Grey Estate.

Sigil was sitting in front of his computer and read a confidential article about Inverse Witch. Even though he had access to the information of higher quality, he still couldn't see all the information about Inverse Witch. One had to know that he had Elder level access on the database of the Carefree Alliance.

Apparently, the Inverse Witch was one of the Genius Grimoire Masters of the Witch's Organisation who created her own Grimoire at the young age of 96. She also had high accomplishments in Space paths, one of the rarer path of Witchcraft.

After reading the unlocked information about Inverse Witch, Sigil felt speechless. He finally figured out how such a young Grimoire Master attained such a huge amount of wealth and how she died so mysteriously.

She scammed various Grimoire Masters of Dark Guilds across the country. This act of her's made her a target for almost all of the Grimoire Masters.

Even though the information about her death was kept as a secret, Sigil was highly confident that she died at the hands of an indignant Grimoire Master of one of the dark guilds she scammed.

“Your food is here, Master.”

Martha entered the room.

She pushed the food cart and sat near Sigil she immediately uncovered the dishes and started eating food with Sigil.

“Martha, I have talked with Father. Since I will be entering the Ancestral pool of the branch of the Carefree Alliance, you and Ricardo will take my place during the Rite of Witchcraft.”

Sigil spoke as he ate happily.

“Ricardo?”

Martha was slightly surprised at his decision. Didn't he use to bully Ricardo all the time?

Seeing her expression, Sigil chose to explain.

“We really hit it off at yesterday's exploration. So, I thought that maybe I should give him my spot to make up for all the suffering I caused him.”

“Since when did you become so good?”

“I thought you liked this version of me better.”

Sigil replied and ate more. He had already opened his seventh gate and he was sure that he could open his eighth gate in the Rite of Witchcraft. Even if he couldn't open his Chakra point, he could still complete the missions of the carefree alliance to gain some resources and breakthrough a Chakra Point.

Sigil switched on his television.

On the news channel, there was a reporter comparing the statistics of reduced deaths of ordinary citizens after the Carefree Alliance started to send their own witches on missions.

The alliance of dark guilds was actually helping mortals!

Sigil understood the motive of the carefree alliance. 

They were a new organisation and having the support of the public wasn't a bad thing. Besides the various witch's family, many ordinary citizens have talented offsprings. With such a rise of popularity, many talented youths will like to enter the Carefree Alliance.

Sigil thought for a little while before opening the alliance website. Martha was still near him, eating the lunch.

It was at this time, another figure barged into the room.

It was Alicia.

“Are you busy?”

“What is with you guys? You at least knocked before.”

Sigil did not reply and spoke in a depressed manner. Even then, he kept on checking out the website of the alliance.

“What are you doing?”

Alicia took a chair and sat near Sigil. She also took a plate for herself and started eating alongside Martha.

“I am looking for cases. I figured that we could complete a case and earn rewards instead of waiting around for the Rite of Witchcraft.”

Sigil opened the Missions tab and selected the Eight Gates Category.

The missions of the witches in the realm of Eight Gates was categorised in five categories— From one star to five stars, one star being the easiest and five stars being the hardest.

“What about this one?” Martha pointed at the screen.

“A small nest of vampires? Let's look around for a little while. The site of this mission is very far from us.”

Sigil shook his head and browsed a little more. Martha kept on pointing out some missions while Sigil declined them with logical reasoning. Alicia looked at this scenario as her eyes turned dazed and her thoughts unknown.

“Alicia, What about this one?” Sigil pointed at the screen. 

It was a mission to take down a group of recently emerged Familiars. If the Familiars were brought back to the Alliance, they will earn an extra reward. The appointed members to the mission shouldn't exceed four, though.

“Huh?.... uh…. yeah, sounds good.”

Alicia replied thoughtlessly. 

Sigil looked at her strange condition and inquired once again.

“Are you feeling a little weird because of your breakthrough?”

His words surprised both the girls. Martha assessed Alicia and indeed, she had opened her seventh gate.

