Botanical Garden, a D-rank Gate."
"?!"
I immediately turned my head toward the voice that whispered in my ear.
"Oh my, I'm sorry. Did I startle you?"
Yes, you fucking did.
The one who had dropped that sweet candy into my ear was a middle-aged woman with faint smile lines. Her neatly braided red hair and matching eyes were striking.
Judging by the robe she was wearing, she was clearly a mage.
"A pleasure to meet you, Kang Hyun-woo."
She met my eyes with a gentle smile.
Somehow, my heart didn't flutter.
Her aura and appearance were certainly more impressive than a well-maintained middle-aged actress, but the moment I saw the wrinkles on her face, she was far outside my strike zone.
"My name is Choi Young-ok. I've been assigned as your handler for the day."
It didn't matter how she knew my name.
I had already filled out all my personal information at the front desk.
"It's a pleasure to meet you."
I gave a slight bow.
"Hehe, you said you came to register as a mage, correct?"
"Yes, and if possible, I'd like to enroll in the Magic Tower. Is that possible?"
Enrolling in the Magic Tower was a title considered by society to be on par with, or even better than, winning a lottery with ridiculously high odds.
As I mentioned, the Magic Tower was overflowing with money, so their support for their members was incredibly generous.
I could receive support for living expenses before I started entering Gates, or perhaps find something that could help Iris later on.
"Of course. We always welcome talented individuals."
Choi Young-ok's lips bloomed into a smile filled with genuine goodwill, not just politeness.
It was only natural. From the moment she entered the reception room, she had sensed that Kang Hyun-woo was no ordinary person.
...This is truly unbelievable.
It was as if all the mana in the room was clinging to him, trying to court him.
Absorbing the mana infused in nature required a high level of concentration. The same went for the self-assimilation process.
But he seemed capable of absorbing mana while breathing and thinking as he normally would.
No, that must actually be the case.
The mana wasn't entering his body but was lingering on the surface, clearly because he was unconsciously preventing an excessive amount from being absorbed.
It was an overwhelming talent that was impossible to explain.
His affinity for mana was incomparable to that of other mages.
Where in the world did such a genius... no, a monster, appear from?
Choi Young-ok was certain.
"Excuse me, Hyun-woo? May I ask you something?"
"Huh? Well, I don't mind."
Just watching him grow would be enough to pull her out of her mannerism.
"Who taught you magic?"
In a way, this was the most important question.
Magic was a field of study—no, it was something beyond study and reason—that was nearly impossible to learn on one's own. He must have had someone he could call a master.
From that perspective, his visit to the Magic Tower was incomprehensible.
For mages, a disciple with outstanding talent was a great help in advancing their own magic.
They learn the same magic, yet they see and interpret it from a completely different perspective. They could even provide their master with an epiphany through an original idea they had never even imagined.
While talent wasn't the only thing a mage looked for when choosing a disciple, it was an undeniable fact that one would feel greedy upon seeing someone with such immense talent.
A child with that much affinity for mana should have been hoarded away and raised somewhere no one could reach.
"Uh..."
Kang Hyun-woo couldn't readily answer Choi Young-ok's question.
If he said, "My master is the former elf queen from another world!" he'd end up not in the Magic Tower, but in a mental hospital.
If he tried to make up a fictional master, such a lie wouldn't last long among the mages, who made up less than 1% of the world's population.
"...It's a secret."
So, he had no choice but to say, "To hell with it," and play his cards close to his chest.
"Ah... Then how long has it been since you started learning magic...?"
She desperately wanted to know who had taken such a boy as a disciple, but it would be rude to press the issue when he clearly didn't want to talk about it, especially since they had just met.
"A day...?"
"...Pardon?"
He wasn't lying. Lying is bad. If anything, he was being humble by rounding up from half a day to a full day.
Choi Young-ok looked as if her soul had left her body, unable to believe his answer.
But that was only for a moment. As a veteran mage, she chose to focus on the truth rather than her shock.
By circulating her magic power, she became more sensitive to changes in the situation and looked at Kang Hyun-woo once more.
Changes in the body—pupil dilation, eye movement, sweat, pulse, breathing rate and speed, blood pressure—served as excellent evidence of whether someone was lying.
It doesn't seem like... he's lying...
Of course, it wasn't 100% accurate. Trained special agents could skillfully hide such things.
But from his appearance, the possibility of Kang Hyun-woo being such an agent was extremely low. Besides, no agency would try to infiltrate an agent in this manner.
Does that mean he really created a mana circle after just one day of learning magic?
Even if you wrote a novel like this, you'd get flamed for it being unbelievable.
Only a very small number of children with proven talent were admitted to the Magic Tower at the age of ten. Of course, even those children went through another filtering process.
On average, it took those children eight to nine years to form a mana circle. A fair number of them took even longer, and some were even expelled.
Choi Young-ok's granddaughter, who had shortened that process to six years, was hailed as a prodigy of the age, and even the Lord of the Gray Magic Tower was said to have taken three years.
Of course, the world was wide, and geniuses were many.
Looking back at history, it wasn't as if there were no records surpassing the Tower Lord's, and the possibility of such a genius appearing in the future was high.
But one day?
"Heh, hehe..."
Choi Young-ok couldn't help but laugh.
And she calmly thought of the best offer she could make him.
"Hyun-woo?"
With the kindest smile she had ever worn, she grasped his hand tightly.
"Would you like to meet my granddaughter?"
After all, one of the most important rules of investing is to buy low.
If Kang Hyun-woo's overwhelming talent met the blood of the Choi family, it wouldn't be impossible for her family to be counted among the greatest prestigious magic families in Korea, or even the world.
"Uh..."
Of course, from Kang Hyun-woo's perspective, this was a "What the hell is this bullshit?" situation.
Granddaughter?
She has a granddaughter with that face?
She's not just a middle-aged lady, she's a granny??
Wow, magic power really is something else.
The fact that she had a granddaughter was less important than the fact that said granddaughter was old enough to be set up with a 21-year-old man.
If she were a newborn, I would've just assumed she got knocked up right away, but if her granddaughter was over twenty, then her age must be...
Without needing to think further, magic was truly a god.
As I once again felt the greatness of magic power, my mind grew complicated.
In the past, I would have started preparing for the wedding immediately, but now, the word "matchmaking" made Iris's face pop into my head first.
Was it right for me to go on a blind date while Iris was waiting endlessly for me in that dark place?
...But isn't time stopped in her world, too?
Just as time on Earth had nearly stopped when I was in that world, it was reasonable to assume that time in her world was stopped while I was on Earth.
Thinking that, the guilt seemed to lessen just a little...?
What do you mean, the guilt is lessening, you crazy bastard? Are you going to abandon Iris?
Absolutely not. Never.
Kang Hyun-woo, a man's man, was as full of loyalty as Iris was of overflowing maternal love.
There was no way I would be swayed by a blind date now...
"This is a picture of my granddaughter. Would you like to take a look?"
On the screen of Choi Young-ok's phone, which she suddenly held out to me, was a sexy, red-haired beauty of a mage.
"...Should I call you Grandmother?"
"Hehe, then I suppose I can call you my grandson-in-law."