Chapter 245: The Basent of Vintage Clock (2)
Mana is the manifestation of will.
A will to do sothing being revealed in an intangible form. According to its use, it was referred to as magic, skills, blessings or abilities.
A strong will required a strong mana but there was a limit to how much will a human could output. For example, it was difficult to add an unprecedented amount of mana into the act of simply smacking soone on the back of their neck, which was why Yu Jitae’s Knifehand Strike remained as a D-grade skill.
Ever since the New Era,
The tower of mages located in Northern Europe, commonly referred to as the Silicon Valley of magic engineers, ‘Blue Belt’, the centre of magic research discovered sothing strange during their investigation into skills and magic.
A stronger will required more mana but there was always a wall blocking the way. And once one was to increase the size of their will and overco that wall, they discovered that the efficiency of their magic would explosively increase.
They discovered 6 walls which they decided to asure with grades.
From the bottom, it was E, D, C, B, A and after the last wall was S grade. Added to that were SS ranked authorities which only sovereigns could access and with several restrictions at that…
Later, more objects from other worlds flowed in as more dinsional fissures opened and people realised that intellectual beings of other worlds were also using similar types of grading systems.
Kikril, Kataran, Kutra, Kotrin… although they used different words, it was just a different way of expressing 6 walls and 7 grades. This proved that the magic research of Earth had reached the foundations of mana and magic to so extent.
However, there was sothing strange they also found. Going through the record of a certain Level 5 artifact discovered in a dinsional fissure, they ca across a grade higher above the Kulyata (SS) grade.
The superhuman researchers of the ti were shocked. Even the sovereign of Earth, Witch Valentine, couldn’t proceed after placing a foot into the boundaries of SS grade. Back then, the witch had talked of how it was a ‘world too high for to climb’.
So how could there be a grade above SS?
But despite their repeated research, humans couldn’t even co up with any concrete statents about the SS grade let alone what was above (Because the witch, who was the only one in that grade, was scared of human experints and ran away). In the end, the rank above SS was left an unsolved mystery.
Countless magic engineers and mages struggled to hold back their curiosity.
SS grade alone had the power to shake the entirety of Earth. The reason why the International Superhuman Association could exist, with its nonsensical principle of not allowing other nations to interfere with their military, was because of one individual – the witch.
So what could be the EX grade that exceeded all of those grades?
Kong kong! The white bird constantly drove its head into the leg of the large chanical human. It was a childish appearance, considering that it was the target of the human race’s long-ti curiosity.
…That had been his thoughts on the matter when seeing Vintage Clock.
But looking at the large chanical human in front of him made him change his mind. The guy had a status and presence fitting the size of its authority.
That was the pinnacle.
The ones he had been faintly sensing from the distance – those monsters that decided on the standards of the world were all large and great, so it was Vintage Clock who was the size of a small white bird that was the odd one out instead.
In any case, an authority like that couldn’t affect him physically in any way. He was just feeling fatigued by his mind being suppressed by it.
Around 10 centitres behind the white bird’s back, a dinsional gap with a length of dozens of tres appeared as a large weapon left from within.
This pair of scissors that had the hour hand and the minute hand of a clock as its blades showed off a presence similar to [Key (EX)] as it slowly revealed its mighty body.
This large pair of scissors with unmatching blades was the [Connection-severing blades]. It was the tool Vintage Clock used before rewinding the world’s ti, to cut off the flow of the world.
Soon, the hour hand and the minute hand of the scissors flew up and headed to a certain part of the chanical construct.
Soon, the large presence of the authority vanished as a pair of yellow eyes appeared in front of Yu Jitae.
Its body was hazy under the veil of darkness.
It was a black cat.
*
From what Yu Jitae knew, EX-grade authorities each had one role and one ability.
Vintage Clock’s role was to make sure dinsional records of various worlds like the Earth did not stop. And its ability was controlling the flow of ti in specific dinsions, with several restrictions in place.
In other words, it could be seen that the ti of this enormous dinsion was being rewound by Vintage Clock alone, and that proved how godly an EX grade authority’s power was.
Then what was the ability of [Key (EX)]?
“What are you.”
[I am. Key. One who opens doors.]
The will of the black cat was conveyed straight into his mind.
“Why did you co here?”
[Vintage Clock. Requested. Open the basent doors.]
The jet-black cat swung its tail.
Fitting its na, it seed to be a tool that opened things. He was curious what this basent was, when white bird opened its wings out wide.
He did know what the new room was.
Back when he felt the authentic feeling of life once each from Bom, Yeorum, Kaeul and Gyeoul, Vintage Clock had ntioned the opened possibility of new growth, and called it a [room].
But now wasn’t the ti for him to concern himself with that.
“Vintage Clock. You may open the doors of the basent later. Please take to the top floor of the workshop.”
The white bird blinked its eyes.
“I must open the records of the dissection experints of the hatchlings past the 4th iteration. Don’t know why but my mories are hazy and I cannot rember them.”
