Chapter 110: Unexpected Reward

When Magna came in front of the handleless study room door, he took the key from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole. With a click sound, the door opened.

"Magna, Renna, come inside." Celeste called out to them from behind her study desk with a warm smile.

’She looks quite normal.’ Magna couldn’t catch a single stray expression on her face.

While walking inside, he also looked at Rowena sitting on the couch. She was also looking at them, not smiling but also not with a shocked or grim face.

’They haven’t interrogated the Faceless Witch yet?’ It was the first reason that came to his mind. ’Then why did they call me here?’

While still feeling the same stress, they came in front of the study desk and started to wait for what they were about to say.

But before that, Rowena spoke, looking at her granddaughter’s face. "Why do you look so happy... and your face so flushed?"

Her lingering smile and still reddish cheeks were giving her grandmother the wrong idea.

"Grandmother, you will not believe what I have found out." She turned to her, saying it excitedly, not forgetting to point at Magna as she said it. "Magna showed me something unbelievable."

Upon hearing her words, Rowena’s features twisted into a strange look. "Dear... What did you do?"

She had always been urging her granddaughter to find a reliable man for herself, but she never meant something like this.

Clocking the implication, Renna stopped cold, her tone turning sharp. "What is wrong with you? You’re not exactly young anymore, but your mind still jumps straight to the wrong place."

"Calm down, calm down, I wasn’t thinking anything." Seeing she had struck a nerve, Rowena put on a warm, reassuring expression to diffuse her anger.

"You can tell me whatever you found out later. Right now Celeste has things to tell you, so listen to her." She added, to calm her down even more.

Renna took a deep breath to calm herself down as she, with a huff, turned again to the Witch sitting behind the desk.

Celeste, after watching the usual short Cinder family drama, chuckled as she started to talk.

"We finished interrogating the Faceless Witch just now. Since you two were part of this, we thought you needed to hear the details as well."

Magna, hearing that, suddenly felt his tension rising again. ’So they really did interrogate her.’

But there was still something strange, since neither Celeste nor Rowena looked like they had learned something mind-blowing at all.

"According to what she said, if we take it at face value, she’s a wanderer Witch. Not tied to any family or organization, and usually takes jobs from whoever pays her."

Since they had no mind-reading or truth-compelling spells, they only took what she said as the truth.

She continued explaining that she had come here three years ago at the request of the Thorn family, and back then she had started setting up the barrier in the forest.

Just the thought that no one had noticed her for three years while she set up her barrier was enough to show how impressive her spells were and how experienced she was in this kind of job.

Apparently, when she first arrived, there was no farm there yet, but the place was fertile, with soil perfect for growing Golden Sunberries.

After she finished the barrier, Sable had started setting up the farm, and over three years had finally turned it into a large, quite fruitful mana fruit farm.

"The farm is currently missing, since Sable took the whole thing with her before she ran. So we’ve already started making plans to find it before she sets it up somewhere else."

She explained their plan, then added the last part, the one that actually concerned them.

"Since you two were the ones who discovered this farm’s existence, our alliance council decided to reward you. If we find the farm in one piece, you’ll each get a 10% share of its current yield. If we can’t find it, or if we have to destroy it once we do, don’t worry, you’ll still be rewarded equally."

Now all of Magna’s tension suddenly disappeared, giving way to excitement and happiness.

While 10% was far from 100%, getting some reward from his adventure was still enough to bring the satisfaction and excitement of success.

Yet, his fleeting thrill didn’t last long before giving way to tension once more.

"The Witch also said something interesting during the interrogation." She was now looking directly at Magna.

"She kept saying you’re not normal, but a monster." Her features shifted, growing intensely serious. "We tried to learn the reason, but she refused to tell us, so we’re hoping you can tell us what exactly happened there to make a monster like her call someone else a monster."

Magna felt relieved that she hadn’t said anything about his secret, but now he found himself in a tight spot.

Though he had already thought of something for a situation like this, he started to speak with a slightly confused expression. "I’m not sure. Maybe she was just too shocked at how strong I am?"

Celeste and Rowena exchanged an amused glance at his response, finding it a perfectly reasonable cause for shock.

But it still wouldn’t be enough to terrify someone like her, so Magna added quickly.

"Also, when she found out I could see her mana pattern while she was casting spells, she looked pretty shocked, even terrified. Maybe that’s the reason." He said with a thoughtful expression.

Meanwhile Celeste and Rowena’s expressions also changed.

"You can see what?" They asked at the same time, not with shocked expressions but with genuinely terrified ones.

It was already astonishing enough to learn that Magna could see the mana inside a Witch’s body, but that was all they had thought it was.

Now learning he could actually see the mana moving through the channels inside the body was something they definitely couldn’t believe, or just didn’t want to.

They didn’t want to believe it, because to them it was something more terrifying than someone seeing them completely naked.

Just the thought that while they cast a spell, some random guy could simply look at them and instantly see every detail of the spell they were casting was beyond terrifying.

A Witch’s biggest secret in life was probably the spells they had worked on their entire lives. After all, in the Tower, how successful and reputable a Witch was, beyond how high their Trial rank was, depended directly on how many original spells they had produced or discovered.

Usually these people donated the spells they considered weaker to the Tower, or sold them in exchange for resources, while always keeping the strongest ones for themselves.

Now, if what Magna said was true, he had a trait that could completely break a system that had stood for thousands of years.

With just a single look, he could steal the activation pattern of any spell he chose, then sell it to whoever he pleased, or simply hand it out out of pure malice.

"Boy, tell me you’re joking." Rowena’s eyes narrowed into a dangerous squint.

Though Magna could feel her intimidating gaze, he kept his ground and said with an innocent face. "I’m not joking."

He could understand how mind-blowing a secret he had just revealed, but he also knew it was still less mind-blowing than the real secret he was trying to keep.