Chapter 214 – Philosopher’s Stone (7)
Yeon-woo nodded in understanding. If it was Victoria, she would definitely be a great help.
She was a rune magician who was widely known throughout the Tower. Also, she was one of the top 5 artisans.
She probably had a lot of knowledge in different areas, so she would definitely be helpful in creating the Philosopher’s Stone.
[And we’re struggling to put the energy source inside the Philosopher’s Stone because there’s no specific method to make it steady. But wouldn’t there be a way to do that with runes?]
She was right.
However, there was a single problem.
“If possible, I want to contact her too, but I still don’t know where she is. How would I do that?”
After the commotion on the 20th floor, Yeon-woo searched for information about Kahn and Victoria, but he didn’t make any progress.
How would he find Victoria amidst all this?
[I’m not too sure. But there is a way.]
“What?”
[There’s a teacher who taught Victoria spells. She learned rune magic by herself, but she learned spells from someone else. If Victoria was trying to hide herself, it’s likely she went in that direction.]
Yeon-woo frowned.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
[I didn’t remember it until now. It just randomly popped into my head as I was thinking about Victoria. Sorry about that.]
His connection with Rebecca told him she was telling the truth. However, it seemed like there was something she was hiding as well.
But Yeon-woo didn’t ask anymore. Since she was only a vestige of her former self, her memories were muddled. It was a relief she was able to remember it now.
Furthermore, Rebecca was bound to Yeon-woo, but she hadn’t completely opened up to him.
Considering how Rebecca and Victoria were close on the Five Mountains of Penances, it seemed possible that Victoria would’ve told Rebecca what she would do in case of an emergency.
However, Rebecca had forgotten since a long time had passed since then.
“Where can I find that teacher?”
The moment Yeon-woo heard Rebecca’s answer—
“What?”
Yeon-woo scrunched his nose.
***
“So you’re saying there’s a great sorcerer here. I can’t believe it.”
“Haha! It’s just nice here. What’s the problem! Wowww. Hey, look at that. It’s incredible. Look at their curves.”
“Do you wanna die?”
Edora narrowed her eyes at Phante. But Phante just turned away from her and looked around him.
In the area where night was settled, there were red buildings, and in front of them, there were women who were wearing quite revealing clothes.
Where they were was a pretty famous entertainment district. There was all kinds of prostitution, night clubs, and even drugs.
Of course, Edora didn’t feel comfortable here. Even though they said that there were places for women to enjoy as well, she didn’t like it. They were too direct and uncivilized. The street filled with all kinds of desire was unpleasant.
But still, the reason why she came here was because of one person.
Edora glanced at the person standing indifferently next to her.
Yeon-woo was wearing his black mask, having a careless stance.
Was it because of his toned body or his firm eyes? Some women looked seductively towards Yeon-woo, and others even grabbed his sleeves.
But Yeon-woo didn’t move. He just brushed them away like they were annoying.
As time went on, more people gathered, amused with his reaction, but Yeon-woo just firmly stood there.
While Edora thought it was a relief Yeon-woo was like that, she ground her teeth thinking of the person who was late to their promised meeting.
Actually, this kind of environment wasn’t unfamiliar to Yeon-woo.
Back in Africa, the soldiers who worked under him like to release their tension through various ways. Being in charge of them, he also went with them, but he never really enjoyed it.
At the time, he had been dating someone, and he didn’t understand why people liked this. His subordinates had asked Yeon-woo if he was a prude, but Yeon-woo didn’t care.
But on the other hand, it didn’t mean that he felt uncomfortable, like Edora did.
People lived all kinds of lives. Like other places, this was also just a place where humans lived, and Yeon-woo didn’t care too much about that. All he was interested in was the fact that there was a sorcerer somewhere here.
‘A sorcerer…..’
It had almost been a year since Yeon-woo entered the Tower. During that time, he had met countless players, but never a sorcerer.
That was how rare a sorcerer was, but it was also because their area of magic was only a small part of the field.
Most people considered sorcery to be under the category of magic, but this was a topic that the sorcerers and magicians frequently argued about.
