The Great Mage Returns After 4000 Years (Web Novel KR)
chapter-404

After that, he didn’t try to use any other spells. Of course, this wasn’t because he was afraid of pain or injury. The corpses around him were piled up into mountains. In other words, he didn’t have to fear dying from any injury while here.

First off, he wanted to understand this power he’d discovered more clearly.

He felt like if he rolled it around in his head a bit more, he would be able to discover an important clue.

But before that, there was one misconception that he needed to correct.

‘I didn’t become stronger.’

Of course, it was true that he was now stronger than before he’d started eating corpses.

But, technically, it was impossible to gain a radical rise in power just by consuming corpses and taking their possibilities.

He didn’t know about anyone else, but at least that was the case for Lukas.

Consuming corpses.

This inhumane act had only served to raise Lukas’ potential to the max.

In other words, it only equipped him with the ‘conditions to become strong’.

It was like his body was filled with the raw materials for power that hadn’t been smelted yet. The ‘possibilities of Lukas’ that he had obtained.

In that case, what were the possibilities?

The turbid power that reduced the purity of his mana, that is to say, the impurities. The more corpses he consumed, the better his ability to sense those impurities became.

It was only at that moment that he realised that.

In the beginning, Lukas didn’t have the ability to sense the impurities.

‘It’s because it mixed with my mana.’

Because the impurities mixed with mana, which could even be called the purity of nature itself.

That was why he was able to sense it.

Lukas couldn’t help but smile wryly at that thought.

He’d accepted it into his body, used it as he pleased, and now, threw it away when he felt like it was no longer useful. He’d committed an action so horrid that he wouldn’t complain even if he were labelled as trash for it.

And yet, it was the same mana that gave him what he needed as a parting gift.

‘I have to live up to it.’

He didn’t want to waste mana’s last gift to him.

The impurities. Did these impurities truly deserve to be Lukas’ new power?

He wasn’t sure.

It was a different kind of energy.

He had no idea where to start studying it, and he didn’t know how to interpret it.

So, he had no choice but to once again compare it to the power he knew best, mana.

—Simple materials.

This referred to air, fire, earth, and water.

Everything that made up the universe could be deconstructed into these four materials without exception, and they could be changed constantly through the movement of other matter.

Fire could be air, water could be earth.

And mana,

Was the power that made the creation of those simple materials possible.

In other words, it could be called the most basic energy in a more absolute sense than the four elements.

The interpretation ‘the purest and most basic form of energy’ that had been construed by the Wizards was not incorrect.

Mana was also nature, as it could be created in turbid or polluted lands.

In that case, the impurities could be considered the opposite of mana.

The reason Lukas had this thought was simple. Mana did not exist in the World of Void. No matter where he went, he could not sense even the slightest hint of mana. It was as if to prove the claim that such energy simply did not exist in this world.

‘Mana can only be replenished by eating something.’

This was another thing that Lukas didn’t quite understand.

Naturally, corpses did not have any mana in them. This was true even for the corpse of a 10-star Wizard. As soon as they died, the mana slumbering in their body would disappear without a trace. While he wasn’t sure if this was the same for dragon hearts, it was at least the truth for human bodies.

And yet, when he ate something in this world, his mana was replenished.

So firstly, he needed to figure out why.

* * *

…What if it wasn’t replenished?

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

After that, thoughts began to erupt one after the other like waves from a dam that had collapsed.

At first, he’d thought that mana could only be supplied by consuming something. However, now that he thought about it, it felt a little different from that. It could not be regarded as ‘supply’ or ‘replenishment’.

To put it in a different perspective.

For Lukas, there were three things that could be solved by eating.

One, he wouldn’t disappear.

Two, his injuries would be healed.

Three, his mana would be refilled.

Lukas thought about these three things separately. In other words, these three things could be called the effects of eating.

…But what if they weren’t?

He looked around. Surprisingly, the dump site also seemed to serve as a junkyard, so he was easily able to find what he was looking for.

Chuk-

It was a sword buried in a corpse. He observed the sword for a moment. The blade was a bit damaged, but he didn’t think it would be a problem.

Just like that, he cut off his left arm from the forearm.

Shuk-

It wasn’t a proper swing, but he was still able to easily cut through his flesh and bone. Blood dripped from the cross section of the wound. But by this time, Lukas had already picked up the calf of a nearby corpse and bitten into it.

Crunch.

His wound began to regenerate and his mana refilled. He couldn’t tell if his disappearance had been prevented. That was still a mystery in this place.

But it was fine. At least he didn’t have to worry about it.

He looked closely at the wound. Wriggle. His flesh squirmed out of the cross section of his forearm. The sight of regeneration was never pleasant to look at. Nevertheless, Lukas did not take his eyes off of it.

And when the wound was completely regenerated.

“—ah.”

He realised.

This phenomenon wasn’t regeneration.

“…it regressed.”

His body had basically returned to his best state, the state he was in when he first entered the World of Void.

The prevention of disappearance, recovery of wounds, and replenishment of mana.

Lukas’ conjecture was right. It was not right to call these three things the effects of eating.

This was because there was only one phenomenon that happened.

