Back at the hotel, Ryōgi Minato phoned his foster father to tell him about wanting to study magecraft.
The boy had assumed he’d need to explain a bit more—just what this “magecraft,” which even he only half understood, actually was.
But the head of the Ryōgi family seemed to have some grasp of “this side of the world.” After a surprising few dozen seconds of silence, he agreed to the boy’s request.
He even, before hanging up, reminded the boy to mind his manners and not be a bother to his hosts—words the boy hadn’t heard in some time.
And so, with permission granted, the following afternoon—with the help of two Ryōgi family servants—the boy had his necessary belongings carried to the gate of the mansion’s garden, then slowly moved them into his room himself.
He’d chosen a somewhat late hour to move in, but it fell right after Alice and Aoko got out of school.
This too was deliberate on the boy’s part, for he knew today was Monday: Aoko and Alice both had school, and he could hardly ask the two of them to take time off over something like a move.
By the time everything was sorted, the sky had nearly gone fully dark.
Bearing the “apprenticeship gift” he’d prepared, Ryōgi Minato came to the living room, just in time to find Aoko and Alice seated on the sofa facing each other, chatting idly.
“Kuonji-sensei, this is my apprenticeship gift.
I hope you’ll accept it.”
Stepping forward to hand the wrapped box to the faintly puzzled girl, Ryōgi Minato knew he mustn’t be remiss in etiquette, and so had specially chosen a present before coming.
Only, since he didn’t know her tastes, he’d gone with something “conventionally” appropriate.
“An ‘apprenticeship gift,’ no less…”
Aoko’s mouth fell open in surprise as she looked at the boy, a single thought rising in her mind.
Is this kid an angel?!
Having pressed down her own surprise, Alice took the box and opened the wrapping in passing, drawing out what lay inside.
It was a cut of beef, high-grade at a glance—genuinely a precious thing to give as a gift.
But as an “apprenticeship gift,” it felt somehow… peculiar.
Not that Alice much minded.
After scraping by for the better part of half a month, the sudden sight of such a premium item—even if nothing showed on her face—drew her gaze, like her housemate’s, to linger on the present.
Setting it down on the tea table, Alice nodded and turned to the boy.
“Mm.
Tonight, then, we’ll test whether you have the innate talent to become a magus.”
Beholden as she was to his generosity, Alice had no intention of fobbing off the overly well-behaved boy, and set the time then and there.
“Understood.
I’ll be in your care, Sensei.”
Alice voiced no objection to how the boy addressed her.
Though they weren’t, strictly speaking, master and disciple, she seemed to rather enjoy the title.
Honestly, the nerve of her…
Shooting the girl a faintly resentful look, Aoko was, in truth, a little envious of the respect being shown to Alice.
But the feeling sprang more from the chagrin of being outdone yet again, so she quickly righted her mood and put on a smile.
“All right—since Minato’s brought such a gift, let’s enjoy it properly tonight.
Any thoughts, Minato, Alice?”
Ryōgi Minato shook his head; it was something he’d given away to begin with, and he had no opinion on how it should be handled.
Alice, on the other hand, tilted her head in earnest thought, but came to no conclusion any time soon.
“If neither of you has any ideas, then let’s just do grilled meat!
There’s some vegetables in the fridge that need using up, too—kill two birds with one stone.”
This time, Alice nodded readily, seemingly quite pleased with the suggestion.
But just as Aoko, brimming with enthusiasm, took up the high-grade beef and made to show off her skills in the kitchen, Ryōgi Minato quite naturally offered his help once more.
Knowing full well by now just how impressive the boy’s domestic skills were, Aoko still felt bad asking him to pitch in right after he’d moved in.
Just as she was about to politely decline, Alice, seated on the sofa, spoke up.
“Then I’ll leave it to you, Minato.
If you would, I’d like you to give Aoko a few more pointers on her cooking.”
“Alice!”
The girl plainly couldn’t stand her housemate’s mockery—and felt a pang of “betrayal” besides.
Alice’s cooking was only a hair better than her own; where did she get the standing to talk?
As if she hadn’t heard the girl’s complaint, Alice turned her face away.
Having sampled flavors a whole tier above, she’d grown rather picky about the dishes Aoko made.
