Aqua pulled back from the hug with a look of fierce readiness on her face, like a soldier preparing for battle or a student steeling herself for the most important exam of her life.

Her sapphire eyes blazed with determination.

"So." She said, her voice crisp and focused. "Where do we begin, Cassius?"

Before he could answer, she spun around him, circling like a lecturer addressing a classroom.

"I think I should first describe how my magic works. The entire concept behind it, the functionality, everything."

"Especially since I have control over five elements, you need a proper understanding before you can guide me."

Her hands waved animatedly as her thoughts tumbled out in a rapid stream.

"Then I probably need to let you have a taste of my mana. My spirit. So you can understand its flow."

She stopped abruptly, her expression faltering.

"Oh, but you can’t do that, can you? Your body for some reason can’t hold any mana. So that’s useless."

She resumed circling, her brow furrowed in thought.

"But at the same time, it’s going to be even more difficult for you to teach me if you don’t know how my mana flows. We’ll have to do something about that." She glanced at him. "There are also my previous notes—the frameworks I’ve already developed. I can give you those. They might give you some advantage, some insight into what pathway I need to take to create my own domain."

She circled again, her voice growing faster.

"At the same time, we have to create individual routes for each of my elements. Five different paths that eventually merge into one cohesive system."

"That’s probably going to take a while. We’ll probably need to keep timelines, work schedules, maybe even a progress journal—"

"Aqua."

"—and we should definitely set aside specific hours each day for research, because if we’re not consistent—"

"Aqua."

"—the theoretical frameworks might fall apart, and then we’d have to start all over again, which would be a complete disaster—"

"AQUA!"

She stopped mid-sentence, blinking at him.

Cassius held up his hand, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation.

"Hold on right there."

Aqua tilted her head. "What? Did I miss something?"

"Not, it’s not that. It’s just that you’re stressing yourself out for no reason."

He stepped closer, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"The truth of the matter is there’s no need for all of this. You can just leave everything to me."

Aqua’s eyes glimmered in offence.

"How could I do that, Cassius?"

She put her hands on her hips, looking every bit the indignant older sister.

"You’re already doing so much for me. The least I can do is help from the side, right? There’s no need for you to shoulder everything alone."

Cassius shook his head.

"No, Aqua, that’s not what I’m saying."

He looked down into her eyes, and she felt her breath catch at the intensity of his gaze.

"What I mean is..." He smiled "...it’s already done."

Aqua took a step back in confusion.

"What? What do you mean? What’s done?"

He leaned closer, his grin widening.

"The entire pathway. The framework. Everything you just described—I’ve already created it all."

Aqua stared at him in disbelief, wondering if she was hearing wrong, while Cassius went on to say.

"There’s no need for you to do anything since I’ve done everything you’ve listed and more."

"Y-You mean..." Aqua gasped in dismay.

"Yes." Cassius showed a innocent gaze and went on to say, "Whether it’s the network you need to follow. The pathways you need to keep. The frequency of mana pulses you’ll have to maintain."

"The domain expansion levels you’ll need to achieve on your own. How to regulate the circulatory networks in your body."

"Basically, all the complicated stuff."

He waved his hand dismissively, as if discussing something trivial.

"I’ve already dealt with it. And it’s right here."

He reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a book. It was thick, unusually thick bound in dark leather with no title on the cover.

He held it out to her.

"Everything you need to become a Supreme Mage is right here in this book. As long as you master everything inside, you’ll achieve your dream."

Aqua’s face twisted into an expression of utter shock and disbelief.

She couldn’t process what she was hearing.

She had been certain that becoming a Supreme Mage would require endless effort even with her brother.

Whether it was staying up day and night with him or doing hours of research and working like a mad fanatic to uncover the secrets of immortality.

She had been ready to push herself to the brink, to sacrifice everything for this goal.

And honestly, despite the difficulty, she hadn’t minded at all.

She had been excited, in a strange way since it would have meant more time with her brother.

They wouldn’t be separated. She would get to do her favorite thing—research mana with her favorite person.

That had been her greatest dream.

But now her brother was simply handing her a book and telling her that everything she needed was right there.

As if becoming a Supreme Mage, one of the rarest feats in thousands of years was nothing more than following a simple recipe.

She couldn’t believe it.

A joke, she told herself. It has to be a joke. Cassius is joking right now.

Relief flooded through her. Yes, that was it.

Her little brother was trying to relieve her stress. He was trying to cheer her up by giving her this book.

There was probably nothing actually inside. Maybe some silly drawings. Maybe a perverted story he thought would make her laugh.

She smiled to herself, feeling much better.

With that intention in mind, she opened the first page.

