"...How much this answer is worth still depends on the choices you all make shortly. For now, Miss Ophelia may go ahead and test first."
Ophelia stepped forward, heart pounding, and pressed both hands to the crystal ball full of hope. She was not as fast as Adam, but faster than Cristel. Strangely, though, the fill inside the ball had been near-white for everyone else, Adam included, while beneath Ophelia's hands it turned black-red.
Ophelia did not understand what the color meant; she only wanted to know her own Mage inclination. But once the ball was full, it showed no reaction at all.
Alarmed, Ophelia pressed down hard on the crystal ball again. Still no light came. Her face went white. Is my aptitude really that bad?
"That will do, Miss Ophelia." Mage Blake gave a light wave of his hand, and a puff of breeze sprang up and pushed her back. Wondrous as it was, the crystal ball was still a simple alchemical product; it could not withstand a Grand Knight mauling it with her full strength.
Ophelia stood rooted where she was, at a loss, and looked at Mage Blake with pleading all over her face. "Honored Mage Blake, I would like to try once more. It should not come out like this..."
Mage Blake gestured for her to be calm, then said, "There is no need to panic, Miss Ophelia. I told you, there are many kinds of paths for a Mage. With some inclinations the crystal ball does not shine, but that does not mean the aptitude is poor."
Then he turned to Count Johnson. "Count, do you want my reading? This answer is worth two-fifths of the revenue of a small energy vein."
"Of course, Mage Blake."
Adam filed Mage Blake's words away. There was only one data source before him, and judging by it alone might introduce error—but unless Mage Blake happened to be an exceptionally upright man, the situation suggested that Mages conducted themselves on the principle of fair trade.
If that inference held, it was good news: the Mage World had left the primitive law of the jungle behind and evolved to a civilized stage.
Once the deal was struck, Mage Blake explained at length. "Most Mages, myself included, have souls inclined toward the elements. But the elements are not the whole of the Mage's path. Miss Ophelia has a gift unlike elemental magic; Mages call that road the body-refining Mage."
"Elemental Mages pursue the sublimation of the soul. We carve knowledge into the soul; the body is the vessel that carries the soul, and it evolves passively as the soul grows stronger. Body-refining Mages are different. They need knowledge as well, but they apply it to the development of the body, pursuing the evolution of the very essence of life, and the body's strength drives the soul's sublimation."
"And Miss Ophelia's talent in this area is very strong. Because their road is so clear-cut, body-refining Mages hit no bottleneck on the way from apprentice to level-one Mage. But every advantage brings its drawback: body-refining Mages need an ocean of resources piled beneath them..." Mage Blake paused, as though something had struck him, and clicked his tongue in wonder. "At the higher ranks, the resources of an entire plane are not enough for a single one of them to consume."
Adam understood. This was the knight's path, upgraded—but one problem remained. Carbon-based life's body tissue can't carry energy that large, so how do body-refining Mages manage it?
Count Johnson, a powerhouse who had already reached the peak of the knight path, understood the problem just as well. But Mages were Mages because the knowledge they held let them do unbelievable things, so he did not get stuck on it. Instead he asked, "Honored Mage Blake, what are these resources? Energy veins?"
"Oh, I will tell you this one for free," Mage Blake said. "To a Mage, energy stones are the lowest-grade resource there is to use. Their value is not as high as you imagine. Once body-refining Mages reach high rank, what they need is large quantities of the body tissue of high-level creatures from other planes, and—well, that is still far beyond you."
Mage Blake's explanation ended there. He turned to the apprentices. "You have one night to pack your things and take leave of your families. Tomorrow morning, after breakfast, we set out for Mordo Mage Academy."
Count Johnson signaled to Ophelia to wait for him, while he himself escorted the Mage away to rest.
The new Mage apprentices fell into greetings as they walked. The three male apprentices were Mike Gaster, Henry Hugh and Sam Aiden, all from noble houses; Cristel, like Adam, had no surname.
They were all curious about Adam. Small wonder—no one had ever heard of such a noble scion in the Northland, and Mage Blake had stated outright that Adam's natural gifts were the highest of anyone present. Noble instinct drove them to befriend anyone worth befriending; even if they could not become companions, they must not become enemies.
"My name is Adam." Adam's face was as blank as ever, but his manners were correct, so he did not come off as arrogant. Social graces, noble etiquette included, were just another procedure to him. It was impossible for him to go out of his way to be a nonconformist in this; that did not show uniqueness, only stupidity.
