Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 735

As his fingers moved, the giant’s fingers slowly tapped the ground.

Thump!!

That light gesture alone created a heavy tremor, as if the ground where Lenox stood was shaking.

Turning his wrist, the giant’s hand bent at the joint, and with a flex of the arm muscles, it rose, using its hand as a leg.

Koo-oong!!

Ignoring the terrified prisoners, Lenox pondered.

‘Why is such a monstrosity hidden in this dungeon?’

[It’s supposed to be a relic site of the Giant Corps. Maybe they dug up a tomb?]

‘No, that’s not what I mean. The fact that something like this is in a prison in the first place…’

Could it be a means prepared for some specific purpose?

Perhaps there might be a clue nearby to figure out its use.

Thinking so, Lenox ran a thorough magic detection again, but he couldn’t find anything unusual right away.

‘…Staying here is just a waste of time.’

Lenox, muttering irritably, moved his hand, and the giant’s arm followed, palm wide open.

With a single swing of the arm, the giant’s forearm spun violently in place.

Kwaaaang!!

He swept away the knight’s corpse and the prisoners in the iron cage, throwing them across the waterway.

‘Aaaahhh!!’

The screaming prisoners and the knight’s lifeless body quickly disappeared down the water.

Lenox, having instantly cleared all traces except for the giant’s arm, severed the magic connection and turned away.

The giant’s arm wasn’t likely to disappear in a short time if left here, so he had to focus on his original purpose first.

Just in case, Lenox imbued a simple marking with magic and walked towards the passage leading to the surface.

‘The Sixth Prince said he was going to meet the Watcher.’

If it was a meeting place for the two forces that had come to the giant’s citadel, Jillian was likely to be there as well.

Lenox exited the passage and immediately entered the main hall of the citadel.

The main hall could accommodate hundreds of people, and wide corridors led to all directions of the complex citadel.

As he entered the castle, the pressure of magic intensified, and several skilled transcendents [individuals who have surpassed normal human limits] were visible.

Some were casually walking around the castle wearing personal equipment, while others were focused on their tasks, conversing.

But even knowing that, Lenox strode towards the outside.

Saaak!!

The moment he stepped out into the lobby, Lenox’s figure faintly scattered and disappeared.

By casting invisibility magic over his shadow robe and blocking sound and presence, no trace remained.

Lenox quietly passed through the busy crowd and headed straight for the top floor of the castle.

Unlike the other floors, which had dozens of doors on each corridor, the top floor had only three doors.

In front of the three doors stood knights in heavy armor, one each.

‘It should be enough to check the audience chamber located at the innermost part.’

The audience chamber, where the lord of the castle mainly receives guests for business. If Jillian was there, he could take action.

The problem was that the senses and magical pressure of those knights were more than he expected, so he couldn’t completely hide with just the shadow robe and invisibility magic.

And if he used other types of magic, he would give Agneta a chance to guess Victor’s identity.

It seemed easier to subdue the three heavily armored knights at once here.

While Lenox was lost in thought, Agneta seemed to have guessed the reason.

[I’ll help you.]

Chwaaak!!

A thin strand of magic thread extended from the air and quickly burrowed under the corridor floor. It was a faint sign that even Lenox would have missed if he hadn’t seen it right in front of him.

The magic thread, which had instantly crossed the corridor, quietly seeped under the door of the audience chamber.

[Here. Take it.]

Agneta, having concealed her presence, offered the other end of the magic thread to Lenox.

The moment Lenox grabbed it, he paused, seeing the scene unfolding before his eyes.

Like looking through an endoscope camera, the scene inside the room where the magic thread had penetrated began to be projected.

‘This isn’t… a vision sharing type. Is it a bias of senses through the magic thread?’

The scene inside the room was visible, but if you looked closely, the colors were absent, and it seemed to be moving with noise flickering.

It felt like he was indirectly securing a view in a different way than using a wide angle.

Agneta replied as if it was nothing.

[I’m detecting the vibrations caught by the magic thread and filtering out only what’s coming from inside the room, then visualizing it.]

‘The vibrations caught are too chaotic and indiscriminate. You can filter them all out with just one strand of magic thread?’

[Wow, you really understand right away?]

Agneta asked, sounding amazed.

[No matter how much I explained it to other manipulators, they couldn’t understand. It seems you really are special.]

‘…’

[There isn’t a definite standard, but as I do it, I get a sense of what information to filter out. I’ll tell you the trick, do you want to try it yourself?]

Agneta seemed more interested in teaching the manipulation technique than the operation.

Lenox also didn’t refuse and immediately began to manipulate the magic thread following Agneta’s method.

The important thing was to filter out the vibrations perceived through the magic thread. Visualizing the filtered vibrations itself was not difficult.

Lenox, who had been repeating the process following the trick Agneta had told him with his eyes closed, slowly opened his eyes.

‘…Got it. This is the feeling.’

The scene inside the room felt much clearer than before.

It was much more accurate for Lenox to do it himself than to borrow Agneta’s ability.

