The atmosphere turned somber as Korin took out a blank parchment.

Or rather, it would look blank to an ordinary person.

Illyan, however, felt the same strange sensation he felt during his first contract.

He sneered deep in his heart.

‘No matter how good the facade is, it doesn’t change anything at all.’

“This time, I didn’t prepare the contract beforehand since this deal’s clauses need to be properly negotiated since it would be a very long term deal with restrictions.”

Illyan nodded thoughtfully.

“I understand.”

After all, the promises and the actual clauses were one and the other thing.

And so, the long negotiations began.

“I hope that this contract could also nullify the previous contract. The money is not a problem now and the assistance with mathematics would be included in this new contract, am I correct?”

Illyan smiled softly. While the contract wasn’t working since Illyan didn’t use the real name, there was no real reason to not get rid of it.

“Yes, that’s right. In fact, we don’t even need the money. There were some antiques that we managed to obtain in Faruin City so we are not lacking funds. The contract was mostly about your assistance as you mentioned.”

Korin agreed to his request without reluctance. However, he made his own request.

“Then I will make my point. We would like to request you to stop working as a physician for some time. We do not want to taint your reputation so we will use the excuse of having crippling injuries that will take a long time to recover from. What do you think, Kaoran?”

“Agreed. However, I will not cease my study of medicine.”

“That’s fine. In fact, alchemy and medicine have quite good synergy if you desire to learn it. In that case, you could also be our personal physician and even alchemist if you are talented.”

In this manner, several hours passed by as Illyan and Korin threw their conditions at each other.

Some of them were accepted immediately while others needed to be changed a bit.

However, in the end, Illyan managed to get as many benefits as possible. Together with Aurelia’s help, he believed it was just a matter of time before he became an official acolyte.

Not to mention…

“Since you said that the other forces are your temporary allies, it means I don’t need to hide that I will be learning magic right?”

That made Illyan excited the most, he was tired to hide his power.

At least, he didn’t want to be pushover in all confrontations he would be in the future.

“Fufu, you will be one of ours, why would you hide it? Of course, you can’t reveal that you learn it from us to common people since they don’t know about us and the forged identities we had were destroyed after the ‘death incident’ we created. However, they will not question someone who learns magic. How could they?”

Vanda sneered at the thought of normal people to stand against magic users. How audacious was that?

Illyan grinned. This time, it wasn’t deliberate as he let out his true feelings.

“That’s great.” His eyes flashed with pent up frustrations as he planned his future where he would not need to hide and scheme every time he wanted some resources or do some magic training….

……..

Once everything was being finalized, Vanda wrote the clauses with special ink and pen and bit her thumb before pressing it on the parchment.

Meanwhile Illyan learned a way to seal the deal from Korin as he took out a knife and slashed his index finger slightly until a bit of blood came out.

He already activated the hidden mechanism inside of his artificial finger tip and turned the fresh blood into something completely useless.

He then pressed his thumb over the bloody gash on his index finger as it got entirely crimson and prepared to use the thumb to seal the blood contract.

“Huh? Why would you make it so complex and not just use the index finger imprint? There is no restriction on that if you think so. The thumb is most used but that is just preference.” Vanda who eyed him the entire time furrowed her brows with amusement and curiosity as she explained that he didn’t need to.

On the other hand, Korin seemed to worry.

“What do you mean? Wouldn’t that make a risk of the imprint being faulty if you use it from the same finger I cut?” Illyan asked nonchalantly.

In fact, he found this very much more elegant than to press the damaged finger up against the parchment.

Vanda quieted down for a second before bursting into laughter.

“You have strange thoughts going through your mind. The imprint itself is not important. It is the intent behind it and the blood itself.”

“Oh… I thought the unique fingerprints were part of it.” Illyan sounded almost disappointed. He knew that ink imprints were used as seals in some documents in the institute and thought this worked the same way except for the blood.

“Well, whatever. I was just curious.”

He shrugged as his eyes passed through the clauses at high speed and then put the thumb smeared with the ruined blood at the bottom corner of the parchment right next to the Vanda’s thumb imprint.

The moment he did so, a gust of wind blew against his face as the contract glowed in dark crimson color with runic symbols shining on its surface.

Then, as if spark was lit, the contract puffed in red flames as it disappeared in front of Illyan’s eyes.

Or rather, although faintly, Illyan could see a blur as the spark divided into two parts, with one flying towards him and the other towards Vanda.

Before he could even register it happening, he felt a shift in his body as his heart skipped a beat. It was kind of a strange sensation as he didn’t know what was happening and feared it could be life threatening.

Fortunately, it was temporary as the sensation soon disappeared.

However, what he felt immediately after was a strange sense of fatigue. It was very subtle as he wouldn’t notice it without his expertise in [The Way of the Body] but it was there.

But he just thought it was because of the nerve wrecking situation and that now it was over, his nerves relaxed and his accumulated fatigue showed a bit.

Thus, he smiled slightly as he said, “That should be it, right?”

