Chapter 23

[Magic Tower Lord Strategy Guide (Incomplete)]

[Because of one streamer, more people have been trying to kill the Rulers lately, so I gathered some info about the Magic Tower Lord. (Warning: gloomy writing style. Also, I've never cleared it myself. Calling this a guide is honestly embarrassing.)

The final floor of the tower where the sky stretches overhead, the 8th floor where the Magic Tower Lord's office is located.

From what's been confirmed, the Magic Tower Lord has two phases.

Phase 1 uses regular magic.

Fireballs, Ice Arrows, Forest Bind, Earth Barrier, Teleportation, etc.

If you've fought lots of mages through quests in cities or previous floors while playing martial classes, they're difficult but still dodgeable.

The reason it's harder is because the Magic Tower Lord's spells are much larger in scale, cast far faster, and never stop coming.

By the way, he occasionally dual-casts too.

I recommend bringing mobility-related skills and gear with high magic resistance.

If you're confident enough in your mechanics to enjoy flashy martial gameplay, you can probably get through Phase 1.

But Phase 2 is the real problem.

Once you land a certain amount of damage, he immediately enters Phase 2, and from then on the Magic Tower Lord constantly surrounds himself with barriers.

Seriously.

Normal attacks don't work.

I used high-damage explosives, and while they shattered the previous barrier and dealt a tiny bit of damage—

he immediately cast another one.

Then wouldn't bringing a ton of explosives solve it?

Sure, except the problem is surviving long enough to use them all.

Starting from Phase 2, the Magic Tower Lord fires lightning.

This thing is ridiculously fast.

(Video attached)

Once you watch it, you'll understand. Dodging it is insanely hard.

And he fires it indiscriminately.

How much mana does this guy even have?

I even summoned a friend and used him as a lightning rod beside me, but it didn't matter against infinite mana.

(Also, don't party up. Since the balance is adjusted, he casts twice as much magic.)

I think there's probably some other hidden gimmick here. The game's scale is so massive there's definitely multiple ways to clear this.

There might even be a third phase.

It's only been a few days since release, so people will probably keep researching it.]

"I see."

Seo Jun opened his item window with an expressionless face.

The only things he had were the remaining guard star's sword and a basic hood.

And forty-odd machetes he'd collected while searching the floors.

It looked rather pitiful.

-Forget the lightning, there's no way through the barrier.

-Just assassinate him already.

-Stealth's honestly most fun on the 8th floor anyway. It's full of traps personally installed by the Magic Tower Lord.

"Well, there'll probably be a way. Looking at the mission details, assassination would technically count as success too. But I do have some conscience, so I won't do that."

The mission never specifically said not to assassinate him.

Of course, if Seo Jun actually went for an assassination here, the viewers would riot.

"More importantly, I seriously can't figure out the flow of the magic. And honestly, I might die for the first time too. Looking at the barriers, they just seem completely solid. I can't even tell if there's a weak point."

Seo Jun replayed the attached video from the strategy post.

Sure, it probably wasn't as fast as real lightning, but to a human the distinction was meaningless.

-Honestly, even with Weakness Detection you couldn't cut that. It's too fast.

-Mission failure angle.

-Free money asset.

The moment Seo Jun finished speaking, the mission bounty started increasing.

[+5,000 won added]

[+7,000 won added]

[+3,000 won added]

Once the first addition appeared, the rewards began climbing in a chain reaction.

In Travel's mission system, once a streamer accepted a mission and it appeared on broadcast, anyone could freely add to the bounty.

The viewers believed Seo Jun's chances of failure had increased because of what he said, so they started pouring in money.

After all, if he failed, they'd get refunded. A so-called "safe investment."

<Clear the Magic Tower Lord without using Weakness Detection — Mission Reward: 1,230,000 won>

-Don't fall for it!

-Even the way he acted weak was calculated. He refreshed the video again to bait more reward money. He probably already knows exactly what he's gonna do.

-I smell experienced capitalism.

-This is why you can't trust quick-witted brats…

As Seo Jun smiled, the viewers started catching on.

"No, seriously. There's no way I'd know what to do. It's not like I made the game."

-Wait.

-Hold on???

-My gamer instincts are tingling.

-He sounded suspiciously smooth even when denying it lol

Seo Jun laughed while reading the chat and opened the door to the 8th floor.

"I'm telling you, no… anyway, enough of that. Let's go in."

kkkkkkkkkkkkkk

"And who might you be?"

A young man sat with his fingers intertwined over a book.

Neatly brushed-back white hair, a sharp uniform, white gloves on his hands.

An extremely tidy appearance.

Magic Tower Lord Duke.

Inside his office, towering bookshelves packed full of books surrounded the room, while the ceiling appeared open to the sky.

Behind the Magic Tower Lord stretched a corridor where strange mechanical devices and formulas could be seen at a glance.

"A nameless one, huh?"

Seo Jun answered the Magic Tower Lord's question.

"A nameless one. Then why are you here? No… how did you get here?"

"Well that's because—"

Fwoosh!

In the middle of answering, Seo Jun drew his sword and split apart the suddenly incoming spell.

"So you do have some skill. What a shame. This could have ended easily."

With a single gesture, the Magic Tower Lord created three more fireballs and launched them at Seo Jun while slowly rising from his seat.

Seo Jun also moved nothing but his arm, extinguishing the fireballs effortlessly.

Then he took one step forward.

"Man, you've got no manners. Don't you think?"

"Are you speaking to me?"

With another flick of his hand, more than ten ice arrows formed again.

