Training-Addicted Mage In A Progression Fantasy-Chapter 25: Ancient Mages Lair (2)

When Leon first decided to split from the group, this was the plan he came up with:

Use the Wooden Sword to provoke the scorpions’ discomfort and draw their attention, then run away.

Once sufficiently far from the group, try to face them using magic.Although he had witnessed firsthand that an Apprentice Mage’s magic was ineffective, Leon now had magic that could exert power beyond the apprentice level.

The fact that it consumed too much magic power wasn’t a big problem considering the Space-Time Orb.

If it still didn’t work even after putting in full power, then use emergency designated teleport.

This was the gist of Leon’s plan.

Ancient Mage’s Mair?When he first heard people talk about it, it just sounded like something that was far away from him.He thought he’d just be dragged along and it would only hinder his training.

But once he actually entered, he became interested in the abilities of the mage who could construct this massive lair.

I did expect massive power differences but... a single mage creating this huge cave?

Aside from his sudden wariness, it was only natural for Leon to be curious about the secrets hidden in this lair.

Leon was clutching the teleport scroll tightly to his chest.

After entering the left corridor, once completely out of sight from the others, Leon immediately used levitation magic.

The scorpions that had followed right behind were threatening Leon with their tails raised, but the tips of those tails were just out of reach.

The corridor however seemed endless.

Leon, who had put plenty of magic power into the levitation magic to distance himself from the scorpions again, took out a green flute from his subspace.

When Leon blew the flute, a white golem with green stripes was summoned in front of him.Its size was about 3.5m.

It wasn’t that big, but Leon could sit on its shoulders just fine.

And he levitated the Wooden Sword in midair using basic psychokinesis.

He had no intention of using the golem directly in combat.The golem’s grade was D+.At best, it could barely match the early level of arcane magic.It couldn’t handle dozens of giant scorpions that were completely unaffected by Apprentice-grade magic.

But it’s perfect as a means of transportation.

He couldn’t use levitation magic, basic psychokinesis, and ‘Moonlight Scattering Sword’ simultaneously yet, so this was the best choice.

The golem started running to get away from the scorpions.

It was slower than levitation magic, but its long strides weren’t much different from the scorpions.

Duration is 1 hour.

Leon turned to the back of the golem and used a memorized spell.

“Pierce.”

He shot it with a moderate amount of magic power to test the waters first.It was to find out the minimum amount of magic power needed.

The Wooden Sword hit the head of the scorpion crawling at the very front.

Thud-

With a dull sound, the Wooden Sword bounced off.

It doesn’t work with this much magic power...

“Hm?”

The giant scorpion collapsed to the ground.

Clearly, it didn’t even scratch the hard exoskeleton, but as soon as the Wooden Sword touched it, the scorpion shuddered and then fell with a thud.

No, its movement stopped abruptly as if its power had been cut off.

So the previous attacks did have some effect?

Being the one at the forefront of the attack, it would have taken a lot of hits from the Apprentice mages’ head-on.No matter how hard the armor, it might not be completely unharmed.

Leon retrieved the Wooden Sword and chanted.

“Power imbued with will, pierce through. Pierce.”

This time, he put in slightly less magic power.

Thud-

It was the same this time too.Even though the Wooden Sword bounced off, looking even weaker than before, the scorpion that was hit stopped moving.

“...What’s really going on?”

Leon even tried just touching a scorpion with the Wooden Sword using only basic psychokinesis.

Tap- As soon as it touched, the scorpion’s movement stopped.

Leon, with some confidence now, tapped the Wooden Sword on the heads of dozens of scorpions one by one.

Tap- Thud- Tap- Thud- Tap- Thud-

“Hmm......”

An inexplicable feeling of deflation swept through his chest.

The golem Leon had summoned had already stopped walking.

In front of Leon, dozens of scorpions were all lying on the ground with their bellies down.

The red eyes of the scorpions had long since turned dark and murky.

