Leon obtained over a hundred scorpion golem cores.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed during this process.

After extracting the cores of the scorpion golems and storing their remains in the orb, he found himself looking at a now clean passage once again.

"Shall I go further...?"

Now that he was finally able to use magic in earnest, Leon had no intention of stopping.

Naturally, even this deep passage had an end.

"Stairs?"

He spotted stairs leading further down into the cave.

They appeared to lead to an even deeper part of the cave.

"Were the stairs leading up... in the right passage?"

After some hesitation, Leon decided to step onto the descending stairs.

The stairs wound down in a spiral.

Dimly lit by light orbs, the stairs seemed roughly hewn from the rock, yet each step was remarkably uniform in height and width.

"Whoever made this must have been very meticulous."

Leon cautiously descended the stairs, step by step, until he suddenly froze at the sight that appeared below.

"A knight...?"

At the bottom of the stairs stood a massive door, and in front of it, a knight in ivory armor was bowing his head, blocking the entrance.

To be precise, it was a knight golem.

"Did the ancient magician like big things?"

The knight was enormous, standing about half the height of the massive door.

It was roughly three times Leon’s height.

It was even larger than the guardian golem Leon possessed.

Beside the knight lay an equally large ivory sword.

Leon, who had been holding his breath for some time, realized that the knight golem wasn’t moving.

"Given that the scorpion golems moved, it's probably not completely inactive. Maybe... it’ll try to stop me if I approach the door."

Although Leon was confident it was a golem, he prepared for battle just in case.

He entered the orb and fully replenished his memorized spells.

Even though it was likely just another golem like the scorpions, the sword beside the knight bothered him.

He wasn’t sure if the wooden sword’s abilities would work against the knight’s armor.

After enhancing his physical abilities with mana infusion, Leon cautiously sent the wooden sword into the knight’s helmet.

He intended to disable the knight, just as he had done with the scorpions.

However, as soon as the wooden sword entered a certain range, the knight snapped its head up.

It grabbed the sword lying beside it and instantly struck down the wooden sword.

Retrieving the sword, Leon confirmed that the knight was indeed still operational.

"As expected...!"

The sword the knight wielded was entirely separate from the knight golem’s core.

Simply touching it with the wooden sword wouldn’t stop its functions.

From within the dark, unseeable face inside the ivory helmet, a pair of glowing red eyes locked onto Leon.

The moment the knight met Leon’s gaze, it charged at him at breakneck speed.

As the knight swung its massive sword, it surged towards the spot where Leon had been standing, seemingly to sweep him away.

The speed was faster than expected, and Leon grasped the wooden sword tightly while infusing mana into a Blink scroll.

Blink was a lower-tier spell that allowed the caster to teleport a short distance within their line of sight.

Leon appeared directly in front of the door and noticed a lever behind where the knight had been standing.

However, he still needed to deal with the knight first, so he quickly summoned an Earth-attribute familiar using Arpina’s basic four-star magic.

Among the four memorized spells Leon had, aside from Pierce, the others were all Arpina’s basic magic.

It would have been convenient to use Swell to enlarge the sword and then fire it off with Pierce, but at the basic magic level, the two didn’t really combine.

When he used one spell, the effect of the other would dissipate.

The knight turned and approached Leon again.

Why do magicians tend to look down on martial magic? It’s not just because its power is relatively weak, but because, even when strong, its effective range is limited.

If the weapon itself was good, it wouldn’t be a problem, but if not, relying heavily on weapons through magic had its limitations.

Magic that involved manipulating weapons was also looked down upon, so what about a knight who wielded a sword directly?

It wasn’t hard for magicians who could enhance their physical abilities through mana infusion techniques to deal with such knights.

"Of course, if it’s this big and fast... it’s a bit more troublesome."

Furthermore, considering the scorpion golems, the knight’s defense, which was impervious to Apprentice-level magic, was a significant issue.

As the knight swiftly approached and swung its sword down, Leon dodged to the side.

The knight’s sword struck the ground with a heavy thud.

Seeing Leon close to the lever, the knight seemed to become more cautious and charged at him even faster.

To buy time to summon more familiars, Leon used another Blink scroll.

Appearing on the opposite side, Leon summoned Arpina’s three-star and two-star familiars in succession.

