novelraw Chapter 142 : Chapter 142
Chapter 142 : Chapter 142
Chapter 142: The Scales
[You have passed the Second Trial, “Burnt Offering of Gluttony.”]
The message appeared, but the location did not change.
That was because the reward had not yet been delivered.
The reward for the Second Trial was not given in the Hall of White Deer, but right here.
‘You only get one chance.’
I looked at the altar placed in the center of the room.
It shone pure white with a sacred radiance.
It was hard to believe that just one minute ago, it had been spewing crimson light while devouring corpses.
A single antique balance scale appeared atop the circular altar frame.
It stood in perfect equilibrium, tilted to neither side.
[You certainly indulge in all kinds of antics.]
A low voice echoed in my head.
White particles gathered in midair, forming the figure of a snow-white woman.
It was the White Deer’s thought-form.
She passed by me and approached the scale on the altar, resting her hand upon it.
Pa-at!
A gentle light flowed from the altar and the scale.
It was a signal that the tool was activating.
[Challenger who has overcome the second trial, come closer.]
Following her guidance, I stepped up before the scale.
Beams of light flowing from it clung to my entire body and wrapped around me.
It felt like invisible hands were crawling over my skin, probing every inch.
What was happening?
The answer was simple.
It was measuring what I could offer.
[The “Scales of Fate” are now activated.]
The main reward of the Second Trial, the Scales of Fate.
[By shedding weight, one gains lightness; by shaving away sturdiness, one claims sharpness. Such is the principle.]
The White Deer explained in a solemn voice.
[The vessel’s capacity is fixed. To fill it with new power, the old must be emptied.]
‘You sure talk a lot.’
I half-listened to her explanation.
She was going on and on, but the summary was simple.
Stat redistribution.
What is the one thing veteran players regret the most in games?
Stats they misallocated.
The Tower of Transcendence, meant for endgame players, allowed stat adjustment as a second-floor reward.
If you shaved Strength and raised Agility in a game, and dressed it up in the White Deer’s phrasing, it came out sounding like that long-winded nonsense.
Ding!
A concise system window appeared before my eyes.
[Scales of Fate]
[You may increase one stat in exchange for another. This applies only to stats bound to the player.]
[Ryu Jinwoo]
[Strength: 19, Stamina: 21, Agility: 20, Dexterity: 16, Will: 11, Durability: 11, Magic Power: 0]
Along with the simple explanation, my stat window appeared.
Each stat had an increase button and a decrease button beside its number.
The principle of the scale was simple.
Give one stat, receive another.
Offer a stat on one pan, and obtain a different stat from the opposite pan.
In other words, lowering Strength by one would raise Agility by one.
And among all the stat entries, one line immediately seized my attention.
[Magic Power: 0]
That damned zero that made me sigh every time I opened my stat window.
While other characters in Heroes Zero freely burned magic power to enhance their bodies and unleash flashy spells, I, with zero magic power, had been tortured in real time while making use of some creepy, insidious curse.
And now, at last, I would have magic power.
This hellish grind would finally be over.
[Do you have any questions?]
The White Deer asked after finishing her long explanation.
I shook my head. There was no way I would.
I already knew all of this, and the system had neatly summarized it anyway.
The operation method was painfully simple.
‘Let me try lowering Strength by one.’
I pressed the ▼ button beneath the Strength stat.
Psssh—
At the same time, I felt power drain out of my muscles.
A red aura flowed out of me and rose onto one pan of the scale.
The scale tilted to that side.
‘Oh.’
Normally, losing strength would feel unpleasant, but right now I was thrilled.
It was an investment for something better. Nothing to regret.
What came next was simple.
The 0 next to Magic Power, and the ▲ button above it.
‘Let’s go.’
Without hesitation, I pressed the ▲ button for Magic Power.
At the same time, a brilliant blue aura welled up on the opposite pan of the scale.
‘……Magic power.’
A pure blue light, dazzling to the eyes.
The forces on both sides of the scale crossed, and magic power finally poured toward me.
Whoosh.
The blue aura swirled over my skin. It felt refreshing.
There even seemed to be a scent in the air, a deep floral fragrance.
Magic power was originally said to be the energy of nature itself, right?
Something like that.
‘Ha, this is it.’
This was the kind of power a human was meant to have.
Not some damned, sticky, insidious curse.
I soaked in the ecstasy granted by magic power—
[Magic Power: 0]
When I glanced back at my status window, my mind snapped awake.
The magic power value had not changed.
I had definitely pressed the increase button, and my Strength had dropped as payment.
So why had nothing changed?
“……What?”
Worse still, the blue aura swirling around me was not entering my body.
Like oil and water, it merely skimmed the surface of my skin, circling endlessly without sinking in at all.
What was this supposed to be?
I desperately mashed the increase button.
But Magic Power remained at 0, completely unmoved.
‘Why is it not going up……!’
A scream erupted inside me.
An error? A bug?
This had never happened even in the game.
When you clicked it, it was supposed to change.
Just as confusion began to tip into outright fear—
[What are you doing?]
The White Deer looked down at me with a puzzled expression.
Right. The one being who could best explain this phenomenon was standing right in front of me.
“Why is it doing this? I am giving Strength to get Magic Power, but it is not appearing.”
This was not the time to beat around the bush.
Clear questions got clear answers.
The White Deer clicked her tongue.
[If you throw a stone into a river, does it become soaked through?]
“Excuse me?”
[It merely drifts along the surface before washing away.]
She spoke in riddles.
A stone? Drifting on the surface?
“What does that even mean?”
Why did she have to make things so complicated?