Leon cautiously approached the nearest scorpion.

The giant scorpion was lying with lifeless eyes.Leon circled around the scorpion, examining its body closely.

Now that he was close, he could tell.

“It’s not a real scorpion......”

Even the ivory exoskeleton was closer to an intricately made armor.

Was it artificially created like a golem?

It would make sense for golem made from magic to suddenly stop due to the interference of the Magic Sword.

Leon glanced at the green-striped golem he had summoned.

And he slowly raised the Wooden Sword and then lowered it again.

He felt it might really break.

That would be like throwing away a D+ grade artifact on the ground and thrashing it.

Come to think of it, golems have cores too.

A core different from a mage’s core, a concept of magic engineering.Because it was artificially made, it was a physically existing object.

And of course, cores with sophisticated magic engineering technology were extremely expensive.

Plus, if it’s a golem made by an ancient mage......

Of course, that wasn’t the reason Leon paid attention.

He was curious about the magic engineering ‘technology’ itself created by the ancient mage.

I might not be able to use it right now, but maybe later?

He thought there would be nothing more reassuring than setting up sentinel golems in front when training later.

Leon climbed onto the scorpion’s back plate to look for the core.

He even examined the joint membranes between the exoskeletons, but couldn’t find anything that looked like a core.

I’ll have to flip it over to check the belly, or cut it open.

The problem was how to flip over this giant scorpion......

It was too heavy to flip over with just basic psychokinesis.

Leon first used earth magic to raise earth walls around the scorpion.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

“Swell.”

As Leon uttered the activation word, the Wooden Sword instantly grew enormous. Leon put in as much magic power as possible to make the Wooden Sword long.

And using the raised earth wall as a fulcrum, he used the enlarged Wooden Sword as a lever to flip the scorpion over.

“Oh......”

A round red core was embedded in the center of the abdomen.However, that core was blinking, pulsing with red light.

It looked ominous, so much so he was reluctant to touch it.

Leon stepped back and used the Wooden Sword to tap around the core.

The area where the core was embedded seemed to be relatively weak, as it sank in with each press of the Wooden Sword.

He also confirmed that it didn’t lose its light even when touched by the Wooden Sword.

I guess the Magic Sword doesn’t absorb golem cores.

After confirming that fact, Leon stuck the Wooden Sword around it and pried out the core.

Crackle-

The core that fell to the ground flickered a few more times urgently before completely losing its light.

Leon brought the core in front of his eyes using basic psychokinesis.

The surface of the sphere, which seemed like it would fit in an adult’s palm when fully spread, had intricate patterns engraved on it.

It looked much more intricate and complex than the patterns engraved on the green flute.

Not that I can understand it just by looking at it now.

Leon was about to collect all the cores of the Scorpion Golems, but realized it would take too much time.

Should I put them in the orb for now and have Kito do it?

But he quickly abandoned that thought.They might have stopped working for now, but he didn’t know what would happen if he put them in the orb.

It meant he had to personally pull out each core and then collect the remaining debris.Considering that the Scorpion Golem debris could be used as materials later, it was necessary work.

That would take even more time to move everything one by one.

That’s when a sound reached Leon’s ears.

Rustle- Rustle-

Dozens of scorpions were approaching from the opposite side of the corridor Leon had entered.

“Sigh......”

He shouldn’t, but Leon unconsciously felt a bit annoyed.

Tapping the Wooden Sword on the heads of dozens of scorpions one by one, pulling out the cores of the stopped scorpions, and then moving the debris into the orb one by one.

It was no different from simple repetitive labor.

***

At that time.

“They’re not chasing us anymore!”“Let’s stop!”

The Apprentice mages who had headed down the right corridor realized that the end of the corridor was not in sight and stopped midway to take a break.

“Huff......”“Haah......”

Perhaps because they had all run with all their might, once the tension was released, they sat down on the spot and started gasping for breath.

