Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 960

“That’s wrong. The glove-like artifact isn’t even visible.”

After turning the three-story mansion’s closets and storerooms upside down, the search finally ended.

Only then did Paysha grumble, realizing there were no significant gains.

“It’s all just flashy on the outside and worthless. What a house for a vain noble.”

The jewelry displayed on the second-floor shelves was also just items with no magical power, and therefore of little value.

It was only natural to be annoyed after searching through items that weren’t even artifacts, let alone useful items.

However, even knowing that he had struck out repeatedly, Lenok calmly turned around.

“We’ve checked everywhere else, so let’s go down to the first floor.”

“Hey, if you know something, say it already.”

“Anathema might have hidden records or journals in the mansion. I just left it in case.”

“You’re saying you knew from the start that we were wasting time!!”

Ignoring Paysha’s loud shouting, Lenok immediately used Blink to go to the first floor.

Following Lenok, who ignored the stairs and jumped between floors, Felix and Paysha came down, and Lenok pointed to a chair in the reception room.

“Sit down. There’s something I need to explain before we start.”

“I’m not so weak that my legs hurt from just searching the mansion for a bit.”

Despite her sarcastic remark, Paysha sat across from him, while Felix folded his arms next to her.

“As I told Felix earlier, many of the ornaments and furniture in this mansion are unusually elaborate.”

Lenok looked at the two of them and picked up a music box on the reception room table.

“This music box is the same. It looks ordinary, but it can play 16 different songs by overlapping six springs.”

“So what?”

Ignoring Paysha’s indifferent reaction, Lenok said,

“I think all the furniture and props in this mansion were made by Anathema himself.”

“Anathema made furniture and props himself?”

Felix asked, looking bewildered, and Lenok nodded.

“The jewelry displayed on the shelves is the same. They must have been made by Anathema himself.”

“Anathema didn’t seem like the type to have a hobby in such crafts.”

“It’s not a hobby.”

Lenok put down the music box and nodded at Paysha’s indifferent retort.

“It’s practice.”

“Practice…?”

“Mana thread extraction. Manufacturing furniture and decorations. These two actions seem unrelated, but they are definitely linked under one clear intention.”

Lenok said, sweeping his hand across the table.

“It’s repetitive learning to practice and refine extremely precise manipulation skills.”

“……”

“Anathema was practicing using manipulation techniques alone in this house.”

“That’s absurd.”

Paysha scoffed and leaned back in her chair.

“Is that scaly bastard really dreaming of changing his career to a manipulator at his age?”

“A special trait-based technique isn’t something you can easily acquire.”

Felix muttered with a complicated expression.

“It’s a technique that requires not only innate talent but also a supportive environment.”

“That’s right. But it’s also a system that can be forcibly awakened through special experiences or encounters.”

Lenok nodded.

“The reason Anathema tried to learn manipulation techniques was because he thought he met that case.”

“……”

“If you learn a technique through a post-natal experience, then…”

“The forbidden weapon that Anathema took when he was expelled from Ars Nova.”

Lenok said, tapping the table quickly with one hand.

“If it’s the power of a forbidden weapon that is presumed to be specialized in manipulation techniques, he believed he could awaken that talent postnatally.”

“Is that forbidden weapon something that can open up the talent for manipulation techniques to a human who has already finished growing?”

“That’s something we can only know by checking it ourselves.”

Lenok stood up and chuckled.

“But it’s certain that the forbidden weapon is a powerful artifact, enough for Anathema to think that way and put it into practice.”

“……”

“At least for manipulators, it’s definitely an item that can take their power to another level.”

Having reached that point, Lenok was determined to recover the forbidden weapon immediately.

Having experience handling manipulation techniques for a long time under the identity of Victor, there might be some progress if he investigates the forbidden weapon.

Now that he knew that the forbidden weapon Anathema had was no ordinary item, there was no reason to hesitate.

“The reason I’m explaining this in advance is because there might not be time to explain it later.”

Lenok said, standing in front of the fireplace in one corner of the reception room.

“I’m going to open the door now. There’s not much time to prepare, so hold onto your mana in advance.”

“…By the way. You’ve been talking as if you knew where to go since earlier.”

Felix asked, as if suddenly remembering.

“There are no entrances to this mansion except for the main gate, so where can we go to find the forbidden weapon?”

“If you think about it from outside the mansion, the answer will come.”

Lenok answered, raising his mana.

He knelt slightly in front of the fireplace and placed one hand on the dusty carpet.

“This mansion was buried under the sewers decades ago, but neither Anathema himself nor any related parties even tried to move the house. Why do you think that is?”

