10 Hours Ago – Base Sudden Event.
The maze of the “Avatar Survival Game.”
During his battle with Yoo Ara, Kim Chang-hyun cast a spell and released it directly onto the wall.
KWAANG!
The spell’s impact collapsed the wall, and from behind it emerged Kim Sunwoo, who had been hiding.
“…I didn’t expect you to have detection abilities.”
Kim Sunwoo muttered quietly with a startled expression.
Yoo Ara, spotting Kim Sunwoo, narrowed her eyes.
“Kim Sunwoo?”
Caught off guard by Kim Sunwoo’s sudden appearance, Yoo Ara began drawing up her mana in case of a surprise attack.
She had already consumed much of her mana in the fight with Kim Chang-hyun, and even a moment’s carelessness could cost her against Kim Sunwoo.
Kim Sunwoo, likewise, shifted into combat stance as soon as he was exposed.
There was no avoiding battle now that he had been discovered.
And with Yoo Ara already worn down from continuous combat, this was the perfect opportunity.
Kim Sunwoo charged straight at Yoo Ara.
Flash!
In response, Yoo Ara calmly cast a curtain of flames.
She already knew that Kim Sunwoo, despite being a manifestation-type mage, enjoyed close combat. Having studied him for a long time, she could predict his moves to some extent.
BOOOM—!
Centered on Yoo Ara’s body, the wall of flames expanded widely.
The barrier not only blocked magic but also forcefully repelled anything approaching.
Kim Sunwoo’s body was pushed back by the rapidly spreading flames.
“…Hoo.”
Yoo Ara exhaled, watching him get pushed back.
It was a close call.
She had predicted that he would charge, but experiencing it firsthand, his speed was far greater than she expected.
Had she been even 0.5 seconds slower, she would’ve been hit hard by Kim Sunwoo’s magic.
Though it was her first time facing him, the pressure he gave was no different from battling Lee Seo-jun.
…I don’t want to lose.
Not to Lee Seo-jun, not to Kim Sunwoo.
I absolutely don’t want to lose—but I’ve already spent too much mana fighting Kim Chang-hyun.
At this rate, I’ll run out of mana and lose soon.
The thought filled her with frustration.
If only she could face Kim Sunwoo at her best, she might at least accept defeat.
Yoo Ara glanced toward Kim Chang-hyun.
He was still silently observing with an unreadable expression.
Unlike her, he seemed composed and calm, which only irritated her further.
At that moment, Kim Sunwoo charged at her again.
Why is he only attacking me?!
Yoo Ara tried to cast the curtain again, but then Kim Sunwoo suddenly stopped and conjured a magical sphere in his hand.
The energy within the sphere grew stronger and stronger.
Kim Sunwoo’s signature technique—compressed manifestation—had begun.
…He got me.
Yoo Ara, still maintaining her barrier, felt a sense of doom.
If she dismissed the barrier to cast her own spell, Kim Sunwoo would immediately fire that compressed sphere at her.
But if she continued to hold the barrier, it would likely be unable to withstand his growing spell for long.
Her mana might even run out before that.
If only I were better with reinforcement type magic…
She might have been able to dismiss the shield and dodge instead.
Or if only she could use dual-form manifestation.
Regret surged—but there was nothing she could do.
Eventually, as time passed, Yoo Ara reached her mana limit and let the barrier fade.
As if waiting for that moment, Kim Sunwoo unleashed his spell.
BOOM—!
The compressed magical sphere shot toward Yoo Ara at high speed.
With her mana depleted, she couldn’t respond in time.
Yoo Ara was struck by the spell and vanished into dust.
“Hoo.”
Kim Sunwoo let out a breath of relief as he watched her disappear.
Thanks to Kim Chang-hyun quietly observing, he was able to take one down quickly.
Now only Kim Chang-hyun, the top third-year student, remained.
Kim Sunwoo drew up his mana once more and prepared to fight.
Kim Chang-hyun stared at him before casting a spell.
Crackle…
A spear made of lightning began forming in Kim Chang-hyun’s hand.
The spear stretched longer and longer until it became a full-length lance.
BOOM!
The lightning spear launched toward Kim Sunwoo.
Kim Sunwoo fired a sphere of magic to intercept it.
KWAANG!
Magic clashed mid-air, and a wave of energy swept past both their bodies.
Then—
Kim Sunwoo charged straight at Kim Chang-hyun. He had no reason to drag this out.
