Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 397

Woowoowoong!!

A majestic resonance, like dozens of harps playing together.

Lenok, standing in the space where that unique melody lingered, frowned slightly.

“The noise between floors is quite something.”

[Endure it.]

Oliviera, replying in a nonchalant tone, gestured, and in response, a grand gateway, inverted at the end of the floor, appeared.

Kugugugung!!

In front of the bizarre gateway that seemed to have its top and bottom flipped, she nodded, and with that movement, the veil faintly trembled.

Click!!

Inside the gateway, which opened inward, was a long corridor sloping downwards.

A serene scene with a luxurious carpet and frames with unidentifiable paintings was impressive.

Walking through the corridor with a somewhat warm air, Oliviera said,

[It’s been ten years since I’ve allowed an outsider into my lab. Consider it an honor.]

“An honor, you say?”

Immediately after Lenok showed her his magic eye, Oliviera left the bar without saying anything more.

Near the underground of a huge factory facility located behind the cartel’s headquarters.

Oliviera was taking Lenok to her secret laboratory, which she had hidden for decades.

“The location is quite different from the chairman’s office I visited before.”

Lenok said as he followed her down the corridor.

A huge corridor hanging inside the gateway. At the end of it, another inverted gateway appeared. And again, the scenery of the corridor unfolded inside.

In the mirror-like repeating scenery, one could only realize that they were endlessly descending underground.

[This is a place I only use when public duties are needed. I try not to get involved in cartel matters as much as possible, but there are times when people like you bring troublesome things.]

Oliviera replied nonchalantly and raised her magic power.

[Sometimes, the chairman’s name alone is not enough.]

Drrrrrrr!!

As Oliviera stood at the end of the last gateway and waved her hand, the corridor they had passed through began to bend and form a huge circular loop.

As the head and tail of the long corridor met to form a loop, the diagonally connected corridor loop rotated like a screw.

It rotated and sank hundreds of meters underground.

Lenok faintly expressed his admiration at the unique entry method.

“So, all the gateways and corridors we’ve passed through were just means to get to the lab. Do high-ranking mages usually hide their labs like this?”

[……That’s a strange question. Are you saying you just leave your work out in the open?]

“That’s not it, but…”

Only someone like the chairman of the cartel would be able to protect their lab by utilizing space in so many ways.

Lenok didn’t just leave his research and work out in the open, but he wasn’t in a position to hide everything as thoroughly as she did.

Instead of explaining his circumstances to her, he turned the topic to the extremely thorough security facilities he could see.

“It’s hard to believe that you built such a facility alone.”

The powerful barrier that was so clear as they descended tens of meters below the ground.

Even Lenok, who had directly inherited the barrier magic of Jintun, could clearly recognize its high level.

There was no need to mention how much effort she was putting into protecting this place.

Leaning against the wall of the corridor, Lenok mumbled, rubbing his ears, which were being pressed by the altitude difference.

“I can see how much wealth the cartel’s chairman has. Did you buy an entire district and make it private property?”

[To hide a tree, you have to create a forest. I’ve just faithfully followed the law of scale.]

“Is that so?”

Lenok glanced up, met Oliviera’s gaze, and chuckled.

“If that’s the case, then the cartel is the most vast forest you have.”

[……]

The reason why she, who seemed to have no more interest in the affairs of the city, still remained the head of this huge organization.

What kind of tree did she hide in the forest called the cartel that she still fulfilled her duties as chairman?

Both Lenok and Oliviera knew that they were thinking the same thing, but they didn’t say anything more.

The fact that she was showing him this lab was already a great favor and generosity from Oliviera to Lenok.

It was not a wise choice to try to uncover her secrets here.

Thump!!

[We’ve arrived. Let’s go down.]

“It feels like we’ve come down almost thousands of meters. If you set up a lab in a place like this, you might not want to come out…”

As soon as Lenok stepped out of the wide-open gateway, he stopped talking.

Inside a huge crystal that seemed to be hundreds of meters in radius.

A huge book, taking up almost half of the space, was spread open, acting as the ground inside the crystal.

On top of the huge book, which was hundreds of times larger than a normal human, countless living plants and animals were moving on the paper-made ground.

Various creatures were playing on the small garden created on the page.

While Lenok was speechless at the sight that defied common sense,

[This is an environment that I arbitrarily created to preserve the specimens in their original state.]

Oliviera walked ahead of Lenok without a care and raised her voice.

[Unlike the initial configuration, I’ve added this and that, but it was inevitable to satisfy both security and performance.]

“You’ve built an artificial garden in such a deep underground place… It’s definitely a very unique method.”

