Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! Chapter 141: 141-Unhand Me

Read chapter 141 of Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! by A_Random_Turtle on NovelPedia.

There were very few places Ji-ho liked, and the basement in Club Spiral wasn’t one of them. It smelled of drugs, had the quietness of desolation, and reminded him of days he wanted to completely forget. But he had no choice but to pay it a visit now. He was on the verge of speeding up his plans, and he had to figure out how much time he was left to work with. Ji-ho pushed open a door and the rhythmic sound of beeping came into his ears, followed by a bright white light, illuminating the room he walked into. A simple space, in truth. Barely had any furniture or design, just a simple desk to the side, bearing computers, a bench on the other side for visitors, and a pod in its center, bubbling with purple liquid, courtesy of the tubes connecting it to the stainless tank to the farthest edge of the room. “Ah. The great successor finally decided to pay a visit to the lower levels of his humble abode,” chirped a squat man in a lab coat seated before the desk of computers. He turned around to face Ji-ho, folding his arms, curly black hair seated out of place on his head. Ji-ho let his eyes linger on the man’s hair for a moment. “When are you going to give up on employing that wig, Dr. Edmond.” The man reddened. Few things annoyed the man, talking about his wig took about ninety percent of them. “I still don’t like you,” said Dr. Edmond. “I perhaps never will.” He turned around to face his computers once more, clacking away at its keyboard in a way Ji-ho couldn’t follow. He hadn’t been especially book smart. But he didn’t need to be any longer. Ji-ho strode to the pod and glanced into its transparent glass. Within the liquid lay a man’s body, frail and skinny thin. There were no signs of hair on his body, not even eyebrows or lashes were present, and he wasn’t breathing. Regardless, he wasn’t completely pale or decomposing. He was tethering on the boundary between life and death. “How long does he have?” Ji-ho asked. “How long did I mention last time?” Dr. Edmond replied, disdain tainting his tone. “Ten months,” Ji-ho replied. He was used to the doctor’s repugnance towards him, so it did nothing to change his mood or approach towards the conversation. “And almost half of that has passed. Now, I’m wondering if there has been a shortage of what he has left, or an increase. Answer me.” Dr. Edmond scoffed. “There has been no shortage or increase, successor. Stop slacking and get things done. You have about six months left.” Ji-ho sighed, turning away from the pod. Six months was enough time in hindsight, but there were a lot of elements in play that could hinder his progress to a great degree. The most important of those elements was the artifacts required to unleash the Cataclysm. He had no choice but to applaud Guildmaster Hyeonki for being able to hide such powerful things from the eyes of even those close to him. But enough was enough. He no longer had the time to dawdle, waiting patiently for the man to slip. They had to find the artifacts as soon as possible, even if they had to resort to extreme means. While the second was the boy, Merlin Tyrrell. Merlin fascinated Ji-ho. There were a few things he had found out about the boy now that made him even more interested than he had already been. Besides the fact that the boy could use anti-magic, he had also learnt that the boy’s mana had increased from the abysmally low pool of that of a Deficient Mage’s to the one of a C-Class Mage’s. It was weird, and outright impossible. A Deficient Mage that could use a form of magic never seen before, and, not only that, could grow his mana up to the point that he might eventually be able to cast actual magic. It was something that was equivalent to a miracle. Ji-ho glanced at Dr. Edmond. If he mentioned his findings to the doctor, the man would run mad requesting for the boy to be brought to him for tests. His life’s work was all about finding out how to turn a Deficient Mage into a being even more powerful than S-Class Mages. He had failed countl