As the first light of dawn broke, the air in the private training room was filled with a strange aroma of wine, as if someone had spilled a glass of fine wine inside.
Alicia stood in the center of the training room, a globule of pale red liquid hovering at the tip of her staff. Tiny bubbles occasionally rose to the surface of the liquid, releasing an even richer aroma of wine each time they popped.
With a sudden burst of power, a Water Bullet whistled through the air, exploding as it slammed into the magic target opposite her.
Alicia frowned. It wasn't enough.
She gathered her mana once more, and another Water Bullet took shape in her hand, its red hue deeper than the last.
The Water Bullet flew even faster than before, striking the target with a dull thud.
“Miss, please take a break.”
Margaret stood by the door, holding a tray with a hot towel and a glass of warm milk.
Alicia didn't reply, already conjuring another Water Bullet.
Margaret sighed, placed the tray on a low table nearby, walked up behind Alicia, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You have been practicing for three hours already.”
“It's not enough.” Alicia finally lowered her staff and took the towel from the tray to wipe her sweat. “The conversion rate in the Fermentation stage is only at three percent. You saw that bastard's magic level. Chantless casting—even if it's the lowest-tier magic, how many people can actually achieve chantless casting?”
Her tone carried an irrepressible agitation.
Margaret just listened quietly. As her personal maid, she knew all of her young mistress's moods inside out. Alicia Wayne was never one to admit defeat easily, which was precisely why that guy named Erich made her so exceptionally irritated.
Wine Magic—this was the foundation that had allowed the Wayne family to stand firm in the Radiant Empire for hundreds of years. The empire's magic taxonomy classified it as a “cross-application of water magic and time magic,” but any member of the Wayne family knew how ridiculous such a label was. It was not the same thing at all as those hybrid spells cobbled together by the academics.
In the Wayne family's own words, Wine Magic was a profound art that used mana as a medium to fuse the passage of time, the fermentation of life, and the form of water. Just like brewing wine, whatever the grapes underwent in the wooden barrels, a mage of the Wayne family had to undergo within their own mana circuits.
The training was divided into four stages.
Maceration—this was the starting point for all Wayne children. Just as grape juice needed to be soaked with the skins during winemaking to extract color and tannins, the young Waynes had to spend long periods immersed in specially constructed vineyards and wine cellars, letting their mana absorb the essence of the grapevines, soil, and fermentation barrels.
Fermentation—this was a long process. Under the catalysis of yeast, sugar turned into alcohol, while a mage's mana, through constant tempering and transformation, evolved from attribute-less inert mana into a more active, more destructive form.
This process had nothing to do with tier. A second-tier mage might have already completed most of their Fermentation, while a fourth-tier mage might still be struggling in this stage. There was an old saying in the Wayne family: the speed of the Fermentation stage depended on how many times you could endure high-speed outputs and inputs of mana. Every time magic was released, it was a stirring of mana, much like stirring fermenting grape juice with a wooden stick—the more you stirred, the faster it fermented.
Alicia was currently in this stage. She had already converted three percent of the mana in her body. This number sounded negligible, but most Wayne descendants at Alicia's age were still trapped in the Maceration stage.
Next was Aging. Once all the mana in the body had completed its transformation, the mage no longer needed to do anything active. Like wine sleeping in wooden barrels, the metamorphosis of mana would be left to time itself. The length of the Aging stage varied from person to person; the longer it aged, the greater the power. The current head of the Wayne family, Alicia's father, was said to have aged his mana for forty years. The water magic he released could make the air for kilometers around smell intoxicatingly sweet.
Finally, there was Breathing. This was a stage that legend said only an extremely small number of people could reach, and Alicia did not know what it entailed either.
“Three percent... is that enough?” Alicia threw the towel back onto the tray. “To deal with that bastard?”
Margaret thought about it seriously, then replied, “If it were a conventional duel, it might not be enough. However, the ranking tournament only allows the use of magic. And Master Erich—I mean, Erich—his aptitude on the academy's mana test was indeed very poor. According to the academy's data, his limit is first-tier magic.”
Alicia sneered. “If you believe that, then explain to me how someone with such terribly poor aptitude can perform chantless casting?”
Margaret had no answer to that.
“So I cannot gamble.” Alicia raised her hand again, another pale red Water Bullet condensing in her palm. “I need to push my conversion rate to five percent—no, six percent—before the ranking tournament.”
Margaret looked at her young mistress's back as she threw herself back into training, a wave of complex emotions washing over her.
She was gratified, because her young mistress had been like this since childhood—the more she was looked down upon, the harder she strove to stand tall. But Margaret also felt a pang of worry, because her young mistress's hand had already begun to tremble slightly. Discharging mana at high speeds placed an immense burden on the body. Although the Wayne family's secret method could accelerate Fermentation, the price was muscle soreness and a stinging pain in the mana circuits. In severe cases, it could even lead to a fever. These were all things Margaret had witnessed with her own eyes over the past few days.
Beneath all these emotions, the maid was also worried. She had witnessed Erich's strength firsthand. Even if he didn't use a sword, could her young mistress truly defeat him?
“Miss,” Margaret said softly, “your body...”
“A hundred more times.”
Margaret stopped trying to persuade her and left the training room to prepare today's lunch.
The Wayne family's kitchen had recipes specially formulated for those practicing Wine Magic. High-calorie meats paired with specific spices and medicinal herbs could maximize the recovery of the mana circuits while preventing the accumulation of internal injuries.
These ingredients were by no means cheap, but to the Wayne family, it was a mere drop in the bucket.
Silence returned to the training room, leaving only the sound of Water Bullets repeatedly striking the target and Alicia's heavy breathing.
By the time she finally stopped, the sky outside was nearing noon. Alicia leaned against the wall, her legs weak.
Was it enough? she asked herself.
Still not enough.
The contempt that bastard had shown when he accepted her glove in the cafeteria was burned into her memory. She, Alicia Wayne, the eldest daughter of the Wayne family and the top student of Solar Class A, was no different from a cat with its fur standing on end in his eyes.
At this thought, Alicia's fists clenched tight once more.
When Margaret came in carrying lunch, this was the scene she beheld: her young mistress leaning against the wall, drenched in sweat, with a fierce glare in her eyes as if she wanted to tear someone apart.
“Miss,” she said, placing the tray on the low table. “Please eat.”
Alicia took a bite of the roasted meat and suddenly asked, “Margaret, what do you think that bastard is doing right now?”
Margaret thought for a moment. “Probably skipping class, or maybe in the library.”
“You seem to know him better than I do.”
“Miss, you were the one who ordered me to keep an eye on him.”
Alicia said no more and buried herself in her meal. Margaret stood quietly to the side, gently wiping the sweat from the back of her young mistress's neck.
Master and servant remained silent in the training room filled with the aroma of wine, each lost in their own thoughts.
...
Night.
A thin mist shrouded the graveyard on the mountain behind the academy. Old Barto had slipped away home again, leaving only one person in the Gravekeeper's cabin.
Margaret walked along the path through the graveyard, stopped in front of the cabin, and knocked on the door.
A brief silence followed, and then the door opened.
Behind the door stood Erich.
Rate on N.U.
