Faced with James's questions, Frank only said calmly, "It's nothing."
James said anxiously, "How can it be nothing? Your body can't take another rejection reaction!" To this day James still believed he was the one who had held Frank back on the mage's path, and out of that inexplicable guilt he wanted to talk Frank out of the risk.
"Adam says he can solve my problem. The odds are good." Having said that, Frank left the laboratory without lingering.
James wanted to stop him again, but in the end he gave up the idea. After watching Frank go, he asked Adam, "Was he telling the truth? Are you sure?"
Adam glanced at him and did not answer. James froze for a moment, then sighed. "I see..." Absolute certainty was impossible, but since Adam had raised it, it had to be feasible. Perhaps this was a good thing for Frank—better one last gamble than sitting around waiting to die.
The agreed three-day deadline passed, and Frank did not return. The assistants came back from their vacation and, on Adam's orders, went on with experiments they only half understood—but unlike before, having seen the power of the magic their results could be turned into, they were far less resistant to it.
Only James grew more and more anxious. Mage or apprentice, few of them lacked a sense of time; failing to return on the appointed day could only mean trouble.
Just as he could no longer hold back and was about to beg Adam for help, Frank came back.
"Adam, sorry. I think I've landed myself in big trouble." Those were Frank's first words on seeing Adam.
Adam paused the data summary he was working on and asked, "Does it have to do with me?"
Frank nodded. If it had been his own business, he would never have come to trouble Adam—but this time Adam seemed unable to stay out of it.
It had started three days earlier. Moldo Tower had no means of producing alchemical creations like mechanical bodies; anyone wanting a replacement had to leave the tower and travel to a giant metropolis closer to the Elemental Spire—Annecy.
With Adam's funding behind him, he went straight through the teleportation formation to Annecy, to the shop where he had bought and had installed his mechanical body last time.
Annecy was a mage city. Most of those living and doing business in it were free full-fledged Mages and apprentices, and the owner of the mechanical body shop was a second-rank Mage who specialized in alchemy. After checking the records and examining him, the apprentice clerk found that Frank's energy fluctuations were far stronger than before, and that a special energy had wrapped itself around the joints of his body, greatly slowing its collapse.
Mechanical bodies were thoroughly unfriendly to apprentices, for the same old reason: an apprentice's body cannot withstand mana, so wearing a mechanical body all but severs one's path as a mage, and continuing to commune with ether is suicide by one's own hand. Yet Frank's body was collapsing only gently, and that drew the Mage's attention.
After hearing Frank's explanation, he marveled over psychokinesis and volunteered to personally fit Frank with a better alchemical body and to do everything in his power to neutralize the rejection reaction, all so he could observe what role psychokinesis played in energy transfer. But Frank refused.
"Mage Mode, I only want to buy a mechanical body. As for the installation and neutralizing the rejection—someone else will handle that."
"Who? Besides me, what other alchemy mage has any interest in that sort of thing?"
"Uh... the head of the laboratory I work in. A newly advanced mage apprentice."
Once Frank had explained it all in detail, the Mage shot to his feet.
"Do you know what you're saying?" The second-rank Mage simply could not believe his ears. "You'd rather trust a kid who's been a mage apprentice for a few years than accept my help? Do you have any idea how complicated it is to build a mechanical body? And he says he wants to restructure the energy source?"
Frank hesitated, then bowed his head low. "I'm truly sorry, respected Mage Mode, but..."
The devil, who so rarely stayed obediently at Adam's side, already had his jaw hanging to the floor. "So what you're saying is that a second-rank alchemy mage, over a little thing like this, has decided to come to Moldo Tower himself and make trouble for my master?! To pick a fight with a mage apprentice?!"
Frank's mouth twitched, and he wore an awkward expression. "Incredible as it sounds, that is the fact of it. And going by a mage's efficiency, he should already be at the tower by now."
Still with his jaw on the floor, the devil turned his head toward Adam, his joints creaking in a spine-chilling way. "Master, what do we do? Should we take out this idiot first, and then the two of us run for it?!"
Frank did not take the devil's words seriously, but he truly felt embarrassed. "Adam, I didn't expect anything like this to happen either. You know there's no way I can change a Mage's will..."
Adam found it absurd, but after turning it over in his mind a little he could more or less understand the thinking. Probably long life and a relatively peaceful internal environment had made these mages... willful? That was the only adjective Adam could come up with.
Surprised as he was, Adam felt no panic. He was still inside the tower, after all, and the visitor was not a Magefoe, so his life was in no danger. So what was this second-rank mage named Mode up to—coming over to smash up the place?
Adam had just opened his mouth to speak when the laboratory door was knocked on. The devil shuddered from head to toe, inside and out, and stammered, "M-master? Are we done for?"
James, who had no idea what was going on, opened the door and froze at the sight of Mage Kino standing outside. "Good day, respected Mage Kino. What brings you here?"
Before Mage Kino could answer, the stranger beside him spoke up loudly. "So you're that arrogant little punk?" At the same moment, his fully materialized spiritual power swept over James's body without a shred of courtesy. "Hm? No, that's not it..."
Mage Kino gave an embarrassed smile and cut off the scan. "Mage Mode, please don't do that. This is Moldo Transdimensional's mage tower, after all, and you..."
Mage Mode waved his hand carelessly. "I know, I know. I won't do anything. But I do think I need to wake up a certain arrogant little kid, and teach him to revere knowledge instead of doing nothing but talk big."
That was the scene Adam saw and heard as he walked out of the room. Mage Mode might look displeased, but he had not once set foot inside the bounds of the laboratory from beginning to end, and that made Adam admire mainstream mages all the more.
James retreated behind Adam like a man who had met his savior, and said urgently, "Adam, what kind of trouble have you stirred up? This mage I don't recognize looks like he wants to teach you a lesson!"