I Got Into School for Nothing - Chapter 286
I Got Into School for Nothing (286)
Lesson 55. The Heart of the Tower - 6
The cluster of talismans, converging in mid-air and transforming into a dragon-like shape with scales bristling backward, radiated an intense aura as it clashed with the tsunami.
And then, as if truly alive, it opened its maw and tore off a large chunk from the center, swallowing it whole!
—Remarkable, my dearest child... But everything will be different this time compared to when we last met!
The Observer of All Things uttered a dramatic voice, and the next moment, before the black tsunami could even be fully unleashed, it exploded.
The talisman cluster, having taken on the form of a dragon, quickly solidified into a robust hexagonal barrier, just as Ban Yuwon had said it specialized in defenses. It successfully prevented the explosion from engulfing the party—
“Ah—it’s eroding! The entire space...!”
“What is this, we’re not even moving to a boss stage.”
The inside of this place, which had maintained a rich natural environment through millennia of magical protection, was entirely dyed black.
It had transformed into a treacherous, murderous tar of curses, ready to swallow the party whole whenever the Observer of All Things desired.
Ban Yuwon was relieved that the "spell" had not been delayed, yet he gasped at the absurd scale of power unleashed by the Observer of All Things, muttering to himself.
‘Infinite field magic is utterly overpowered, seriously.’
And from the center of the explosion, a colossal, gelatinous female giant slowly emerged—
Ban Yuwon had to crane his neck to look up at the giant, which appeared several kilometers tall, so immense that calling it "humanoid" seemed laughable. He murmured:
“On that day, humanity remembered...”
“Won, so when are you going to show us this spell?”
Dokgo Yeon, recognizing his playful tone even in this situation, playfully slapped his shoulder and demanded.
Ban Yuwon chuckled and raised his hand.
“It’s already activated. The condition was to devour a part of the enemy’s body, and the formation of the spell formation is the final step. Now we just have to wait for it to complete.”
“...Ah, that. How did he manage such a high-level spell in such a short time?”
What he pointed to with his finger was the hexagonal barrier spinning rapidly in the air.
Formed in the air just before the tsunami exploded, its edges were made of talismans, and the talismans filling its interior displayed the complex spell formulas written in the grimoire. At its core were two key words: "Human" and "Expulsion."
It wasn't expelling humans.
It was expelling non-human entities.
“Expulsion, or rather, rejection. It’s also used to block energies that are not human. And depending on the magnitude of energy imbued in the spell—”
—Hmm?
Perhaps it was due to her immense size that she was late in noticing the barrier formed by talismans... the spell formation.
The giant, having belatedly confirmed the spell formation that hadn't lost its power even after blocking the tsunami, tried to strike it down with a house-sized palm.
She tried to strike it down, but before she could, she was blocked by the dazzling light emitted by the spell formation.
—Hmph, what can a mere fragment of a Constellation do against my Starlight?
Cellon sneered.
Indeed. Many of the talismans forming the spell formation were Starlight talismans meticulously crafted by Cellon.
As the most outstanding energy in the entire universe for suppressing a Constellation’s power, not even a Constellation itself, let alone an incarnation, could dare to challenge it.
It was a perfect synergy, as if prepared precisely for this moment.
“The compatibility was excellent. A spell that rejects all non-human things, completed through Starlight.”
—Impossible—! I imbued nearly one-tenth of my power into this, yet how? How?!
As the spell formation’s rotation intensified, the giant’s body began to slowly recede.
No, she was even rising into the sky little by little.
The black curse covering the ground also broke off into small fragments, ascending skyward.
The gravity-defying movement was both eerie and mystical.
Would this be what a video of black rain played in reverse would look like?
It was a spectacle that "rejected" everything the Constellation had done by intruding into this space.
“Weren’t we supposed to fight and win?”
“That’s impossible right now. Even driving it away is hard... Ah, Asha. Stab it a bit now. The weaker the opponent, the easier it is to drive them away.”
“Understood. Rucell, let’s go!”
Watching Asha and Rucell soar into the air, launching attacks brimming with their respective auras towards the temporarily defenseless giant, Ban Yuwon closed his eyes tightly and refocused on the spell.
‘The strong will of the spellcaster, the quality of the energy imbued in the spell, the magical meaning of the words forming the spell... It’s fortunate that it aligns with Codeword. Perhaps, when taken to the extreme, all methods of dealing with beings beyond humans become similar.’
The grimoire contained a wide variety of spells, but most of them could be resolved through Ban Yuwon’s Codeword or other Authorities.
However, the core incantations of the grimoire couldn’t be achieved by simply activating a few concepts, and one such incantation was the Expulsion currently underway.
This spell required very strict preconditions to be met. The first was that the target to be expelled had to be an 'alien' being, distinct from the caster.
The second was that the target had to be of a higher rank than the caster.
In other words, this grimoire was likely created by humans who had struggled against higher-ranked enemies in situations very similar to what Ban Yuwon's party was currently facing.
Probably, from Murim.
‘I don’t know how this grimoire ended up here... but perhaps the humans of this dimension also knew about it and tried to use it. However, they couldn’t act in time, and with the world thrown into chaos by the intervention of various Constellations, parts of the spell even ran wild, leading to the complete destruction of the world.’
Thinking about it again, it was a little funny.
