Chapter 114: Celeste’s Kind Gift

At the late hour of midnight, Magna finally returned to his room with a million questions in his head.

First of all, the biggest problem weighing on his chest for now had been resolved, that being the Faceless Witch.

He had no idea why the Witch hadn’t told them that he could use spells at all, but whatever the reason was, it worked in Magna’s favor.

’Well, she’s just a crazy woman.’ He thought, since this wasn’t the first time she had seen him use spells without telling anyone about it.

In the previous incident too, she hadn’t told Sable Thorn anything about it either.

Now, even if only temporarily, the danger of his secret coming out had been resolved, but another problem was now waiting for him, one named the Tower.

Magna still wanted to see it as an opportunity, but there were some worries nagging at his mind as well.

First of all, the place was where the strongest Witches were gathered. So the chances of them discovering the secret he was hiding were high.

Even if they just used a mana detection spell on Magna, they could easily find the mana reserve stored inside his body, something that should normally be impossible for a man.

The second worry was directly related to his eyes.

Unlike with Celeste and Rowena, discovering the true nature of his eyes would be quite an easy thing for a high Trial Witch.

Especially if another Witch or Shadow with the same bloodline trait existed somewhere in the Tower, his golden eyes would be sure to draw attention immediately.

As a direct result of that, there could be plenty of crazy Witches there who would see Magna, someone who could see the patterns of spells, as a threat to themselves.

All Magna had to go on was Rowena’s word, that the Tower would protect his life in order to protect its own reputation. He just hoped that they really care about their reputation.

There was also another piece of great news he was expecting, that being 10% of the yield from the Golden Sunberry farm.

Before he left, Celeste had promised to give him his share the next day, in the form of another resource.

Of course, she had a reason for offering to hand over his share this quickly.

Magna had revealed his full secret to her when they were alone together, the very same secret he had revealed to Renna.

When Celeste learned that Magna’s actual bloodline trait was gaining new traits by eating mana rich food and charging up, she’d had to activate her Serene State again just to stay calm.

It was a trait even bigger and more powerful than any of the five Matriarchs’ bloodline traits, since the boy could eventually gain all of them one day, as long as he stayed alive in this world and simply kept eating.

Fortunately for Magna, after learning this world breaking secret, her behavior toward him didn’t change.

If anything, she seemed to have activated some kind of motherly instinct to protect him.

She warned him repeatedly that no one else should learn about this, at least not until he gained enough power to one day be able to protect himself.

She even promised that she wouldn’t mention it to her mother either, not even to Titus.

It was sure to give her trouble in the future if the Tower found out she hadn’t reported something this important, but she didn’t seem to care. At least she seemed to have accepted what was to come, fully aware of the consequences.

The only thing she asked of him in return was that Magna consider becoming Faye’s Shadow one day.

It wasn’t any kind of threat or a demand in exchange for keeping his secret, just a wish from a mother still thinking about her daughter’s future.

The Witch world was dangerous, with death able to find them at any moment, so her only wish was to be able to offer her daughter a safe future.

"She really is a good mother." Magna murmured, lying in bed, slowly closing his eyes.

In the end, he had at least promised her that even if he didn’t become Faye’s Shadow, he would still protect her no matter what happened in the future.

Even that promise seemed to be enough to put Celeste’s worrying heart at ease.

—

The next morning, Magna woke up really early, before the sun had even risen.

It wasn’t by choice. It was the knock on his door that had woken him up.

When he got up and opened the door, he was surprised to see Celeste standing in front of him.

"Good morning?" Magna asked, rubbing his eyes, making Celeste chuckle.

"I wouldn’t want to interrupt your sleep, but." She stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

Then she pulled a pouch out of the pocket of her robe and handed it to him. "I thought the earlier I gave you these, the more useful they’d be for you."

"What is that?" Magna asked, his mind still clouded by sleep as he received the pouch from her hand.

It didn’t look like anything special, just a pouch made of brown leather, the kind that closed with a drawstring pulled tight at the opening.

"Open it. I think you’ll be able to see." She smiled, her voice sounding like it meant something more.

Magna listened and opened the pouch, and as soon as he looked inside, he immediately understood what she meant by "you’ll be able to see."

Inside the pouch were many small, round blue pills. But the shocking part was that every single one of them was glowing, like a miniature sun with a golden color.

Compared to a single Golden Sunberry, each one glowed 10, maybe even 20 times brighter and more vividly.

It was the first time Magna had seen something give off this much glare, and it excited him so much that he grinned without meaning to.

He could only guess that with this much mana to eat, he could trigger Gaia at least two, maybe three, maybe even more times today.

"It’s good to see you react like a real child sometimes." Celeste laughed, patting his head.

"I don’t know when the examiner will arrive, so I thought that having you gain as much power as possible before then would make you safer there. I also added a little extra on top of what was promised to you."

There was a slightly pained expression on her face.

Magna could tell it wasn’t because she was losing money, but because the place he was going to was indeed a dangerous one.

"Thank you." Was all Magna could say in the face of this kindness.

"No need to thank me. Just think of it as an investment." Celeste winked at him as she turned to leave the room.

Magna watched her go, and as soon as she closed the door, he rushed to lock it.

Next he closed all the curtains and lit the candles.

Finally, sitting cross legged on the floor, he opened the pouch again.

"I’ll have my breakfast a little early today." He grinned widely as he took one out and popped it into his mouth.