"I’ve got two Blink scrolls left..."

He knew he needed to be more cautious with the remaining scrolls.

In fast-paced combat, retreating into the orb was dangerous. While it might provide immediate safety, re-emerging without fully grasping the situation could be risky.

Blink was the only method that could offer a significant advantage.

A wind spirit and a small flaming bird circled around Leon.

The reason Leon summoned them all at once was to distract the knight so he could send the wooden sword into the knight’s helmet.

He didn’t care that the other Apprentice spells were ineffective. As long as the wooden sword touched the knight, that was enough.

Summoning three familiars at once caused a significant drain on his mana.

As Leon spread the familiars widely around the knight and gathered his mana, the knight paused, raising its sword in a defensive stance.

Seeing this, Leon was confident that the knight had no way of gauging the power of its opponent.

Leon spoke the incantation for a combination spell.

"Trillapida."

A brown-haired mole-like creature emerged from the ground, forming rocks that flew toward the knight.

A large boulder, big enough to shield Leon’s entire body, formed and flew toward the knight, not once but three times in succession.

However, the knight easily blocked the spell.

Leon didn’t stop and pulled out a barrage of F-rank and E-rank attack scrolls, throwing them at the knight.

The fact that he hadn’t disposed of them during the exchange event turned out to be useful now.

"Wind Cutter."

Following this, a combination spell through the wind familiar was unleashed, sending dozens of attack spells flying toward the knight.

Dozens of earthen walls rose around the knight, and flames erupted from the ground due to Flame Magic.

A barrage of magic missiles, triple fireballs, and wind blades pounded the knight.

Although none of these spells were particularly powerful, their sheer volume overwhelmed the knight.

"Now!"

"Pierce!"

Leon fired the wooden sword at the knight’s helmet.

The wooden sword, infused with most of his remaining mana, surged toward the knight, piercing the gap in its helmet.

Although the knight’s defenses had prevented the magic from even scratching its body, that wasn’t the important part.

The knight’s body jerked and then tilted to the side.

Thud—

With the knight completely fallen, Leon sighed in relief and retrieved the wooden sword.

Approaching the knight’s body to inspect it, Leon discovered that there was no face inside the helmet, but rather a round sphere.

It was a core.

The light that Leon had thought was the knight’s eyes was actually the glow emitted by the functioning core.

Leon also realized that the armor was hollow inside.

"The armor itself was moving..."

In other words, it was an armor golem.

This meant that he didn’t need to shoot the wooden sword into the helmet; simply touching the armor would have stopped it.

"Well, it worked, so no harm done... but the core is completely ruined."

Unlike the scorpion golem, whose circuits were damaged, the core of the armor golem, which had taken a direct hit, had lost all its light.

"This was just taking down a golem, not using the sword’s ability."

Even though he had captured it purely with his own abilities rather than relying on the sword’s power, it wasn’t incorrect to say that he had succeeded.

Without needing to extract the core, Leon simply stored the entire armor in the orb, then turned his attention to the large sword lying on the ground.

"I should take the sword too..."

It seemed like he was just collecting swords despite being a magician, but Leon stored the large sword in the orb as well.

Before opening the door, Leon entered the orb to restore his mana and refresh his memorized spells.

"I’ve used up a lot of the orb’s time..."

Before advancing to the 4th rank, Leon had used most of the time he had accumulated in the orb. After reaching the 4th rank, he received 400 hours.

However, he hadn’t completed any quests since attending the exchange event and had continued using up the orb’s time.

He had used quite a bit of it to learn the "Moonlight Scattering Sword," leaving him with only 164 hours remaining.

"I can’t keep pretending to be an ordinary disciple anymore..."

He needed time to train without having to be cautious of others.

Becoming a general disciple and waiting a year before claiming to have awakened his mana was meant to avoid drawing attention, but seeing the time left in the orb made him decide not to hesitate any longer.

The fact that he was in an ancient magician’s lair could be a good excuse...

"Do I even need to return to Widia?"

That thought crossed his mind briefly, but then Leah’s face flashed in his memory.

And Rowen’s face too.

"I need to at least let them know I’m alive."

After fully recovering his mana, Leon returned to reality.

When Leon pulled the lever, the massive doors began to slowly open, scraping against the ground.

Rumble—

The cave trembled.

