After Luò Lán and Clovis returned to the mansion, the girl went upstairs on her own. Her lively silver-white hair flashed around the corner of the staircase and then disappeared.
Alya tidied up the carriage outside before finally stepping through the door.
Yuna was curled up in the soft chaise longue beside the fireplace, still holding half a bag of unfinished cookies. When she saw Luò Lán come in, she only lazily lifted her eyelids.
“Back already?” she mumbled. “Was the Regent’s tea any good?”
Luò Lán couldn’t be bothered to reply to her — he had plenty of his own things to deal with.
Just as he was about to head upstairs, the heavy front door of the mansion was gently knocked.
Alya went to open it and found a messenger standing outside, the emblem of Altlas Academy embroidered on his clothes. In his hands he held a delicate wooden box edged in silver. Seeing who answered, he bowed respectfully and handed the box to Alya, who had stepped forward.
“To His Highness Lufenias and Mr. Luò Lán,” the messenger said calmly. “Regarding matters concerning the new students’ enrollment.”
After receiving the box, Alya turned and walked into the living room, placing it on the table. Yet her gaze couldn’t help drifting toward the staircase corner — the direction in which Clovis had vanished.
Once the academy messenger had left, Luò Lán stepped forward and opened the wooden box.
Inside were two exquisitely bound handbooks and two letters sealed with the academy’s fire-wax stamp. The letter addressed to Luò Lán was very brief: Altlas Academy’s early-batch enrollment for this academic year would officially begin in seven days; he was requested to arrive on time without fail.
He wondered whether Clovis’s letter contained the same information.
The handbooks, on the other hand, were noticeably much thicker. Luò Lán picked one up and flipped it open. Page after page was densely packed with a list of items required for enrollment.
Specific-attribute magic crystals, materials corresponding to different courses, magic道具 with a certain degree of protective effect… an endless array of things, each entry followed by recommended specifications and quantities — so detailed it was almost jaw-dropping.
The second half of the handbook focused on the academy’s dormitory system.
Except under extremely special circumstances, all students were required to live on campus. The academy provided uniform, fairly high-quality bedding… but at the very end, in a small line of text, it added: Students with strong personal preferences were not prohibited from carrying out a reasonable degree of personalized modification to their dorm rooms, provided they could pay the corresponding fees.
Luò Lán’s mouth twitched. He put the handbook down with a somewhat helpless, wry smile.
As expected of the kingdom’s foremost academy — if nothing else, they really knew how to handle the vanity and competitive instincts of all those noble young ladies and gentlemen.
He could almost picture how those students from wealthy families would arrive with ridiculously exaggerated luggage and entourages of servants, and how eagerly they would throw money at “renovating” those supposedly “fairly high-quality” dorms.
He certainly couldn’t afford that kind of expense. As for His Highness… that was even more impossible.
—I just hope that when school starts, no unnecessary trouble comes looking for us… “family fallen on hard times” is a very delicate phrase in their world.
While he was lost in thought, light footsteps came from the staircase.
Luò Lán looked up following the sound and saw that Clovis had somehow already come back down. She had changed into a simple light-gray home dress, her hair loosely tied behind her head.
She walked to the table, glanced over the two ornate handbooks, but did not reach out to take them.
“Is this the academy notifying us about the start of term?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Luò Lán handed her the letter addressed to her.
The girl took it, opened the envelope, and let her fingertips linger for a moment on the Altlas Academy crest on the back. Her long, slender eyelashes trembled faintly with each breath, but her eyes revealed no particular emotion.
Dinner was stewed meat, grilled fish, and sweet soup prepared by Alya.
The dining room’s lights flickered gently; the fragrance of the stew mingled with the charred aroma of the grilled fish and drifted through the air. Clovis sat at the head of the table, sipping her soup in small mouthfuls. Luò Lán sat to her right, cutting into a piece of grilled fish.
He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but ever since they returned from the ice lake in the suburbs last time, Alya’s grilled-fish skills seemed to have improved dramatically.
“Alya’s cooking has gotten even better.”
The head maid was changing Clovis’s plate. Hearing Luò Lán’s comment, she lowered her eyelashes slightly; the lamplight cast a soft outline across her fair cheek.
“You flatter me,” Alya said quietly, though a faint blush悄悄 crept up behind her ears. “I only followed the usual method.”
Clovis lifted her eyes and glanced at Luò Lán, then at Alya’s reddened ear tips. She said nothing, simply lowered her head again and gently prodded the fish on her plate with her fork.
Yuna, sitting across from them, mumbled through a mouthful: “Now that you mention it, yeah… Sis didn’t even know how to grill fish properly before—”
“Eat your food properly,” Alya softly scolded, then turned to fetch the warmed sweet soup.
Outside the window, night deepened. Snow had begun falling again unnoticed; tiny flakes tapped lightly against the glass.