As I pressed her, the White Deer glided closer.
She pressed a white finger firmly against my chest.
A chill pierced straight through my heart.
[It means your body cannot accept magic power.]
“……What?”
I was stunned.
Unable to accept magic power? What was that supposed to mean?
“Why?”
I asked out of pure, genuine curiosity.
[Why ask me? It is your body, is it not?]
She answered as if I were the strange one.
Yes, it was my body, but at the same time, it was not really mine.
I could not explain it, and the frustration only deepened.
‘A body that cannot house magic power? Do not tell me.’
One possibility did nag at me.
“Is it because of this flowing through me……? The curse?”
The White Deer shook her head.
[You have the order wrong.]
“The order?”
[Your body never welcomed magic power to begin with. That is why such peculiar things clung to it.]
“……What?”
Her continued explanation was shocking.
My body itself was structurally incapable of housing magic power from birth.
As a result, things like insidious curses gathered in its place.
‘But either way.’
Did this mean I could never obtain magic power?
Was my entire plan to farm magic power here and turn my situation around fundamentally impossible?
It was infuriating. Utterly unfair.
“Damn it, does that even make sense?”
I pointed at the scale and shouted.
“What is this thing supposed to be? Equivalent exchange! You give a price, and it gives you a fitting reward. But now you are telling me it cannot be done? You have to do something.”
[If you wish, I could make the converted magic power circle around you, but since it cannot be held by the vessel, it will soon disperse. Would that not be wasteful?]
“…….”
I was speechless.
A body that could not even take in magic power. How could that be?
Then the Scales of Fate were meaningless trash to me.
Seeing my dejection, the White Deer clicked her tongue in disdain.
[Is there any need to insist on a blocked path?]
She raised both hands like a scale and continued.
[If you desire the strength to crush boulders, you need only shave away swiftness and add its weight.]
“…….”
[If instead you wish for lightness as if flying, then shave away the sturdiness of the flesh. That is the principle.]
Want more raw power? Then sacrifice speed?
Ridiculous. That kind of redistribution was meaningless.
What I wanted was magic power.
Shuffling my existing stats around was nothing more than robbing Peter to pay Paul.
‘Like that would ever satisfy me.’
It was just fighting over territory within a limited pie.
What I wanted was to make the pie itself bigger.
‘A body that could never house magic power.’
What the hell was this?
Ryu Jinwoo, you bastard, what kind of life did you live?
Resentment and emptiness washed over me together.
I stared blankly down at my body.
It was trained, to a degree, but still far from enough.
Without magic power, I would have to compensate with physical ability, and even that was lacking.
‘Now that the game has become reality, it takes insane training just to barely raise a stat by one.’
Did that mean I was doomed to cling to physical training forever?
‘Damn it.’
I knew my magic power was zero, but permanently zero?
The cool magic power flowing around me now felt irritating.
‘……Wait.’
As I swallowed my irritation and scanned my body, my gaze stopped at one point.
A glowing blue sigil inside my clothes. An imprint.
A mark the White Deer had forcibly engraved on me to monitor me.
A strange hypothesis suddenly crossed my mind.
“……Let me ask you one thing.”
I raised my head and stared at the White Deer.
[Ask.]
“Anything that counts as my power can be offered as a price, correct?”
The White Deer nodded.
[That is the basic rule.]
“Is that so?”
Then what about something someone had forcibly attached to me?
[White Deer’s Blue Moon Imprint]
This was carved directly onto my chest by the White Deer herself.
It was fully connected to me, acting as a twenty-four-hour surveillance camera and communicator.
It was forcibly engraved by her, and I could not use it freely, but it was undeniably something my body possessed.
And above all—
‘It is engraved with magic power.’
I stripped off my shirt.
It did not appear in the system window because it was not my magic power.
But I could feel the turbulent flow in my chest. That meant the solution was simple.
‘Let’s see…….’
Standing before the scale, I pressed hard against my chest.
Blue energy spilled out in resistance.
The white light of the scale and the blue energy of the imprint collided violently.
Ding!
[Magic Power: 30]
A valuation message appeared.
As expected, the imprint carved into me by the White Deer using magic power.
It was now undeniably a part of my body.
A lump forcibly attached in the form of an imprint.
Like a wart stubbornly clinging to flesh.
And since it was a blessing-based imprint, the scale of its magic power was extraordinary.
No wonder it could handle surveillance and communication so easily.
‘Fine. Take the lump.’
I offered it as payment.
Ding!
[You have selected 30 Magic Power. Convert?]
[Please distribute stats.]
I immediately began operating the window.
There was no time to hesitate. The being who had engraved the imprint was standing right next to me.
‘Skill damage depends most on Strength and Agility. Dexterity is fine at twenty. Stamina is easier to raise if the other stats support it…….’
I could not stop thinking.
I had to decide quickly and efficiently.
Simulations raced through my mind.
‘……This should keep me from being held back by stats for the foreseeable future.’
A smile finally spread across my face.
I personally directed the massive value of thirty.
As I pressed the confirm button, I opened my chest wide.
Take it all you want.
That privacy-invading CCTV.
[What are you plotting now?]
At some point, the White Deer’s voice thundered through my head.
“I found out that I actually do have magic power.”
[Impossible.]
She replied firmly, then fell silent before speaking again.
[You do not mean to say—]
Her voice echoed rapidly in my mind.
[That you dare to touch the blessing I bestowed—]
That was as far as it went.
Like a radio cut off mid-transmission, the White Deer’s voice abruptly stopped.
[Beginning conversion.]
Woooong—
The Scales of Fate shook violently.