The fact that his other hand remained casually behind his back made him even more irritating.

"Who else would I be talking to?"

Seo Jun dodged the arrows while approaching the Magic Tower Lord.

"I see. So how exactly did you get here?"

Sasasasasak.

Kukukurung.

The binding vines trying to restrain him and the sharp stone spikes erupting beneath them came at him in sequence.

Seo Jun twisted around the vines, stabbed his sword into the rock magic to destroy it, then stepped forward once more.

"I just walked here. None of the doors were locked."

-That was cool as hell.

-Facts.

-Lol he should've managed his doors better.

-Up to this point it's easy though.

"Hoh… can you dodge this too?"

Once again, a wave of magic crashed down upon him.

But no matter how much faster or stronger it became, fundamentally it was still the same magic.

"Yeah. I could dodge this with my eyes closed."

-FACTS

-The streamer's trash talk lolololol

-Considering how much he's gaslit viewers until now, there's no way he's nervous lolololol

"Looks like we got close before I noticed?"

Unlike before, Seo Jun suddenly closed the distance and slashed horizontally from left to right.

Chwaaaak!

The Magic Tower Lord quickly teleported away, but a thin line appeared across his neck and blood sprayed out.

He had been just slightly too slow.

Yet the Magic Tower Lord showed no signs of surprise. Instead, it was Seo Jun who wore a calm expression.

"Hmph. Very well. I'll face you seriously."

The Magic Tower Lord removed his coat-like robe and brought both hands together.

Blue sparks began crackling around him.

-It's Phase 2.

-Back off first.

-RUN!

Pajijik!

The Magic Tower Lord stretched out his hand toward Seo Jun.

The air exploded with destruction, followed by thunder.

A vivid blue bolt like something straight out of a Nikola Tesla coil struck past Seo Jun and slammed into the floor instantly.

The magic lingered in midair for a brief moment before disappearing, leaving only blackened craters behind.

It was dozens of times faster than even the absolute masters' swift sword techniques Seo Jun had experienced in his previous life.

"How the hell am I supposed to deal with this?"

Cold sweat rolled down Seo Jun's face.

One hundred thousand kilometers per second.

Even slowed down ten thousand times from its original speed, it was still ten kilometers per second.

Good thing I watched the video first.

-How did he dodge that lololol

-At this point isn't he genuinely pro-level? Why's he streaming?

-This dude is literally insane about streaming lololol

Dodging after seeing it was impossible.

Instead, he watched the Magic Tower Lord himself and predicted the timing in advance.

Pajijijik!

Electric current gathered once more in the Magic Tower Lord's hand.

Seo Jun never took his eyes off it.

Kwa-kak!

Another bolt slammed into the ground.

The magic barely grazed Seo Jun's right shoulder.

Seo Jun believed the most important thing in a fight was observation.

Pajijik!

The charge gathering in the Magic Tower Lord's hand.

Kwa-kak!

Then another descending lightning spell.

Pajijik!

This time Seo Jun threw himself leftward to dodge it.

Kwa-kak!

Unlike bullets fired instantly the moment a trigger was pulled, magic had a slight delay before activation, and Seo Jun exploited that delay while continuously observing.

After several exchanges that completely wrecked the office, Seo Jun began noticing a few things.

First, the Magic Tower Lord.

"For some reason, he really doesn't want me getting close to that side."

Whenever Seo Jun moved right, the Magic Tower Lord deliberately fired magic even farther to the right, guiding him back toward his original position.

"The same happens on the left."

Even when Seo Jun narrowly dodged lightning while closing the distance in a straight line, the Magic Tower Lord never retreated. Instead, he used shields to force Seo Jun back and defend his position.

Since Seo Jun had no method to break through the shield, he was forced to retreat again.

Which meant one thing.

"He's protecting something important behind him."

Seo Jun stared at the wall behind the Magic Tower Lord.

There, inside a glass tube, floated a ring-shaped object roughly the size of a soccer ball.

"I really want to see that."

Seo Jun pulled out a machete from his inventory and threw it.

But the Magic Tower Lord's shield intercepted it nearly three meters away.

-Yep, no chance.

-lol how long is he gonna keep dodging?

-He's out of options, right? Time for a retry?

-Let's at least gather explosives before trying again.

"As expected."

He had anticipated that.

Pajijik!

"Don't!"

The Magic Tower Lord shouted while extending his hand.

He sounded agitated.

Kwa-kak!

Seo Jun tilted his head sideways to avoid the lightning while thinking.

"And that's the second question."

Seo Jun stared at the blue lightning lingering in the air for about a second.

It was beautiful.

From afar, it looked like a single bolt of lightning, but up close it consisted of countless branching strands of blue light intertwining into one shape.

"Why specifically make the mission prohibit Weakness Detection?"

After all, lightning could never be cut or parried.

Even if Seo Jun had brought over the body and realm from his previous life, it would still be impossible.

"Would a normal person really pay a million won just for that?"

Even aside from the money itself, Seo Jun instinctively felt the mission had been proposed by someone connected to the game.

And that intuition only grew stronger the longer he observed the lingering lightning.

There's something there.

Seo Jun steadied himself and entrusted his body to instinct.

The air shattered with a roar.

Before Seo Jun's eyes, the fantastical blue glow created by the electric charge flashed past in an instant.

Like shattered glass, countless branches of lightning intertwined and separated repeatedly.

The crossing point where the tiny branches overlapped.

In that fleeting instant, Seo Jun trusted his instincts and thrust his sword into that exact spot.