Chapter 18. Break time, Bananas and Displacement Magecraft (draft)

Isaac discovered that after recalling his Shinsoo Armor, he ends up in nothing but a piece of underwear. Still on the same day, he went out to do some shopping with Khun.

Khun bought Isaac a complete Rare Regular Uniform at the Evankhell Store.

While they were at it, Khun also bought some get-well food for Bam. Namely - bananas.

That's when Isaac proposed that they should get some more for Rak as well.

It seemed that after clashing with the giant, Rak was in a bad condition and was hospitalized as well.

Isaac felt like paying him a visit and leaving behind a small gift. At least, he felt it would be something amusing to do.

"Rak? The crocodile? But would he even eat bananas? Wouldn't he only eat meat?" Khun looked at Isaac.

"Haha, what matters is the thought. And if he doesn't eat bananas, then it will only be funnier."

"... Well, okay."

With that, Khun bought some more bananas.

…

After going back to Bam's room to leave half of the bananas there, Isaac asked the guide robot for instructions and the two arrived at Rak's room.

Knock, knock, knock.

There was an option of using an intercom, but Isaac chose to knock.

"Who's that?" A grumpy voice sounded out from the inside.

"It's me, your prey. I brought you some food," Isaac said.

Khun began to hold back his laughter together with Isaac. This dialogue line was simply too funny.

"What? Prey? Food? Come in!!!"

After walking in, Isaac slightly smiled and said, "I heard you were injured, mister hunter, so I got you some get-well food. I don't know what you like, so I brought you some bananas."

"What? What a good turtle!!! What are bananas? It's those yellow things? How do you eat those?"

Rak's eyes lit up in happiness at that and he quickly came over. His body was covered in bandages, but he seemed to have regained full spirit, as he looked down at the yellow things in Isaac's basket.

Last time the chocolate bar that Isaac gave him was quite good. He wondered what those 'bananas' would taste like.

Isaac put aside the basket, then broke off one of the bananas and demonstrated. "You peel off the skin… and then eat it."

Rak imitated him, picked up one of the bananas, peeled off the skin, then took a bite.

"Mmm! Good!" Rak praised.

Khun stared at it, dumbfounded. 'No way… Is he really a crocodile?'

…

"I can't believe it. That crocodile actually likes bananas!" Khun told Isaac afterwards with a flabbergasted look.

[Right, Master, I thought he'd get a stomach ache! Haha.]

"Well, he liked chocolate too." Isaac chuckled.

…

At that time it was already evening, so after eating a quick dinner at the cafeteria together, Khun and Isaac separated and went to their own rooms.

Having retreated to his room, Isaac began experimenting.

What he was curious about was whether he could still perform his personal Magecraft somehow.

The inborn magical talent that he had is called 'Displacement Magecraft', as he later learned, characteristic magecraft of the Ainsworth family.

Back on Earth it gave him the power to displace things, substituting something with something else.

One of the basics was displacing the shape of two objects for a period of time.

A more advanced technique involved bending space to displace the position or trajectory of objects.

For the second one, it was similar to teleportation. He could create small portals in the air, and using them he could teleport objects or even parts of his body, or even deflect attacks coming at him, sending them away or back at the attacker.

Because his Magecraft affected the space itself, Isaac could even use it to avoid Servants' direct attacks or the attacks of stronger Magi; this saved his life more than once during the war.

Once, he killed an enemy Magus by teleporting his knife-wielding hand behind him and stabbing him from behind, without his Servant being able to do anything to prevent it.

It was a magical ability with incredible potential!

Isaac always wanted to take his Magecraft to a higher level, but he could only do so much. His Magical Energy and the range of his Magecraft, as a human of the modern era and someone completely self-taught, were in the end limited.

Unfortunately, after coming into the Tower, he saw that he didn't become stronger at Displacement Magecraft as he hoped, but that he was simply no longer able to do it as before at all!

The reason for this was that he simply lacked Magical Energy to manipulate and he also lost connection with his Magic Circuits.

His body was changed, now runs on Shinsoo and doesn't have any Magical Energy reserves.

There is no Magical Energy in the atmosphere inside the Tower either.

