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Chapter 367: Unidentified Zone (2)

The third spatial rift was a desert.

Sasha looked around and muttered.

“Lord Ado must have really liked traveling before he built the Magic Tower.” 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

“Seems like it.”

From Silvarin Lake to the southern coastline, and now the western desert.

Traveling all over the world with his wife—there was nothing more romantic.

Oscar gazed at the sunset draped over the sand dunes before turning his head.

‘Come to think of it… what about Sasha?’

She still looked like a kid in his eyes, but she was already twenty-six this year.

It wouldn’t be strange if she had dated once or twice.

Sasha blinked her innocent eyes and asked,

“Master, did you have something to say to me?”

“Sasha, do you perhaps have a boyfriend?”

“…I don’t.”

In an instant, Sasha’s expression turned sullen, her cheeks soft like glutinous rice cakes.

“Why? People your age are all doing it.”

“I was too busy!”

“Hmm.”

Of course, it wasn’t entirely untrue.

Running the Magic Tower at a young age, going all over the place to take requests just to fill its empty coffers.

Because of her incompetent master, she must not have had much time to play like others.

‘But even in the middle of war, love still blooms.’

Having witnessed countless such cases himself, claiming to be too busy to date was just an excuse.

“You say you were busy until now, but don’t you have a bit of time these days?”

“That’s…”

“Should your master find you someone decent?”

“Eek, no! I’ll handle it myself!”

Letting out a shriek, Sasha ran far away as if she didn’t want to talk anymore.

“Huh.”

They say when a daughter grows up, she won’t even have conversations like this with her father—he felt like he understood that sentiment now.

Though he felt a bit upset and disappointed, Oscar soon shrugged.

‘Well, maybe it’s for the best.’

Sasha might be twenty-six, but she was still a kid—a kid.

Better that than her getting caught by some useless bastard and crying her eyes out.

“……”

Just imagining it made him angry.

If there was anyone who made Sasha cry, he’d hunt them down to the ends of hell and punish them.

Then his thoughts turned to Lloyd.

‘That guy Lloyd must have dated, right?’

He was at an age where it wouldn’t be strange at all for him to start a family.

If he had never met a woman even once until now, that would be serious.

‘This won’t do.’

Once he returned to the White Tower, Oscar would immediately find him a suitable bride.

No sooner had he started forming that plan than Sasha, who had gone far off, came running back.

“Master! I found him! Lord Ado Vail!”

“Let’s go.”

Following her up the sand dune, they saw an oasis below.

“An oasis.”

“It looks like he’s coming up after quenching his thirst.”

Just as she said, his master was walking up from the oasis together with his wife.

His face hadn’t changed much from when they saw him in the previous rift.

However, his achievements as a mage had deepened further—he seemed to have reached the late stage of Level 7.

“Looks like quite some time has passed again.”

“But the two of them still seem just as close.”

Walking behind, his master matched his pace to his wife’s.

Every time she glanced back, he smiled at her, making it clear just how much he loved her.

‘He said spatial rifts were embarrassing… is it because of scenes like this?’

Even for himself, showing his disciples a lovey-dovey romance from his prime would be mortifying.

“They look happy.”

“I agree. Still, we have to do what we came here for.”

“…Master, you sound like a villain.”

Ignoring Sasha’s quiet complaint, Oscar sprinted across the sand dune.

Shhhaaak!

Sliding down the sand, his master noticed him and hurriedly stepped in front of his wife.

‘Teach me once more.’

As Oscar grabbed the threads of space and pulled, interference came as expected.

The diligent disciple repeated exactly what he had learned in the previous rift.

‘If the thread breaks…’

He pulled in nearby threads and connected them.

As the disappearing thread was restored, his master’s eyebrow twitched.

In the previous rift, that had been the end—the rift collapsed.

‘Now then, how will you respond this time?’

Receiving Oscar’s challenging gaze, his master stretched out his hand.

At the same time—shhhhk!

With a tearing sound, a square space enclosed the thread he was holding.

‘This is…’

A spatial rift?

He created another rift inside the rift?

Perhaps because of that, no matter how much force he applied, the thread wouldn’t budge.

‘It won’t move! Has the thread itself been fixed to a specific coordinate?’

Unfortunately, there was no time to think further.

Shhhhk!

A spatial slash flew toward him.

“Tch.”

Kicking off the sand, he shot up into the air—BOOOOM!

The spot where he had been exploded, sand scattering in all directions.

The grains of sand gathered together midair and launched a second attack at him.

‘Sand gathered using the wind.’

The textbook example of a sand cutter.

Oscar concentrated mana into one hand and deflected the incoming blades of sand with the back of his hand.

KWAANG!

Each grain that burst with a thunderous sound became imbued with his mana.

That massive quantity of sand now poured down on Ado Bale like a barrage of bullets.

“%!#…… @$#!@.”

As expected, he couldn’t understand his master’s muttering.

While his master blocked the attack by unfolding a spatial barrier, Oscar moved back to the fixed thread.

“Hup!”