“Why do you pretend to be clueless. Do you not know my circumstances yourself? There has been a big problem in the 7th iteration and my relationship with the hatchlings is crossing the line. I have never asked for such a process.”
His mories of mistreating the green hatchling. For so reason, it wasn’t a mory he defined as an iteration and was therefore very hazy, like a scene of a drama from a few years ago.
Thus, he was planning to remind himself of the plain atrocities he had committed and drop the affection he was feeling for Bom.
This was a very very important task.
Because otherwise, it might crumble the extensive zealous efforts of the Regressor in just one blow.
The Vintage Clock then fluttered its wings and flew beneath.
It was not going to listen to him at all.
[Follow. To Basent]
When the black cat also started following the white bird, Yu Jitae looked at them going further away and had no choice but to move his body. Although discontent, he still followed them.
In fact he was also curious.
There was a life he had lived through. Though it might have been a wrong direction, the objective of his life had always been power. He wanted to beco stronger.
After the 5th iteration, repeating at least hundreds of iterations, he beca stronger and after becoming stronger than the strongest existences of Earth – BM, Chaliovan, the witch and Oscar Brzenk, he began hunting sovereigns of nearby dinsions.
There, Yu Jitae hunted [Demon Archduke, Baal], [Black Dragon, Lugiathan], [Monarch of the Highest Heavens, Gaum], [Immortal, Shin], [Destroyer of World Tree, Yutahn] etc. By killing all the sovereigns near him, he absorbed their powers.
And at last, his power reached the limit of a mortal.
Even after that, he repeated dozens of lives, throwing his body into whatever possibility that could allow him to beco stronger, but Vintage Clock had denied any possibility of growth in him. And yet in the 7th iteration, it was suddenly stating that there was a new possibility of growth.
He was doubtful since it didn’t coalign with what it said before, but he was nonetheless curious.
What was waiting for him under this place?
If he were to beco even stronger from here, what would he beco?
*
There is no reference point in space and there is therefore no direction.
Despite that, after following Vintage Clock and Key, Yu Jitae realised that he was at a place low enough to be called the ‘basent’. There was a familiar door there – it was a spitting image of Unit 301’s door.
Although it felt a little strange, shortly after, he rembered that ‘authorities’ existing in conceptual appearances tended to show up in a structure familiar to its target.
The original Vintage Clock wasn’t actually a white bird. It did not have an actual body.
In any case, this door too was sothing he had never seen in the workshop. He quietly stood there as the will of the key flowed into his mind.
[Unlocked. May open. The door.]
“Let ask one thing before I go in.”
[Rejected]
The black cat sneaked a glance at the bird before slowly raising its body and walking towards him.
[Question. What is it.]
“To you authorities, the word ‘existence’ ans the sa as mortals. Is that right.”
[Right. With conscience. Living in Providence. All disappear one day. Organics that die.]
“Then can the thing inside make live forever?”
[That. Cannot.]
Yu Jitae had made an assumption, that him becoming stronger than this would make him into sothing other than an existence. He presud that he might beco a part of the authorities overlooking the world like Vintage Clock, but that seed to have been a wrong assumption.
“Got it.”
Saying that, Yu Jitae pushed open the doors of the Vintage Clock’s Basent. Inside he found 11 pillars resembling obelisks placed in an arc with 5 of those pillars lit up.
In the centre of the fan-shaped array of pillars was an altar and above it was a mysteriously ford solid resembling both a rock and a tal buoyantly floating in mid-air.
It looked like a rock crafted by n – there was a regular pattern, as if there were multiple staircases attached to it. At the sa ti, like a crystal of a tal or mineral it appeared.
What is that.
He wanted to ask but both Vintage Clock and Key were tilting their heads in front of the obelisks, and it seed that these authorities also had no idea.
That was when an illusion appeared in his mind.
Inside the illusion,
Yu Jitae was opening the door, walking into Unit 301.
A very small child with sapphire eyes and sapphire hair started tottering her way towards him with a worried look on her face. She was Gyeoul before shedding her skin.
He raised her up with an extrely natural movent. Gyeoul pulled down his clothes around the chest and confird the necklace woven with her hair and scales before glancing at him.
Then, she moved her tiny lips to ask.
– …Did sossing, happen?
Yu Jitae stayed silent, and baby Gyeoul asked again with a slightly more worried look on her face.
– …Un? Sossing?
Only then did he reply.
– No. Nothing happened.
He then said with a genuine smile.
– What about you.
That was the end of the illusion.
“…”
By the ti he ca to himself, he was back inside Vintage Clock’s basent.
That illusion.
It was when he returned to the dormitory after fighting Noah in the masquerade. After wasting several months fighting Noah in his dream, he had been ntally fatigued and for the first ti, he felt that fatigue lt away after returning to the dormitory.
Wearing a frown, Yu Jitae glanced nearby. There were four lit up obelisk pillars apart from this one.
He laid his hand back on the white obelisk and looked at the recollection with Gyeoul. He wondered why this mory would be here and pondered before coming to a realisation.
[Curious. What is it]
In the 7th iteration,
It was the first ti he felt genuinely happy.
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