There is Shinsoo, but Shinsoo appears to behave very differently from Magical Energy. His experiences as a Magus don't seem to help him much, and he will need to learn how to manipulate this new type of energy from scratch.

However, Issac still entertained the hope that he might be able to learn how to use Displacement Magecraft using Shinsoo.

He had no proof it's something he could learn to do just yet, but his gut feeling was telling him that it was worth investigating and the possibility was high.

At the very least, he really hoped he could learn how to displace things, because it was his foundational ability on Earth and something with amazing potential if developed.

Wasting no time, he began experimenting and practicing.

By concentrating, he saw that he could already gather Shinsoo to create an electric red thunderball.

He could do this by instinct, seeming to be a side effect of his mastery of [Shinsoo Burst] skill and the ability to control Lightning-type Shinsoo to a degree. In relation to this, just like Mordred, he could also do a number of feats while externally manipulating lightning and the Shinsoo Burst skill.

'This should be called a Baang, a basic unit for a Shinsoo technique,' Isaac thought inwardly.

Once Isaac purposefully stopped making his Shinsoo take on the shape and quality of Lightning, he could also form a sphere of Shinsoo, but one that's a watery sphere instead.

If he wanted to, he felt he could send it out at his enemy at least at a certain level of proficiency.

Following that, he relied on his experiences as a Magus and tried to gather Shinsoo with the ability to displace the shape of a plastic straw and a cup that he brought with him.

He tried to do that again and again… But time passed and he simply had no results.

He could only create a thunderball or a watery sphere, but he couldn't affect the straw and the cup in a way he wanted with those.

It seemed to him that first he had to learn more about the basics of Shinsoo manipulation.

For the rest of the evening, Isaac experimented and practiced with Shinsoo, before going out to take a shower.

Looking into the mirror, Isaac could see his appearance again.

A very attractive face with long blond hair and bright crimson-red eyes.

'That's basically like my ideal, huh?' Isaac thought to himself.

Long straight golden hair and crystal-clear blue eyes or bright ruby-like eyes. This was probably his personal ideal for what he would want his ideal self to look like.

It appeared to him that the Grail had fulfilled this wish, except that his appearance was slightly influenced by Mordred's Class Card, with his hair being bound into Mordred's ponytail and his facial features being also a bit similar.

His body itself was rather tall and slim; a swimmer's physique with a bit of muscle, but not much, similar to how Mordred is. His apparent age was of a handsome young man around 16 years old, so he was quite young.

'For my ideal self, I would want to have some more muscle, like an aesthetic bodybuilder. I guess you can't have everything,' Isaac thought with a small smile. He was satisfied with what he saw nonetheless.

At that moment, he also decided to build more muscle in the future. He felt that perhaps achieving his ideal physique with his own efforts might only feel more rewarding.

After leaving the showers, he began walking back to his room.

As his Pocket was scanned by the computer next to the door, the electric doors automatically opened.

After walking in, Isaac clicked a button on his Pocket and the doors closed.

Isaac sat down on the bed and then began to browse through his tablet-like Pocket.

The Pocket turned out to have all kinds of functions like a calculator, timer, text messages, voice messages, video calls, a video browser, music player, flashlight, the same as a phone, but also more. There was even the 'Network' which seemed to be the Internet of this world.

Before this, he had already exchanged his contact information with Khun.

Pocket was a mixture of a computer and a magical Iphone. It even had a magical inventory space for storing items and food!

One good thing that Isaac was forced to notice about the Tower was that it was an ultra high-tech world, even though it still included fantasy-like fights, special races and magical abilities.

Even at this very moment he was staying on top of a giant floating ship.

Putting his Pocket aside, Isaac reclined on the comfortable bed and thought, 'After transmigrating here, I at least don't have to shit into a bucket and worry about not being able to take a shower, huh? Not that I would mind being in a fantasy world with swords and magic, but it's also something to be appreciated...'

Apart from the utopia-like technology, the Tower also seemed like a place designed for nurturing powerhouses. Climbing the Tower, you become stronger and stronger like in a game.

Inside the Tower, achieving eternal lifespan isn't too hard either, since each Ranker is granted unending lifespan, while the power levels of High Rankers and the Family Heads are quite high.