Magicians take their magic from the mana stream, but sorcerers borrow their power from spiritual beings.
That was why magicians belittled sorcerers, saying they were just servants who couldn’t do anything by themselves, and sorcerers looked down on magicians for not being able to see the true worth of their power.
There were different kinds of sorcery, but the principle of it all was that they borrowed strength from spiritual beings.
In a way, there were similar to apostles, who borrowed the strength of gods, or black magicians, who signed contracts with the demons, but it was also different.
Apostles and black magicians were somewhat limited, but the sorcerers borrowed their strength from all kinds of beings. There were cases when they used the power from beings that weren’t gods or demons as well.
However, because they weren’t bound to just one place, they also had clear limits, and it was difficult for them to pass down the power through their families. Also, it was hard to succeed. There were almost no sorcerers who had come from a sorcerer family.
If it was the person who Victoria had learned from, Yeon-woo should’ve heard of them at least once as well, but the problem was that no one came to his mind.
‘Just who is it?’
Of course, it could be someone he or his brother didn’t know. The history of the Tower was long; there were countless skilled people.
However, if it was really someone who lived here, like Rebecca said, it was likely that they would have a personality that was hard to deal with, so he would have to pay special care.
‘And it seems like people have started to guess who I am.’
The Large Clans had probably heard he had left the One-horned tribe’s village. He didn’t have to be wary of them, but there was no reason to become tied up with them either.
Just then.
“Mm? What’s that?”
“I think it’s them.”
Phante and Edora turned their gazes. From far away, a crowd of people was rushing at them.
The annoying prostitutes who had been roaming around Yeon-woo all frantically ran away.
The servers and the customers all lowered their eyes to the ground and went somewhere else.
Phante and Edora’s expressions turned strange. They didn’t expect the loud entertainment district would suddenly turn so cold. It seemed like those guys were in charge of this place.
“H, Have you come?”
But the same guys were busy bowing in front of Yeon-woo.
The Night Watch. After being defeated by Yeon-woo a while ago, they had become his hunting dogs.
Yeon-woo smirked, looking at the clan leader Bicester and the guys behind him, his arms still crossed.
“It seems your group has become larger.”
“J, Just enough to get b, by.”
Bicester was trying to appease Yeon-woo in case he said something weird. With outstanding subordinates, he was treated as a king in this district, but Yeon-woo was still too scary to him.
And after finding out that the commotion on the 23rd floor was centered around Yeon-woo, the guy in front of him seemed like a monster now.
But Yeon-woo just spoke like he didn’t care about Bicester’s gaze on him.
“What I asked for?”
“W, We found the location. B, But the place i, is a bit…..”
Bicester hesitated to speak,
“Take the lead.”
But Yeon-woo just nodded.
Bicester shut his eyes tight, knowing there wasn’t anything else he could do.
“Follow me.”
As Bicester took the lead, the bustling entertainment district split like the Red Sea of Moses. Yeon-woo and the other quietly followed him.
“How do you know these people?”
“Things happened.”
Edora carefully asked, but Yeon-woo just avoided the question since it wasn’t easy to answer.
The place that Bicester took them to was the building undergoing the most development in the district.
It seemed like Bicester had let them know in advance, because the workers at the door whispered in Bicester’s ears when they got there.
“T, The person you asked about is waiting on the 8th floor…..”
The 8th floor was the top of the building. Bicester had rented the entire building. Yeon-woo told his party to wait a bit, and he took the stairs to the 8th floor.
But this place seemed a bit different from the rest of the entertainment district. All the workers were men. Young and handsome. And all flowery-looking.
And there was a thick smell of drugs coming from somewhere, making the air heavy.
The smell got worse as he went higher, and when he arrived on the 8th floor, he thought his nose was going to rot.
Kwang!
Yeon-woo burst the door open with annoyance. All he was thinking about was to look for Victoria and return.
Bicester had already told them he was going to be there, but it seemed like they didn’t care.
It was worse than he expected instead.
There was a sleeping woman hugging beautiful young boys and girls who looked to be barely 10, and there was only a robe draped around her body.
Smoke continued to flow out from somewhere and the room was foggy.