After dinner the mansion seemed to sink into a soft, hushed stillness. Clovis set down her napkin and lifted her gaze just as Luò Lán was about to leave the dining room.
“Luò Lán.” She called to him. “…Come with me to the study.”
“Alright.”
The study door was thick and solid, shutting out all other sounds from the rest of the house. The room’s lighting was dim, just enough to softly illuminate the wide desk and the two tall-backed chairs.
Clovis sat in her usual chair, an open thick book spread before her. Luò Lán sat to her side, also holding a book… though while his eyes rested on the page, his thoughts kept drifting.
The girl quietly reviewed the incantations she had been taught earlier. Luò Lán’s gaze unconsciously slipped from the edge of the page and settled on the profile beside him, bathed in gentle lamplight.
The light lay over Clovis like a thin veil. Her head was slightly bowed; a strand of silver hair slipped from behind her ear and hung against her cheek, swaying gently with her movements. His eyes followed that strand downward — past her jawline, along the slender graceful curve of her neck, finally stopping at the slightly open collar of her dress.
Because of the way she was sitting, her casual home clothes hung loosely, faintly outlining the clear line of her collarbone and the soft contours that had quietly left behind the awkwardness of early girlhood.
Luò Lán felt his heartbeat skip half a beat. He suddenly realized that, over these busy seven years, the little girl he once had to guide and protect had, without him noticing, already grown up.
Though traces of childish softness still lingered between her brows and her frame remained delicate, certain places had indeed… begun to take shape.
For a moment he was completely lost in the sight and didn’t even notice when Clovis stopped reading.
Only when she propped her chin on her hand, tilted her head slightly, and those clear, luminous eyes looked straight at him — colliding with his wandering gaze — did he snap back to reality.
Luò Lán hurriedly lowered his eyelashes.
The study suddenly became extraordinarily quiet; only the steady glow of the magic lamp flowed silently between them.
“Don’t get distracted,” Luò Lán said, rubbing his nose in an attempt to cover for himself. “You just messed up that section twice.”
“But… my dear advisor,” Clovis lightly tapped her own brow with the finger that had been propping up her cheek — the gesture made her look a little playful, “who exactly is the one getting distracted — me or you?”
Her eyes were bright and clear, the corners of her mouth carrying a faint smile.
“Besides, if you weren’t distracted, how would you even know that I was? Shouldn’t your attention be on that book?”
Luò Lán opened his mouth, then ultimately chose silence and forced his gaze back onto the open pages.
Yet even so, the corner of his vision still caught glimpses of that lamplit territory — the flowing silver hair, the lightly pursed cherry-pink lips.
But it didn’t take long before Luò Lán’s brows furrowed again.
The fragments of incantations coming from Clovis’s mouth sounded more and more wrong the longer he listened. When she finished the section, hesitated, and looked toward him, Luò Lán could only press a hand to his forehead in speechlessness.
“Wait — didn’t I explain this part, and the mana circuit output adjustment section before it, in detail? How did you loop back around to the wrong method again?”
Clovis blinked, the fingers holding the page curling slightly. Her gaze darted away like it was fleeing.
“And this… this is a spell almost every fourth-tier mage can use. It’s required knowledge… oh my god…”
For a moment Luò Lán felt on the verge of an existential breakdown.
So this was exactly why he had always thought the so-called “resonance test” used during the sacred canon ceremony to evaluate aptitude was unreliable. That test only measured the strength and responsiveness of mana circuits — how was that any different from simply opening a back door for all those high-born but useless noble brats?
He understood that Altlas Academy needed the support and funding of the aristocratic class if it wanted to maintain its position in the capital; a certain degree of compromise was inevitable.
He didn’t care — and had no interest in caring — about how other people handled it.
But Clovis… he absolutely could not accept pouring seven years of effort into raising a completely incompetent “Your Highness.” If it ever really came to that, he might as well just jump into the nearest moat right now and be done with it.
He had thought things were finally looking promising after seeing her duel Ophelia at the ice lake and actually hold her own — only for today to deliver this massive blow.
Sure, the academy was full of spoiled rich kids coasting on family background, but it was also packed with genuine geniuses and terrifyingly hardcore overachievers!
No — absolutely not acceptable!
Cram sessions. They needed intensive cram sessions! They had to make full use of the last few days before school started!
Also, after the last upgrade the Atlas Rubik’s Cube should have unlocked quite a few previously inaccessible spells — he still hadn’t checked the new ones yet.
…
The next day, when Luò Lán stepped out of the mansion holding the warm, smooth magic-crystal transaction card, the sunlight outside was bright and clear, making the snow piled along both sides of the street dazzling.
Learning magic inevitably required practice, and practice always required consumable materials bought with real money. So today Luò Lán was heading to Valgard’s bustling commercial district to purchase supplies — and, if possible, pick up some of the other items listed in the academy handbook along the way.