“…There was a reason why the mansion’s location couldn’t be moved?”

“That’s right. There was a reason why they had to maintain this lower coordinate no matter what. And that reason is not above the mansion, but…”

Crack!!

Lenok said, gripping the floor strongly as if scraping it.

“It must exist below the mansion.”

At that moment, dozens of transparent mana threads extended from between Lenok’s fingers, densely covering all sides of the mansion.

Whirrrrrr!!!

The mana threads, attached to the ceiling, floor, walls, and pillars, filled the reception room and hung down.

Lenok’s mana threads, thinner than hair, quickly dug into the walls and floor, touching the intangible parts inside.

Click, click, click!!

The sound of gears turning and buttons being pressed.

The entire mansion seemed to be a single machine, rotating intricately.

It was as if you were listening to all the sounds of the parts turning inside a huge clock.

Felix’s face hardened at the intense sense of incongruity he had not felt until just now, and he gripped his hammer.

“We’re going to the basement of the mansion.”

With Lenok’s words, the floor of the reception room disappeared on the spot.

The three people standing in the reception room, which had lost its floor, fell into a bottomless hole.

Whoooosh!!!

“What the hell!!!”

Paysha, who had been lying on the chair ignoring Lenok’s words, was startled and looked around.

She jumped up, stepping on the falling chairs and tables like a beast, and immediately grabbed a rotating spear above her head.

“Hey, mage!! You didn’t say the floor would collapse!!”

“60 rounds of charged mana cannon fire in 4 seconds.”

Lenok said, raising his mana detection and glancing at her.

“Divide into three sections and snipe with a 1.5-second time difference.”

“What?”

Kiiiiing!!

At the same time as Lenok’s words, a red mana light flashed from the darkness below.

Security equipment that detected intruders and fired dozens of ultra-high-temperature heat rays.

Felix gripped his hammer with both hands, watching the lasers that shot up at an invisible speed.

“I’ll handle it!!”

He added mana to the hammer’s surface, twisted his shoulder, and rotated his body in the air.

He dodged nearly half of the lasers that were out of range, and at the same time, he blocked Lenok and deflected the lasers.

Kukwakwakwang!!!

Following the trajectory of the hammer that Felix swung at an incredible speed, the lasers that shot up in succession were all bent and twisted.

The red lasers, bent diagonally, collided with the walls of the underground cavity, creating a loud burst of flames.

Whoooong!!

Without even looking back at the flames passing over his head, Lenok said again.

“300 cutting devices of unknown material. They will deploy in 6 seconds and completely close the passage.”

“Damn it, really…!!”

Paysha, who cursed, grabbed the spear in reverse and stabbed the blade into the wall.

Paysha, who drastically reduced her falling speed while sparks flew, kicked off the wall and flipped her body upside down.

Sweeek!!

Paysha, who fell headfirst in the opposite direction from Lenok, accelerated by rotating the spear with her wrist.

At the same time, hundreds of saw blades exploded from the wall in the direction she was falling.

Drrrrrrr!!!

She stabbed a spear into the saw blades that would cut her body into pieces upon contact and twisted it, smashing them.

Intense flames fell like rain, illuminating the dark cavity.

While Felix deflected the lasers that flashed between the saw blades, Paysha opened a path by smashing the saw blades in the opposite direction from the rain of lasers.

Ujijijik!!!

Paysha, who lightly shook her wrist up and down, vibrating the spear at subsonic speed, shouted.

“Mage, I can’t see the bottom!!”

“Wait. I’m finding the direction.”

Lenok, who had been falling without doing anything between Felix and Paysha’s protection, opened his eyes.

The purple magic eye light flashed in the darkness and rotated sharply.

“That way.”

A crack appeared in the cavity, and the three people fell straight down.

Kwaaang!!

“Cough!!”

“Uweck…”

Felix and Paysha, covered in dust, tried to get up, but immediately slammed their heads into the ground.

Thud!!

It was a strange sight, as if something invisible was forcibly pulling the two of them to the ground.

“Damn it, what is it?”

Paysha, who cursed, scraped the floor with one hand, and a huge, purple-shining ore came into view.

Paysha frowned as she identified the identity of the rock.

“Gravity stone? Why is this here?”

The gravity stone is not only very heavy in itself, but it also arbitrarily reverses the gravity of the surrounding area just by its presence.

It is rare and valuable, but its use is limited if it is not processed, so it is not often seen even in the central city.

Such ore was embedded and shining not only under the group’s feet but also in almost every visible part of the cavity.

“Anathema brought it here.”

Lenok answered, walking out from behind Paysha.

“That’s why we fell for too long compared to the depth of the basement. He was using this to increase the falling time.”