Meanwhile, Alicia looked a little surprise for a different reason. 

'He noticed!’

After she finally accepted her engagement with Sigil, she felt a little happy as she looked at her kind and handsome Fiancé. He had truly proved himself as he stopped gambling, bullying and hiring prostitutes. He changed for the better.

But then, her time with her fiancé was being shared with Martha, Bethany and Linda. 

No matter how straightforward she was, in the end, she was a girl. She had her dreams and fairytales about that perfect guy, who would swoop her away.

Today, when she saw Martha and Sigil chatting so casually in front of her, she felt a little left out and empty. But when her breakthrough was noticed by Sigil without her telling him, she felt all her frustration washed away.

On a different note, if Sigil knew her thoughts, he would be shocked speechless.

If you feel left out, the chat with us! Why think in such a complicated manner?

“Yeah, I just achieved the Seventh Gate and feel a little dizzy.”

She replied lightly.

“Anyway, congratulations.” Martha nodded and smiled at her.

“Thank you.” She smiled back and looked towards Sigil.

Sigil looked towards Alicia.

…

“What?” Sigil felt a little confused. Why was she staring at me?

He only mused silently.

“Congratulate her, Master.”

Martha whispered lightly.

You still want me to congratulate? I friggin’ noticed your breakthrough in the first place.

Sigil felt a little strange but still congratulated her with a smile.

'Anyway, where were my congratulations when I opened my seventh gate?’ He suddenly remembered.

After accepting the mission, Sigil called Bethany to ask her if she would like to accompany them on the mission. After her refusal (because of her dad), Sigil contacted Ricardo and set a date.

He could have contacted Ivan, but he denied the idea in his mind. His identity was still a little sensitive even after the emergence of Carefree Alliance. After all, Ivan was a local and had relations with the younger generation of all the four Families.

Since it was afternoon, Sigil decided to enter the family's library. Even though he had a trove of information and spells in the alliance, it wouldn't hurt to broaden his horizons.

Alicia also went off to train and adapt to her enhanced bodily performance while Martha decided to start searching for information about the sightings of strange Familiars.

Even though she had planned a trip to Familiar Farm of the Grey family, it wasn't open for family members yet. So she wanted to gather information about potential Familiars with good Abilities.

After all, it doesn't hurt to have a backup.

The Family Library was constructed near the main villa of the family alongside the Elders Compound and the swimming pool.

As he passed the swimming pool, he decided to assess some talents before making his way towards the library. The library was a gloomy building. Other than the ground floor, the building held three floors and a hidden basement.

He made his way inside and was greeted by an Elder stationed as a receptionist. He was Elder Garthe.

“Hello, Elder Garthe.”

“Ah, Sigil. You ready to claim your reward?”

Apparently, Elder Garthe was already informed about the Sigil and Alicia having special access to Elder's Library.

“Yeah, please guide me to the entrance.”

Elder Garthe nodded and motioned Sigil to follow him. The ground floor was filled with shelves of books and parchments. These were simple historical records about various prominent witches and their legends.

Sigil looked around the library as he followed Garthe. This was his first time inside the library. As they made their way towards the backside of the library, Sigil read the titles of some interesting books.

The Secret Therapy of Acupuncture Pleasure.

The Refreshing Set of Male and Female.

Immoral Witch's records of Furry Heaven.

See? Interesting!

Sigil made a note in his mind to pick these books before leaving the library.

Elder Garthe stopped in front of an old wooden door. The surface of the door was filled with various markings. Sigil knew about these patterns.

They were the inscriptions to ward against the devilkin stated in the ancient codex of Roka.

Sigil nodded towards Garthe gratefully and took out the key to the door. Since this opportunity had a time limit of two weeks, Sigil planned to take the maximum benefits from this trip. After all, some of the days were wasted because of recent events and he was not likely to make any future trips here.

As he entered the brightly lit stairway to the basement, he kept on seeing various kinds of devil wardings on the wall. 

“Wait…. what is this? A beast warding?”

