The Hero Returns

* * *

Prince Nezha and Gluttony.

These two happened to be the best out of all the summons Su-hyeun currently possessed.

The energy source maintaining these two already-dead beings was none other than the “Death Aura,” the energy that killed the living but brought the dead back to life.

Just like how a car needed an engine and fuel to operate, Su-hyeun’s summons needed Death Aura as their medium to bring their powers to life.

In that case…

“What will happen if my summoned creatures directly acquire Death Aura?”

Su-hyeun wouldn’t experience all that great of an effect by consuming the potions, anyway. It was unrealistic to expect his stat to improve past a certain point with only potions, and besides, this idea did warrant a confirmation.

Split—

Tuk—

Plop—

Gulp—

Prince Nezha popped open the lid of the bottle and drank its content, while Gluttony simply swallowed up the bottles.

When nothing notable happened to both of them, Su-hyeun could only make a disappointed face.

“Maybe letting these summons, who aren’t even alive, to begin with, drink these potions wasn’t the wisest gamble…”

Hiss, sizzzzle—

Shu, shushu—

However, the transformation happened a beat later than Su-hyeun had anticipated.

Black smokes began rising up all around Gluttony and Prince Nezha’s bodies. At the same time, the flesh attached to the latter’s body became much more substantial.

Prince Nezha’s application rate for Dead Summoning was too low, and he remained all skin and bones until now, which gave the impression that he was destined to never regain his original looks back when he was still alive.

Not only that but some parts of him also had no flesh whatsoever, with bones left exposed for all to see.

Yet, his body had almost regained his former appearance.

The same thing happened for Gluttony as well.

Other than its mountainous physique, Gluttony’s appearance had been truly pitiful until now. It used to look like a gigantic bull, but after becoming Su-hyeun’s summon, it ended up looking like a starving, emaciated calf instead.

But now, it was regaining its former appearance.

“It really worked.”

He did think there was some possibility of success, but he didn’t feel confident about it.

Thankfully, the end result was good enough for him to not regret using up the potions in this way.

The two summons with comparatively low application rates had now almost regained 100% of their former appearances.

And just maybe…

“It might be possible to exceed this state,” he thought.

To find out, he needed a lot more of this potion.

Su-hyeun quickly turned his head toward Ellid, and the moment he was subjected under that intense gaze, the latter understood what the former wanted from him.

“Hey, are you asking me to go and kill myself?”

“Oh…” Su-hyeun belatedly recalled the state Ellid had ended up in while making these four bottles of potion and could only smile sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s true that you were a great help anyway, so no need to sweat over it.”

“I see. In any case, when will the bastard make its move again?”

“No matter how much of a lazy bastard it is, I’m sure it’ll start moving around again when its hunger grows too big.”

“Meaning, there’s no way of finding out?”

“Hey, even though I’m a genius, that’s not something I can calculate, you know.”

“That’s not something you should say about yourself, though.”

“Well, I got fed up with other people calling me that, you see. Besides, I’m not wrong, anyway.”

Su-hyeun chuckled at Ellid’s reply.

He wasn’t thinking of disputing that fact, anyway. The level of ability Ellid had shown so far was simply too amazing for that.

“In that case, how about you use your amazing ability for me once more?”

“You want me to keep teaching you magic?” asked Ellid after staring into Su-hyeun’s eyes.

For some reason, Su-hyeun seemed to be a lot more eager than before as he replied, “Time is more precious than gold, isn’t it? Especially more so now.”

Su-hyeun didn’t try to deny it. In all honesty, he was pressed for time, more so than ever before.

The length of time he could learn magic from Ellid was already set in stone, and he might not get to meet Ellid ever again after this trial was over.

And before that time came, Su-hyeun had a need to learn as much about magic as possible from him.

“Whatever the case may be, magic is somehow related to skills,” he said inwardly.

He had created a skill. Although it was only one, since it did happen, creating two more or even three shouldn’t be impossible now.

And if he got to figure out the basis of how a skill was created, then maybe, just maybe, he might get to unravel the secret behind the “system” applied to not just Su-hyeun but also countless other awakeners out there.

“You sure do look really motivated, fella.”

Ellid got up from his spot and dusted his hands, and then, he drew a circle in the air before placing his palm on it. When he did…

Giii-iiing—

“Alright, then.”

The ground below emitted a crimson light, and numerous other magic circles lit up down there.

“Let’s get started right away.”

* * *

Wriggle, wiggle—

A humongous, pitch-black mass was shifting around.

This thing didn’t look like a living creature. Although it writhed in a heartbeat-like pattern, this thing was simply far too large to be seen as a living creature.

Everything from the mountains to the height of the clouds floating in the skies felt tiny compared to this gigantic black mass.

“How…bother…”

Wuuuuong—

A voice coming out from the black mass reverberated throughout the surrounding atmosphere. The black mass stopped wiggling as the voice finished coming out.

“—some…”

Drrrrrip—

Blood dripped down from the black mass.

This stream of blood pooled on the ground, completely blanketing it. It began to writhe like a living being, before morphing into bizarre shapes next—into zombies with pitch-black bodies.

They pushed themselves from off the ground. The volume of the gigantic black mass decreased as much as the amount of blood it had cast off, and its voice also became as smaller.

“But…”

Wriggle—

The black mass began wiggling once more.

At the same time, the zombies born from the “blood” began moving as well to answer the will of the black mass, the predator, and to satisfy the appetite of the exceedingly lazy main body.

“Hun…gry…”

* * *

For a while, Su-hyeun’s daily tasks remained largely the same: stop the horde of zombies rushing in and study magic.

