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

—He could not completely get rid of his mana.

In order to not die, he would need to eat, and every time he did that, his mana would refill. So that wouldn’t work.

Should he destroy his mana room? No. That was pointless. That would also regenerate as soon as he ate something.

That meant that Lukas had no choice but to starve himself. (TL: You can’t disappear in the dump site.)

The pain that followed was not insignificant, but when compared to the terrible pain of being eaten by the three day bugs or eating the corpses, it was not that bad.

He used the time to reflect on his goal again.

Using magic without mana.

Breaking his prejudices, changing his ideas, thinking outside of the box…

It wasn’t something that could simply be dismissed as such. This was because it was practically impossible according to the laws. Just as it was impossible to make ashes by burning water, it was physically and realistically impossible to cast spells without mana.

Zero Technique.

Lukas had clearly used a similar technique in the past, but it was different from then. The Zero Technique was never about casting spells without mana. It was about using the mana in the atmosphere instead of the mana in the body.

What about this place?

There was no mana.

There wasn’t even the slightest hint of mana in the atmosphere. That’s why he said that mana didn’t suit this world.

Then firstly, he would need to learn.

About this place, the World of Void.

* * *

The first thing he considered was as follows.

What was the most basic power that existed in the World of Void?

Mana was a symbol of balance and nature. This pure, great energy was darker and more abundant in places that had not been touched by the hands of man. Simply encountering such mana could allow a Wizard to step into the next level or gain the clues that would allow them to reach it.

Then what about this world?

What kind of energy was the most abundant and easiest to obtain in the World of Void, where only the beings who had failed and were forgotten could enter.

Since it was the World of Void, it was empty.

This was a natural thought, but Lukas flatly denied this.

‘…disappearance*, and regeneration.’ (*: A place holder for ‘ceasing to exist’. Still open to any better suggestions.)

If you didn’t eat something before the colour of the sky changed five times, you would begin to disappear from the tips of your toes. If you ate something, the disappearance would stop. In addition, even unrecoverable fatal injuries could easily be regenerated.

Why was that possible?

Because it was the World of Void? Because those were the laws of this world?

No. He couldn’t simply accept that.

He needed to understand it more deeply. He needed to analyse it.

Cause and effect.

Laws and limitations.

Fate and providence.

What exactly caused the disappearance? It wasn’t a phenomenon that began in the body. It was interference that came from outside of the body. In other words, there were material and immaterial elements capable of interfering with the body in the atmosphere.

Lukas felt that those elements made up the most basic and abundant power that encompassed the World of Void.

‘However…’

He couldn’t understand it at all.

It was impossible for him to even sense it.

The only clues he had were from the moment his body had begun to disappear. At that time, he’d felt a sensation of emptiness and dissipation from the tips of his toes… He would need to ponder about that sensation some more.

‘If I wasn’t in the dump site now.’

He might have refrained from eating for a while. Then he could have waited until he began to disappear and tried to feel the sense of dissipation more clearly.

Then, he would have eaten something only at the moment when he could not take it any longer.

But he couldn’t use that method now.

Dissipation would not occur he-

“…!”

Lukas’ expression suddenly changed.

Dissipation did not occur in this place.

In other words, unlike outside of the dump site, there was no element that caused the disappearance here, or there was another element that suppressed that element.

In that case, this was an opportunity.

In any case, there was a clear distinction or difference between the inside and the outside of the dump site.

He just needed to specify what that was.

Analyse, experiment, think.

Regardless of how mysterious this world was, regardless of how the laws of this world might defy common sense.

In the end, it meant that there were still ‘laws of its own’. It didn’t matter if they were too broad or complicated to understand at first.

In any universe, this was something that anyone who discovered the laws for the first time would feel.

* * *

From a young age, once he made a decision, he had a tendency to see it through to the end.

And magicology had been the first major decision he’d made. He wanted to see the end of that field of study. He wanted to be ahead of everyone else.

Certainly, it had been a simple and childish idea at first.

But regardless of the initial reason, Lukas had eventually achieved what he was pursuing.

There were times when he failed and felt frustrated and lost, but in the end, he became the greatest Wizard to carve his name in history.

Although he’d lost the battle to the Demigods, he hadn’t lost to anyone in the field of magicology.

Therefore, analysis and contemplation were Lukas’ greatest assets.

“…”

His head felt heavy as if a rock was resting upon it.

In that state, Lukas lay among the corpses, still.

His face was haggard, and his eyes were dead. His hunger had already reached the limit, and he was beginning to see changes in his body as well. At some point, he’d started losing weight. This was probably a special phenomenon that could only occur in the dump site.

As he quietly looked up at the ceiling, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

‘…was I underestimating this world?’

No.

That wasn’t it. He hadn’t underestimated it.

By now, he’d spent a long time in the World of Void, but it was only a short chapter when compared to the life Lukas had lived.

Of course, this chapter was more intense than anything else, but he was still confident.

He felt that, if it were him, he would be able to learn everything he wanted as long as he analysed every single detail with all his might.

He wasn’t.

He hadn’t even managed to grasp the slightest hair of a clue.

He felt like his head was about to split open. This wasn’t about a mortal genius.

This was about Lukas, who, although now declined, had once been an Absolute Lord, using his brain to such an extent.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough.

He hadn’t managed to figure anything out.

Was this his limit?

Was this as far as he could go?

For the first time in his life, he felt despair.

Although he’d been forced to yield to the authority and might of beings greater than himself, he had never given up on himself. The process of finding laws and providence could be considered one of his specialties.

In other words, Lukas felt like he’d reached the limit in the field he was most confident in.