Yeon-woo narrowed his eyes.
He was reminded of Hanbin from the 16th floor.
[It’s a mess.]
[Why? It’s a feast to my eyes. Hehehe.]
Hanryeong spoke of his dissatisfaction, agreeing with Yeon-woo. On the other hand, Shanon continued to giggle looking at the woman’s curves.
Yeon-woo stomped a foot into the ground.
Kung!
As he did, magic power flooded out, shaking the entire building. The candle where the spoke was coming from broke, and the people who had been deep in sleep woke up.
“Who…..are you?”
The women got up weakly. The robe slid down, but she didn’t seem to care. Her seductive eyes looked Yeon-woo up and down.
“Hng. I don’t particularly have a mask fetish. And I didn’t call for you. Is this on the house? Well, it seems like you have a nice body, so I’ll accept it this once.”
The women smiled, and patted the ground next to her. Her eyes were cloudy from the drugs, but it added to her captivating charm.
Did she have a seducing spell on?
Yeon-woo felt the sudden urge to run at the woman. To feel her skin against his and throw her against the ground. His annoyance from the drugs turned into desire instantaneously. He wanted to extinguish his fury with heat.
[The ‘Cold Blooded’ trait is keeping you level-headed.]
[You have gained a resistance to Seduction. You have gained a strong immunity to the spell.]
But the spell was flicked out by his trait, and the woman’s eyes widened.
“You’re Anastasia, right?”
“You know me?”
“I’m looking for Victoria.”
That moment.
Hwak!
Anastasia’s blurry eyes flashed with murderous intent, and the smoke in the air suddenly turned to strange creatures. They ran at Yeon-woo with their sharp teeth bared.
It was all so sudden, but Yeon-woo had expected his much, so he activated the skill he had prepared beforehand.
[The 3rd Soul]
[72 Bian – Byuk]
Souls poured out of his Black Bracelet and made a wall. With a Bian added on top of that, the wall was sturdy.
Thanks to his continuous training even while he had been researching the Philosopher’s Stone, the strong spell attack wasn’t able to pierce his wall.
But Anastasia just snorted, like it didn’t matter, and powerfully brought her hands down.
As she did, the smoke gathered to create a large sword and fell on top of Yeon-woo’s head. It was to cut the wall of souls that Yeon-woo made.
Circulating his Magic Circuit, Yeon-woo also pulled his Magic Bayonet out. He had already been annoyed from the seduction and the drugs. He didn’t like how she was attacking him just because he had asked about Victoria.
He was planning on suppressing her first.
Kwang!
With a large explosion, all of the 8th floor was flown away. The attack was shifted so it wouldn’t sweep away the beautiful boys and girls, but he couldn’t avoid blowing away the ceiling of the 8th floor.
Above the dust that was floating up into the air, Yeon-woo and Anastasia soared up and landed on the rooftops of different buildings.
Hwaaaak!
Yeon-woo spread his wings of fire apart and wrapped Holy Fire around his Magic Bayonet.
Then, he glowered in front of him with a crumpled face. His hand was still shaking. It meant that she was a skilled player.
Anastasia was also glaring at Yeon-woo from above with her pretty face.
But as her robe fluttered in the air, revealing the line of her body, it added to her sexual atmosphere.
Behind Anastasia, smoke gathered to create a large figure. It was a shadow that was tens of meters long. It stood on 4 legs, and looked like a fox with 9 tails.
It was a Gumiho.
Out of all the Legendary Beasts, it was the most powerful.
Was Anastasia borrowing the power of the Gumiho, or was she the Gumiho itself?
He didn’t know, but the monstrous energy from the Gumiho was mixing with Anastasia’s spells. The atmosphere shook, and Yeon-woo was getting ready for something that he couldn’t see.
Just when Yeon-woo was wondering if he should reveal his dragon form—
“Both of you, stop!”
Just then, something fell in between them. As the shadow opened, Victoria came out with a shout.
For a moment, Yeon-woo wasn’t able to recognize her.
Her white hair and dark eyes. And she had a weaker body and a raspy voice. Victoria looked worse than when they split on the Five Mountains of Penances.