The others waited for Adam to give his surname. Having become Mage apprentices together already gave them a rather special relationship, and their families could well use that as grounds to open cooperation. But...
"A commoner. No surname."
The impeccable smiles on the three male apprentices' faces stiffened. A commoner? Crystal getting to take the test had already been an accident—and was such an accident happening a second time? Had Count Johnson changed careers and gone into charity?
Cristel, by contrast, broke into a wide grin. Her station had changed abruptly, but more than a decade of habit made her instinctively fear nobles, and Adam's commoner birth, the same as hers, brought a rush of closeness.
Also out of habit, the three noble scions kept their smiles but lost their friendliness. Fortunately they were not quite stupid enough to show contempt or scorn to his face.
At the fork in the road, Adam stopped to take his leave. Crystal showed little reaction and took her leave as well; she was going home to share the day's good news with her parents and her younger brother, and to spend their last time together.
The other three were astonished all over again. A commoner living in the city lord's mansion? And the direction Adam took led toward the inner residence—plainly no servant could be living in the inner residence.
The three exchanged glances and found the same bafflement in each other's eyes. All of them decided to go home and question their fathers properly, so that a moment's arrogance would not offend someone who should not be offended.
Adam returned to his quarters and went back to work optimizing his spiritual power rune. Meanwhile, in the main hall of the city lord's mansion, Count Johnson was having an awkward conversation with Ophelia.
"First, congratulations on becoming a Mage apprentice. I hope that in my lifetime I will be able to call you Mage Ophelia Johnson."
"Johnson." Ophelia laughed at herself, then fell silent. This family always had an uncanny knack for killing her good mood.
Count Johnson was unbothered. Rome was not built in a day—the world might not have that saying, but the principle held all the same. He did not expect his daughter to change her attitude all at once. And in truth the attitude did not matter; the surname Johnson did.
"Two-fifths of the energy vein's revenue goes to Mage Blake; the other three-fifths is the family's support for you. The Northland is barren, and that is the only vein found so far. I will put manpower to searching for more."
Ophelia stayed silent.
"I was the one who agreed to let Cristel take the test. It was meant as a tentative investment, and I did not expect to see a return so soon. She matters. Mage Blake's attitude cannot possibly be without cause; the family has no ties at all to the Mage World, yet Cristel has won a Mage's favor. Befriending her will help you a great deal."
If one ignored the word family threaded through every line Count Johnson spoke, this ought to have been a harmonious father-daughter conversation. But as things stood, Ophelia, with her instinctive resistance to the family, could not summon a shred of feeling.
"Also, do not invest too much in Adam—whatever form it takes. I cannot sense the least breath of my own kind from him; it is more like facing a Mage. He has no feelings, and he will never help you out of feelings."
Ophelia could not help saying, "I have not..."
Count Johnson said bluntly, "Ask your own heart. If there is nothing, so much the better. If there is, I hope you will listen to me. Whether because you are my daughter or for the family's interest, I will not do you harm this time."
Ophelia lowered her head and fell silent once more.
"Still, this is just as well. A relationship of pure, straightforward trade is the simplest and most solid kind. If you can give him the resources he needs, he will do what ought to be done," Count Johnson said, cutting straight to the heart of it.
"Just now, after I closed my deal with Mage Blake, I did not send the other apprentices away. My daughter, if you are not a fool, you should know what I meant by that. Use this opening, use your position, to draw them in step by step—even to win them over. No one has ever walked to the peak alone. Ordinary people cannot, and I believe Mages cannot either."
The conversation ended there. Count Johnson rose. "Lastly, congratulations once again, and I wish you smooth sailing and fair winds the whole way." He did not look at Ophelia again, but walked straight out of the main hall.
Left alone, Ophelia's thoughts were in a tangle. Reason told her this could not count as caring, only an exchange of interests between the two of them—but Johnson blood ran in her veins after all, and her feelings made it impossible for her to stay cold.
If it were Adam, he would certainly have said that humans were always this foolish, dragged down by the seven emotions and six desires and so easily shaken from their own will. But Ophelia was not Adam.
The rest of the night passed in silence.
Early the next morning, the five of them gathered outside the city lord's mansion, each in a different mood. Mage Blake did not care in the least what they felt. Seeing that none of them were late, he nodded in satisfaction and said simply, "Then let us set off."