Ordinarily, she could simply have eased herself back into them over time.
But since things had come to this, she might as well have her newly taken “disciple” give Aoko a proper lesson, and cure her of the delusion that her cooking was anything to brag about.
Standing between the two girls, Ryōgi Minato didn’t quite understand why their moods had turned so odd over something like this, and blinked in confusion.
In the end, the faintly sulky Aoko could only set aside her “pride as a cook” and resolve to play sous-chef to the boy once they reached the kitchen.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hold her ground—it was just that the boy’s cooking smelled far, far too good.
…
This was the mansion’s sunroom, situated right beside the living room.
The wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows let one take in the garden outside at a glance; the open, airy space was furnished with care and high taste throughout, in no way inferior to the lavish living room.
After dinner, Ryōgi Minato followed Alice and Aoko here.
Now he sat in a chair beside a small tea table, while across from him stood his nominal “magecraft teacher” and a visibly puzzled Aoko.
“Alice, how exactly are you going to test whether Minato has the talent to be a magus?”
“For that, all I need is to first confirm whether he has Magic Circuits.”
“But isn’t that something you only get after becoming a magus?”
“Aoko, have you actually read through the materials I told you to memorize?”
The young witch fixed Aoko with an expressionless stare, and the smile on the latter’s face promptly turned awkward.
“I-it’s not like that?”
“As one of the Aozaki, even if you were never required to become a magus, you’ve undoubtedly inherited that disposition—which is exactly why you assume Magic Circuits are something you acquire only after becoming a magus.”
Alice sighed inwardly.
At a loss for how to lecture her, she could only go on explaining.
“In fact, Magic Circuits are something that must first be opened through a process of self-activation before they settle into place.
You should remember doing that exercise yourself.
“Once you’ve successfully opened them a single time, there’s no need to repeat it—you simply grow accustomed to them afterward.
But that one step is unavoidable.”
At this, Aoko still hadn’t fully recalled the matter, and could only give a vague nod.
As if resigned, Alice turned her gaze back to the boy and addressed the novice before her.
“Generally speaking, magical energy can only slowly form and circulate once the Magic Circuits are opened.
But your ‘Od’ seems especially abundant—in all likelihood, you won’t be like ordinary people, unable to generate circuits at all.”
Before coming into this room, Alice had made a point of observing the boy, and noticed a detail she’d previously overlooked.
His life force seemed unusually vigorous—to borrow a phrase from the martial arts, his very “qi” brimmed over and out of his body, which meant he possessed the foundational talent to become an excellent magus.
The rest came down to so-called “aptitude”-type talent—and that was something that couldn’t be forced.
Ryōgi Minato nodded, half-understanding.
Though unsure what the “Od” she spoke of referred to, the overall gist seemed to be that he could, apparently, become a magus.
“Next, I’ll tell you how to open your Magic Circuits.
The method most magi use is self-visualization—picture some unseen organ existing within your body, catch the sensation of something flowing inside you, then pass that ‘flow’ through that organ.
“Give it a try first.”
It had begun as a mere whim, but once it came to actually teaching, Alice turned serious.
Hearing this, Ryōgi Minato thought for a moment, then quietly closed his eyes and began to feel for the so-called “sense of flow” she’d described.
At the same time, Alice’s voice sounded again.
“Once you’ve done all that, you’ll need a process of self-suggestion.
Imagine there’s a switch within your body—or anything else that serves as a cue for you—and finally, just throw that ‘switch’ open.”
Watching the boy with his eyes shut, Alice didn’t rush him.
She knew how difficult this middle stretch was for an ordinary person who’d never touched magecraft, and so simply waited in silence before him.
Aoko, for her part, glanced curiously at the motionless boy, frowning faintly with a touch of worry, but made no sound.
Having stilled his heart with his eyes closed, Ryōgi Minato had, in fact, caught that “sense of flow” at once.
It was a sensation that had often surfaced during his past meditation training—but the boy of those days had never paid it any mind, assuming only that his discipline wasn’t yet deep enough, that stray thoughts still clung to his heart.
And now, hearing Alice tell him to imagine a “switch” within his body, the boy instinctively recalled the sword drills he’d run through more times than he could count.
