Chapter 3
Chapter 3
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Rudiyën and the Bloodline Eyes
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Under the spring sky, a dazzling sea of tulips unfurled all the way to the horizon.
This was Sias Tulica.
As the tulip heartland representing Richland, the fertile central region, one-third of the surrounding lands belonged to the Ludwig Marquess family.
“The weather’s amazing…….”
Chewing on a blade of dogtail grass, Rain lay sprawled out, staring blankly up at the sky—until he abruptly sat bolt upright the next moment.
“To accomplish anything, you need both long-term and short-term goals.”
The pinnacle of magic: truth.
Having made up his mind to witness it, he couldn’t afford to waste even a single day, not even in his boyhood years.
‘Then let’s start by summoning Rudiyën again.’
RudiyËn.
An ancient word meaning “guide.”
That was why he’d named the guidance spell he created during his most fervent days of magical research after it.
“O-ba, whatcha doin’?”
As he spread out a large sheet of drawing paper over the grass and began sketching a magic circle on it, his little sister came toddling over.
‘Tch, what a pain…….’
Ever since he’d been kind to her once, she’d been clinging to him nonstop. Every time he tried to brush her off, Rista’s voice echoed in his head……
“Trying to map out some guidelines.”
“Gui-doi?”
“Want me to make one for you too?”
Seri Ludwig immediately began dancing for joy.
“Waa~ Woo woo waa! Waa~!”
That was her way of saying she was absolutely delighted.
Something must be off with her brain—her way of expressing herself was always like this.
“The magic circle’s form is polyhedral. The runes to engrave: Ju (柱), Yu (留), Du (逗), Je (梯).”
Four runes.
They endowed a single spell with four distinct properties. This was four-star magic—the realm of supreme mages, of whom there were only ten in the entire Holy Human Empire.
“Woo-aa!”
Mana surged fiercely into the magic circle on the paper, and supernatural light began sparking like electricity.
Crackle, crackle-crackle……!
The moment a hot sensation shot through his body, blood gushed from his nose, and a sharp sting flared in his Jukyeol. The Jukyeol was the organ where mana gathered.
‘As expected, I still don’t have enough mana to handle four-star magic…….’
Good thing this was a low-mana guidance spell. If it had been a combat spell, the rebound would’ve burst his Jukyeol wide open.
‘This trash-tier body…….’
From stamina to mana.
Endless things to train.
As he pinched his nose in childish frustration, the mana storm gradually died down, and the light took on the form of a butterfly.
“Come here, RudiyËn.”
A butterfly. A butterfly.
It gleamed with mana’s signature clear blue-white hue, scattering motes of light with every flap of its wings—an otherworldly butterfly.
“Woo-aa.”
When Seri reached out her hand, it alighted on her finger and gently shook out its wings.
Rosushigietra
Detects the target’s mana circuits and magical aptitude, as well as any mana that can be obtained from the surroundings using one’s hands.
The light particles drifting from its wings gathered together, projecting strings of glowing text into the air.
This was RudiyËn’s function.
It pinpointed what he needed to study now, what skills to acquire, and what he could obtain from his surroundings.
‘Ju (柱) is the rune that teaches fundamentals of mana in a guidance spell, Yu (留) covers mana utilization…….’
To put it simply, he’d crammed in every rune good for learning.
Stupidly straightforward.
Which was exactly why it was a four-star spell. Even Lin couldn’t cast it with mental arithmetic alone and had needed to draw the circle.
“Like it?”
“Un!”
“Then go study by yourself over there.”
Did it understand its creator’s words?
RudiyËn flew off ahead from Seri’s finger, and Seri laughed as she chased after it.
‘First things first, recover my mana…….’
Until the sun reached its zenith, he sat cross-legged to restore his mana, then summoned a second RudiyËn.
Gustaba: Objectifies the caster’s physical condition into mathematical values.
ㆍJu (柱); Current mana: 3024.
ㆍYu (留); Current magic lines: 77.
ㆍDu (逗); Stamina · Mental strength: 64.
Mana amount barely scraping novice mage levels. Magic lines (璇) were the neural pathways for mental calculations.
And stamina……
Worlds apart from Lin, who’d grown up an orphan. Just raising that to 300 would be a workout?
Je (梯); Bloodline limit secret arts detected. Acquisition possible.
ㆍBell Sidias / Bell Quirius.
His eyes twitched for a moment here.
Bell Sidias……
Right. Come to think of it, he was currently the eldest son of the Imperial magic house, Ludwig Marquess.
‘Now this I like……?’