The process of learning the trick was difficult, but once he got the hang of it, Lenox’s reproduction rate was incomparably higher.

[Good, very good. The extracted result itself is much more precise than mine.]

Agneta, also realizing that, said as she excitedly wandered around Lenox.

[There’s no one who understands this delicate tuning. It’s a technique that can do anything if you put your mind to it, but people don’t know its value.]

‘Nonsense. It’s not that they don’t know the value.’

Lenox scoffed.

‘It’s just that they don’t even have a clue what it feels like. The essence of manipulation techniques is completely detached from the senses or instincts of living beings.’

It wasn’t that other manipulators or transcendents didn’t know the possibilities or effectiveness of manipulation techniques.

If you only knew the principle or trick, it was a special type of technique that could indirectly realize any physical law or desired shape.

It was a technique that was classified as an exception because it couldn’t be contained even after classifying all the techniques in the world, so there was no need to mention how infinite its possibilities were.

But that was only in theory. In reality, even imitating it was in the realm of fantasy.

‘Even with the magic thread as a standard, it’s like this, how can others understand that sense of tuning?’

A special type of technique where you had to set what, how, who, and where to manipulate each time.

Even if you wanted to achieve the same result, the process would vary greatly depending on the place, time, environment, and condition.

What manipulators who used manipulation techniques truly needed was not learning or a textbook, but a natural sense of rearranging the process in real-time and tuning the results.

You had to be able to throw away the tricks or habits you had learned in an instant and refine them anew.

That was why manipulators who used manipulation techniques were so rare and treated so specially.

‘You should be more grateful for your own birth. That talent or sense is not something you can easily obtain.’

[Eck. That’s not what I meant…]

Agneta retorted, sounding dumbfounded.

[Rather, shouldn’t you be the one saying that, since you also handle spatial techniques?]

‘Quiet.’

Ignoring the grumbling Agneta, Lenox listened to the end of the magic thread.

Inside the elegant reception room, made to receive guests, three people were sitting and talking about something.

A man leaning against the door with his arms crossed and a woman sitting on a chair.

And opposite the two, the Sixth Prince, wrapped in cloth all over his body, was leaning back.

[It seems we should finish our discussion before Jillian-nim returns.]

The woman immediately replied to the prince’s calm words.

[As I have said many times, we have no intention of handing over the Watcher’s custody. We express our regret for the Order Alliance’s request.]

[I have also continued to say, but there is an error in that answer.]

The prince said calmly.

[All manipulators who belonged to the Order Alliance must hand over their bodies to the Alliance after death. There are no exceptions.]

At those words, the man leaning against the door spoke with a flustered expression.

[That’s a bit of a funny thing to say, old man. Rence isn’t dead, so why are you talking about taking him away?]

Order Alliance. Rence.

Lenox understood the situation as soon as he heard these two keywords.

‘It seems the Order Alliance came to find Jillian. Are they planning to make a deal with the Eyes of Azure?’

The curse manipulator Rence. He was a Watcher who was with Lenox in the Hanghasa Labyrinth, and a manipulator who defected from the Order Alliance and joined the Eyes of Azure.

Even though Rence wasn’t dead yet, the Order Alliance sent someone to get his body back.

The prince replied.

[But it won’t be long now. Isn’t that right?]

[…]

[This guy is really…]

The man growled irritably.

[Is this what your boss told you to do?]

[Of course not. You don’t know much about the Alliance.]

The prince laughed as if he was dumbfounded.

[In the first place, about the Alliance’s affairs… Never mind. There’s no need to explain further.]

The prince said that and stood up.

[I will be waiting for a good answer.]

The moment he was about to leave the room without any regrets, the woman sitting opposite him spoke.

[There’s a rumor that the truce agreement will be lifted soon.]

[…]

[Seeing you move so hastily, it seems your situation isn’t very good.]

A statement that openly implied the war between the Order and the Alliance. The prince, who slowly turned around, replied.

[It would be wise to keep quiet if you don’t know.]

[Is it okay to come here to receive the body of someone who is not dead?]

[…]

There was no answer.

The woman also nodded to the man blocking the door, as if she didn’t expect an answer.

[Pio, let him go. As long as Rence is alive, he should be Jillian-nim’s guest.]

As the man called Pio silently stepped aside from the door, the prince flung the door open and walked out.

Only then could Lenox see the real face of the prince from the other side of the corridor.

Although he was wearing red cloth all over his body, he had a tall and imposing impression.

Unlike his displeased frown, the pressure of magic emanating from his body was considerable.

As he mentioned himself as an envoy of the Order Alliance, he must also be a high-ranking manipulator who had reached a considerable level.

As he walked down the corridor, guards appeared like ghosts behind him and followed him.

Shapes that didn’t show their faces and had even faint presences. Perhaps they were the manipulators of the Order Alliance.

Lenox’s eyes, who had been quietly watching them while leaning against the corridor wall, sank deeply.