And with that, he became one of Vanda’s allies or rather subordinates.

Although…

Illyan looked at the woman who seemed to be enamored with him as she stared at him with a lazy expression.

‘I don’t know why she seems so obsessed with me but it should be to my advantage.’

As Illyan thought so, Korin suddenly took out an old book.

There was no cover over its leather binding and it looked like any other book in the institute library.

“Yes, we are done here. Take this and read it. You will need it to understand our goals. Also, from next week, come to this place every third day. We will start with imparting you the basic knowledge of magic before we move on to teach you mana meditation. I hope that you will not be disappointed though since your talent was below average. However, there might be a way to overcome this obstacle if we do things right.”

Korin told Illyan to return in a week as he gave him an idea of what he would be learning from now on.

But he also gave him a warning.

“For now, you should use this last free week to rest. The use of the contract takes a toll on mind, especially for normal people. You may not realize it for now but in a few hours you will feel very tired so you should hurry home.”

With such parting words from Korin, Illyan left the room and passed through the empty corridor.

‘So it was not just my feeling.’ Illyan thought about the sudden feeling of tiredness as he was about to close the door.

“Be careful of guards. It is after curfew after all. But don’t worry, I don’t think that they would be too harsh on you even if they caught you since you are one of the few physicians here, hehe.”

Just as the door was about to close behind him, Illyan heard Vanda’s last words as she laughed gently.

Illyan furrowed his brows as he fell into contemplation.

The time he spent on this meeting was much longer than he expected. He was fighting for every drop of benefit that he could get which caused him to waste quite a bit of time.

But he didn’t regret it since he would gain support that would push him on the path of magic.

He was quite excited at the thought. There were so many things he wanted to learn.

If not for Vanda and Korin being just behind the door, Illyan would love to look around the house. Especially the lab and the outer array that caused the illusion.

However, that would cause problems and could possibly end up with some penalties that were written in the contract.

As such, he went upstairs through the same path without any derailment.

When he looked around there was no one to be seen. However, Illyan didn’t find it strange since he already knew from Vanda’s words that it was way beyond curfew.

One look outside of the window was enough to prove it.

When he came, the sun was already on its way down beyond the horizon and now, it was deep in the night.

‘Tsk.’ He clicked his tongue as he realized he would need to sneak around so that he would not get caught by the guards.

And when he finally took a step outside of the house, he felt a stinging sensation at the back of his head.

‘Great. Now, I am even being followed.’

It was probably Vanda’s countermeasure for possible incidents on the way, but it was still annoying.

However, that was just a minor setback. Heavier thoughts occupied his mind.

‘Sigh… I hope this was the right decision.’ The moon shone high above his head as the sudden hit of self-reflection took over his thoughts while he travelled through the town…

…….

Illyan sighed in relief as he could see his manor from a distance.

While there were not that many guards since many of the soldiers died in Faruin City, it was still a pain in the ass.

Not because it would be too difficult for him. Quite the opposite.

He would be able to sneak around without any problem. However, since someone followed him, he could not show his abilities and had to actually act as a normal person sneaking around.

Ironically, that was even more exhausting than fighting a troll.

And that caused his already tired mind to slow down as his eyes turned droopy on his way through the town.

But now, he could feel his muscles relax as he was at the threshold of the door leading to his place.

He felt that the gaze that followed him the entire way finally faded as he entered inside his house.

Illyan sat down in the soft chair the moment he entered as he sighed.

“Damn… I didn’t expect it to be so serious…”

Korin mentioned he would be exhausted in a few hours, but that was because he didn’t know Illyan’s mind and willpower.

Fatigue was not something that would make Illyan turn so sluggish.

‘So tired…’

He grumbled under his breath as he took out the book Korin gave him with difficulty.

‘What is it about?’

Despite the desire to just close his eyes and rest, Illyan’s curiosity won over him as he slowly opened the book.

When he received it, he expected it to be some alchemy manual or maybe the history book about this region during the Gondoris’ era.

And so, he wanted to at least read the first chapter to get an idea.

As he sat there comfortably, he patted the cover of the book as he leaned back into the chair and slowly opened the book at the first page.

Unfortunately, when he did so and started to read, the letters started to blur as sudden nausea hit him heavily.

‘What the?’

The book fell off his hand as his hand stopped listening to him.

This time, Illyan finally started to panic.

‘Did they do something to me?’ He thought he was in control, but now he was not so sure.

Yes, Korin told him that he would be tired, but this was a little too much, right?

However, just as his eyelids, which were getting heavier, closed down completely, he heard a distant voice that sounded familiar.

‘Just lie down a bit and let the flow take you to the right destination… It is time to say goodbye, so I will at least guide you towards your goal that you longed for all this time. It is only right for me to give after what I took from you…’

He couldn’t hear most of it as his consciousness was falling deeper into the darkness, but he suddenly felt at ease as he slowly closed his eyes and succumbed to the unrelenting desire to fall asleep…