Back when he’d been traveling with Rista, some punk had shown up, claiming he’d prove he was the Empire’s greatest mage and take Lin’s spot in the party.
Nothing to it.
The kid had been a total nobody.
What stuck in his mind was how tricky those powered eyes had been. They’d pierced straight through every spell Lin cast and countered flawlessly.
‘That was Bell Sidias.’
The Ludwig family’s bloodline limit.
They said it let you read an opponent’s spell just from their mana flow?
An absolutely tremendous ability.
‘At equal skill levels, magic duels come down to who lands the better counters…….’
And Bell Quirius……
The legendary eyes—only three people in Imperial magical history had ever successfully awakened them.
「Bell Sidias peeks at the opponent’s magic; Bell Quirius steals it.」
It was those eyes that earned the Ludwigs their moniker of “stealing mages.”
‘Don’t know the details…….’
Erasing the opponent’s spell, turning it into your own…… He’d heard it was some utterly absurd power.
‘In that case.’
His goals for boyhood were starting to take shape.
First up: basic stamina and mana.
Without stamina and mana, you couldn’t do a damn thing. Not if he wanted to reclaim his place as a great mage.
“Rain.”
He glanced back at the voice and saw his father approaching with the dignified stride of a noble.
“Do you know that our family possesses a bloodline limit?”
What?
Had he been watching from behind?
“Yes, of course…….”
“You’re still young, but are you interested in learning the bloodline limit?”
Things were falling into place almost too easily?
Hmm……
He could stockpile the theory in his head for now and master it properly once his stamina and mana were up to snuff.
“Yes.”
“Then starting today, Elin will oversee your training. Just while I’m away at the academy. When I return, I’ll take over personally.”
“Elin?”
Wait, what?
The name was definitely in Rain’s memories…… but who was she?
“She has a kind heart and exceptional magical talent; she holds a professorship at Delaiten. And above all, no one loves her nephew more. You met her once as a child.”
At the sound of footsteps rustling through the grass, Rain’s face went pale.
“Eh…….”
It was an outfit that shattered every noble convention—a shocking getup.
White jade earrings dangling from both ears, hemline scandalously short and bodice cinched tight to flaunt her figure: a bastardized version of the Ludwig family robes.
“Eek…….”
A sharp, catlike beauty. She looked down at Rain with prim disdain, then crossed her arms and scowled.
“Jeez, this talentless, charm-free little twerp? And genius professor Elin Ludwig has to personally tutor him?”
Kevn beamed a bright smile and gestured at Elin Ludwig.
“There—the aunt who loves you as much as I do! Elin Ludwig. First time since you were six, right? Say hello.”
Father.
Do you even know what love is?
* * *
“You know who I am?”
“Aunt Elin?”
“Hmph. I’m known as genius professor Elin Ludwig. Genius professor. I can’t stand dullards who don’t get it the first time.”
She kept emphasizing “genius professor”—clearly, she loved the nickname.
“So once I teach you something, never ask about it again. Got it?”
And so the bloodline limit lessons began.
Bloodline limits.
In other words, family magic.
Family magic was never committed to paper, out of fear it might be stolen by other mages.
To learn it, you had to face a family senior in person and have the knowledge imprinted directly from their mind into yours.
“Take a look first.”
Elin focused mana into her eyes, and they blazed scarlet as a silver-white death constellation etched itself onto her irises.
That was Bell Sidias.
A gaze that seemed to scan his very body and soul—just like that time before. Rain let out a childlike gasp of awe.
“Wow!”
“Cool, huh? To use it, you’ve gotta handle three magical calculations at once. Three of them! Think a punk like you can manage?”
Pleased by Rain’s sparkling eyes, Elin puffed up with pride and jotted down a few formulas on the paper.
Magic in combat.
Magic analysis.
Magic penetration.
Rain scrutinized the formulas closely and nodded to himself with a thoughtful hum.
‘For a bloodline limit, I figured it’d rely more on innate talent, but the theory’s surprisingly hefty?’
If ancestor Ryuken hadn’t slapped on those petty genetic restrictions, even his past self could’ve wielded it.
“Don’t get it, do you? Don’t get it? Still don’t, even after all that? Can’t wrap your head around it?”
“No, if I just have a little time to sort it out, I’ll be fine.”
“Ugh, hopeless case. Guess I’ll have to specially teach…… What?”
“Thank you for the guidance. I’ll take it from here.”
He bowed politely and unrolled his paper.
That had always been Lin’s temperament.
He preferred poring over books and pondering in solitude to direct instruction from others. Especially since he was a great mage to begin with—what was there to learn?