Sigil stopped in front of an inscription and touched its surface. The whole pattern was made with a pitch black substance. It looked like a Japanese character that looked like a tree, but the ancient language of spells suggested that it wasn't quite Japanese.

Seeing this pattern, Sigil's curiosity was ignited as the previous Sigil knew nothing about the pattern himself.

He took out his mobile and took an image of the pattern before continuing his path towards the confidential library of the family. It was a small basement with barely two whole shelves filled. The parchments were thin and looked extremely old. 

These bookshelves were filled with various research on spells, nurturing methods and written notes about the various experiences in meditation. Sigil looked extremely intrigued and immediately took everything off the bookshelves.

He whipped out his new smartphone and started to take pictures of every single parchment and written materials. Exotic Spell, Various Inscription Marks, Meditation notes and information about the past Familiars produced in the family and their uses. Sigil even took images of some extremely disturbing spells that used a living human as a refinement material. 

The most confusing thing within these notes was the description of various paths that a Witch could follow. A witch can use elemental spells, use the strength enhancing spells and there was a record of extremely strange path named Death Witch.

The various information was written in the encryption language of the eras they were recorded in. Even if Sigil could understand some of the parchments, he still did not know the meaning of most of the notes. 

The reason he took the image of all the information is that he wanted to slowly decrypt the information and gain the knowledge of the family. 

This was free information and he didn't want to let this benefit slip out of his hand. After all, who knows which knowledge comes into play. As he took the image of all the notes, he suddenly had a thought.

“Am I the only one who took images of the notes or is there someone else that had the same idea too?” 

Sigil cleared out his thoughts as he finished taking all the image after an hour and placed the parchments back in the bookshelves in the same order. He then took out the notes of one of the enhancement spells related to the memories of the witch and started decrypting it.

Most of the knowledge inside this library is already outdated and the elders who visited the library only used it as a medium of inspiration. After all, Witchcraft is all about innovation.

Innovative of spell, curses, nurturing methods, meditative methods. Heck, witch's organisation was even researching the methods to produce genetically engineered Familiars.

This was the era of technology and invention, this also applied to the world of witches.

Sigil understood that the Memory Enhancement Spell he would derive on the basis of this ancient spell will be completely different from someone who has already created a similar memory enhancement spell.

The difference may be in the effectiveness of the spells, materials required for the spell and the requirements of the user as well.

Sigil immediately forgot his surroundings and concentrated on the spell in front of him. Trying to figure out the process of constructing this spell.

***

“How is the plan of invading the Alliance going on?” 

In a dark conference room filled with 13 people, a red-haired man spoke out.

“Their security is quite poor and they seemed to have formed the alliance in a hurry.”

Another man spoke out.

If a well-informed witch came to this place and saw the leaders in the meeting, he or she would scream in fright.

The Thirteen Founders of the Witch's Organisation!

These thirteen people were extremely old with the minimum age of 300 years. They were also the thirteen strongest Grimoire Master in the Witch's Organisation with their names spread throughout the Glory Continent. 

“Even though the alliance has been performing missions and amassing resources in ridiculous speed, it still looks like they formed the alliance without any motive.”

A female master spoke out.

“The strangest thing is that we still don't know what gave these dark guilds the courage to even think of going against us.”

She continued with a frown.

Normally, the Dark Guilds operated in shadows of the colossal that is the Witch's Organisation. After all, they won't be benefited by attacking the strongest organisation of the continent. This world is operated by resources and benefits. If the dark guilds actually took the risk and attacked the Witch's Organisation, they wouldn't receive much benefits and will get their groups eradicated.

“Did they follow someone incredibly strong and forge the alliance on the basis of the arrival of a mysterious party?”

A gruff voice sounded, silencing everyone else. 

They were all old monsters and they did think of such a possibility themselves. But this was the outcome they feared the most.

“Old Lu will use his Foreseeing Mantis to gain clues and insights on regular intervals until he finds something important. This matter ends here. Miller, tell us about the Devil's Battlefield.”

The person sitting on the leader's position spoke lightly.

