When I opened my eyes, I was inside the Magic Tower. Before me, the portal to the fourth-floor trial still gaped like a black maw.

"Tower Master! Tower Master! Are you all right?" Ea rushed to my side.

I slowly ran a hand over my chest. There was no wound. Not even a trace of one.

"…What happened?"

"The Tower Master died within a virtual space created by magic. It is believed your physical body was not affected."

I was too stunned to speak.

So this was death in virtual reality. But the experience had been so terrifyingly real that the shock lingered, a phantom chill in my bones. This was the first time I had been so helplessly defeated. My head was spinning.

'He said we had the same amount of mana, but there's this much of a difference…'

I collapsed onto my back, limbs spread wide. My thoughts were a tangled mess. I had met the previous Tower Master, dueled him, and died by an overwhelming margin. Still.

'I want to fight him again.'

My fists clenched. Having a goal to overcome was a truly thrilling feeling. I could challenge him as many times as I wanted. I felt like I could get the hang of it if I just fought him a little more. Feeling the same resolve I had when I first challenged the first-floor trial, I pushed myself up.

But my vision suddenly spun, and I fell to my knees.

"…Huh?"

My mind whirled. Nausea rose in my throat, and tears suddenly welled in my eyes. I didn't feel like myself.

"Tower Master." Ea gently pulled me into an embrace. "Now is the time to rest."

"Wh-what's suddenly wrong with me?"

"…Even in a virtual world, death is still death."

There were aftereffects. I could still remember the chilling sensation of that ice piercing my heart. Trying again in this physical and mental state would be foolish.

"…Yeah. Let's go get some rest."

* * *

After a full night's sleep, I challenged Anton again the next morning. He was strong. This time, too, I didn't last ten minutes.

'Drowning this time, huh.' I could still feel the phantom pressure of water filling my lungs, the memory of a fishbowl clamped over my head as I struggled uselessly before my consciousness faded to black. Anton was flawlessly deconstructing my every move.

In the end, I returned to the first-floor lobby, sipping the coffee Ea had made for me while I agonized over a strategy.

'Ding!'

"Hm?"

The chime of a text message made me pick up my smartphone. The number was blocked.

—Unknown Number: Give up the potion business.

"Pfft!"

Who were these clowns? What kind of prank was this?

"Ea, could you call Seojin down from the second floor?"

"Understood, Tower Master."

A moment later, Seojin came down, and I showed him the message. His expression hardened slightly.

"…Hmm, I will look into it. Considering the Calam incident, it wouldn't hurt to be cautious."

I linked my hands behind my head. "What is it this time? They're not demanding our potion master or the recipe. Just for us to give up the business?"

Seojin stroked his chin, his expression serious. "You have a point, it is rather strange. I will begin an investigation, focusing on parties who would be negatively impacted by the widespread commercialization of potions."

"Would anyone really be against it?" Potions were a public good. Though the price was steep, they had undeniably increased the stability and survival rate of hunters in dungeons. No player, rich or poor, would oppose the existence of potions. If anything, they'd welcome the expansion of the business, as it would increase their own chances of getting their hands on a few bottles.

"Could it be the demonkin? Potions are significantly increasing hunter survival rates, and hunters are the greatest threat to monsters."

"That is a valid point," Seojin conceded. "However, due to the recent incident, their existence has come under intense scrutiny. The demonkin are lying low. It would not be wise for them to stir up trouble at a time like this."

"Hmm."

After a moment of thought, Seojin spoke. "Ah, there is one group. Those whose standing would diminish if the potion business grew."

"Who?"

"Players with healing abilities. To be more specific, the 'Healer's Union'."

"…Interesting."

'Healers' with healing-type abilities were rare and often treated like nobility. The Healer's Union was a guild composed exclusively of these players. It operated by dispatching healers to various guilds—for an enormous fee, of course.

"Until now, 'on-site healing' has been the exclusive domain of healers. With potions becoming more common, they might feel their unique territory is being encroached upon."

"So they're just trying to protect their own turf." It was certainly true that the standing of healers could diminish if potions became widely available.

"The timing also fits," Seojin added. "We announced the plans for the second Alchemia Store just yesterday."

"So they reacted sensitively to that news… Well, it's just a theory for now. Please look into it."

"Understood."

* * *

Aside from that one threatening text, the potion business was growing smoothly. First, to match our increased sales, we decided to set up a proper office. Until now, we had outsourced everything from material distribution to store management and promotions, but it was time to bring it all in-house. Seojin was being run ragged trying to manage it all.

Things were different now. We could afford employee salaries and office rent. Having started an IT company once before, Seojin's work was seamless. He gathered ten young, talented individuals and quickly got store operations support and website management up and running. It was still a small office, but it was destined to grow.

I gave the next order. We had built the brain; now it was time for the arms and legs. We would start buying up the distribution companies we were currently working with, starting with the cheapest ones.

When Seojin heard my instructions, he asked if the goal was to streamline operational costs.

I told him it was that, plus the security issue. "Remember when those Calam bastards kidnapped and tortured our drivers for information? Some companies even stopped working with us because of it."