And if you get to the top and manage to conquer the entire Tower, wouldn't you basically become God?

All things in consideration, the Tower wasn't a bad place for him to transmigrate to. If he has enough power and gets through all the dangers, it can be almost like a paradise.

Not only this, but Isaac was also excited to meet all kinds of interesting characters that he only read about before, like Endorsi, Hwa Ryun, Yuri, Yeon Yihwa (even though she's quite stupid)…

Isaac suddenly noticed that he only thought of girls at that moment.

'Ah well, I'm a guy...'

…

Morning of the next day. First day of the break.

Isaac and Khun met in the cafeteria.

This time Isaac wore a long-sleeve uniform rather than his armor, but his hair was still bound up in the usual manner.

After eating breakfast, the two visited Bam to check up on him, but saw that he was still unconscious.

At that time Isaac thought of what he should do for the rest of the day and during the three day break in general.

For him, normal combat training was useless, since it was impossible to raise his combat strength in a short time. He already had Mordred's experience of how to fight as a Saber.

His strength was already way above the required level to pass the tests as well.

That's why he thought of something else.

He brought Khun to the public library that was available to the Regulars, then picked up several books with his help that were supposed to include basic information on the Tower and on Shinsoo Manipulation.

There was an option of reading the physical copies of books inside the library or downloading them onto a Regular's Pocket.

Isaac downloaded all of the books for later study and also copied a bunch of them with Khun's bag to bring with him.

Thinking of Khun's bag, Isaac in truth hoped that perhaps he might learn something on how to pull off Displacement Magecraft in this world by studying it.

In a way, items copied by Khun's bag suffered from the same law of degradation as his Displacement Magecraft when he displaced the shape of objects.

Keeping this in mind, for the time being Isaac decided to start with simple Shinsoo manipulation first.

Following that, Isaac spent the rest of the day reading up on various subjects related to the Tower's rules, Shinsoo, Shinsoo Manipulation, Positions and so on while also doing some Shinsoo practice at the side.

…

Second day of the break.

Isaac and Khun again met up at the assigned hour in the cafeteria in the morning.

Just as the two sat down and started their meal, a person approached them.

"Hey Isaac, hey Khun!"

Isaac turned his head and saw that it was Shibisu.

"Mind if I join?" Shibisu asked.

Khun said expressionlessly, "Training suit. Why are you here? What about the lizard and the sword guy? Aren't you a team?"

Seeing Khun's coldness, Isaac thought, 'It seems he really doesn't trust him, but given that we're all competitors and Anak even said that she'll beat me up and take the Black March from me after the Crown Game, I guess it's normal.'

In regards to Anak, the two met once in the cafeteria during lunch-time, but she didn't approach him. It's as if she had given up on the Black March and backed off.

Wearing a slightly bitter smile, Shibisu said, "The teams have already been disbanded, so we're no longer a team."

"I see. Or is it that since you're no longer a team, they kicked out the most useless guy and you're looking for someone to latch onto?" Khun asked in a neutral tone.

'Ouch.' Even though Khun's remark was not aimed at him, Isaac could feel the sharpness behind it. It was quite harsh.

Shibisu formed a wry smile.

"Sure, you can sit down," said Isaac. 

"Hm?" Khun looked at him.

"Y-yeah thanks."

Shibisu slowly sat down.

The beginning was a bit rough, but the three soon started some small talk. 

It seemed to Isaac that Khun didn't think much of Shibisu's strength and potential, and only thought of him as a weak guy trying to leech off them and a competitor, but Isaac knew that he's a nice and useful guy.

After breakfast, Isaac and Khun visited Bam again.

As a result, he was still unconscious.

That day Isaac planned to visit the training rooms available to the Regulars.

However, just when the two were about to leave, someone knocked on the door.

After that, a girl's voice sounded out from behind the door: "Um, may I come in?"

"... Come in," Isaac replied expressionlessly, as he looked toward the door together with Khun; they didn't lock the door in the first place.

At that time, the door opened and a girl in a servant's simple uniform and a red apron walked in. She had an ordinary appearance, ordinary clothes, sand-colored blonde hair and freckles.

"You are?..." Khun asked.

"Oh!… Hi! I'm Rachel."