“No, you don’t have to…… Hey, don’t get cocky…….”
When her nephew ruthlessly spread out his writing tools and dove straight into self-study, Elin blinked in a daze before pursing her lips like she’d show him.
“Fine, do whatever! It won’t work anyway! Don’t come crying to me later!”
She hollered that as she crossed her legs and plopped down opposite him at the desk. But while pretending to read 『Statistics Only Geniuses Understand』, she kept stealing glances at her nephew nonstop.
“Hmm…….”
The instant her nephew furrowed his brow—clearly stuck on organizing a formula—
“!”
She snatched the parchment toward herself, solved the part that had been giving him trouble in a way dozens of times simpler, and slid it back.
“?”
Wondering what the hell that was about, Rain looked up—just as Elin raised her book to hide her face like she was reading. Of course, it didn’t even last three minutes.
“Hmm…….”
The moment he so much as twitched an eyebrow over the formula, she snatched the parchment again, scribbled tips and explanations all over it, and handed it back.
“???”
It was bizarre.
So bizarre that Rain spent a good while just staring at the neat, meticulous handwriting filling his parchment with equations.
‘What’s this? Is modern magic education like this? Or is she testing me?’
The boy’s mother, Brim, watched her little sister-in-law’s antics with a fond smile. Seizing a moment when Elin stepped away, she approached her son.
“Rain, Rain.”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t your aunt a bit odd?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s no good at being honest. Truth is, she’s dying to teach you anything and everything—that’s why she acts like that. Ask her lots of questions. Even stuff you already know is fine.”
Recalling her academy days trailing after Kevn, Brim smiled brightly and kneaded her son’s cheeks.
“She was the same when she used to toddle after your father and me. So adorable.”
As Lin, he couldn’t comprehend this sort of person at all.
……Where’d that genius professor who despised dullards go?
When Elin finally returned, he pretended to focus on his formulas and snuck a glance upward.
‘Good grief…….’
He couldn’t hold back his shock.
She whistled like she couldn’t care less, but the book hadn’t budged an inch while she kept peeking at his parchment nonstop.
The moment their eyes met, she hastily hid her face behind the book—but not even ten seconds later, she lowered it slyly and sneaked another peek at his parchment.
‘Such a nuisance…… How can she be more bothersome than six-year-old Seri, Aunt……?’
He couldn’t just let it go on like this; it was distracting him too…… Swallowing the irritation welling up to his chin, he spoke up.
“Aunt, I totally don’t get this part—how do I do it?”
Responding to the summons like it pained her, Elin irritably snapped her book shut. But just as her mother had said, she was clearly fighting back a grin that stretched ear to ear.
“Sigh! You don’t know this? For real? Ha…… Our family’s doomed, doomed! Gimme. What is it?”
“This part.”
“Like this! See? How easy is that! Ugh!”
“Got it.”
“Aigoo! Here, this formula makes it way easier! How don’t you know?”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t know jack! What’ve you been doing till nine?”
“No idea.”
She said all that, but her face beamed with joy at having so much to teach.
Hmm. Got it.
There were no normal people in this family.
Who was it that said to never ask questions if you didn’t get it?
“What about this?”
“Ha…… You’re hopeless. Just this one last thing.”
“And that?”
“Tsk tsk tsk tsk! This is absolutely the last one, got it? Ask again and I’ll smash your skull…….”
“Aunt, what about this?”
“Ugh, ughughugh! Why’s this so hard for you…… This is really, really the last!”
That was how Elin’s lessons went.
She was a major pain, but thanks to her, the time needed to absorb the theory and gain practical experience shrank dramatically.
On the tenth day of lessons, Rain felt a searing pain as if the retinas in both eyes were burning.
‘Eye pain…… No, the headache’s worse.’
Blood rushed to his head like a hammer blow, the world tinted red—and then his pupils glowed crimson as a silver death constellation etched itself in.
010101010010110101.
What the hell? Rain barely managed to suck in ragged clumps of breath.
Everything looked like numbers.
All creation parsed into binary equations, beaming information straight into his brain. As if he’d become the creator himself.
‘Magic—magic……?’
He tried deploying a basic spell: 01010101001. The runes and math comprising the magic circle flooded his mind instantly.
‘Aha, so that’s how it works……!’
So that was how the punk had pierced all his spells back in their duel.
‘This thing’s seriously incredible?’
He sensed a burning gaze and looked up—straight into Elin Ludwig’s eyes.
“You…… this…… right now…… in just ten days…… how……?”
Her lips were trembling.
Not just her lips—her pupils too.