"How could I forget?" he'd replied.

"The small distribution companies working with us will continue to face external threats," I explained. "Cooperating with outsiders creates security holes. Now that we have the capital and a central office, let's just bring them into the fold."

I believed my name and the power I now held were enough to fend off threats from any mediocre guild. I had the Hunter Association behind me, and the guilds that had built trust with me through regular business were not to be trifled with.

And so, we acquired a small distribution company on the verge of bankruptcy. When I visited the crumbling office to sign the contract, the company president had grabbed my hands, his voice thick with emotion. His words, "Thank you for saving our families," still echoed in my ears. We hired all their drivers as full-time employees and promised them double their previous salaries. Now, the task of moving goods between the dummy factory and the store would be handled by Alchemia's own employees. The drivers, who had been on the verge of losing their jobs, were now fiercely loyal, and their morale was higher than ever.

With this, we plugged any potential security holes. Of course, neither the office staff nor the transport drivers knew about the Magic Tower. A clear division between the business and the tower was crucial. The ultimate goal was to create a system where Alchemia could run on its own, so long as the Magic Tower supplied the potions, even if Seojin and I stepped away.

"…So." I spat blood-tinged saliva onto the floor and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. "Now all I have to do is get my part right."

"What are you muttering to yourself in the middle of a fight?"

The insurmountable wall before me: the 13th Tower Master, Anton. Having returned to his boyhood, his actions and words had become just as childlike. He was playfully swinging his staff around, but his skill was beyond dispute.

"It's my turn again."

"Hehe! Bring it on!"

The information I had gathered about this fourth-floor trial so far was as follows:

First, Anton's memory of our battles was being reset. This was my seventh attempt, but his memory remained stuck at our first encounter. In other words, as long as my spirit didn't break, I could fight him infinitely, accumulating experience and uncovering his weaknesses, while he would always be fighting me for the first time. However…

"What round is this for you? You're still so clumsy." Anton, however, seemed fully aware that I was the one repeating the encounter.

Second, like all the trials I had faced so far, this one was educational.

"Wind Cutter is fast, but its trajectory is too obvious. If you want to use it in personal combat, you'll need to add variations to the formula."

"Hey, you. It takes you too long to warm up and fully immerse yourself in your mana. A mage's battle is often decided in the first few seconds. You need to practice getting a feel for it instantly."

"Don't think of a shield magic circle as something you unfold; that's too slow. Think of it as placing something that's already made. It'll be hard to correct since it's already a habit, but you absolutely must change this before moving on."

Every time I used magic, Anton pointed out my shortcomings. Since his memory reset, he would make the same criticism if I made the same mistake. Then, if I absorbed his advice and showed improvement, he would uncannily notice. "I'm the one who told you that, right?" he'd say, before presenting the next challenge. Anton was filling the gaps in my self-taught knowledge, focusing on correcting my misunderstandings and building my practical combat sense. It felt less like a trial and more like I was being tutored by a master mage.

Ah, of course.

"Kegh!"

The only difference from a normal tutoring session, of course, was that this teacher would try to kill his student for the slightest misstep.

A third-order Frozen Needle lodged in my shoulder, blood pouring out. I grit my teeth and processed the formula in my head.

<Frozen Needle>

I copied the magic circle with my Sage's Eye and returned it in kind, but it was blocked by a perfectly formed shield.

"Hey! I told you not to do that!" Anton suddenly roared. He would let any other mistake I made slide—by killing me, of course—but on this one point, his anger was genuine and severe. "Listen up! If you live your life copying other people's magic, you'll never be more than second-rate!"

A third-order flame spell poured toward me head-on. As I frantically used Leap Boots and shields to escape, the lecture continued.

"If you have that kind of trash mentality, throw it away right now! Stop worrying about what others are doing and train what you have to the absolute limit!"

In the end, I was caught in the blast, sent flying, and slammed hard onto the ground. Ugh, that really, really hurt. Anton stomped toward me, fuming. His gleaming eyes were murderous, as if he would punch a hole in my heart without a second thought.

"…Your great teachings… I understand them all, but there's just one thing I can't seem to get right."

"What are you talking about all of a sudden?"

"The part about warming up quickly." I wiped the blood from my forehead that kept obscuring my vision with my sleeve. "I'm not sure why. I can't trick myself into immersion, and trying to pick up the tempo to raise my focus just backfires. So I thought, I'd have to use some tricks to buy time against my great predecessor."

"…Huh?"

"Whenever I copied your magic, you always lost your composure and got angry. Even your pinpoint magic control would waver."

There was one area where I had a competitive edge against Anton: experience and data. I took a slow, deep breath and opened my eyes.

"Thanks to that, my warm-up is finished. Now, I'll show you what I've got."

<Copy Magical Position>

Magic circles began to multiply in the air, weaving together like a spider's web. Anton looked unimpressed.

"…What's this, that weird mass-produced magic circle again? A spell where the launch point is so obvious is useless, no matter how many you create."

"We'll see about that." A corner of my mouth lifted. "Why don't you experience it for yourself?"

* * *

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