Originally Alya was supposed to accompany him, but just as Luò Lán finished changing and was about to call for her, Clovis suddenly leaned halfway over the second-floor railing.
“Alya,” the girl’s voice was soft and coaxing, “I just remembered — didn’t you make those little cakes topped with frosting and crushed berries last time? Can you teach me how?”
Alya clearly froze for a second. She glanced at Luò Lán, already dressed and ready to leave, then up at her own princess — eyes clear and innocent, fingers curled around the banister.
“Of course, Your Highness.” Alya nodded, then turned and retrieved a crystal transaction card about half the size of her palm, its surface flowing with faint purple mana patterns. She solemnly placed it in Luò Lán’s hand.
“Mr. Luò Lán, this is the Lufenias family’s universal trade card accepted at several major chambers of commerce in the capital… Please use your discretion with the items on the list.”
Luò Lán nodded. Before he could say anything more, Clovis had already come downstairs and taken hold of Alya’s arm.
“Come on, Alya… I remember the prep work is really troublesome…”
The girl practically dragged the hesitant head maid toward the depths of the mansion’s kitchen, leaving Luò Lán with nothing but a fleeting, light silhouette.
Walking along the street toward the market, Luò Lán’s thoughts weren’t entirely on the shopping list. His fingertips unconsciously traced the patterns on the surface of the card.
He still had money.
Or more precisely — money he couldn’t use… at least not yet.
It was the gold he had carried back with him from his second regression — the final settlement reward from his previous loop. By sheer coincidence (or misfortune), the shape, purity, and markings of those coins were completely different from the current circulating currency of the Kingdom of Rodlan — or indeed the entire eastern continent. Even if he wanted to spend them, he would have to consider issues of storage, reminting, and — most importantly — avoiding attracting dangerous attention.
So that dead pile of wealth had sat quietly inside the Atlas Rubik’s Cube all this time. Today, finally having the chance to wander Valgard alone, Luò Lán wanted to see if he could find a way to convert those coins into something usable in the kingdom — whether physical Rodlan gold or anonymous ledger credits.
Having money you can’t spend is pure torture, man.
The shopping went more smoothly than expected. Perhaps because Altlas Academy’s term was approaching, every magic-supply shop in the market was fully stocked.
Relying on experience and connections from his previous loop, Luò Lán managed to purchase almost everything on the consumables list from several familiar old stores. Watching the balance on the magic-crystal card steadily drop made his heart ache; Alya’s parting words before he left still echoed in his ears like a curse.
After storing all the bags and boxes into the Rubik’s Cube’s storage space, Luò Lán straightened his clothes and turned into a district completely different from the bustling main street.
Valgard’s old town.
The buildings here were comparatively lower and shabbier, the cobblestone roads uneven from years of neglect. The air carried a mix of cheap tobacco, stale black bread, and various unnameable odors. Passersby in threadbare clothes moved quickly, their glances at Luò Lán mostly wary and dull.
His real destination wasn’t here. He was heading deeper — into the shadows hidden even further within the old town.
They called it Dark Alley.
Guided by memory, the boy navigated the narrow, gloomy lanes, searching for the hidden channels that operated behind casinos and underground taverns. Only in a place like that could coins of questionable origin — like his — possibly be laundered into usable Rodlan currency or deposited into anonymous accounts.
The environment in Dark Alley was even worse than the old town.
Sewage ran openly in the streets, garbage piled in corners, and the sagging eaves of crooked buildings on both sides nearly met overhead, blocking out what little light remained.
Occasionally one could see figures curled in corners, wrapped in tattered blankets, or hollow-eyed beggars in rags.
Luò Lán quietly quickened his pace. Places like this could turn dangerous in an instant.
Just as he was about to pass through an especially dark side alley, he suddenly felt something clamp tightly around his ankle. His muscles tensed instantly; mana circuits flared on reflex.
When he looked down, however, he saw only a filthy, unrecognizable figure collapsed in the mud at his feet, both arms wrapped desperately around his shoe.
The person wore rags barely better than torn cloth; exposed skin was covered in scars and grime; matted hair clumped together. Only the eyes — wide with terror and pleading — stared up at him.
Luò Lán frowned, his first instinct to shake off this sudden beggar. But the moment he started to lift his foot, he realized the face looked vaguely familiar.
His movement froze.
In the thin sliver of light leaking from the alley mouth, he finally recognized who it was.
It was him — the youngest, most inexperienced-looking bandit from the group led by a man named Prinval, the one who had tried to ambush their party of five at the ice lake.
His name… was it “Joe”?
Countless questions flooded Luò Lán’s mind in an instant. Meanwhile, the Joe on the ground seemed to catch a faint glimmer of hope from the change in Luò Lán’s expression and the sudden pause.
“Sir… please… save me… I don’t want to die… I really don’t want to die…”
Joe’s gaze was unfocused, brimming with the terror of someone teetering on the edge of collapse.