A small gap appeared, just big enough for Leon to slip through, but he waited until the entire interior was visible before entering.

The sight revealed behind the fully opened door wasn’t much different from the passage Leon had gone through before descending the stairs.

The only difference was that at regular intervals along the passage, there were rooms on either side.

The doors were large, though not as massive as the one the knight had been guarding.

Keeping the wooden sword hovering around him, Leon cautiously approached the nearest door and slowly pulled the lever.

Rumble—

The door opened, revealing a space that was smaller than he had expected.

"Now this feels more like a space a magician would use..."

Leon noticed a lone table placed in the otherwise bare room.

On the table was an unrolled scroll that looked to be in surprisingly good condition.

Beside the scroll lay a red book and a quill.

The writing on the scroll was mostly intact, with no signs of fading or discoloration.

"Was it magically treated?"

[To my dear companion Marcellus,

Are you still striving to reach the source today? Your beautiful dance of magic must be enveloping the world as usual.

While I don’t wish to belittle your passion, would you be so kind as to listen to a friend’s weary confession?]

The scroll was a letter addressed to someone.

Leon continued reading through the scroll.

[...The world is blinded by elemental magic, neglecting our noble magic.

They call it technology, but this too is the ‘source.’

They are dazzled by the brilliant flames and the raging storms, unable to see the wonders we have achieved in creating life.

(skip)

I am enclosing part of my research results; if you are interested, please send a reply.

Your support and friendship are always a great strength to me. Though our path may be lonely and arduous, I am grateful to have a companion who watches over me.

Your eternal companion, Megrippa von Wittestain.]

"So, the golems were indeed... created by an ancient magician."

Leon then turned his attention to the red-covered book beside the scroll.

[The Secrets of Megrippa’s Creation (Basics)]

"It seems this letter was never sent... what could have happened?"

Leon opened the red-covered book.

"It’s the basic theory needed to create golems..."

The book started with the history of golem creation and included explanations of the materials used, the structure of golems, core manufacturing, and the basics of linking magical circuits.

"I thought it was just a book on magical engineering, but this is magic too..."

While golems could be operated according to a set manual, they could also be controlled at will through magic.

"I wonder if there’s an advanced book too."

Leon searched the barren room, but he couldn’t find any advanced books.

"I should check the other rooms too."

Leon left the room and approached the door directly across from it.

When the door opened, the space revealed was certainly larger than before.

Leon found a pile of ivory armor in one corner of the room.

The armor was similar to that of the knight guarding the entrance, except these pieces were missing helmets and scattered everywhere.

"Was this where they made the golems?"

Leon stored all the armor in the orb and checked the other rooms, but most were similar.

They were mostly filled with the remains of scorpion golems, and one room had a gargoyle golem with its head detached, lying motionless.

All ten rooms were like this.

"This floor was for manufacturing golems... why didn’t the gargoyle golem activate?"

Leon cautiously opened the last remaining door.

It was another large, barren room, but there was one significant difference.

"A training room...?"

In the center of the room, a large circular stone plate was raised, and protective magic circles were etched all over the surrounding floor and walls.

Protection magic circles.

Leon had never seen one in person, but he had heard that high-ranking magicians covered their training rooms with protective magic circles to mitigate the effects of their magic.

And scattered around the circular stone plate were the remains of various golems.

All of them had cores embedded, but most of them were gargoyle golems.

Even though they had cores, they remained motionless, unlike the golems that moved on their own.

"I heard it was possible to control hundreds of golems directly..."

Of course, that method wasn’t described in the basic magic book of the secrets of creation.

Judging by the traces of magic used around the stone plate... either the gargoyle golems could use magic, or the owner of this lair could use magic beyond just creating golems.

"I’m hesitant to enter..."

Without being able to confirm whether it was just a protective magic circle, Leon was reluctant to go in.

"I’ll give up on this."

Just as he made up his mind and began to turn around, the magic circle suddenly emitted a bright light.

The light reached Leon, who was standing outside the door.

Instinctively, Leon raised the wooden sword to block the light and shouted the incantation.

"Swell!"

The light flashed, and as Leon’s vision briefly went dark and then cleared again, he found himself in a much darker and narrower space.

And the wooden sword, which he had definitely cast the enlargement spell on, had vanished from sight.