Draw the blade.
Free it from the sheath.
In that instant, the “sense of flow” within his body seemed to find its direction all at once, surging off along several paths.
Ryōgi Minato snapped out of his meditative state and looked down at his own body on reflex, blinking in some confusion.
At that moment, across the surface of his body—like an outward manifestation—five lines as thick as forearms spread from his heart at the center, branching toward both hands, both legs, and his head, so that he looked like a human figure flung wide, limbs outstretched.
But he wasn’t the only one stunned; Aoko, too, stood frozen where she was, marveling at the strange Magic Circuits.
Alice, meanwhile, knit her brows, doubt in her eyes.
Success on the very first attempt—and in under thirty seconds, no less.
Is this the gift passed down through a Demon Hunter House…?
Unaware that the boy was in fact the Ryōgi family’s adopted son, Alice pushed down her curiosity.
But for her, teaching a “disciple” with real talent was certainly far better than teaching a troublesome “fool” like Aoko.
Only, just as she, the “teacher,” was about to offer some congratulatory words of encouragement, her gaze fell abruptly on the center where all the boy’s Magic Circuits converged.
—Upon that heart, which seemed to radiate a golden glow of magical energy.
A Magic… Crest?
A Furnace?
How is that possible?
For the first time, something called emotion surfaced on that cool face.
Alice reached out without thinking and, under the boy’s puzzled gaze, touched the left side of his chest—as if feeling for something—and lapsed into silence.
“Alice?”
Seeing her housemate suddenly lean in, Aoko gave a start.
But the expression on Alice’s face was far too grave, leaving her able only to voice that one questioning note.
After a moment, Alice straightened and looked into the boy’s eyes.
“Minato, do you know what a Magic Crest and a Magical Energy Furnace are?”
These two new terms were ones Ryōgi Minato had never heard, and he shook his head honestly.
“Then has your family ever performed any kind of surgery on you—especially on your heart?”
“No.
My body has always been healthy; I’ve never once been ill.”
Ryōgi Minato looked at the girl in confusion, not understanding why she asked.
And his answer was simple fact—forget illness, the boy had never so much as caught the most common cold in all his life, healthy to a degree that defied common sense.
“Are you certain?”
As if she couldn’t believe it, Alice—rarely—confirmed it a second time.
“I’m certain.”
But the answer didn’t change in the slightest, and at this Alice found it hard to believe.
Could it be congenital?
But whether a Crest or a Furnace… that makes no sense at all…
Is this child truly human…?
“Alice, what on earth is going on?
Don’t tell me something went wrong opening the Magic Circuits?”
Aoko had never seen the young witch wear such an expression, and her tone, too, grew solemn.
Glancing at the boy still holding his “circuits open,” Alice drew a slight breath and turned to Aoko.
“Listen, Aoko—what I’m about to say is important, and Minato should remember it too.”
Seeing the other two nod, Alice went on.
“Aoko, you know a Magic Crest is something that has to be transplanted, don’t you?”
“Huh?
Of course I know that—when I was chosen back then, they transplanted a Crest into me, called it an inheritance or whatever, and it took me a good long while to adjust…”
As if recalling something unpleasant, Aoko’s words took on a touch of irritation.
“Right.
A Magic Crest is exactly as you say—something passed down through a family.
Building one from scratch is possible, but almost unheard of in the modern day, because it requires implanting a Mystic Code or a fragment of a Phantasmal Species into the body, and the rejection alone is enough to make a person wish they were dead.”
“Uh… so?”
Aoko asked reflexively, unsure why Alice had started explaining this.
“So a Crest is, in essence, something acquired later—it’s artificial, an existence formed only after a family endures across several generations, steeping it in their own magecraft.”
The young witch looked long and deep at the bewildered boy.
Rather than a Magical Energy Furnace such as the legendary heroes might possess from birth, she was more inclined to believe this was a Crest brought about by some sudden, spontaneous mutation in the blood passed down through the Ryōgi line.
But even the latter was thoroughly inconceivable.
So she turned her head and murmured to Aoko.
“Then tell me—if someone were born already possessing such a thing, wouldn’t its value, in the eyes of magi, be equivalent to a fragment of a Phantasmal Species… or something higher still?”