Exactly one week had passed since Alon came to the Mage Tower.

[Preparation’s done.]

Alon heard from Heinkel that the perfect interpretation of the spell-phrases was finished.

So much time had already passed, and yet.

“Wrapped up faster than I expected.”

Alon couldn’t help but say that to Heinkel.

[Really? I hit the deadline exactly.]

Heinkel made a “Huh?” expression.

“......I probably couldn’t have done it.”

“Me neither.......”

Penia, standing to the side, even let out a sigh and stated it flatly.

The reason was that a few days ago, Penia had been taught directly by Heinkel about how to interpret magic.

‘Even with Penia and me both glued to it and focusing, the progress was basically nonexistent.’

At first, Alon had confidence in his own way.

Penia, who had an inborn talent for magic, was right beside him, and in all the research Alon had done together with Penia so far, even if some difficulty came up, they’d managed to solve it pretty well.

However, finding information inside tier magic was beyond imagination—to the point it was difficult at a level that was practically impossible.

Heinkel had casually said, “remove what’s unnecessary” from the existing arrangement and naturally implemented Ice Spear, but

Alon and Penia couldn’t even accurately distinguish what the “unnecessary” parts were inside the magic and exclude them.

Just yesterday, Alon had even debated with Penia for over two hours: “The idea that tier magic contains information is just Heinkel’s thought, and for us it’s just a vain dream, isn’t it?”

Anyway, faced with the difficulty firsthand, Alon sincerely praised Heinkel, and—

[Hm-hm— Well, this body used to be kind of a big deal back in the day.]

Maybe feeling good without realizing it, Heinkel gave a shrug, then immediately got to the point.

[Alright, then enough useless talk. Let’s do it right away.]

“Right here, right now?”

[Wouldn’t it be fine?]

“Should we move to the practice room on the first floor?”

But Heinkel didn’t really feel like it.

[Doesn’t seem like there’ll be a problem doing it here. It’s just Light magic, at most.]

“I-I agree, but on the first floor there’s an artifact that shows the movement of mana by classifying it into types, so...... I thought maybe we could check something extra......!”

At Penia’s subtle addition, Heinkel hesitated for a moment, thinking, then—

[Hmm, well, if that’s the case—]

—shrugged and finally agreed.

To head to the first floor, Alon and Penia took the lead and boarded a movement device that resembled an elevator.

“By the way, Marquis.”

The moment Alon boarded the device, Evan leaned in as if Evan had been waiting and asked,

“What is it?”

“Um, is the magic you’re demonstrating this time Light?”

“Yeah.”

“That....... Do you really need to check the mana type? for that?”

At Evan’s words, Alon thought for a moment, then answered.

“......Well, honestly, not to the point that it’s necessary.”

Light.

In tier magic, it was a first-tier spell, and along with Magic Bolt, it was the first spell every mage learned.

So naturally, the amount of mana, structure, and arrangement—the three elements that made up magic—were extremely simple.

Meaning, even if they didn’t go down to the demonstration room to look at the mana type,

for a mage, it was to the point where it was only natural to know what the arrangement was just by seeing it.

Alon also thought, ‘Do we really have to go to the first floor just for Light?’ but—that was only if the magic manifested as truly ordinary Light.

“If it manifests as spell-phrases, it’ll be different. It’ll definitely help with future magic interpretation.”

“Mm— I did hear a little, you know. The words you use were... kind of grand, considering it’s called Light.”

Evan nodded.

“It is.”

Alon agreed as well.

After fully interpreting Light magic, the “sentence made of spell-phrases” that Heinkel told Alon about had a somehow solemn feeling to it.

‘I am curious what kind of shape the magic will take.’

How long had it been since Alon thought that?

When they arrived on the first tier, they headed straight for the demonstration room, and—

“......Huh?”

“Yeah?”

There, they unexpectedly saw a crowd of mages.

“......There are a lot of people.”

“Right......? Today isn’t even a conference day, so normally there shouldn’t be anyone......?”

As Penia muttered with a doubtful expression—

“Big sis?” 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

“......Pellin?”

In the middle of them, Penia’s younger sibling appeared.

In the short time since Alon last saw Pellin, Pellin had clearly gone from a boy to a young man.

Alon was briefly reminded it had been quite a while since meeting Pellin, and then—

“Why are you here? Last time, you definitely said you were going to the marquis’s estate—”

At Pellin’s continued question, Penia answered.

“I told you last time, didn’t I? That I’d be back soon.”

“You did say that. I just didn’t think you meant it for real.”

“What are you talking about? So what’s with this crowd?”

With a small tilt of the chin, Penia pointed at the mages filling the demonstration hall.

“You might not know, Big sis, but today is the day we demonstrate the assignment we researched together with the Green Mage Tower.”

“? Don’t we do all that ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) during the conference and get it over with?”

“It’s— this time the scale is a bit bigger. We decided that even if it went past the conference, we’d implement it perfectly first, so—”

“So you gathered at this timing?”

“Yes. Since other Mage Towers are pretty interested too, quite a few people came. But—”

Sighing as if the problem was that the ones preparing the demonstration were pointlessly loafing around, Pellin looked at Alon and asked,

“Do you need to use the demonstration room?”

“Well, yeah.”

“If you want to use it right now, it probably wouldn’t be an issue. Our side isn’t fully ready yet. But if it’s secret research....... it might be a little hard to send all the mages back out—”

As Pellin dragged the end of the sentence out, Alon tried to shift his gaze and check Heinkel.