After all, wasn’t this grimoire made to protect pure humans and their world?
Yet, that very item was tucked away in a corner of the Tower, a space meant to cultivate transcendents.
—Of course, it was hard to draw conclusions before securing the remaining parts of the grimoire, so he decided to put those thoughts aside for now.
“Haaah!”
“What’s a Constellation?! This is the power of a True Dragon!”
One might wonder what meaning there was in humans, barely two meters tall, attacking an enemy several kilometers in size. But because they weren’t just humans, but descendants of Divine Beasts and Dragonoids, their aura-infused attacks visibly shattered and annihilated the tar, noticeably shrinking the giant’s mass.
Ban Yuwon confirmed the fiercely spinning spell formation in the air, then nodded and shouted:
“Asha, Rucell! Retreat now!”
“!!”
“Yes, sir!”
Asha and Rucell, who had expertly pummeled the enemy following Ban Yuwon’s teaching that the enemy’s defenseless state was always prime damage-dealing time, hastily retreated and landed on the ground.
—Whooosh
The barrier expanded, temporarily engulfing the world.
A golden aura swirled into a tempest, scattering all traces of the Constellation’s energy that had infested the ground.
“Now, get back to where you came from!”
—Ah, my child... It’s adorable how you know nothing yet.
However, despite losing her incarnation and missing the grimoire she desired, the Observer of All Things' voice remained calm and collected.
—Still, I’ve lost today, so I shall give you a gift. You’ve shown such growth, I look forward to our next meeting.
The next moment, everything was scattered by the tempest, disappearing without a trace.
With a slight exaggeration, the giant that had been large enough to cover the sky vanished, revealing a clear blue sky, so pristine that no trace of the curse remained, filling their vision.
“Ah—”
“Hah, I thought we were going to be retired. They really need to re-evaluate this at the Academy. This was clearly not student level! This is what happens right after entering the Tower for the first time in ages!”
The destruction that threatened to engulf the world receded, and quiet peace arrived in an instant.
Rucell blinked her eyes, unable to grasp that such a powerful enemy had vanished in a flash, while Asha, retracting her True Dragon Spear into her body, began to grumble.
Meanwhile, Ban Yuwon frowned as he noticed something falling from where the giant had disappeared.
Its black form made him suspect it might be a remnant of the curse, but as he widened his eyes, he realized that wasn't the case.
They were characters.
Probably the characters that formed the grimoire.
“Was this the missing part?”
He instinctively reached out, and his Authority naturally manifested, drawing the string of characters from the air and absorbing them into his body.
[You have absorbed Spell (呪術) 750, Ancient Language (古代言語) 251, and Constellation's Stigma 150. Due to the extremely high rank of the target, complete digestion will require time.]
[The profundity of Spell (呪術) has reached 2,000. The profundity of Constellation's Stigma has reached 300.]
[You have absorbed concepts that supplement previously absorbed concepts. Your understanding of high-level concepts will accelerate.]
The moment he gained a large amount of Constellation's Stigma left by the Observer of All Things, along with Ancient Language and Spell, a satisfying fullness washed over him, even though he hadn't actually eaten anything.
Since he had recovered a portion of the grimoire, the process of digesting these uninterpreted concepts clumped within his body would also accelerate.
‘With this, my Spell profundity is also 2,000... Though it has good synergy with my Authority, I’ve suddenly become much stronger than I was with the magic I learned all semester.’
His language-manipulating Authority had grown, and he had acquired new combat techniques. From a results-only perspective, it was all good news.
However, there was one slightly unsettling aspect: despite cleanly absorbing the concepts left by the Observer of All Things’ incarnation, which must have devoured all fragments of the grimoire remaining in this world, he still felt as if the grimoire's concept wasn't complete.
‘Were the concepts I obtained incomplete? Well, we didn’t cleanly cut off its life; we just expelled it, so it might have taken some concepts with it.’
However, what kind of curse the entity had wielded from the grimoire would likely become clear once he fully analyzed all the concepts he had obtained.
He still didn't know what the Observer of All Things meant by him knowing nothing, or why it whined and bolted off.
No, it should have given him a hint before saying something like that.
How could he not be angry when someone just blabs nonsense about him knowing nothing, while he's perfectly climbing the Tower?
“Ah... it’s a shift.”
As if defeating the Observer of All Things’ incarnation was truly the condition, a shift occurred, moving the party to Eden, just as Ban Yuwon had considered checking the world outside the barrier, wondering if he had missed anything.
He had wanted to check for traces of other Constellations that had supposedly interfered in this world, but recalling how the Observer of All Things had made its incarnation go berserk at the last moment, he figured all such traces would have been completely devoured anyway, so he let go of the lingering thought.
“Huh? Wait. Eden?”
Ban Yuwon exclaimed in shock, having instinctively accepted the changed environment.
After all, the party had been in Eden before entering this room.
If they had moved to Eden after clearing just one room, then perhaps the space they had just been in was....
“Oh, right. It says room 210 here.”
Facing Asha, who checked the number appearing on her student ID and replied, Ban Yuwon sighed in exasperation.
He slumped onto a nearby bed, praying that the next room wouldn't present such an outrageous environment.
But to state the outcome, through this expedition, the party achieved the feat of conquering up to room 250.
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