“Sister Norris? Ugh!”

Doctor Nina Norris lifts Archpriest Lucille Leonel and pins him to the wall. Several priests and deacons rush in to stop her, but Nina merely glances at them and they collapse to the floor clutching their pounding heads. She looks to the bloodied Eleanor and grits her teeth.

“I ask again. How dare you lay a finger on my disciple?!”

“Gasp! P-priestess, calm down! We are in the house of the… Ugh!”

“I’ll blow this damn building to the ground if you don’t answer me, Leonel!”

“T-that child isn’t part of the order… she can’t go around and… she’s not a priest…”

“She can do whatever the hell she wants because I say so!”

“N-Norris… Ugh! You shouldn’t be here… you may be an Elder… but… but you abandoned… your post… The others… they won’t allow you to… Gasp! Release me!”

“Leonel, you may call yourself an archpriest, but we all know you’re just a sniveling maggot who kiss ass your way to the top in your pathetic little pond!”

“W-watch your tongue, Norris! Your… position can be taken away!”

“Positions, ranks, titles, these things are nothing but hot air before true might!”

Nina unleashes her power and the entire temple shakes like it’s hit by an earthquake. The priests scream as candle stands and chandeliers come crashing down.

“T-there is no might before God! Gasp! Y-you can’t! This is the holy temple! God won’t let you h-harm me!”

“Try me!”

Nina throws Leonel to the floor. Leonel wheezes and looks at them with bloodshot eyes.

“Heretics! I will see to it that both of you are excommunicated! You will face the consequences of your offense to the lord!”

Nina ignores the wailing man and helps Eleanor up. She brings the sick child back to her manor. Soon after, the duke and duchess arrive home.

“Amelia! Amelia, are you alright, baby!? Those bastards, how could they?!”

Doctor Nina tells the two what happened and advises them to take Eleanor away.

“Ashton, I think it’s high time you returned to your territory. Nobody can touch you or your family up there.”

“Nobody may threaten my family down here or anywhere!”

“I understand how you feel, Ashton, but this is a delicate matter. The Temple of Ceram has millions of followers around the globe. Fighting them won’t yield anything good.”

“Said the one who started the fight.”

“Huh! They can’t do anything to me. I’m too valuable to them. But the girl… they see her as a… competitor.”

Duke Ashton and Doctor Nina continue their discussion into the night. In the end, the duke accepts Nina’s suggestion and plans to bring Eleanor back to Greenfield Territory come spring.

Winter is getting colder and Eleanor is confined to bed. Her symptoms are getting worse and worse to the point where she regularly sheds bloody tears.

“Oh, Amelia…”

“It looks worse than it is, mama.”

Eleanor smiles weakly at her mother.

A maid comes in.

“Excuse my intrusion, milady. Lady Eleanor, a patient is requesting your help.”

“Send them away,” the duchess says.

“No, bring them here. This will only take a moment.”

“But, Amelia…”

“Please, mama… Cough! This is the only thing I can do to not be bored out of my mind. Plus, it’s not like I’m using my own mana or anything.”

The maid returns with a sick old man and one of the “conduits” on standby. Eleanor observes the man’s conditions and tells the conduit to bring in other mages to support her.

“I assure you, I have enough mana for this task, your holiness. I am part of the fourth circle.”

“Fourth circle… out of…ten?”

“Mana users are divided into seven circles, darling. Mages, priests, knights, or even cultivators are measured using the same evaluations. Elders like your father are part of the first circle and power drizzles down from there.”

“Oh… Okay, I know that…”

“Do you? Eleanor, shouldn’t you have learned about this in… school…?”

The duchess widens her eyes in realization and rushes out the door. Eleanor looks after her mother’s disappearing back and feels a headache coming over her.

“I… have a bad feeling about this…”

Eleanor shakes her head and quickly heals the old man before taking an afternoon nap. By the time she wakes up, she sees her mother smiling at her.

“Eleanor, baby, guess what?”

“What?”

“You know how we’re leaving the capital next year? Well, we figured, hey, why take our precious little girl up to the frigid north instead of a place with nice weather all year round? And what if we bring her to a place where she can make plenty of friends her age and learn some… A-hem! Basic common senses.”

“...You’re joking…”

“Eleanor Ambrose, Amelia baby, congratulations, you’re going to school! Isn’t that amazing!?”

“No! No, no, no! I’m not going to spend years of my life trapped in a building with some snorty brats, old woman! Why do I even need to, when I can learn everything I need from books?!”

“You didn’t even know about the seven circles.”

“I… That was an easily rectifiable mistake. Bring all the necessary textbooks here and I’ll finish them in a month.”

“There’s no substitution for proper guidance, dear.”

“I already have a teacher!”

“Nina confessed she hasn't been very attentive in her teachings. And she’ll be busy dealing with big wigs from the temple for the foreseeable future.”

“T-there’s Declan.”

“Professor Declan also needs to get back to his job if he wants to become headmaster one day. Don’t worry, he promised to take good care of you in school.”

“Wait, that means the place I’m going to is…”

“Umber Tower, the best mage institution on the continent and the place where your father and I met.”

“Shit!”

Eleanor curses her luck. Umber Tower is where she arranged for Julius June to be enrolled one day.