I got into school for nothing - 355
I got into school for nothing (355)
Lesson 70. No Intention of Giving an Opening - 1
As soon as the lecture ended, Rucell held him back as he tried to get up in a bit of a hurry.
"Today is our club meeting, Master."
"Club meeting? Oh, right."
In truth, now that Ban Yuwon had single-handedly claimed the Ten Great Families, the Union Journey Club felt like nothing more than a charity project of his.
Of course, students selected through the special admissions process were often the sole hope of their respective dimensions, and supporting or employing them still held significance in that it could unite those numerous dimensions under a single banner.
‘It would be meaningful if I were to form contracts with countless dimensions, including the Ten Great Families.’
Upon reflection, the Union was already doing something similar.
"Alright, I should at least see the new first-years."
"Only one of the three is a girl, Yuwon."
"Is that an important fact?"
As Ban Yuwon glared pointedly, Asha retorted with a confident demeanor.
"But all the girls end up liking Yuwon anyway. So it's better to check beforehand."
―Death's Pupil looks at your friend, doubting if it heard correctly.
‘You understand, Asha has been through a lot over the past two years...’
―Death's Pupil shakes its head, remarking that perhaps the time when she pretended to be a man might have been better.
‘No, that's not it.’
Indeed, new first-year students had arrived at the club room. Whether it was fortunate or not, Ban Yuwon didn't end up receiving any attention from the first-year special admissions students.
"Seeing how excellent the facilities are, it seems the President freely exercised his Authority. Hmm, indeed, how well one uses the power they hold is also important."
This was because they were being suppressed by the aura of the Special Class students who had newly joined the Union Journey Club.
"What are you doing, evaluating us? If you're going to join, just come and sit down quietly."
"Luisha, as the heir of Ortima, pay a little more attention to your words and actions."
Just then, Ban Yuwon and Lusein pulled Luisha away, who had been meticulously inspecting the clubroom as if evaluating a new home she was about to move into, assigning it mysterious scores.
However, Ban Yuwon couldn't help but say something to Lusein as well.
"There was no mention of a club in our contract, was there?"
"It's for closer cooperation. ...There was a command from the family head."
Ban Yuwon looked at Luisha with a displeased expression and couldn't help but feel a slight pang of sympathy for Lusein, who was trembling.
"Don't scare the kids, just sit still."
"They are merely afraid."
"So stop glaring like that."
After reprimanding Lusein to lower the killing intent in his eyes, Ban Yuwon settled the chaotic atmosphere and turned his gaze to the newly arrived first-years.
"You all will have a personal interview with me, one by one."
"Yes, yes sir!"
"Please take good care of us, President!"
The oppressive aura of the Ortima family, which completely intimidated the new students the moment they entered the clubroom, made it impossible to build any emotional rapport with them. Yet, perhaps it was for the best.
It might sound a bit cold, but by the time these kids fully awakened their talents and grew strong, Ban Yuwon’s war would already have reached its conclusion, one way or another.
‘Still, raising the combat power of weaker dimensions is by no means a bad thing...’
Just as Asha had said, two were male students and one was female, each possessing unique Authorities with high developmental potential, enough to be selected through special admissions from lower-ranked dimensions.
Unlike when he taught other students in the lectures he conducted with Yumina, he meticulously analyzed the internal concepts of each new club member and decided to create training artifacts tailored to them.
"Wait a minute, training artifacts?"
Luisha, who had been watching to see how he taught the other members, reacted to Ban Yuwon's words, as her own and Lusein’s ability to wield Codeword had been rapidly improving ever since their covenant with Ban Yuwon.
"You never made any of those for me?"
"What need is there for artifacts to train Codeword when the training subjects are scattered everywhere?"
Ban Yuwon retorted, dumbfounded.
It was a measure for young students who didn't even properly understand their innate Authorities; in other words, he had merely given them training wheels for a bicycle, and they were envious of that.
But Luisha challenged him with a serious face.
"This is a violation of the covenant that stated you would strengthen my Authority as long as I cooperated, Senior. To further solidify the alliance with the Ortima family, I would appreciate it if you made me a suitable artifact as well. I won't be too picky about its performance."
