Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 370

A massive palace floated on the lake.

The man, having witnessed the grand spectacle, turned to Lenok and smiled.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to cancel our agreement to let you meet Jintun first.”

“…”

“It would be troublesome if you were to meet Jaigis and interfere with my grand plan.”

Was he wary of Lenok warning Jintun about his body being taken over?

The man glanced back, his lips stretching into a long, thin smile.

“If you weren’t so unnecessarily perceptive, we could have achieved what we both wanted… Being smart isn’t always a good thing, is it?”

From the moment Lenok saw through the man’s hidden intentions, their cooperation was over.

“As a senior in life, I’m giving you a piece of advice, so take it to heart and be wiser in the future. Now, I’ll be going first.”

The man, who had reached the cradle tens of meters ahead of Lenok, declared his victory with ease.

He had used one of Jaun’s powerful emotions to forcefully move tens of meters. At the same time, he had opened the door to the cradle, so there was no way Lenok could stop him now.

He would block any attacks from behind with the remaining power of the domain, and then he would simply enter the cradle.

Just as the man was about to turn around and activate his gem technique…

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kwaaaaaaah!!

With Lenok’s words, a massive wave rose directly behind the man.

It was the wave he had created with water magic to attack the man earlier.

He had changed the direction of the water flow, using it to propel himself forward.

“I never expected you to keep your promise in the first place.”

“…!!”

The man’s face changed drastically as he saw Lenok riding the wave ahead. He used a gem pillar to activate a technique.

His body floated into the air, and he began to fly at high speed.

Swaeeeeeek!!

A flight technique with extremely poor efficiency if not aided by an artifact.

However, the more powerful the catalyst used for the technique, the more its efficiency and power would increase.

A one-time technique that used the emotions of a human named Jaun.

The man was carelessly using the power of the domain, which was full of risks that he would never have used on his own body, to accelerate.

He thought of Jaun as a partner, but he was not a magician who was generous enough to spare any energy when it came to his own goals.

Thud thud thud thud!!!

Two figures dashed across the low, splashing water. One was in the air, and the other was rolling around haphazardly on the wave he had created.

Both of them had little magic power and stamina left. The two figures, who had been neck and neck, simultaneously passed through an invisible barrier.

They both fell inside the spacious palace of the cradle.

The two mages, who had fallen in the middle of the vast hall, groaned in pain as if they had made a pact.

Thump!!

“Kuhak!!”

“Ugh…!!”

The man, unable to stop coughing, trembled all over with a pale face.

“Ugh…!! As expected, my body…!!”

Even though he had borrowed Jaun’s body, the body itself had already been defeated in the battle against Lenok and was exposed to the aftermath.

Not only had he used up most of his magic power, but his muscles were also damaged by the magic power that was not his own, which had seeped into his body during Lenok’s torture.

On top of that, the power of Jaun’s resentment was supposed to have escaped from his heart when the man took over Jaun’s body, making blood circulation difficult.

Lenok, who had been watching the man writhing on the ground, suddenly had a realization.

“So that’s it…!!”

The reason why the man had been pretending to be relaxed while focusing on defense instead of countering Lenok’s attacks.

It was because Jaun’s body itself was already on the verge of collapse, and his condition had worsened to the point where he could not fight.

Lenok was confident that he was second to none when it came to running out of stamina and durability, but in this situation, it was not as if he had no chance of winning.

Crunch!

With trembling hands, he took out a painkiller from his pocket and chewed it.

At the same time, he took out a stamina recovery ampule and injected it directly into his carotid artery.

It was a risky injection method that could lead to severe bleeding, but the effect was remarkable.

Lenok, who had regained some of his strength, was the first to successfully get up.

“Hoo…!!”

Lenok, having confirmed that the man was still collapsed and writhing, sighed and gathered himself.

“It was close, but I’ll be first. Wait there quietly until I meet Jintun…”

Lenok’s words, as he walked forward and raised his head, gradually trailed off and then stopped completely.

It was because Lenok’s head, which had been following the stairs in front of him, had been bent straight up without stopping.

“…”

The stairs stretched out endlessly, so far and wide that the end was not visible.

On both sides of the stairs, thousands of thick pipes densely covered the walls and ceiling of the palace.

Lenok, who belatedly realized that there were more than thousands of stairs, quietly cursed.

“Damn it…”

Perhaps it should have been Ivelin, not Lenok, who was in this place.

He was grateful for her consideration, but it was possible that Lenok would die before the Ascendant while climbing these stairs.

* * *

“Hah, hah…!!”

“Kuh, ugh…!!”

Hot beads of sweat fell endlessly onto the stairs.

Clothes that could not withstand the weight and had been thrown off were scattered here and there hundreds of meters down the stairs.

“Ugh, ugh…!!”

“…You look like you’re having a hard time.”

Lenok, who had been walking ahead on the stairs with a dazed expression, glanced back.

His eyes had become hollow, and his cheeks had become gaunt, showing how much stamina he had used.

Below the stairs, slightly behind Lenok, the man who was crawling on all fours smiled weakly.

“Heh heh, is that even a question…?”

“…”

“Do… you happen to have any… more medicine left?”

The man looked up at Lenok with a tired expression, smacking his lips.

“That ampule… it tasted… pretty good.”

“Ge…t lost…”

The reason why the man, who could not even muster the strength to move properly, was following Lenok up the stairs was simple.