He poured mana into his fist and struck the rift.

KWAANG!

But despite the loud noise, the spatial rift didn’t budge.

‘Yeah… figures.’

He understood one thing.

Even using brute force with mana, attacks like this couldn’t break a rift.

If it were possible, spatial rifts wouldn’t have remained in the White Tower for hundreds of years.

‘Then it has to be spatial magic.’

Only the power of space itself could break space.

The moment that thought crossed his mind—shhhhk!

Another spatial blade grazed the top of his head.

If he had been even a moment slower, his neck would have been severed.

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Oscar swallowed as he watched his master unleash those attacks.

‘So that’s the spatial slash Master mentioned.’

A magic said to require at least Level 8 mana and understanding to use.

Naturally, it was something he couldn’t even dream of learning back at Starlight Mountain.

And honestly, even now he didn’t understand its principles.

‘All spatial magic begins and ends with pulling the threads of space.’

But all one could do by pulling threads was push or pull space itself.

In other words, it was a very crude method—fine manipulation like forming blades shouldn’t be possible.

‘Master said there was no benefit in learning that principle too early, so he didn’t teach it. He said I’d understand when the time came.’

He had assumed he would learn it within this rift—was this what he meant by learning it?

Oscar bit his lip and focused on his master.

Shhhhk!

Once again, a spatial slash flew toward him.

“Ugh!”

Dodging it by a hair’s breadth, Oscar shielded his eyes in preparation for the imminent explosion of sand.

And in that fleeting instant, what entered his vision was the color of the blade.

‘Black.’

That endless abyss seemed strangely familiar.

In fact, it was a fairly recent memory.

‘…A spatial rift?’

The moment Oscar recalled the crude rift he had created—

KWAANG!

His body, caught in the explosion along with the sand, was flung backward.

“Cough! Ptoo, ptoo!”

Spitting out the sand that had filled his mouth, Oscar rinsed it with 『Water』 and stood up.

‘Yes… I think I’m getting it.’

His mind was moving faster than ever.

That spatial blade—his master had created it, but probably not intentionally.

‘He must have been like me.’

One day, he must have realized by chance that connecting threads could create a spatial rift.

And while pondering how to use it, he likely thought of applying it as an attack.

‘But to confirm this hypothesis, there’s one thing I need to check.’

When he created an incomplete rift, the surrounding space distorted and that abyss appeared.

But around his master, nothing like that could be seen.

‘Maybe…’

Perhaps that was why the spatial slashes always fell from above.

The moment that thought reached its conclusion and Oscar looked to the sky—

Crack!

Space distorted, forming an incomplete rift.

And that pointed rift shot toward him at the speed of light.

‘Bingo.’

Dodging the slash, Oscar also grabbed the threads of space.

First, he gathered as many surrounding threads as possible to form a spatial rift.

‘And the empty region created as a byproduct.’

That was the material and essence of the spatial slash.

He immediately pulled the threads and fired them at high speed.

Shhhaaaak!

As a spatial slash flew toward him, his master’s eyes widened slightly.

Of course, his master tore apart space and blocked it immediately.

“That’s it.”

Their goal wasn’t to defeat his master, but to close the rift.

The second spatial slash perfectly shattered the rift that had been trapping the thread.

Seeing this, both Oscar and his master used 『Blink』 at the same time, reaching for the thread.

“Sorry.”

No matter how close to infinite mana one had, a spatial rift couldn’t be destroyed.

But if it was a person, that was a different story.

KWAaaaaaang!

The overwhelming mana created a storm that swept across the desert, blowing his master away.

Watching that, Oscar leisurely pulled the thread of space.

* * *

When the third spatial rift was closed, the campus of the 36th floor expanded.

“At this rate, we could build three more buildings.”

“Yeah. We could even make a decent academy.”

Looking down at the site, now twice its original size, Oscar spoke.

“Let’s call it a day.”

“Are you tired?”

“A bit. But that’s not why we’re stopping.”

Only two spatial rifts remained.

But what he had learned today alone was already more than enough to study.

“Each time we enter a new rift, the difficulty is increasing exponentially.”

Just looking at his master’s level—

He had only been Level 6 in the first rift, but in the third, he was already at the late stage of Level 7.

Then it would be reasonable to assume that in the next rift, he would be Level 8.

“You’ll need to refine the spatial slash you learned this time if you want a better chance in the next rift.”

Compared to his master’s, his spatial slash was too blunt and too small.

It was likely because he wasn’t yet proficient at creating spatial rifts.

“…It’s a bit of a shame. It felt like we were traveling together, just the two of us.”

“I enjoyed it too. Thanks to you, I gained an important hint.”

Oscar said as he patted Sasha’s head.

“I’ll ask for your help again if I need it.”

“Of course. I’m always on your side, Master!”

Watching her return to her duties, Oscar stepped into his subspace.

‘Layering… three layers should be enough.’

Inside, he spent a hundred days refining nothing but the spatial slash.

When only a single day had passed in real time, Oscar finally challenged the fourth rift.

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