Wand of Ages

Wand of Ages is a magician and the former sixth pillar of the Tower. They administer stages, enforce the pillars' security rules, and judge challengers with an emphasis on procedural consistency. Their confidence in that system is broken when Kim Gong-ja proves that the dead can speak for themselves, defeats their design for the seventies, and assumes responsibility for the netherworld they created.

Biography

Pillar, judge, and guide

Wand of Ages first appears at a meeting where the pillars decide whether Gong-ja may continue climbing. Their later work is much more direct. They terminate Mutia's surprise-attack contract once Gong-ja learns that he is a constellation, recognize the security clearance attached to his ascent, and compel the Eye Living in the Labyrinth to administer the sixty-third floor. During the auction for the following floors, Wand creates a map in the air, opens a limited trading period, records bids, transfers stages, and judges disputes and duels according to the rules they announced. (Chapters 107–108 and 329–337)

When Gong-ja reaches the seventies, Wand explains that ordinary climbers forget or misremember encounters with the pillars so the Tower's administrators remain hidden. Gong-ja's earned authority makes that restriction ineffective. Wand instead gives him a sequence of tests in which nine prospective followers must each be evaluated by a hunter acting as judge. They summon the judges, transport the participants, and end a stage when Gong-ja demonstrates that Yoo Soo-ha was an invalid selection. These rulings show genuine procedural flexibility, but they also preserve a system whose affected people were never asked to accept its premise. (Chapters 340–358)

The netherworld challenge and a successor

The disagreement becomes a formal vote of no confidence. Wand admits designing the seventies as a netherworld and defends judging innumerable dead from the images of their lives, arguing that souls arrive as memoryless screams and cannot answer questions. Gong-ja uses his own trauma and authority to summon the dead in a form that can choose. Their testimony reverses the other pillars' votes, defeats Wand's design, and transfers responsibility for the netherworld to Gong-ja on the condition that he complete his ascent. Wand's staff breaks when control changes hands, marking both the loss of office and the conditional end of their existence as a pillar. (Chapters 358–371)

Wand nevertheless continues as Gong-ja's guide while he constructs a sanctuary for the dead. They write quests, explain sanctuary rules, request admission to sealed domains, and test whether he will turn preserved souls into objects for his own satisfaction. Wand finally admits wanting him to reach the hundredth floor for the dead, for their own dignity, and to lighten the burden carried by the Tower's master. Lady Who Walks Through the Mirage relieves them at the ninetieth floor. By Chapter 400, Wand remains alive and still treats Gong-ja's new pillar duties seriously enough to be astonished when he misses his first day of work. (Chapters 371–383 and 400)

Appearance and personality

Wand of Ages appears in loose-fitting clothes and carries an abnormally long, thin staff. Their face is usually expressionless, with striking pale eyes described as silver or pink in different passages. After losing the netherworld vote, the staff is broken in half; Wand sometimes holds or chews the shortened piece like a pipe while guiding Gong-ja. (Chapters 329, 331, and 371–381)

They are formal, proud, and intensely committed to administration. Wand can correct a bad ruling and honor a fair challenge, yet initially treats secrecy and non-consensual judgment as necessary features of the Tower rather than choices open to review. Defeat makes them less defensive without making them submissive: they remain skeptical, test Gong-ja's motives, and eventually support his ascent because his answer may serve the dead better than theirs did. (Chapters 334–340, 357–362, and 381)

Abilities and skills

Pillar authority and stage judgment

As the sixth pillar, Wand can open and close stages, appoint administrators, summon judges, transport participants, display maps and records, validate bids, and declare outcomes. Their rulings have direct administrative force, but they are not beyond challenge: Gong-ja successfully objects to a judge, invokes a no-confidence procedure, and wins control of the seventies. After the transfer, Wand can manage remaining heavenly floors only temporarily while Gong-ja's completion condition is unresolved. (Chapters 329–340, 349–371)

Memory restrictions and security

Wand helps enforce a restriction that erases or distorts memories of the pillars. They attempt to apply that privilege after Gong-ja sees information normally hidden from climbers, but his security clearance and earned authority prevent it. The ability is therefore potent against ordinary witnesses rather than absolute, and the corpus does not establish that Wand alone caused every earlier lapse in memory associated with pillar encounters. (Chapters 108, 340, and 358)

Magic and netherworld administration

Wand uses their staff to create floating diagrams, write quests in the air, summon people, and move parties between locations or floors. They call themself the greatest magician and recount killing thirteen Dragon Emperors and conquering seven Dragon Kingdoms before becoming a pillar, but those older feats are self-reported rather than demonstrated in the supplied chapters. No fixed mana cost, casting range, or complete spell list is given. (Chapters 331, 334–340, and 372)

Their former netherworld authority lets them examine images left by lives and assign the dead to heavens built around those judgments. The method processes otherwise unintelligible souls on an immense scale, but its central limit is moral and epistemic: it infers what the dead deserve without their consent. Gong-ja's ability to restore their voices proves that Wand's assumption is not universally valid and supplies the basis on which the authority is taken from them. (Chapters 359–371)

Power progression

Relationships

• Kim Gong-ja: A challenger whom Wand first administers, then loses a no-confidence vote to and guides as the successor responsible for the netherworld.
• Ja Soo-jung: A pillar colleague whose participation in the administrative order helps determine whether Wand's rules and judgments retain collective support.
• Lady Who Walks Through the Mirage: A fellow pillar who shares the Tower's hidden administration and later relieves Wand from escorting Gong-ja at the ninetieth floor.
• Eye Living in the Labyrinth: A constellation whom Wand forcibly appoints to manage a floor after its defeat.

Items

• Long staff: Wand's casting implement and visual emblem of office. It is broken after Gong-ja takes control of the netherworld, and the shortened piece remains with Wand during their later service.