Lenok couldn’t hide his admiration at her words, but Oliviera didn’t even listen to his reply and moved on.

[There’s nothing to see here. Let’s go to the next one.]

“Next?”

Oliviera, standing in the middle of the huge book, at the joint where the two pages met, gestured, and the page of the book flipped to the side, centered around the two of them.

Flap!!

At the same time, the scenery of the meadow around them disappeared as if washed away, and a completely different space appeared.

Equipment left abandoned after experiments, broken pieces of various flasks and glass tubes, and the remains of specimens discarded beyond recognition.

A ruin where the trash of failed experiments was collected. As Oliviera gestured again, the pages flipped a few more times before Lenok could react, revealing different scenes.

A snowy field covered in snow, a mountain of scrap iron with pipes piled up, and a warehouse where the corpses of dead animals were collected.

Each time a page was turned, the space implemented on it was completely transformed, changing the scenery of the lab.

Only then did Lenok realize how Oliviera’s lab was operating, and he faintly expressed his admiration.

“Are you remembering the space itself as a bookmark and assigning it to a page to call it up… It’s a sophisticated method that feels unreal.”

After arbitrarily limiting the space through the circular crystal, different spaces were assigned to each page based on the shape of a huge book within it.

By turning the bookmark, different spaces were switched to create different environments.

“If a high-ranking mage put this much effort into one spatial coordinate for this long, it was possible to obtain a heterogeneity comparable to a domain.”

[Ho, you’ve already noticed?]

Although the scale and level were different, it was not much different from other mages’ self-domains or Jintun’s Hengsha Labyrinth [a type of spatial magic].

Oliviera Ron Maze was imprinting her thoughts and obsessions into this vast laboratory.

[This space is like a second self-domain that I have created. For a mage, the act of building their own lab, even if unintentional, is an act that is filled with care. I have projected my thoughts to the extreme to create the isolation of the space itself.]

“So you designed and implemented such a complex operation with the concept of storing it on the pages of a book.”

[It was inevitable to experience various environments in a limited space. Ah, this way.]

Woong!!

As the next page turned, a dark laboratory appeared.

Numerous experimental tables, glass pillars, and artifacts and plants floating among unknown liquids caught the eye.

Lenok looked around the interior of the lab and opened his mouth.

“You said you created various byproducts in the process of researching the change in the nature of magic power, but there are no traces of that.”

Mad Manson’s multi-body adapters, Iola’s magic eye, and the twisted nature of magic power of Girard, who was in the field team, were said to be Oliviera’s works.

Naturally, he had imagined the lab of a research fanatic who would conduct human experiments without hesitation, but it looked much more normal than he had thought.

[I felt the limitations decades ago and changed the direction of my research. I realized that no matter how many lives I took as specimens, it would be difficult to get the results I wanted.]

She answered, raising a device that looked like a huge telescope near the lab with a gesture.

[The more a superhuman begins to build up their rank, the more they begin to change into something different from the existing human species. Unless I delve into the forbidden art of human sacrifice, there were many parts that didn’t fit with the research I had in mind.]

“……”

[Enough with the useless talk, let’s get back to the story about the magic eye. This device has the function of observing the human eye, recording its movements in particle units, and analyzing its condition.]

“For something like that, it looks very… unique.”

Something that looked like a living eyeball was wriggling between the lenses of the telescope, letting out an unknown screech.

[Kiek! Kiek!!]

“What did you catch and make to create such a device…”

[Put your eye up to it and activate your magic eye.]

“…Okay.”

Lenok put his eye between the lenses of the long telescope she had raised and slowly activated his magic eye again.

As soon as he activated his magic eye through the lens, the eyeball began to glow and thrash. The magic power that emanated from it was felt to be delicately sweeping over Lenok’s eye.

[I roughly understand.]

Oliviera, who had closed her eyes and crossed her arms, nodded after a moment of thought.

“Do you know what the problem is?”

[When did you start noticing the cracks in your magic eye?]

“A month ago. I was aware of the cracks in my retina, but I had to keep using it due to personal reasons. In the meantime, the cracks spread deeply and changed into this form.”

Lenok said as he withdrew his magic eye.

“I know that it’s not just broken, but it’s in the process of transforming into something. The problem is that my vision is deteriorating every time I activate my magic eye in the process.”

Apart from the fact that Lenok’s magic eye, which visualizes the realm of possibilities, was working without any problems, his left eye was becoming completely blind when he activated his magic eye.

The cracks covering the retina were getting deeper and narrowing the field of vision itself.