But Kim Chang-hyun, worthy of being the top student, narrowly dodged the assault.
At that moment, Kim Sunwoo activated “Instant Acceleration.”
His body suddenly blurred forward, closing the distance to Kim Chang-hyun in a flash.
Even an S-rank mage would find it difficult to react in that brief moment.
A 19-year-old like Kim Chang-hyun had no chance to respond.
Just then—
Crackklee!!
A powerful current surged from Kim Chang-hyun’s entire body.
“Kh!”
Kim Sunwoo flinched and retreated, feeling his body get shocked.
Even though his resistance had increased since learning the lightning element, his entire body still tingled.
Kim Sunwoo stared at Kim Chang-hyun with a hint of doubt.
Lightning-type magic consumed more mana than most other elements.
And to emit unrefined lightning throughout one’s body like that required a tremendous amount of mana.
“…”
He had thought Kim Chang-hyun spent most of his mana fighting Yoo Ara.
But judging by this, he had at least as much—if not more—mana than Yoo Ara.
And his expression still looked relaxed.
Suddenly, a strange thought crossed Kim Sunwoo’s mind.
That Kim Chang-hyun might be testing him.
He didn’t know why he felt that way.
But the idea kept nagging at him from deep within.
It was odd that Kim Chang-hyun had just stood there watching during the earlier battle.
…It’s probably just my imagination.
As if he would be testing me. That must be nerves talking.
This is a battle for base control—there’s no reason for him to hold back.
Shaking the thought off, Kim Sunwoo quickly manifested a sphere to keep him in check.
Kim Chang-hyun easily blocked it with a shield and countered with another lightning spear.
Kim Sunwoo realized that this sort of clean-cut, technical exchange wouldn’t work.
Kim Chang-hyun had flawless fundamentals in both offense and defense.
Of course, Kim Sunwoo wasn’t lacking in fundamentals himself.
But he preferred close combat or psychological tactics to throw off his opponent.
To do that, he needed to close the distance.
If only he could use “Heart of Nature” or “Fighting Spirit,” the fight would be much easier.
But he had to save those until after capturing the base and unleashing the “Rain of Mana.”
So there was only one way.
He had to keep draining Kim Chang-hyun’s mana until it ran dry.
Kim Sunwoo charged again.
Kim Chang-hyun responded by firing multiple lightning spears to keep him at bay.
Kim Sunwoo countered by either shooting them down or dodging with enhanced movement.
As the distance closed, Kim Chang-hyun once more released lightning across his entire body.
Crackklee!!
“Ghhk!”
Kim Sunwoo stepped back again, staring at Kim Chang-hyun with a stunned look.
He still had enough mana left to release like that?
Without showing any signs of exhaustion, Kim Chang-hyun launched another attack on Kim Sunwoo.
Still, perhaps he couldn’t use mana as freely as before—there was a noticeable decrease in the amount of electricity he was manifesting.
Roughly three minutes passed like that.
Soon, the cooldown for ‘Instant Acceleration’ had returned.
Kim Sunwoo charged at Kim Chang-hyun, pretending as usual to initiate close combat.
Just as Kim Chang-hyun prepared to release electricity throughout his entire body again to block Kim Sunwoo’s approach—
Kim Sunwoo came to an abrupt stop and activated Instant Acceleration.
In the same instant, his body burst forward at explosive speed.
He reached Kim Chang-hyun’s face in a flash, manifested an orb, and rammed it straight into Chang-hyun’s stomach.
Boom!
Kim Chang-hyun’s body crumbled into dust and vanished on the spot.
After much back and forth, Kim Sunwoo had won the battle.
“Hoo…”
Thinking back on the battle, it was a rather anticlimactic ending.
Still, in a magical world where skill gaps widen dramatically with each passing year, the abilities of Kim Chang-hyun—ranked first among third-years—were by no means inferior to Lee Seo-jun’s.
Sunwoo decided to be satisfied with his victory, even if it came without the Heart of Nature or any desperate struggle.
“…So the only ones left are Choi Seo-yoon and Jeon Min-gi?”
There was no time to relax. Kim Sunwoo quickly set off to find them.
Time passed, and Kim Sunwoo emerged victorious in the base’s surprise event: “Avatar Survival Game.”
When the event ended, he found himself back on the fourth floor.
In his hand was a golden ticket that would take him to the next floor.
To seize control of the base, he needed to reach the fifth floor—this confirmed his control.