His body regressed.

* * *

Lukas’ speculation continued.

The World of Void.

A world that only the forgotten, or failed, could enter.

A world filled with countless possibilities that had been abandoned by the Three Thousand Worlds.

0

What was the most important thing in this world?

“…to not be forgotten.”

Right. That was it.

If they were forgotten even here, then they would really cease to exist.

The environment of the World of Void was incredibly harsh. It was as if this world was constantly trying to annihilate all living beings.

If they didn’t eat anything before the sky changed colour five times, beings would disappear.

This was the most basic and ironclad rule of this world.

“To replenish the power of existence by eating.”

The term ‘Power of Existence’ had occurred to him before. However, its weight as it touched his heart was different now than then.

It was a terrible world.

Lukas felt that fact even more now.

Of course, the providence of the law of the jungle applied everywhere.

However, even with that, this place was severely twisted.

It was like a gigantic, giggling mass of malice.

Great malice.

And the power that Lukas was currently trying to decipher was probably the source of this malice.

The impurities.

Although faint, he’d finally grasped a clue.

Lukas murmured.

“Magic Missile.”

Bang.

He once again felt the pain as if someone had struck his heart, and his entire body shook violently.

Lukas forcibly swallowed the blood that rushed up his throat, but he was unable to stop a small dribble from rolling down the corner of his lips.

His injuries were serious. This was natural since he’d hurt his heart. Nevertheless, it was not enough to kill him. So he decided to put off eating a corpse for now.

The reaction that had just happened in his body. Why the explosion occurred, and why it was in close proximity to his heart.

There were a lot of things he needed to learn.

‘…if I don’t understand, then I’ll do it till I do.’

With that thought, Lukas wiped the blood away from the corner of his mouth.

* * *

Every material and immaterial element had its own inherent laws and properties.

And as far as Lukas knew, there was no energy as esoteric and boundless as mana.

Whether it’s bond structure or volume, pressure of the exerted force, or ambient temperature.

Mana could be influenced by a wide variety of things, causing it to sometimes become fire, sometimes ice, sometimes rocks, or sometimes wind.

The deep consideration and examination of these interactions of mana, and the concept of actually using its power to express magic, was known as magicology.

In order to call yourself a Wizard, it was necessary to first understand what effects mana had when combined into different structures.

Of course, this was a difficult task for Wizards now entering the field of magicology, but they wouldn’t get far if they only focused on memorising and copying. That approach met its limits very quickly.

He knew that.

That was the reason why Lukas was trying to fully understand the ‘impurities’.

And at that moment, his tenacious obsession and effort finally paid off.

“…it’s different from mana.”

The properties of the impurities.

Those were the first words he uttered after grasping that clue.

They were completely different from the properties of mana.

He’d tried to control this energy with magic formulas.

It was only at that moment did he realise how ignorant his actions had been. It was similar to pouring oil onto a fire to put it out. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was in the World of Void, he would have already died thousands of times over.

“It’s like mana.”

Lukas then spoke words that directly contradicted what he’d said previously.

The impurities also had their own properties, attributes and laws.

However, the outcomes of those were completely different. But only different to an extent.

For example, if he applied the formula for casting Magic Missile to the impurities, he would feel a shock in his chest like someone slapped his heart. If he used Fire Ball, half of his internal organs would be blown away, and if he used Ice Spear, all of the blood vessels in his left arm would erupt simultaneously. Stone Teeth caused his knees to explode.

‘…’

The fact that different phenomena were appearing depending on the formula used meant that this power had different laws. Although he didn’t understand it yet.

…How long would it take for him to use this power in practice?

Magic.

He knew how each and every magic formula that created spells were made.

Magic Missile, the most basic spell.

The spell involved changing the form of mana to give it physical power and launching it at a target.

In terms of formulas, it wasn’t more than two lines, five lines if you unravelled it. It was that simple. A talented person would be able to use it just by looking at it.

However, was the process of making the magic missile that simple? It was just a two lined magic formula so it could have easily been made with a few days of thought. Right?

No. Definitely not.

There had to have been Wizards who were the first to discover mana, analyse its laws, and realise the principles of interaction.

They would have put their heads together and pondered it deeply.

Perhaps all the geniuses of that time had gathered together.

Then, after countless trial and error, they were able to create the first spell.

It was because of the existence of these forefathers that the Wizards of the future were able to gradually increase their level and eventually catch a glimpse of the 9-star level.

How much blood, sweat and tears had they shed? How many years had it taken?

Magic was a field of study.

And the process of creating a field of study was by no means short. It couldn’t be short.

“I’ll have to do that process on my own, from now on.”

It was a fact that didn’t really excite him now.

Lukas simply nodded acceptingly.

He would do it.

He would analyse the impurities, understand their interactions, figure out formulas through trial and error, and eventually, use magic once again with this power.

But. To do that, he couldn’t call it impurities anymore.

It was the most basic power that made up the World of Void.

The power that made the disappearance and regeneration possible.

A power that was still unknown to Lukas.

After a moment of silence, he thought of an appropriate name for this power.

“Void.” (TL: In English)

Lukas named this power, Void.