Chapter 5.1 – Ritual

Originally, the Mage Tower was established to bring in mages who couldn’t adapt among ordinary people, teaching them mana manipulation and conducting magic research.

However, stagnant water is bound to rot. Mages, comparing themselves to non-mages who had no abilities, gradually fell into a superiority complex. Over time, corruption began to center around the elders.

The elders, who should have been teaching young mages as the oldest in the tower, forgot their duty, envied and coveted the abilities of mages superior to themselves, and began conducting inhumane experiments under the guise of new magic research.

The Mage Tower began its path of corruption about 70 years ago. At that time, the three most powerful mages in the tower broke a taboo and coveted what they shouldn’t have.

Magic that defied the providence set by the gods using life.

There were three types of black magic. Magic to have an eternally youthful and immortal body, magic to resurrect the dead, and magic to turn back time.

Those outstanding mages wanted to maintain eternal youth and power. They held a ritual using the former elder mages as sacrifices.

And the result was a colossal failure.

One of the elders, presumed dead, regained consciousness during the ritual and used his last strength to attack the three mages.

The magic circle was activated in a damaged state. The three mages, without gaining immortality, were cursed with mana depletion as a consequence of using black magic.

To replenish the continuously depleting mana, the three mages seized control of the Mage Tower and enticed the weakest young mages to serve as their mana reservoirs.

Then they created laws to prevent the children from meeting their parents, making them believe the tower was the entire world.

‘Mages should naturally dedicate their lives to studying magic in the tower,’ they taught, brainwashing them so they wouldn’t think of escaping.

The three mages who became elders hid the tower in the forest and set up barriers to build their world.

Maintaining their mana through the sacrifices of young mages, they began searching for black magic again as they aged.

They regretted the failure of the immortality magic.

Eventually, the elders reached out to black magic again. This time, unlike before, they chose a method of using weak non-mages who couldn’t resist as sacrifices.

This was the black magic they performed every eight years.

By implanting mana into the heart of a non-mage with a special soul, the mana fused with the heart, consuming the soul as it grew.

The newly created heart, or mana orb, possessed immense power. It allowed the use of any magic without deficiency, granting an immortal body.

However, since it was black magic that drew on human life force, it naturally came with a curse. During the ritual, as the sacrifice’s soul was consumed, the caster suffered a terrible curse of bleeding from the entire body. Healing magic could be used to regenerate blood in the body as it was drawn out, but the pain was immense, and most died from shock.

About 24 years ago, the elders found a way to transfer the curse to another mage along with the sacrifice. They first performed the black magic then, imposing the curse as punishment on a mage who broke the tower’s rules.

The result was a partial success.

Since another person took on the curse, the caster could not fully enjoy the effects.

Thus, the elders still needed the mana of young mages. They could only maintain an immortal body for eight years.

Even though the effect was halved, it wasn’t a failure, so the elders continued to perform black magic every eight years.

Then Felix, whose mana was immeasurable, entered the Mage Tower.

To the elders, Felix was like a child laying golden eggs. No matter how much they extracted, new mana was always generated in his body.

They placed young Felix on the experiment table. Telling the child he was doing something great for the tower, they made him their special mana reservoir.

And Felix, as punishment for losing a precious sacrifice, became the cursed one.

‘Those bastards are worse than demons.’

Henry cursed the Mage Tower as he left the leader’s office. He was originally a mage with very little mana. Now, he was a non-mage, having had all his mana taken by the elders.

‘By summer, we can kill those bastards.’

When the mana orb for eight years runs out, the Mage Tower elders will lose their immortal bodies.

If they are even slightly late or lose a special soul, the Mage Tower elders will not regain immortality, and they will have to wait another eight years.

“The academy construction is progressing well!”

Henry nodded as he received a report from a guild member. A secret academy was being established in the Empire. Once the Mage Tower was gone, they planned to gather and teach mages from all over the country there.

“I hope it’s completed soon. The guild is already cramped, and the young mages are so full of energy that the building is about to collapse.”

Henry strongly agreed with the guild member’s comment.

The young mages who had been rescued from the Mage Tower not long ago were very rebellious.