Feeling reassured that things were going according to plan, Sunwoo didn’t waste any time and poured mana into the ticket.
Wuuuung…
The ticket absorbed his mana and began to glow, dyeing the surrounding space in golden light.
Soon, the ticket crumbled like dust, reassembling before him into the shape of a small door.
“Oh ho.”
Kim Sunwoo opened the door.
[You have entered the 5th Floor.]
He had finally arrived on the fifth floor, where the base’s control room was located.
The fifth floor looked a bit unique—as if it were an old, worn-down control room from somewhere else.
Then, suddenly, the surroundings changed completely.
Kim Sunwoo looked around.
A pure white space.
Unlike the cosmic space he had seen during the “Trial of Soul Stone” at Eunwol Clan, the color was opposite, but the atmosphere felt eerily similar.
Sunwoo instinctively realized—
This space had been created by Mystery.
[Sorry. I startled you by calling you out suddenly, didn’t I?]
Something with a black figure appeared in the white space.
It looked exactly like the Mystery he had seen at Eunwol Clan.
“…Are you Mystery?”
[Mystery? Ah, that’s what you humans call us, right? Yes, I’m Mystery. You catch on really fast, huh?]
Mystery giggled as it spoke.
Kim Sunwoo stared at it intently.
Like the one he had met at Eunwol Clan, this Mystery had a childlike demeanor.
“Why did you call me?”
[Just curiosity. The ‘chaos’ inside you is so intense. By the way, you don’t even seem surprised by this sudden summons.]
Just like before, this Mystery also spoke in ways that were hard to understand.
“…If you don’t have anything to say, send me back. I’m busy with a test right now.”
At his words, Mystery shook its head.
[Don’t worry. Time in this place flows differently from the world you live in, so it won’t be a problem.]
“Really?”
Kim Sunwoo learned something new.
He decided to take the opportunity to ask something that had always intrigued him—something that hadn’t appeared in the original work.
“I’ve got a question. Mind if I ask?”
[What are you curious about? Depending on the question, I might charge a fee for the information.]
“Do you Mysteries each have different powers?”
[I can answer that for free. Yes. We are one, yet also different. Naturally, our powers differ too.]
So each Mystery had different types of authority.
This virtual world might’ve been created using the power of one of those Mysteries—likely with the aid of a “Sacred Relic.”
If that were true, then the Mystery before him was probably a higher-tier entity.
“Then… you must be pretty powerful?”
[You could say I belong to the higher ranks.]
“Hm.”
Kim Sunwoo nodded.
“Then what powers do you guys actually have?”
[Can’t tell you that. If you want to know, you’ll have to pay an info fee.]
“What do you want?”
[Let’s see… Ah! Give me the soul of a human who has ten times your mana. Then I’ll tell you.]
Kim Sunwoo frowned.
A human with ten times his mana?
Even a top-tier S-rank mage wouldn’t be able to provide that easily.
[Why? Don’t want to?]
“Isn’t there something else?”
[Then… how about 1,000 humans who’ve lived more than 70 years?]
Deals with Mysteries always involved bizarre terms like this.
Especially when the information was something only a Mystery could know, the price got even more weird and incomprehensible.
But in the original novel, someone had actually paid such a bizarre price to obtain information.
Back then, reading about it didn’t feel like much.
But now that he was facing it in real life, all he could think was: “That guy was absolutely insane.”
“Forget it. I’m not curious anymore.”
[If you don’t want to, can’t be helped.]
The Mystery scratched its head as if disappointed.
[Ah, right. By the way, who was that guy fighting you in the maze earlier?]
The Mystery’s question made Kim Sunwoo tilt his head.
The one fighting him… did it mean Yoo Ara?
“Yoo Ara?”
[No, not her. The one like you—someone whose origin is unreadable.]
…Someone like him, whose origin can’t be seen?
“What are you talking about?”
Kim Sunwoo asked, his voice suddenly more serious.
The Mystery, however, looked surprised.
[You don’t know?]
“I don’t. Explain in a way I can understand.”
[There’s someone else like you, whose origin is unreadable. Though, if you look closely, there is a slight difference.]
“What kind of difference?”
[You’re truly chaos itself—empty and unknowable. But that one gives off a faint sense of familiarity to us.]
Kim Sunwoo’s expression turned cold.
He couldn’t grasp the full meaning, but he had a vague idea of what it might be pointing at.
“Who are you talking about?”
[Kim Chang-hyun, maybe? I meant that guy.]
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