"Saying performance doesn't matter means you just don't want those new students to be the only ones getting artifacts made by Yuwon, right?"
To Asha's sharp observation — despite usually being clueless, she was only keen in such matters — Luisha calmly countered.
"I simply dislike receiving unfair treatment as a member of a deep alliance, that's all."
"So why are you getting involved in such trivial matters... Ugh."
Lusein, who had tried to interject, was silenced by Luisha's piercing gaze.
He tried to hypnotize himself into believing he would gladly endure this humiliation if it meant he could eventually rescue Dokgo Yeon, but he hadn't considered that the penalty preventing him from directly perceiving Dokgo Yeon had yet to be lifted.
* * *
Whether she had been deeply impressed during the meeting, Luisha's approach had become quite explicit. Ban Yuwon, however, having dealt with many women over time, skillfully evaded and dismissed her, then proceeded to enter the Tower alone as planned.
―Death's Pupil laughs, telling you to keep it up.
"But if I push her away too much, Ortima might get fed up and try to pull out of the alliance, so I have to be careful."
―Death's Pupil pities you.
"This ordeal won't last much longer, it's fine..."
In the cog-filled depths, before the massive monolith, Ban Yuwon quietly murmured as he stroked the area where Dokgo Yeon's name was carved at the very bottom.
If there was anything in this space that accumulated and discharged power, it was, of course, the monolith itself.
Up until now, he had strived to understand how the monolith managed the constellations; now, Ban Yuwon was exploring where the monolith drew its power from.
Of course, even with the backing of Ban Yuwon's Authority, obtaining answers from such a vague analytical task would easily take several months.
In fact, merely analyzing all of the monolith's energy flow within a few months was an absurdly impressive feat.
‘But now, I have identified the energy source.’
Ban Yuwon was now in a situation akin to having already checked all the answers in a newly purchased workbook, needing only to deduce the solutions for the problems in between.
He closed his eyes, activating his Authority.
The monolith, of course, tried to repel his energy, but he hadn't been idle either.
To resist the powerful energy flow that rejected him, he naturally chose the aura of Death's Pupil, his contracted Constellation.
―Death's Pupil screams, saying it feels as if electricity is coursing through its body. It explains that the backlash is occurring because they are attacking the Tower with power granted by the Tower itself.
‘Just hold on a little longer. If this goes well, you might be able to secure a share for yourself.’
Dokgo Yeon's aura possesses the power to ignore the properties of energy and simply extinguish it.
It was similar to the power of Annihilation that Zenon wielded, but the difference was that Dokgo Yeon's aura had the power to trace causality.
Annihilation merely erased whatever it touched, like rubbing it out with an eraser.
For instance, if there were a long-bodied earthworm, and the aura of Annihilation pierced its center, only the touched part would be erased as if it had never existed.
Dokgo Yeon's Death, however, inevitably encompassed the causality of life within it. Thus, it would trace the source that made the earthworm alive and sever it.
‘In other words, it's a much more complex and advanced power than Annihilation... That's why if a repulsion occurs in the part it touches, it's easier to trace.’
―Death's Pupil shakes its head, saying it never imagined its aura could be used to trace the Tower's origins.
The more one grew accustomed to the aura of Death, the more sensitive one became, conversely, to the concept of life in its opposing domain.
To kill something, one must understand how it lives; this was only natural.
The same was true for Ban Yuwon now.
Although he didn't actually intend to collapse the Tower right now, when he poured his energy into it, prepared to destroy the monolith if necessary, he was able to glimpse the source supplying energy to the monolith.
―Death's Pupil says it's truly dangerous.
"That's enough."
The next moment, as Ban Yuwon muttered, his two eyes flashing golden, crackling sparks erupted across the entire monolith, and some of the generated light sources swirled around the section where Dokgo Yeon's name was carved.
―Death's Pupil feels the power flowing into it and asks, dumbfounded, if you have finally rewritten the monolith's settings. It adds that you should be prepared for the backlash from other Constellations.
"Just a tiny bit. It's good for both of us."
Ban Yuwon, replying with a smirk, scoffed at her additional remark.
"Fighting with those Constellations is something I've always done, so it's nothing new anymore."