‘…is this it for me?’

That was enough,

He wanted to give u-

Lukas’ thoughts stopped there as he shot up from his place on the ground.

Crack!

Then, he swung his fist like a hammer and crushed one of his fingers. Blood dripped down. At this point, this kind of pain was no different from a bug bite, but his head became much clearer.

“Kuk.”

Give up? He wanted to quit now?

Enough.

Why the hell had he abandoned his humanity, mana and even his own identity?

To become strong.

He had chosen to cast everything aside for that goal.

How dare he have such a weak thought now? He felt his mind reach its limits and now wanted to stop and rest?

“Hahaha.”

He laughed loudly at his unsightly self.

No. He couldn’t.

That, more than anything, was unacceptable.

Clearly, Lukas had abandoned many things.

It wasn’t just his identity and humanity as was mentioned before. So many things had been thrown away that he hardly felt like himself at this point.

Nevertheless, it seemed there was still something he hadn’t yet thrown away.

Lukas hadn’t yet abandoned his pride.

* * *

In order to not die, he needed to eat.

But eating meant replenishing his mana.

By nature.

His crushed finger regenerated. Lukas did not take his eyes off of this sight which could only be described as grotesque. However, what he was looking at was not the outside, but the inside.

What happened within his body when he regenerated?

Lukas wasn’t able to find the right answer in his own body. It was the same now.

It was for this reason that his gaze had shifted from the inside to the outside.

However, was that really the case? Perhaps he’d missed something.

“…”

From that day forth, Lukas began to practice self-harm.

He injured himself then ate food while closely observing the effects on his own body. Even if the correct answer didn’t exist inside his body, it was clearly being influenced by some factor.

What he needed to pay attention to was the change.

Crack.

He cut off his finger.

Crack.

He dug out his eyeball.

Crack.

He bit off his tongue.

Crack.

He pierced a hole into his stomach.

[At any time.]

Suddenly.

[The narrow gate leading to the truth can be found within you.]

He seemed to hear a voice.

“…”

When he heard those words, Lukas stopped harming himself.

—A lesson he’d forgotten. In the past, that lesson could be considered a maxim that carried him through life.

He closed his eyes and thought.

Inside him.

Was it referring to his body or his mind?

Or both.

Lukas once again looked at his mana.

To be precise, he looked at the impurities that were mixed into his mana.

And he realised.

Whenever he hurt himself and regenerated, the impurities in his mana experienced a slight change.

‘They’re moving.’

The impurities moved towards the site of the injury.

And then… they disappeared? No, the total amount of impurities didn’t decrease. Lukas would have immediately noticed it if there was such an obvious change.

‘The beginning.’

Could this energy really be dismissed as impurities?

He didn’t know.

Something that Lukas couldn’t identify had mixed with his mana. It was only then that he realised he’d been wasting his time. He should have been searching for the source of this turbid power from the start.

…In order to analyse it more accurately, he would need to separate the impurities from his mana.

He immediately put it to the test.

It was usually difficult to separate powers that were already mixed, but this was especially difficult. The impurities did not separate easily and instead acted as though they had bonded with the mana for a long time.

An old memory popped into his mind.

It was from sometime in the past, when he was called ‘Frey Blake’.

There had been a time when he tried to combine two opposing forces in his mind world.

While it was reckless, he refused to give in and was eventually met with success, obtaining what he wanted.

The difference this time was, instead of combining two powers, he was now trying to separate them.

Separation was inherently more difficult than combination. It was going to take a long time, and unlike that time, when he had some knowledge of both powers, he did not know exactly what kind of energy the impurities were.

—So what was the reason for the thought?

It had been a long time since he’d forgotten the time and effort needed to accomplish such a difficult goal.

The most important thing was to progress forward one step at a time.

It didn’t matter how slow or short those steps were.

* * *

A long time passed.

“…”

Lukas had finally succeeded in obtaining the impurities. To be precise, he’d gotten ahold of the ‘original form of the impurities’ that he so badly wanted.

When he drained all of his mana, the original form miraculously moved near his heart.

…It was a miniscule amount of energy.

Using mana as a reference, it was about enough to cast a 1 star spell. He wasn’t certain, but that’s what he felt.

“Huu.”

He took a deep breath.

What came next was the important part.

Lukas thought of a formula.

For the most basic spell.

Even though it was only one line, he meticulously checked the formula before opening his mouth.

“Magic Missile.”

Bang!

He felt a great shock in his heart.

Lukas couldn’t help but cough up the blood rushing up his throat.

A large amount of pressure had been applied to his internal organs, damaging them. He knew what this phenomenon was. It was the reaction that occurred when a spell was forcibly cast with the wrong formula.

In other words, Lukas had simply failed to cast the spell.

“…”

The ‘original form of the impurities’ that he’d spent a long time collecting, dispersed.

He had failed to cast ‘Magic Missile’, a spell that had been perfected even when he first encountered magic.

Moreover, although it could be regenerated, he had suffered damage to his heart and other internal organs as a result.

“Kuh.”

Nevertheless.

“Puhaha…”

Lukas burst into laughter as tears rolled down his face.

He’d failed.

Finally, he’d failed. He could fail.

That fact filled him with immense joy.

—Ahhh. Until now, he couldn’t even fail. In other words, he didn’t even qualify for the challenge.

He’d experienced how difficult and painful that was.

But it was okay now. He didn’t need to despair anymore.

Now it was just a matter of time.

How much effort it took, how long it took, how many times he failed, none of that mattered anymore.

Either way, Lukas would eventually be able to see the end of this mysterious power.

Because he never ran away from failure.