WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: WeTried

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◈ I Made a Tier List the Transcendents Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 16: The Second Topic

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The sensory-enhancement cyberware I received after paying eighty million hwan.

The technician called the installation process surgery, but it felt simpler than even a medical procedure.

All I had to do was insert an additional chip into the socket already built into my shoulder.

The entire process was over in just five minutes.

If you counted only the time spent opening the socket and inserting the chip, it took less than ten seconds.

"...Hmm."

"Can you feel the difference?"

"Definitely. You really are skilled."

"I'm not exactly far behind the best. Thank you for saying so."

The technician chuckled, but modesty aside, they truly were skilled.

The moment it was installed, my senses throughout my body became more refined.

Everything was more vivid than before.

If I had to quantify it, they had improved by roughly thirty percent.

The school of magic I practiced had little to do with sensory ability, but...

If a five-star mage could feel such a difference, then at least in the Mundane Realm, they could call themselves a master.

"How many years do you expect it to function?"

The technician pondered for a moment, then held up one hand.

"It should work fine for about fifty years."

"That's a conservative estimate, right?"

"There's no need to make empty boasts."

Then I should be able to use it for seventy or eighty years without any trouble.

"The chips I make are fairly durable. Unless you're caught in an especially fierce battle, they should last their full lifespan."

"Thank you. I've received more than I paid for."

The technician shrugged at that.

"I tend to work based on the person rather than the money. I'd say I was paid what I was worth."

...That answer left me somewhat embarrassed.

Was the technician praising me this much because they were embarrassed by my compliment? What terrifying eloquence.

"If you ever need work done again, please come find me."

"Of course. I'll recommend you as well. I'll tell people there's an exceptionally skilled technician here."

"Ha ha, I appreciate that."

The technician simply smiled back at me. They probably took my words as a bit of politeness.

But I meant every word. This technician might be a little surprised when the time came.

* * *

The Winter Tree Mage Tower had no distinct school of magic unique to it.

Of course, most mage towers were like that these days, but they usually still had a school considered their mainstream.

The Winter Tree Mage Tower did not even have that. It was simply a hodgepodge.

"Fuu... What a world."

And there was one man who considered himself something like frozen seafood mix in that hodgepodge.

...Ju Geonyeong sighed.

The cause of that sigh was Jin, the mage who had recently joined the tower.

He had sensed it from the beginning.

Jin had not looked like an ordinary person.

Ju Geonyeong had thought that, after some time passed, Jin would eventually become someone far beyond his reach.

But this was outside anything he had expected.

"3-Star. He really broke through that easily."

Not long after his enrollment procedures had been completed, Jin informed the tower that he had reached 3-Star.

For mages, the gap of a single realm was enormous.

Naturally, he would receive different treatment, and Ju Geonyeong, along with the other mages of the tower, assumed Jin would join the Inner Tower.

Of course, Ju Geonyeong had seen countless so-called geniuses.

He already knew Jin was someone walking a different path from his own, so he was not overwhelmingly shocked.

Still, he could not help feeling pathetic.

What was a lifelong goal for one person was merely a hurdle another could cross with ease.

"...Ah."

As he stared at the floor and kept sighing heavily, he saw a man walking toward the stairs from the opposite corridor.

It was Jin.

From far away, Jin looked even younger.

His face was pale enough to seem white, with delicate features, but his body was fairly sturdy for a mage.

Dressed in fine clothes, Jin climbed the stairs two at a time.

Ju Geonyeong stared blankly at him until he realized their eyes had met.

He instinctively tried to turn away, but Jin bowed his head first.

Ju Geonyeong awkwardly bowed back with his neck still twisted.

"Ahem..."

The gesture itself was embarrassing, but the reason the tower suddenly felt so warm lay within him.

Inferiority had suddenly risen in him.

Then, immediately afterward, he found himself pleased by the other person's courtesy.

"What a sorry sight."

Ju Geonyeong scolded himself and straightened his twisted neck.

* * *

"Come in."

The moment I arrived at the door, I heard permission to enter before I could knock or say anything. So I went straight in.

"Oh, nice to meet you. You're Jin?"

"Yes, I am."

The person greeting me far more casually than expected was a silver-haired girl.

Golden eyes. Her vertically slit pupils revealed that she was feline beastfolk. Otherwise, she looked human, so either she was deliberately hiding her traits or she was a mixed-blood with diluted lineage.

"I heard you looked ordinary. You're better than ordinary, though. But you aren't very manly. Should I say you look young?"

"...Is that so?"

She looked more like a child from any angle, but the reason she could be so uninhibited rested in that flat chest.