Mabel, the man with the loudest voice among them, forcibly calmed his breathing and said.

“Rowen, have you heard anything from Master Maelyn?”

His tone had returned to being polite.Rowen, who had been standing blankly, grasped her necklace.

“......I sent a signal, so he should be coming.”

Seeing her empty expression, Mabel recalled the boy who had disappeared drawing the attention of dozens of scorpions with just a Wooden Sword.

Although they hesitated due to the sudden situation, in the end, the mages would inevitably have abandoned the ordinary disciples and fled.It was a predetermined course of action, just that their judgment was slow because they were still inexperienced Apprentice mages.

And even if they had made such a judgment, they couldn’t guarantee their safety afterwards.

It was that boy who stepped forward in that volatile situation.A boy with black hair who looked young but had an impressively calm face.

Mabel cautiously asked.

“Were you close to that boy?”

Rowen shook her head.

“I don’t know him well.”“Then why are you so heartbroken......”

Rowen looked at Mabel with sharp eyes.

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t care about someone who risked their life for us?”

Mabel wasn’t a shameless person either.He was grateful to him too.Separately from that, he asked because it seemed strange that Rowen would say such things.

Rowen was quite a famous in the magic city of Widia.First of all, because her surname was Mardelia.A family that had produced countless outstanding mages.And a family with just as strong magic supremacist views.

“He’s not...... a mage, is he?”“Hey!”“I don’t think that’s a good thing to say......”

Felix, the young boy with blue hair, interjected at those words.

He fidgeted with his fingers as he spoke.

“The courage to sacrifice oneself for others...... isn’t something easily obtained...... even for any mage......”“I misspoke.”

Mabel readily admitted it.

It certainly wasn’t easy to muster that courage.

The gap felt even greater because he had been subtly looking down on him for being an ordinary person.

“I...... if we manage to return alive, I’m going to reveal everything that happened and propose a way to commemorate him.”“I’ll help too. We should set up a memorial day or statue to honor his death......”“I’ll talk to my master and cooperate!”“Me too.”“We must make sure his name is remembered......”

Voices popped up here and there, perhaps thinking their chances of survival had increased.

“It’s Leon.”

As Rowen said firmly, Mabel gave a bitter smile.

“Talking about commemorating him without even knowing his name.”

Rowen opened her mouth again.

“And it’s too early to conclude he’s dead.”“Do you think he can survive until the entire ruins exploration is over?”“He’ll be alive.”

Rowen knew she had no answer if asked ‘How?’.

She clenched her fist secretly.

If only I had been a little stronger......

At that moment, a chilling sound began to be heard from the opposite side of the corridor they had entered.

Rustle- Rustle-

There was no one among those gathered who didn’t know the identity of that sound.

“Sc-Scorpions!”“Damn, there were some on the other side too......”

Having just barely escaped danger, people fell into confusion as they were plunged back into the abyss of danger.

They hurriedly prepared for battle, pulling themselves together despite their exhausted bodies.

At that moment.

Small sparks began to fall like rain from the ceiling of the cave.

Mabel’s face brightened.

“It’s Maelyn!”

Each of those sparks contained a power that seemed capable of melting anything it touched.

The momentum of the rain of sparks intensified like a downpour, soon turning the place where the scorpions were gathering into a complete sea of fire.

Waves crashed and typhoons raged in the sea of fire.

And at some point, that sea of fire disappeared without a trace.The scorpions in it were gone as well.

“Rowen!”

The man who approached rapidly from the sky carefully examined Rowen’s appearance and then spoke in a gruff tone quite different from his appearance.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”“......No.”“Good. I don’t know how you ended up entering the lair, but it’s fortunate that it’s only the first floor......”

The man’s face briefly showed relief, but he cleared his throat once and returned to his gruff expression.

“Let’s go up quickly.”

Tier 2 has been added, enjoy!For those who already have a subscription, you only need to pay the difference (5$ in this case)