Even if Alon was the one demonstrating, the person who had interpreted the tier magic was Heinkel.

However.

“?”

Heinkel, who had definitely been there just a moment ago, wasn’t visible like a lie, so Alon was momentarily bewildered.

Alon slowly swept the surroundings, and—before long, found Heinkel with only the face sticking out from the ceiling of the Mage Tower.

Alon realized belatedly that for some reason, Heinkel was hiding the identity.

And when Alon saw the shape of Heinkel’s mouth.

‘Do whatever you want.’

Alon answered Pellin.

“It’s not that.”

“Then you should be able to use it right away. ......But, if I may ask. What magic are you planning to demonstrate?”

Only then did Pellin cautiously reveal curiosity.

After hesitating a moment, Alon answered slowly.

“Light.”

“......Light?”

“Yeah.”

“......That Light?”

“Ah, move!”

Maybe because it was a familiar face, Penia’s temper seemed to flare up out of nowhere.

With an annoyed shove, Penia pushed Pellin back hard, and Pellin was shoved aside without resistance.

Alon followed behind Penia, who moved forward without hesitation, and stepped into the demonstration hall.

“Huh?”

“That is—”

“Marquis Palatio?”

As they appeared, the mages began to murmur.

“I just heard from a disciple over by the entrance. Marquis Palatio is going to demonstrate magic.”

“That Marquis Palatio?”

“Yeah.”

“Hoo—”

“But— I heard the magic being demonstrated is Light.”

“......Huh? Light? ......You mean first-tier magic?”

“Yeah.”

“......He came all the way to the demonstration hall just for that?”

The news about Alon that had just come in spread quickly in every direction.

Pretending not to hear the murmurs, Alon calmly let out a sigh and felt awkward for no reason.

‘Should I have just said I’d do it after the demonstration ended?’

Even though Alon had heard all the spell-phrases and sentences from Heinkel, in the end, the magic Alon would use this time was still Light.

So naturally, the expectation in the air from all sides became a bit burdensome.

But Alon had already come in, acting calm.

In this state, leaving again would be ridiculous, so Alon sighed inwardly and recalled what Heinkel had said.

‘To extract the information you want from tier magic, the first thing you have to do is delete what’s unnecessary.’

Then Alon muttered the spell-phrases that had to be used.

‘Once you remove the dregs like that and the original form of the magic is perfectly implemented, that’s when you have to interpret it.’

‘That isn’t hard. From that moment, the remaining information becomes pretty clear. The three spell-phrases you use are enough with this.’

And so.

‘Then what’s left are two sentences. The method of finding the sentences isn’t hard either. You combine the information you used to find the spell-phrases one more time. But this time, you’re not looking for similarities in the arrangement. You look for them in the mana structure. If you do that—’

“Light, Heat Source, Fixation.”

‘—even if you can’t obtain the hand seals, you can obtain all the information you can get through tier magic.’

“Silence of Darkness.”

After calmly running through every memory at last, Alon quietly formed the seals.

At first, Pellin thought Pellin had misheard what Penia—Pellin’s older sibling—said.

But now, Pellin realized.

That wasn’t it.

“.......”

In the middle of the demonstration room that looked like a grand hall, Alon was standing.

And the small light floating in front of Alon was unbelievably weak.

To the point where, even if a first-tier mage implemented it, it might not be any brighter than that.

“What, is that really Light?”

“......Is it a joke?”

“No, I don’t think the marquis is the type to pull a joke like this.”

“That’s true, but... it really is ‘that’ Light.”

“......I think the new recruit who just came in would do it better.”

Behind Pellin, the whispers of the mages could be heard.

Just like that, the expectation that had swelled up at Marquis Palatio’s appearance was about to turn into doubt and disappointment in an instant, when—a small mutter spilled the rest of the way out of Alon’s mouth.And then.

“......Hm?”

From one mage’s mouth, a strange, low sound leaked out.

Starting with that, a silence that didn’t allow even the smallest noise covered the mages.

Because a mutation had been observed in the Light magic created in front of the marquis.

‘The light—’

‘—is being eaten?’

It was exactly that.

At the center of the implemented magic, something transparent appeared.

‘That thing’ began to grow as it devoured the light implemented by magic.

The flickering light gradually swallowed up more and more of the surroundings.

At first, the demonstration hall.

Then the audience seats where the mages were.

Then the mages’ eyes.

And finally, the entire hall, greedily.

‘That... is Light?’

Watching that, Pellin—no, that thought brushed through all the mages’ minds at once.

But no one could deny it.

Because they saw it with their own eyes.

The fact that it was Light, that it derived from first-tier magic.

And then, after ‘that thing’ finally absorbed all the light and revealed its form—the mages’ breathing grew loud, and an uproar rose that was enough to break the silence filling the hall.

Because.

“This—”

“No... way—”

What was created in front of Alon after all the light died away—

Bzzzzzt-!!!!

—resembled the sun.

A small sun itself, melting the area around it as if it would burn everything away.

“Eye of the Sun.”

Following that, with Alon’s low recitation, the sun left Alon’s hand and—

Kwaaaah-!!!

after casually shattering the demonstration hall surrounded by dozens of layers of magic circles,

it soon even smashed the outer wall to pieces.

““.......””

Silence came to the demonstration hall once again.

It was different from the silence before.

It was a stillness filled with awe.

‘W-what is this......?’

And in the middle of it, Alon, who had demonstrated the magic—

‘This is... Light?’

......of course, was thinking something similar.