‘There aren’t as many mages as I expected. Rather, the others are…’

There were even a couple of manipulators who handled not only magic and spirit power, but also an unknown power that even Lenox was feeling for the first time.

Rather, if you only counted the ratio among the envoy group, the number of mages seemed to be only about two.

They said they gathered all the orders and manipulators in the world, but it seemed that their scope was not limited to magic power.

The fact that they were openly showing off their power was proof that they were all combat personnel who could carry out operations on the spot.

It was understandable that there were war mages mixed among the mages, but it was quite surprising that they had gathered those who could fight among the manipulators who handled rare powers.

While Lenox was memorizing their power flows and patterns, the Order Alliance disappeared, and the Eyes of Azure followed, walking out of the audience chamber.

‘Damn it, where the hell is Jillian and what is he doing?’

‘Pio, don’t get too angry. The Archduke was always like that.’

A woman walking with a cane while her eyes were closed, and a male Watcher walking next to her, grumbling.

The woman was a face Lenox was seeing for the first time, but the man was a Watcher that Lenox also knew.

Watcher Pio. He was a transformation manipulator who participated in the attack on the Far East Branch of the Guido Order with Lenox, and a twin brother of the synchronization manipulator Gio.

Since he himself was a 7-level Saint-level transcendent who had completed his hierarchy, his skills were certain. He must have come here to escort that woman.

‘Marisa, it’s not that we came to find him, but that Jillian called us. And now he’s going to weigh us against the Order Alliance, is this right?’

‘We were the ones who proposed the sixth lighthouse candidate site.’

The woman with her eyes closed, called Claire, said calmly.

‘The Archduke only accepted the name of the Watcher because of his connection with Madreah-nim, and he wasn’t interested in this side until now. If he showed a willingness to cooperate, it was necessary to check it out at least once.’

Having said that, Claire glanced around.

Even with her eyes closed, it was as if she could see the surrounding scenery.

‘This castle is like a curse to the Archduke, but it’s an unparalleled scenic spot for outsiders like us… If we can use this place as a lighthouse, it will be of great help to Lapis-nim’s abilities.’

‘Well, I can understand why you’re so proactive, but…’

Pio muttered with a crooked attitude.

‘The guys working in this castle. They’re all bad guys. You know that, right?’

‘…’

‘I don’t know what Jillian is thinking by using these guys, but there are more shady guys mixed in than I thought. Probably in the war-‘

Pio said that and then let out a deep sigh.

‘Okay, what more can I say. It’s not too late to explain the situation to the other Watchers and then think about it.’

‘Pio, the Archduke is much older than you. Please be careful with your words in front of him…’

As soon as Lenox saw the Watchers disappearing while scolding each other, he immediately stood up.

[Are you planning to follow them right away?]

Now that he knew that Jillian wasn’t in the audience chamber, there was no need to waste time checking any further.

It might be more realistic to follow either the Order Alliance or the Eyes of Azure to find clues.

But this time again, Lenox neatly ignored Agneta’s words and pulled up his magic to the fullest in that spot.

The moment the Order Alliance and the Eyes of Azure left the audience chamber one after another, the knights’ senses were disrupted.

If he mixed magic into the faint presence spreading in the air and scattered it, he could pierce the gap in their vigilance.

‘If it’s the audience chamber that Jillian usually uses, there must be facilities like a map of the castle or emergency passages hidden there.’

Lenox said that, tilted his head, and took a step forward.

‘If I sweep everything that exists inside, won’t there be a reaction whether they like it or not?’

Woo-oong…!!

The magic flowing from Lenox’s body twisted his body as if grabbing it upside down and plunging it into the air.

[Blink]

Pa-bat!!

Lenox’s figure, which had jumped through space, instantly moved beyond the door of the audience chamber.

At the same time as the door was closing narrowly, Lenox’s figure entered the empty audience chamber.

Click.

He stopped moving in that spot and quietly observed the surrounding reactions.

Lenox, who had been slowly staring at the wide audience chamber without even breathing, took a step forward.

‘Hmm?’

He made eye contact with someone who had been searching the audience chamber for a while.

‘…’

Someone who had entered the audience chamber before Lenox, and was casually smashing wardrobes and chests as if looking for their own belongings.

Even the way he was stealing and eating the refreshments on the table was very natural.

But what caught Lenox’s attention was not his frivolous actions or reactions.

The sight of his face covered in white powder was also very deeply imprinted in Lenox’s memory.

[…]

Agneta also couldn’t say anything and closed her mouth, while the other person scratched his cheek as if embarrassed.

He spat out the refreshments he had been stuffing in his cheeks and cleared his throat, asking.

‘Um, well… why are you here?’

‘That’s what I want to ask.’

Lenox asked back, sounding dumbfounded as he adjusted his mask.

‘Clown. What are you doing here?’

The madman who led the operation at the Well of the Compendium, and a powerful illusionist who messed with the hierarchy.

The clown of Pandemonium, Artren Kijard, was standing in front of Lenox.