Chapter 70 The first floor (2) (1/2)

When Bahal walked out of the cafe, a group of players who had been blocking the streets gathered around him.

Flame Beast. They were Red Dragon’s combat unit, also known as Bahal’s escort unit.

Bahal looked at the deserted streets with his brows furrowed.

“Were you blocking the streets again? I told you to not do anything stupid.”

“As you know, sir, there are a lot of players after you in The Tower. There’s no harm in being careful.”

Bahal shook his head at the leader’s words.

In fact, although they were called his escort unit, they were originally one of the special task forces fostered by the head of Red Dragon. The members of Flame Beast weren’t following Bahal out of loyalty. They were merely ordered to follow his command.

And that was the reason why they would follow him, but often disregarded his orders in detail. Especially with the unsettling atmosphere that was currently lingering all over The Tower, .

The power of a clan was measured using their Rankers as a standard, so they could not afford to lose a player such as him.

Bahal tried to explain that such a thing could never happen in a place like Outer District, but they did not listen.

Of course, the fact that they did not follow his orders did not make him feel bad.

Thanks to them being beside him, he could move around more freely without having to worry about being ambushed.

“But sir, how come the Hoarder didn’t come with you?”

“Well, he said he’ll consider our offer.”

The leader frowned as if he was upset.

“He’s pretty bold for a novice.”

It seemed like Yeon-woo’s decision had irritated him, someone with a deeply-rooted loyalty towards Red Dragon.

Bahal chuckled and waved his hand.

“Don’t take it so seriously. He’s just a novice overflowing with pride, you know? You and me, we all went through that after passing the tutorial.”

“But still, how rude of him….”

“Simmer down. He’ll regret turning down our offer as he climbs up The Tower anyway.”

The leader nodded and did not speak any further.

He also agreed that The Tower wasn’t a place that could be understood with just experiencing the tutorial.

“And our goal was to keep the other clans from approaching him in the first place. I mean, I came to see him in person, what kind of fool would dare to approach him now? Now he’s only got our clan to rely on. By the way,”

Bahal gently waved his hand as he changed the subject. A sharp look appeared on his previously soft demeanor.

“How did the investigation go? Did you find anything?”

The leader answered with a nod.

“It turned out just as you expected, sir.”

“Is that so? Ha, haha! Leonte, he hasn’t changed a bit. He’s a very consistent friend.”

In fact, the reason why Bahal had paid a visit to outside The Tower wasn’t simply to recruit Yeon-woo. That task could have been easily accomplished just by sending one of the Flame Beast members.

Instead, he personally took on this task in order to hide his true motive. To search for Leonte’s whereabouts.

Not long ago, a strange piece of information came across Red Dragon’s intelligence network.

It was about Leonte, who they knew was aiming to become Cheonghwado’s new Wushen, secretly plotting something in the tutorial floor.

Red Dragon had already known that Cheonghwado was behind Arangdan, but they hadn’t taken any measures regarding that matter.

If they were to expose this secret alone, it wouldn’t do much harm to Cheonghwado. To make it count, they had to find something more confidential and reveal it all at once.

And now, they got a new piece of information stating that Arangdan was actually Leonte’s private group. And that he was kidnapping players in the tutorial and crafting something using their lives as a material.

Therefore, Red Dragon concluded that the issue required a closer investigation, delegating full authority and responsibility over said investigation to Bahal.

He once was Leonte’s teammate in Arangdan, so Bahal knew him better than anyone else in the clan.

Thereon, Bahal began to track down Arangdan’s and Leonte’s traces along with his team, Flame Beast.

Their fund flow, deployment of resources, and the personal data of the players dispatched to the tutorial.

And not long after, they were able to come to a conclusion.

“They are trying to make a Magic Organ out of hundreds, maybe thousands of players… I thought that this kind of stories could only be found in myths or something. Never would I have imagined that someone would actually commit such an atrocity.”

Bahal had not yet figured out exactly what Leonte was making. But he could infer what kind of function it might serve.

A Mana Organ(魔力器官), also known as a Mana Engine(機關).

Every player in the world, in The Tower, has mana inside their bodies. And the vessel containing this mana is called the Mana Organ.

However, because the Mana Organ is part of the body, there’s a certain limit to the amount of mana that the vessel can hold.

Although it is said that the size of one’s vessel can increase once the player reaches a superhuman level such as that of a Ranker or a Lord, only a tiny minority has ever reached that point. And even for them, lack of mana was still a problem.

Many players sought ways to supply themselves with mana from outside sources.

The very first products that had resulted from their hard work were the items known as potions.

And once their experiment was proven successful, various kinds of items spread throughout The Tower.

Magic tools(魔道具), items embedded with various options, and Mana Source(魔力源), a storage for surplus mana. Players had even created skills known as ‘Energy Drain’ to take away mana from other players.

But as they say, avarice knows no bounds.

Players still craved ways to gain even more mana, to the point where they tried to create things that could give them an infinite supply of mana.

Bahal was sure that this was what Leonte had in mind.

The purer the mana, the better it is at producing energy.

The purest source of mana ever known in the history of The Tower was a human soul, and the easiest way to extract it was to just squeeze it out of its fleshly body.

In the past, there had been several attempts to make use of the mana extracted with this cruel method, but every single attempt had ended up in failure.

Because mana extracted from human souls was easily corrupted with the cursed spirits of the dead.

But being aware of such risks, Leonte had still tried to extract mana from the souls of living players.

He must have figured out a way to make use of that mana.

A way to process the mana. A way to keep it from being corrupted.

‘Don’t tell me you were making ‘the stone’.’

There was a legend passed down since ancient times among alchemists.

That there’s a substance that is able to contain mana as densely as the magic organ of the masters of mana, the Dragon Race.

And they called it ‘the stone’ or ‘the heart’.

‘Well, that’s still impossible. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t have been revealed to the world.’

Though he knew such an item could not exist, he still had to obtain the procedure and the product.

‘It’ll be of great help to our clan, Red Dragon, and for me.’

Bahal licked his lips in anticipation.

“So, have you figured out Leonte’s whereabouts?”

“We’ve already found him in the tutorial, and he’s currently moving in this direction.”

“All right. Then we shall move towards them. As I said, our goal is to secure both the item and Leonte. However, if you think you can’t secure them both, you may kill Leonte. But you must bring the item by any means.”

“Roger!”