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Side Story (7)

Thus, Henry wanted to retire in the sense that he would assign a significant portion of his workload to others. After that, he would use his free time to proceed with his final plan, the one he had been postponing for the longest.

‘I’ll finally be able to try awakening the 9th-Circle.’

Currently at the 8th-Circle, Henry had been looking forward to this challenge for the longest time. He had awakened the 9th-Circle in his previous life, although under unique circumstances.

Of course, he still possessed the knowledge of the dimensional powers he had obtained from the Demon God, but he had no intention of awakening the 9th-Circle through the same means as before.

Henry felt that advancing like that wouldn’t be a true reflection of his own power but rather a forced one due to external factors. Besides, this wasn’t just his dream and his destiny, but also something that would entertain him.

If the elderly spent the last part of their lives knitting in front of a fireplace, Henry would spend his trying to reach his maximum potential.

Of course, the past Henry would’ve put everything aside and risked his life in order to awaken the 9th-Circle, as magic advancement had been as important as his life. However, things had changed, and advancement was no longer important enough for Henry to push everything else aside.

Thus, when Henry made his plans and set his priorities, he put this challenge at the very bottom of his list, having more important things to deal with first. However, he had now taken care of most of those things, including Dracan’s advancement to the 7th-Circle.

Realizing that one of the things he had been most excited for had finally happened, Henry wore a big smile. Dracan also smiled, unable to hide the embarrassment he got from Henry’s reaction.

“I knew it! I knew it all along! Dracan, you’re the genius who’s going to succeed me!”

“That means the world to me, Archmage!”

“And on that point, how about coming back to the Magical Spire now?”

“What? Come back to the Magical Spire?”

“Think about it. Who else at the spire is an Archamge besides me?”

“No one... Right?”

“Yes, exactly! But we both know that there’s another one now. Dracan, I’m getting old, and my strength is slowly going away. I can feel it. I want to step down from the leading position so that I can take it easy and look after others. I have all the reasons to be happy, right? Can’t you tell? You’re here, the right person to succeed me!”

Henry’s tone was light, jocular, but his words were sincere. Even though Lore was the current deputy, it only made sense to appoint Dracan as the master of the Magical Spire, given that he had been achieving continuous progress with his magic.

Of course, it was unlikely that Lore would be against Dracan becoming the master of the Magical Spire, as he had proven himself beyond the shadow of a doubt. Even in the past, when Lore used to be the master of the Medical Spire, he would always dismiss trivial complaints.

In addition, the current Magical Spire was free of envy and jealousy, its main values being order and equality.

However, Dracan was flustered, seemingly lost for words. Henry completely understood why he reacted this way. Even though he had reached the 7th-Circle, being a great leader wasn’t about outstanding magical skills.

That position required more than just power. They both knew that if Dracan were to become the master of the spire, he had to start preparing right away and be very thorough about it.

As Dracan’s expression remained unchanged, Henry smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

“Haha! I’m kidding. Thought I’d just say it as a joke!”

“Oh, is that so...?”

Dracan let out a sigh of relief. However, Henry could vaguely sense that Dracan had actually looked forward to his offer, just a bit.

‘Hmm, interesting...’

Just as he had expected, Dracan’s ambition hadn’t waned. Henry was glad to have confirmed that Dracan did at least entertain the idea of becoming the next master of the Magical Spire.

“But hey, you never know. No one can predict someone’s future. Wasn’t that the case for you just a few years ago? So don\'t just think of my words as a joke. There’s always a possibility for you to become the second master of the Magical Spire...”

As he trailed off, Henry sat back down in front of the large stack of documents on his desk. After a brief pause, he continued, “On that note, I’d suggest you look for the next successor of the Medical Spire.”

Selecting a successor was easy for Henry. All he needed to do was subtly light up the ambition of the man in front of him, Dracan Rotique.

‘Successor of the Medical Spire...’

Dracan repeated Henry’s words in his mind while imagining himself in Henry’s position, surrounded by piles of documents. To him, Henry’s spot seemed like a throne, and even the overwhelming stack of papers, which was enough to exhaust anyone, seemed appealing.

“Yes! All right!” Dracan replied with great vigor.

Henry smiled at Dracan’s energetic answer, knowing that he had successfully ignited his ambition just like he had planned.

***

Henry slowly delegated his duties to various people. At first, he was genuinely worried that others might not be up to par, but he soon realized that he had nothing to worry about.

In fact, everyone seemed as excited as Dracan.

“Thank you, thank you so much, Archmage! I’ll do my best and completely devote myself to this!”

“Oh, well... You don’t have to...”

“No! I’ll do my best so that I’ll never disappoint you! It’s an honor to take over your work, Archmage! I swear on my life that I will never do anything that would damage your reputation!”

Almost every person to whom Henry had assigned his work felt an immense sense of pride, elated to have the privilege of taking over some of Henry Morris’ work.