“Is it possible to do that with just one gravity stone?”

“Look around.”

“……”

Whoooosh!!!

A huge circular cavity exists in the basement of Anathema’s mansion.

The smooth floor and stone pillars made by cutting gravity stones. The magnificent statues and decorations, as if it were a temple, were also abundant.

For a moment, the two were speechless at the vast scale, which looked like a huge temple rather than a basement.

“The nobles of the central city wouldn’t have lacked wealth, but this is beyond what I expected.”

Felix asked, struggling to get up from the gravity stone.

“Did he make the entire basement into a huge temple by cutting gravity stones?”

“That’s not all. He even adjusted the position and direction of the gravity stones so that they wouldn’t affect the mansion.”

“……”

“It’s designed to direct the power of the gravity stones towards the center of the temple while preventing it from leaking out of the temple.”

Lenok said, looking towards the center of the temple, hundreds of meters away.

“And all those measures were to keep that item in this temple.”

“……”

A dazzlingly beautiful purple crystal.

Inside that crystal, a pair of glass-colored gloves was floating.

The shape of the gloves, which shone with a clear, blue-gold light, as if time had stopped inside the crystal.

The way it covered not only the wrist but also halfway up the forearm made it look more like a thin gauntlet than a glove.

Around the gloves, thin threads were swirling like a vortex, as if protecting the relic.

“That’s…”

“The forbidden weapon that Anathema took from Ars Nova.”

Lenok’s eyes shone sharply.

“It might be a relic of a very powerful manipulator.”

The manipulation technique of the central city. A forbidden weapon made using a high-ranking transcendent as a material.

Above all, if it was an item that Anathema tried to obtain even while learning manipulation techniques himself-

“Hey, mage. I don’t know about that stuff.”

Paysha, who was lying face down with her limbs stretched out among the debris, looked up and asked.

“This bastard. Should we just kill him?”

“What do you mean…?”

Whoosh!!

As if answering Felix’s words, a man appeared from the deep darkness as if scattering.

“Oh, have I been discovered?”

A tall man stood on Paysha’s back with a sly smile.

A corpse-like pale face. He was looking down at Paysha with snake-like eyes, holding a dagger to her neck.

“…!!”

Felix’s face hardened, and Lenok stared at the man with an expressionless face.

“Ah~ I never wanted to meet again like this.”

The man glanced at Lenok and joked.

“But what can I do if things have turned out this way? I have to do my best to make a living.”

“…”

“So, everyone, please step back slowly.”

The man, who pressed the dagger hard against Paysha’s neck, said quietly.

“If you don’t want to see this woman die.”

“That man is…”

Since Paysha was completely caught from behind, it was certain that the opponent was also a considerable expert.

While Felix was quickly checking his surroundings with a groan, Lenok said with a smile.

“You’re still as clueless about the news as you were back then.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you know who the woman you’re holding hostage is?”

“…Oh, dear.”

He thought he had found an opening, but the reaction was not what he expected.

The man, realizing that something was wrong, broke out in a cold sweat, and Paysha slowly raised her head.

“Hey. You son of a bitch.”

Zzzzzzz…!!

As Paysha slowly turned her gaze, the dagger was deeply embedded, and blood flowed down.

“Is this what you call a hostage situation?”

Ignoring the fact that her neck muscles were being cut, Paysha turned her body, and the man’s face changed.

Paysha, who had secured enough space to raise her arm, ruthlessly struck the floor.

Kwaang!!

With a simple action of punching the ground, a shockwave burst, and her body floated into the air.

At the same time, the man who was riding on Paysha’s back also floated into the air.

“Wait…!!”

“Die.”

Before he could react, Paysha flipped her body and ruthlessly kicked the man in the stomach.

Kwaaaang!!!

The man’s figure flew like an arrow and crashed into one corner of the vast temple corridor.

“Cough!! Ugh.”

The man’s figure slumped, bleeding and making a weak scream.

Only then did Lenok move and stand in front of the fallen man.

“Trying to take a Dead Rise general hostage, there’s a limit to how stupid you can be.”

“This can’t be…”

Only then did the man realize that Paysha, whom he had taken hostage, was an unbelievably strong person, and his shoulders slumped dejectedly.

“I’m, I’m unlucky… Why does this always happen when I meet unlucky mages like you?”

“It’s been a while, black magician.”

Lenok looked down at the man and sneered.

“What were you doing here?”

The black magician of Pandemonium.

The ancient wraith who was the ancestor of the underworld and occupied the body of the jewel crafter, Jaun Odis.

Ermong had arrived at Anathema’s temple before Lenok.