They had entered the tower at a young age, thinking it was everything. Moreover, realizing that the elders, whom they regarded as father figures, were actually villains, would be even more shocking and hard to accept.

The Mage Tower had more than a hundred prison-like rooms. Two or three people lived in one room. They attended predetermined classes, did predetermined tasks, and ate predetermined meals.

Meanwhile, their mana was extracted daily, so it was natural for the young mages to grow weaker.

Thus, they usually didn’t live past twenty, believing that was their natural lifespan.

The elders said that only those chosen among the young mages could be granted life extension in such situations.

So, how hard must the young mages have tried to impress the elders?

They volunteered their magical power and didn’t cry even when their blood was drawn.

Meanwhile, Felix, with his boundless magical power, used a solitary room under the pretext of special management.

The mages envied and ostracized Felix for living alone in a good room.

As long as Felix lived in the Mage Tower, no one could be chosen.

Therefore, they harassed him to divert the elders’ attention away from him.

Felix wasn’t just avoiding people for no reason.

Henry also disliked Felix while living in the Mage Tower like the other mages.

But as he awaited his death at twenty, Felix saved him.

Now, at twenty-three, he was living well beyond twenty.

Thus, Henry became Felix’s secretary and helped him run the guild.

However, it wasn’t easy.

It was difficult to dispel the misunderstanding and resentment deeply ingrained in the young mages against Felix.

Even the elders spread bad rumors about Felix in the Mage Tower, making persuasion even harder these days.

Henry felt frustrated.

He understood them, but sometimes he wondered if it was necessary to accommodate those damned mages.

But Felix, despite disliking people, saved them.

Henry once asked why Felix bothered to save the mages while seeking revenge when he could start a new life by ignoring them.

Felix replied, 

‘Because Erica told me to be a good mage.’

In the end, everything was thanks to Miss Erica.

So, Henry sincerely hoped for Felix and Miss Erica to do well.

Erica was the only one Felix opened his heart to.

* * *

After the outing with the teacher, there was more time to meet the teacher outside of classes.

The teacher sometimes returned, saying he forgot something, and visited again.

This was because Erica invited him to a family meal.

She wanted to introduce him before more embarrassing classes began.

The teacher was a precious presence who helped her overcome her phobia.

Of course, she aimed for a time when Diana wasn’t around.

Her parents were quite surprised by the teacher’s appearance.

They said they had never seen such looks in their lifetime.

Her mother poked her waist, asking where she found such a person.

Her father reminisced about being handsome in his youth.

Anyway, the meal was pleasant.

“Our Erica has such a wonderful teacher now.”

“I’m also pleased to have a diligent student like her.”

The teacher emphasized the word “diligent” when praising her.

Erica’s parents seemed pleased with the compliments about their daughter.

They began boasting about how smart and talented she had been since childhood.

Erica couldn’t lift her face amidst all this and just focused on cutting her steak.

The lessons with the teacher were very private.

She couldn’t just feel proud hearing she was a diligent student in front of her parents.

“It would be nice if our Diana took lessons too.”

“Mother!”

Diana! Erica was startled by her mother’s words.

Her mother looked at her incredulously, clutching her chest.

“Why are you shouting?”

“Teacher…”

So, she wanted to say, “He only wants to teach me!” but the words wouldn’t come.

Was I being possessive?

Was I really greedy?

“Why? Are you worried your teacher will be assigned to Diana? Don’t worry, Dear. Diana will never have a male teacher. She’s already meeting many men. It would be terrible to have a male teacher too.”

Her mother shivered. Ah, right. Her mother was the most disapproving of Diana’s behavior.

Such a mother would never introduce a male teacher to Diana, preferring a strict female teacher for bridal lessons.

Feeling embarrassed, Erica just focused on eating her meat.

“Oh, there was a message from the Oditolium family. They suggested an engagement in the cool autumn.”

“Really?”

How wonderful. But the teacher’s lessons were for a year.

She had just begun to touch the teacher’s body.

Seeing her expression, the teacher asked subtly.

“Shall we proceed faster then?”

She nodded.