Their reactions were only natural, given that Henry was the central figure within the imperial place, an indispensable person that everything revolved around.

‘Why are they so happy to get more work?’

That was something Henry simply couldn’t wrap his head around. But regardless, their excitement made it surprisingly easy to divide and assign his duties.

However, his next task came out of the blue. Rumors began to spread that he was delegating his work because of an unexplained illness and that he planned to retire because of it.

“I guess rumors are bound to spread.”

Henry figured that this rumor was going around because he hadn’t officially announced his retirement. He dismissed the rumors by publicly announcing Dracan’s advancement to the 7th-Circle and by exhibiting 8th-Circle magic for the first time in a long time so as to celebrate the good news.

However, the most memorable part of his announcement wasn’t his magic demonstration but his speech.

“Everyone, you don’t have to worry about my health. I sleep like a baby every night, and I have the best meals in the entire empire. I am merely trying to get some rest now that everything is stable in the empire. So, don’t worry unnecessarily and just focus on your own interests. After all, I’ll live longer than your grandchildren.”

It was a rather refreshing message, filled with sincerity and aimed at those who believed and spread false rumors.

And with that, most things were taken care of.

Now, aside from performing the bare minimum of his duties, Henry’s activities at the palace would mostly consist of making regular appearances at events, teaching Silver and the Morris children, and looking after Hoosler and the Messiah, who were living in the secret mansion on the top floor of the Magical Spire.

“Hmm... Should I set up a new lab now?”

In order to prepare for the long journey to the 9th-Circle, a new laboratory wasn’t an option but a necessity. A new challenge naturally required a new place, but Henry had no intention of building something grandiose.

After all, he would be the only one using this new lab, and as he conducted his research, he would have to return to the Magical Spire periodically, since he had people to look after. And so, instead of leaving the Magical Spire, he decided to create a new secret space on one side of the lab, just like the secret mansion where Hoosler and the Messiah were.

‘It would’ve been great if Klever were still here...’

Henry suddenly remembered Klever and how much he missed him. He hadn’t forgotten all the help he had received from him.

By going back in time, Henry had managed to fix many things, but he hadn’t been able to maintain the relationships he had created in his past life. Naturally, he couldn’t have the best of both worlds, which saddened him a bit.

Even so, Henry had decided to keep Klever as part of his memory, never to forget him.

Snap!

A door leading to a new space appeared behind his work desk.

“Hmm.”

Henry stepped through the door with a slight grunt. It felt like a completely different world. What should’ve been a room had an endless sky for a roof and crashing waves for walls. However, there wasn’t a beach in sight.

Instead of sand, the ebbing water revealed the marble floor of a laboratory.

Henry had created a new laboratory uniquely designed to reflect his tastes. Pleased with the results, he snapped his fingers again.

Buzz, buzz, buzz-!

Although not very loud, a thrilling vibration filled the laboratory. Before Henry’s eyes appeared records of the things he had learned about or wanted to study in the future. He had a whopping nine hundred and ninety-nine topics on his bucket list of knowledge.

Henry’s schedule had been fully completed by Dracan’s recent advancement to the 7th-Circle. And so, the things that weren’t crossed off were Henry’s desires and curiosities that had been suppressed by his priorities.

Henry brought his hands together behind his back and inspected the words that hung in the air like bats in a cave.

‘Oh, I remember wanting to research this at some point.’

The lists of various fields and topics stimulated his intellectual curiosity, causing it to bloom like a flower. He wanted to proceed with his research right then and there.

As he kept looking around his records, Henry suddenly stopped in his tracks after tracing his hand across his face.

‘A wrinkle, huh...’

The proof of his aging lay on his face. In his past lives, Henry had gone through two awakenings, each time when reaching the 8th-Circle. That had preserved his youth for an unexpectedly long time.

However, even though he had immediately awakened the 8th-Circle after going back in time, Henry hadn’t gone through an awakening for some reason.

It was a real shame, as having a young body was beneficial in many ways. Henry wondered if his failure to awaken under the same conditions as before stemmed from a lack of enlightenment.

This issue made his quest to achieve a higher Circle even more urgent, as preserving his youth would give him more time to research the things he was passionate about.

Henry quickly took his hand off his face. In a way, his wrinkles made for a good motivator. Even though he could rejuvenate his body to some extent with the magic developed at the Medical Spire, Henry wanted to regain his youth by himself.

It was a matter of pride for a wizard to regain their youth through awakening.

Henry continued to scan the floating records, and going through all of them ultimately took longer than expected. As he went through each one, he suddenly stopped in front of a particular record and grabbed it.

When Henry touched the record, the glowing words materialized on a sheet of paper in his hand, a result of the advanced recording magic he had developed.

As he read through the text, Henry murmured to himself, “Knowledge about the power of dimensions...”

He shook his head and tore it apart.