Lenok understood that this was a sign of change that had occurred after encountering something he had not seen in the labyrinth, but he did not know when it would end.

It was time to choose one of two options: either the cracks would break and the magic eye would transform into a new form, or the current cracks would be joined to heal the magic eye.

That’s why Lenok was trying to get help from the mage who knew the most about magic eyes among the people he knew.

If it was Oliviera, who possessed the ‘Seven-Colored Treasure Eye,’ which was considered the best among countless magic eyes, she might be able to solve the problem that was happening to Lenok now.

Oliviera stared at Lenok through the veil and asked.

[How much do you know about magic eyes?]

“I’ve done some research on my own. I think I understand as much as others do.”

[Then do you know that your magic eye was originally a poorly designed item from the moment it awakened?]

“…What?”

[A magic eye is not simply a power that manifests in the eye and shares its abilities.]

Oliviera, sitting in a luxurious armchair nearby, said, puffing on a pipe.

[It is a type of ability that arises from the distortion of a series of magic circuits that extend from the retina and optic nerve to the pituitary gland and pineal gland inside. That’s why the abilities of magic eyes are generally far removed from the abilities or systems that one originally possessed.]

“I know that there are many such cases in the manifestation of ordinary magic eyes.”

[But it’s different for mages who have awakened a magic eye that is so powerful that it devours them, not just a miscellaneous power. Whether to use the magic eye as an additional ability while maintaining their original magic system, or to reorganize their power to match the manifested magic eye.]

Which conclusion did Oliviera Ron Maze, who possessed the Seven-Colored Treasure Eye, come to?

While Lenok was lost in thought, she continued.

[Usually, you would realize which side you are on as soon as you awaken your magic eye, but your case is different. The power of your magic eye has grown abnormally fast and has become equal to your rank, causing an overload on your eye.]

“……”

[Normally, you should have been devoured by the grown magic eye before you even had these worries, but the fact that it ended with an overload on your eye is proof that you are perfectly controlling the power of your magic eye.]

Oliviera smiled, puffing out smoke from behind her veil.

[It’s rare for the power of a magic eye to grow to the point where it’s equal to its owner, but it’s also strange that you’ve reached this state without being devoured. Considering that a single-eyed awakener with only one magic eye is more likely to break than a two-eyed awakener, it’s only possible if the owner’s own skills are up to par. This is the first time I’ve seen such a case.]

“Hmm…”

[When exactly did you awaken your magic eye? Can you tell me when you realized the ability or specific power of your magic eye?]

Perhaps it was because they were talking about a common interest, but Oliviera began to ask Lenok various questions about his magic eye with a different attitude than before.

Lenok also agreed that some information disclosure was necessary to solve the problem.

“I awakened my magic eye a few years ago. After I happened to observe the magic flow of a possessor whose left eye alone had turned into a magic eye, I was able to imitate it in a similar way.”

[……You’re saying that you didn’t awaken your magic eye, but that you opened it by stealing the flow of another possessor?]

“There’s a woman named Iola among the cartel’s deputy-level personnel. To be precise, I imitated her magic flow.”

[Iola…? You imitated the magic eye that child awakened and grew it to this extent?]

Lenok nodded at Oliviera’s words, which were filled with disbelief.

“At first, it was just about interfering with the magic flow like her. I used it because it seemed to be helpful during battles, and then I realized how to use it in a slightly different way.”

The ability of the magic eye to visualize the realm of possibilities may sound simple, but it is definitely a powerful force that is difficult to estimate its potential.

Above all, the ability of the magic eye itself acts like a mirror that reflects Lenok’s thoughts, so if he spoke carelessly, he could give Oliviera a clue.

Between cooperation and caution, Lenok needed to properly adjust his relationship with her.

“It seems that you, the chairman, are aware of the cause and solution to this problem. Let’s finish the matter with Ayun by exchanging information about it. Is that acceptable?”

[……It’s quite presumptuous for a young mage, but fine. You’ve easily handled a troublesome matter, so I’ll answer you.]

Oliviera replied.

[The cracks in your retina are impurities that are created because your magic eye cannot handle its own output. To solve this, the most efficient way is to divert the excessive output elsewhere.]

“Divert it?”

[That’s if you’re not planning to adjust your magic system to match your magic eye. If you were in a situation where you couldn’t control the power of your magic eye, the story would be very different, but you seem to be controlling your power so thoroughly that there’s no need for that. Among them, the best way is…]

She stood up from her seat and snapped her fingers, and as if waiting for it, a huge hologram appeared in the middle of the vast laboratory.

[Awaken the magic eye in the other eye as well to divide the output of the magic eye itself.]