But the moment her eyes touched the paper, her sapphire irises began to glow.

Blue light radiated from her pupils, spreading outward until her entire body was engulfed in a soft, ethereal glow.

Whoosh!

Energy burst from her like a sudden storm, scattering the papers and books around her.

Pages flew through the air. Dust motes danced in the luminous haze.

Aqua stood frozen, her mouth hanging open, her eyes shimmering with disbelief.

The reason for her reaction was simple: the moment she opened the book, she felt the awakening of her domain begin.

As a prodigy mage, Aqua could read at an accelerated rate.

She could take in an entire page at a single glance, processing the information in seconds.

And the moment her mind absorbed the diagrams and schematics on that first page, her body resonated.

It was as if she had instantly upgraded. She could feel herself starting on the path to becoming a Supreme Mage—not metaphorically, but literally.

Her level raised just from reading one page.

She thought it was a prank. She thought it was a joke.

But her power grew stronger.

Thinking that it must be a coincidence, with trembling fingers, she turned to the next page.

Whoosh!

Another pulse of energy shot through her body.

She gained even more knowledge—things she had never comprehended before, concepts that had always seemed just out of reach. It was as if she had achieved enlightenment in a single second.

She turned to the next page. Another pulse.

Whoosh!

The next. Another pulse.

Whoosh!

Books scattered off the shelves. Papers flew through the air like startled birds.

Her body pulsed like a beating heart, each thrum accompanied by a surge of understanding, of power, of progress.

The diagrams in the book were the same kinds of things she would see in any other magic text—data tables, rhythm frequencies, complicated mana-related concepts.

But they were presented from a completely different perspective.

A perspective she had never encountered.

A perspective that seemed tailored specifically to her.

Each page made her realize things she had never felt before.

Each page brought her one step closer to the ultimate level.

This went on until she reached page fifty.

Then she snapped the book shut.

Her energy and aura immediately began to settle, like a storm subsiding.

She was breathing heavily, her chest heaving, her hands trembling.

A look of horror and disbelief twisted her features, as if she had glimpsed something that shouldn’t exist in this world.

Finally, she looked up at Cassius.

He had been watching her the entire time, smiling like he had expected this exact reaction.

"...How?"

Her voice came out as a croak.

"How did you do it, Cassius? How did you actually make something like this?"

She looked down at the book in her hands.

"Something that could actually raise my level just from reading a few pages? Just...how?"

She took a step forward, looking at her brother like he was a completely different entity. Like he was something beyond human.

Cassius enjoyed her reaction—it reminded him of the time he had taught Aisha how to properly use mana.

That look of dawning wonder, of impossible realizations crashing down like waves. It made him feel rather good about himself.

Seeing that she wanted answers, he cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"Well, to start everything off, I had to do some...thievery on you, Aqua."

She blinked. "Thievery?"

"After Aisha told me about your situation, I didn’t want to just wait for you to come to me. That would be wasting time. So I...may have gone through some of your belongings."

Aqua lookee at him in surprise.

"You had brought a lot of books with you. Research notes, personal journals, everything you’d been working on. I went through all of it and made copies."

"Every note, every diagram, every scrap of paper."

He said this in a slightly embarrassed manner, like a child caught stealing cookies.

"I really had no choice at the time. I didn’t know where you stood on accepting help. I couldn’t risk making you uncomfortable by asking directly, so I took matters into my own hands."

He shrugged.

"After that, I went to Aisha. I asked her about your magic—your mana, your elemental affinities, everything. She explained how most mages have one or two elements, but you have five because of your fairy heritage. How that makes you a prodigy."

"She also gave me demonstrations of how her own mana worked, and since she’s so close to you, she knew a lot about your internal processes."

He began circling around Aqua, and she followed him with her eyes, completely captivated.

"With that information, I got a general framework of what I needed to work toward. After that, I just had to sit myself down and start researching."

He waved his hand casually.

"Of course, it wasn’t exactly easy. If I had even a little bit of mana in my body—if I could feel it, recognize it, understand it—I would have had a much better idea of what you needed."

"But since I have none...well it wasn’t exactly easy."

Aqua nodded. It made sense.

Creating something that involved mana when you couldn’t wield mana yourself was like telling someone to create a high-level coding program when they had never even seen a computer.

It should have been impossible.

"But still." Cassius continued. "I reconstructed your mana using your notes and Aisha’s help. I used my own imagination to figure out what sort of domain you would have."

Aqua’s expression showed a mixture of wonder, confusion, and shock.

"But that still doesn’t make complete sense." She said slowly. "How can you theorize about something so fundamental when you can’t even experience it yourself?"