As for Ellid, he taught Su-hyeun magic and created more of those potions with the Death Aura left behind by the zombies.

And so, 10 days passed them by.

“How should I interpret this?”

“Is it illusion-type magic? Again?”

“I thought it’d be a good idea to learn more about them.”

“The magic circles for illusion-type magic are easy to modify. They can exhibit a much stronger effect when the applied will is stronger, too. These types affect one’s brains directly, and it can potentially be the basis for creation-type magic…”

Whenever Su-hyeun asked a question, Ellid quickly resolved the former’s curiosity. His answers displayed an extremely high degree of understanding of the subject matter.

Su-hyeun was far more interested in those magic spells that would make up all of his various lacking points rather than the usual attack-type spells.

And sometimes, he would create a skill after learning the magic in question.

[Skill: “Clockwork” has been acquired.]

[Clockwork]

* Magic level: —

* LV: 1

* Proficiency: 0%

* Either slows or speeds up time in one’s perception. The higher the user’s proficiency, the better the speed of time manipulation will be.

Ellid became intrigued by the skill Su-hyeun had created.

“Magic to manipulate time, huh? It’s not a real manipulation of time like Time Barrier, but even considering that, it’s still a pretty useful spell in its own right.”

Ellid was somewhat surprised by the spell Su-hyeun had managed to cook up.

What he did was, he created a unique spell that interfered with the brain of a living target by combining formulas of various illusion-type magic.

In reality, the magic itself wasn’t all that amazing, but in terms of application, it would surely prove to be a great help to Su-hyeun.

“For sure, this guy has real talent.”

Su-hyeun’s talent that Ellid was thinking of was actually not what one would normally associate that word with.

Su-hyeun’s ability to pour his will into a spell was already highly accomplished, yes, but besides that, his level of understanding of either magic theory or magic circles was simply far too lacking compared to the dragon kind.

So, Su-hyeun’s talent Ellid was thinking of, was this—his application of magic.

“He’s mastering all the spells while thinking about how to utilize them directly in combat. And also…”

Giii-iiing—

Ellid watched Su-hyeun activate the “Clockwork” skill.

“The rate of his magic activation and utilization ability in a handful of spells have become absurdly fast, too.”

Ellid couldn’t figure this part out yet, but that was unsurprising.

Unlike Su-hyeun, Ellid hadn’t detected the existence of the “system” yet.

The magic skill Su-hyeun had created through the system could be used whenever he wanted without resorting to drawing magic circles.

He didn’t even need to remember the magic circle in his mind, too.

What about double or triple casting, then?

As long as he had enough magical energy, firing a barrage of skills wouldn’t be all that difficult, either.

“I’ve mostly figured out how to create new skills by now, so…”

Plop—

Flip—

Su-hyeun sat down and opened the pages of a book.

This tome, which was thicker than the width of his own palm, was a grimoire personally composed by Ellid himself.

It contained the essence of all the magic Ellid had witnessed and mastered over the years, with its original purpose being a textbook during the intensive learning course meant for the dragon race.

“Is it alright for you to freely hand out something like this?”

“You won’t understand everything in it, anyway. And it’s not just for you but for the cub you’re raising, too.”

“Even then—”

“It’s fine. Besides, that’s a copy. If you happen to run into my people again sometime in the future, I want you to deliver that book to them.”

For sure, he discovered plenty of parts he couldn’t understand while reading the book.

The system seemed to be helping him since he didn’t have much trouble with reading and interpreting the contents, but when it came to figuring out the meaning behind each line of a magic circle, methods of combining them, and various magic formulas, it proved to be tougher than all the other problems Su-hyeun had come across so far.

It kind of felt like someone had shoved a whole bunch of university-level mathematics questions in his face when he was only an elementary school student.

“It’s all seriously difficult.”

He opened the book, hoping to get some pointers but he soon closed it shut again.

He then let out a soft groan.

For the time being, he had no choice but to give up on reading other books during his break.

He couldn’t quite remember the last time he studied this diligently before, but from the looks of things, he might have to return to that lifestyle once more.

“…Ng?”

While in the middle of reading the grimoire, Su-hyeun raised his head and stared in a direction.

Thud—

He closed the book’s cover and stood up from the spot, prompting Ellid to turn his head in the same direction as Su-hyeun’s gaze.

Su-hyeun asked, “Didn’t you say that its size is as big as a small country?”

“I did say that.”

Booooom—

Was that the sound of a footstep?

No, wait—it was actually the bastard’s sense of presence. Not a physical sound that one’s ears could hear but the massive pressure and presence the creature gave off caused the sensation.

Those things were heavy enough to make one think that they were actually hearing the sounds.

However…

“However, if that bastard is so huge, we should be able to see him with our own eyes, no?”

“It certainly is strange. To think that we can’t see it even though it’s come so close to our position.”

Boooom—

Its steps were slow, but with every step taken, it came closer by dozens of meters.

Su-hyeun activated the Sage’s Eye and stared into the far-off distance. That’s when he discovered a single black spot in the middle of the empty desert.

It was that creature.

“…Is that the one?”

Ellid replied, “The vibe it’s giving off seems similar…and it feels similar, too, but it now looks different from before.”

“I hope there aren’t several of such creatures out there.”

“No, just one. And you shouldn’t look down too much on a dragon’s gut feeling.”

“Understood. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but…”

Shu-rung—

Step—

Su-hyeun immediately started walking toward the creature.

“As we’ve discussed earlier…”

Grip—

He gripped the sword harder and narrowed his eyes while enveloping himself in a dense killing intent.

“For now, I shall have a go at it by myself first.”