Chief Mage Ireine. A six-star mage and, aside from a few exceptions, the strongest person in Hyeondeok City.

That was why she could say such things.

"You look like such a virgin... Ah, that isn't an insult. It means I like it."

As if anyone would take it that way.

"You look like I want to fuck you. Get it?"

"..."

The fact that she even added an explanation made me squeeze my eyes shut.

No surprise she was a mage. We had barely exchanged a few words, and I could already tell she was a fucking idiot.

People like Ju Geonyeong, whom I had greeted from afar earlier, were the unusual cases.

"Anyway, enough small talk. You reached 3-Star?"

"Yes, I have."

"That's pretty fast. At twenty-four, you're almost the same as me. That was thirteen years ago, so you're about a year later than I was."

There was a disconnect in seeing someone who looked like she should be carrying a schoolbag reveal that she was a woman in her thirties.

Still, this was fairly common among female ability users. They stopped the aging of their appearance around that point.

In fact, considering her realm, she was extremely young.

In Hyeondeok City.

No, throughout Haedong, she would be considered a prodigy.

Of course, she was nothing special by my standards. These days, all I saw were stories about Transcendents.

"I was lucky."

"Does luck have anything to do with raising your realm? Too much humility just gets you chewed out."

As she said that, Ireine floated with a whoosh.

She crossed over the desk, came right up to me, and tapped my chest.

"Oh? You're not just 3-Star, either. At this rate, you'll reach four-star before long."

"Is that so?"

"Yep. You can trust me."

Trust her, my ass.

There were already five cores in my body, and I had deliberately concealed two of them.

Because of the nature of the magic I had mastered, it was not something she could easily see through.

Even if her realm was higher.

"Hmm, you certainly qualify. You want to join the Inner Tower, right?"

"That would be best."

Only then could I obtain the essence of the Winter Tree.

Ireine stared at my face for a long while before speaking.

"You have two options. One is to take an appropriate mission and handle it. I'll arrange a suitable mission for you."

"What is the other?"

"Go on a date with me!"

"..."

"Kyaa!" she squealed, and a sigh naturally rose from within me.

"I'll choose the first."

"What? Really? Wow, unbelievable. You're choosing the first one?"

Ireine spoke and acted with exaggerated disbelief, as though she had never imagined this would happen.

"Hmph. You'll be contacted in three days. The mission won't be difficult, so just fulfill the conditions properly."

But the moment even she became bored with her own stupid act, she stopped.

After giving me that explanation, she waved her hand with an annoyed look.

"Then get out. Unless you're going to let me have you at least once."

"Thank you for the explanation."

I was not particularly grateful, but I answered out of courtesy, gave her a parting glance, and left.

* * *

[ Today, someone said they wanted to fuck me ] - Oz

...After that single, highly misleading post shattered the Transcendent community.

Only after the person who had enjoyed the confusion to their heart's content declared it a joke did peace return.

-EatManaWhenBored) Ah, fuck, what kind of bait was that?

ㄴOz) But there really was someone like that. I just didn't hear it on the Gallery.

ㄴEatManaWhenBored) ??? So what happened?

ㄴOz) I couldn't tell who was stronger between us, so I let it slide. It was a joke anyway.

Of course, the comments afterward set off another round of speculation, but...

[ The next one is a tier list, not a ranking ] - Oz

Once word spread that the second topic was imminent, public attention focused on that instead.

Nothing could draw more interest than this.

-Are we going to a dimension other than the Fifth?

-Isn't a tier list just another run of the Fifth Dimension? Since we did the Top 10, maybe this one includes the lower ranks too.

ㄴIt's not like Oz has completely lost their touch, dumbass.

ㄴI only said one thing, why are you being so harsh...

ㄴWhy's this dumbass gotten so dejected? LOL awwwwww.

There were many guesses, but until Oz revealed it, they were all pointless discussions.

In truth, the topic Oz brought out was far outside those predictions.

[ The next tier list topic is the World's Strongest Swordsman ] - Oz

-Now this is insane LOL.

-World's Strongest Swordsman? Fuck, this is seriously too much to handle.

-If you're glad you use a weapon other than a sword, upvote LOL.

The King of All Weapons was an expression used even in the Great Heavenly Worlds.

Thus, many Absolutes had no choice but to watch the Gallery for a while.

-Sigh... Please spare us from F-tier...

-Fuck, this would be so humiliating.

-Please, just rank us by strength instead...

Hoping, at the very least, to avoid being branded as deadweight.

Footnotes:

“World's Strongest Swordsman” renders 세최검, a Korean internet shorthand formed from the first syllables of “world's strongest swordsman.”

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