"A Sorcerer's bloodline? Interesting. I've seen her plenty of times, yet I never sensed a drop of sorcerous potential in her."
Uncle Takai stood with his arms crossed, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the fidgeting Aoi. His expressionless face made him look incredibly stern.
"Maybe it was just hidden deep?" Chitose suggested, squeezing Aoi's hand to offer some comfort.
"I may have slacked on my practice, but my sensitivity to mana hasn't dulled," Takai countered. "I've seen enough Sorcerers to know that if it were hidden that deep, she wouldn't have been able to trigger it. You said a 'quick try' nearly leveled a club room? That isn't the kind of output a 'normal person's' mana pool can produce."
Alistair felt a jolt of surprise. Takai was right. When he had scanned Aoi earlier, her mana levels were indistinguishable from an average human. This world didn't have Gacha cheats like his, so people shouldn't have power that defied logic. He had dismissed her as a mundane civilian. But Chitose had claimed Aoi had a "special bloodline" with high mana capacity... something wasn't adding up.
A few hours ago, she was a civilian. Now, she was an instinctive Sorcerer?
Alistair subtly released his Shadow Energy—a different system than mana—to probe them. Takai might sense it, but the girls wouldn't. Sure enough, her mana volume was still average. Yet, a Sorcerer's "instant-cast" usually costs double the mana. It was a paradox.
Were they lying? Alistair's gut said no, especially since they had handed over the precious family grimoire so easily.
Chitose handed the book to Takai, repeating her story.
"Radiant Magic? Every two-bit mage knows this stuff," Takai muttered, flipping through. "Radiant Bolt... fine. Multi-Bolt... standard. Radiant Flare... expected. Radiant Array... wait. No... this is wrong. The common versions only have a few spells, but this book is packed. Girl, was your ancestor from the Leibnitz Magic Academy?!"
Takai's composure crumbled. He looked at the book with genuine shock.
"Leibnitz Magic Academy?" the three of them asked in unison.
"It's called an academy, but it was practically a sovereign Kingdom," Takai explained. "In terms of magical research, they were number one on the continent. Because of their absolute neutrality, every noble family tried to ship their kids there. Radiant Magic was their foundational curriculum. The basic spells are common, but the advanced ones are Leibnitz secrets. I studied there once myself... though I can never go back now."
"Why not?" Alistair asked. "Once the Gates open, can't you just visit? Did you steal something?"
Takai closed the book and sighed. "Leibnitz is gone. It was destroyed. Now, that place is nothing but a living hell."
"Because of the war?"
"No. It was a magical disaster. Forbidden research went haywire, and the academy became a prison of its own making. Very few mages escaped. This book... it must have belonged to one of those survivors."
Takai flipped to the final page and found a signature: Xenia Torrell.