The man had picked up the ampule bottle that Lenok had thrown away, and he had broken the bottle and licked up all the contents.

He had regained some of his strength by licking the residue left on the wall, and he had started to climb the stairs, not wanting to be outdone. Lenok was even impressed by the man’s tenacity.

“Were people in the old days… always so… pathetic?”

“Not as much as… the young ones these days… but… Hoo…!!”

“Heh heh…”

It was unbearable to see them bickering while crawling up the stairs.

They were throwing sharp words at each other, but instead of using their hands, they were focusing on climbing the stairs.

Both of them had realized that, unlike outside the cradle, magic power was no longer being restored inside this massive palace.

The magic power flowing in this space was being sucked into the pipes that densely filled the walls and ceiling on both sides of the stairs before it could even settle in their bodies.

The suction of the pipes did not stop there, and they were greedily working as if they were scraping away even the depleted magic power of the two.

Lenok’s magic manipulation ability was only enough to prevent him from losing the basic magic power that maintained his body.

It was obvious that the man with Jaun’s body would not be able to last long.

“Ugh…!!”

Lenok, realizing that his legs were trembling as he lay on the stairs, took out a new ampule from his pocket.

Click!!

“Ooh!!”

The man, who had been watching from below, shouted with enthusiasm.

Lenok, with the ampule stuck in his shoulder, looked down at the man with cold eyes.

“I don’t know why you’re so happy. I’m not going to give it to you.”

“But… aren’t you going to throw away that bottle?”

The man replied, licking his lips.

“My body isn’t very good at techniques, but it’s quite good at absorbing medicine. Even the residue is enough for me.”

“…”

Such a pathetic statement, hard to believe from a high-ranking black magician from hundreds of years ago.

However, Lenok was not without his own thoughts.

Instead of throwing the used ampule bottle at his feet, he threw it far down below.

“Ah…!!”

The man, who had been staring at the ampule rolling down the stairs with a bewildered expression, lowered his head.

No matter how quickly the medicine worked, it was a waste to go all the way down the stairs to pick up the ampule.

Lenok had created a dilemma so that the man would not benefit from him taking medicine.

Lenok watched the man with satisfaction before turning around and starting to crawl up the stairs.

His stamina and magic power were close to zero, so he was climbing the stairs in such a pathetic state, but he did not have time to rest for long.

‘Now that the cradle has revealed itself, Maiya must have noticed something strange as well.’

Neither Lenok nor the man had forgotten about the third competitor who had entered the cradle with them.

‘I have to wake up Jintun before that woman finds this place and reaches the stairs.’

It was unknown how much energy Maiya had left, but she was relatively fine compared to Lenok and Jaun, who had been fighting in front of the cradle.

He could not let her benefit first at the very end.

‘By the way, the environment is quite strange for a place where an Ascendant resides.’

Even as he was panting and crawling up the stairs, Lenok tried to keep the surrounding scenery in his mind.

The unknown pipes that densely filled both sides of the vast cradle.

Were they for transporting something, or were they devices for listening to music from afar?

Perhaps the pipes themselves were generating the melody.

The majestic magic power and elegant melody swirling above his head, and the end of the stairs that was not far away.

Lenok, realizing that Maiya was still not visible below, gritted his teeth and got up to run.

“Ugh…!!”

The side effects of the consecutively taken medicine and addiction, the depleted stamina, and the hunger that had reached its limit caused stomach acid to leak from his mouth, but that was not the important thing.

‘Finally…!!’

After receiving Lapis’s call and joining the summons, the result of breaking through the Hanghasa Labyrinth [a complex maze] in the snowy mountains of the North Continent and reaching the deepest part was before Lenok’s eyes.

Finally, and only now, he could meet the Ascendant.

What should he ask first? What should he answer first?

Even though he had been thinking about this moment, his head still felt like it was about to explode with worries.

He had continued to worry, even though he thought it was a problem that had no answer.

What kind of ending was the transcendent being, who had reached the answer before Lenok and higher than him, waiting for in this world with a predetermined end?

Wasn’t it only by thinking about that, and waiting for that, that he had burned everything to reach this point?

Thud!!

Lenok, thinking that, leaped up the stairs with all his might.

He stopped in his tracks at the sight before his eyes.

“…”

“Hah, hah…!!”

Immediately after, the man, who had caught up with Lenok with a face that looked like he was about to die, collapsed at Lenok’s feet.

“I… I ended up eating it… I couldn’t resist…”

The man, who had gone down after the ampule bottle that Lenok had thrown, eaten the medicine, and climbed up with the effect of the medicine, struggled to raise his head.

“Jaigis…!! I, Ermong, will…”

The scene on the stairs that stopped even the man’s words as he tried to call Jintun’s name while panting.

The center of the cradle.

On a small chair in the middle of a vast space above thousands of stairs, a man was quietly closing his eyes.

“…”

Wrinkles etched around his eyes. A faint breath that was barely perceptible.

He looked as if he was sleeping peacefully, as if he had no interest in the traces of the two men who had struggled to climb up.

However, what had silenced Lenok and the man was not the Ascendant’s appearance, which was much more shabby than they had expected.

Behind the small chair where he was sitting, thousands of pipes were lined up densely.

All the pipes that filled the walls and ceiling of this palace were densely plugged into Jintun’s back and waist without exception.

And right in front of the old man’s chair, who was bowing his head and closing his eyes.

A complex magic circle was densely engraved under the floor. Blood flowed down his elbow.