―Oh dear, you've caused trouble.
And as he had fully expected, a voice greeted him—none other than the Observer of All Things.
―That is a realm you should not touch yet. The source that draws out the Constellations' power is extremely dangerous if mishandled, extremely so.
"It doesn't matter, since I'm going to overturn everything soon anyway."
He replied cynically, then placed one hand on the floor near the monolith and released his power.
The golden light emanating from his hand instantly enveloped the entire space, climbing through the creaking cogs and painting geometric patterns.
Finally, the massive monolith.
It was dyed golden, then, suddenly, an illusion unfolded as if the space beneath it was opening wide.
The next moment, feeling a shift occur, Ban Yuwon smirked.
―How could this...?!
"I told you, I saw the answers."
A violent shift, as if falling into the darkness that appeared where the floor vanished.
The Observer of All Things couldn't believe it and tried to stop it by any means, but Ban Yuwon had already found the answer to reaching the source.
It could only delay the shift for an instant.
"Oof."
Ban Yuwon landed gracefully, then looked around and whistled.
Because this was a realm not meant for anyone to enter, various concepts swirled like a vortex, yet nothing materialized.
And strings of such concepts were interwoven like chains throughout this space, binding something.
Indeed, the bodies of the colossal life forms he had recently seen were bound to the dark, sooty floor, their limbs scattered as if cut apart with scissors.
"Not a very pleasant sight."
―A voice...?
Something reacted sensitively to his murmur: a 'head' that held the concepts of immense and profound life and mana, capable of challenging even gods when its body was intact.
Among them, one serpent's... no, one dragon's eye, which fortunately had the right angle to stare directly at Ban Yuwon, noticeably widened.
―How...? Were you alive...?
―What? The Tower Lord...?
―Has the Tower Lord come? He should be dead, by our final wisdom...
"You lot are quite tenacious, managing to maintain life in such a state."
Indeed, even with their bodies torn into dozens of pieces, the concept of immortality clearly remained within them.
Not only that, but a higher-tier mana, the special concept of Dragon Mana, was gushing out almost infinitely. This mana was constantly being siphoned through the chains binding them, to somewhere... presumably into the interior of the Tower, including the Pit of the monolith where Ban Yuwon had just been.
Ban Yuwon felt as though he could clearly read the exact process through which these beings had been bound to the Tower.
First, they had tried to kill them and seize only their energy source, but when they found it impossible to remove the concept of immortality from them, they must have dismembered their bodies to prevent resistance, connecting them to the Tower to extort their mana.
―Ha, hahahahaha! This one is not the Tower Lord!
―It's not the Tower Lord! He really is dead!
―And surely... hahahaha! To crawl into this space with merely that much power!
―Heaven has finally granted us an opportunity, an opportunity to restore everything to its original state!
Just then, the True Dragons cheered in unison and began spouting nonsense.
Meanwhile, Ban Yuwon, in his own way, had gained a realization.
It was the truth behind the events that had transpired between his ancestor and the True Dragons, something he had been pondering for a while.
When he had conversed with Clio, the conclusion had been that his ancestor couldn't fully kill the True Dragons and had imprisoned them in the Tower, but he now wondered if that was truly the case.
After all, Asha’s True Dragon Sword was originally based on the Dragon-Slaying Sword, a weapon created to kill True Dragons.
If it truly could kill True Dragons, then his ancestor would have had ample means to kill them as well.
And his prediction was correct.
His ancestor hadn't failed to kill the True Dragons; he simply hadn't killed them.
He had kept them alive and imprisoned them beneath the Tower, all to use them!
However, what was important now wasn't how wicked the previous Tower Lord had been.
"I could kill them...?"
It was the fact that Ban Yuwon could stage a grand reversal right here.
―I think so too. Perhaps this won't end with just a preliminary reconnaissance... Hmm?!
Dokgo Yeon's voice, which he had longed to hear even in his dreams, resonated directly in Ban Yuwon's mind.
Ban Yuwon declared with a knowing smile, pleased with the outcome he had secretly hoped for.
"Alright, then let's give it a try."
―No, that won't do.
And the Observer of All Things descended.
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