“Yes. The battlefield is still in a stalemate. Even after allying with the Carefree Alliance, the situation doesn't seem so promising.”

“What do you need.”

The leader easily interpreted Miller's meaning and asked straightforwardly.

“I would like to have more soldiers in the chakra and Gates stages. I would also like to request another Grimoire Master to increase our forces compared to the Carefree Alliance and take a better part of the loot.”

“Impossible.”

“No way!”

Before the leader could reply, two voices immediately shouted in rejection. Placing soldiers was an easy matter. After all, the kids in Eight Gates and Chakra Points were similar to mortals for them. The leaders wouldn't bat an eyelid and place almost a million of such soldiers. But a Grimoire Master's worth is way more than million of soldiers.

Only the best of all the elites enter the stage of Grimoire Master and even the talented monsters among these geniuses have a hard time increasing their Cultivation after becoming a Grimoire Master.

The leader thought for some time before rejecting Miller's proposal.

“You can assign as many soldiers as you want. But you won't be given a Grimoire Master. Make use of the existing ones in your team.”

Miller could only grit his teeth and sit quietly.

“How is your search on the necromancer mosquito?” The leader looked towards a bulky man.

The bulky man gritted his teeth and shook his head.

“Sigh, that Inverse Gal was really a something. She could actually hide from our investigative techniques and hide her Grimoire. No worries, even though The Necromancer Mosquito is an important Familiar for our growth, stop your research for the moment and take over the invasion plan of the Carefree Alliance.”

The Leader spoke flatly and adjourned the meeting after dealing with the matters of other members.

***

“Hmm? Are you sure you want me to issue these three books?”

Garthe looked at Sigil. His gaze projected weirdness and a slight amount of reluctance.

“Yes, these three are good reading materials during a short trip.”

Sigil nodded and passed on the books to Elder Garthe. Garthe shook his head in defeat and issued the three books related to carnal desires of a human written by one of their own ancestors.

The Secret Therapy of Acupuncture Pleasure.

The Refreshing Set of Male and Female.

Immoral Witch's records of Furry Heaven.

These three books were truly popular within the circle of young teenagers and some of the old Elders still liked to give it a read to pass their time. One of the elders was Elder Garthe.

After getting the book issued in his own name, Sigil left the library with a satisfied smile. He had all the data in his smartphone and he also successfully interpreted a spell related to the enhancement of the memory function of a Witch's Brain. All he had to do now was to compare such spells in Carefree Alliance's database and adjust the formula for his own use.

After all, memory enhancement was a brilliant effect that will help a witch in the long run. 

Sigil soon returned to his room before getting his summons for another family dinner. Since they were going to leave for the mission tomorrow, Sigil decided to pack the three books inside his bag and made his way towards the dining hall of the villa.

Other than, Alicia, John and Sigil, the villa was a house to many personal maids including Martha. There were no extra chefs in the mansion because the food was personally cooked by a group of personal maids with sufficient expertise in the area before getting it tested (tasted) by Martha.

As the maids arranged plates and food on the table, Sigil sat down and waited for some time before Alicia arrived too.

Surprisingly, John Grey hadn't reached the diner yet. Usually, it was the master of the family that waited for the kids before starting the dinner.

“Ah, sorry, kids. I got a little busy.”

John arrived in hurried steps and apologized as he sat on the chair of the head of the Family while Sigil and Alicia sat opposite to each other.

“First of all, I want to congratulate Alicia for opening her seventh gate.”

John smiled and rubbed her little girl's head.

“Dad! Don't ruin my hair!” Alicia pouted cutely and moved her head backwards.

John shook his head and motioned with his hand to start the dinner. As they ate in silence, John finally started the main topic of today's meeting.

“I want to talk to both of you about the recent emergence of the alliance and …. Ivan RedHawk.”

As he spoke the last part, he looked towards Sigil and continued.

“The Family Heads of the surrounding area received a mail from the Alliance that described their hierarchy and their influence. So, what I mean is that this Alliance is official and so is your membership.” He pointed at their wrists.

Alicia's and Sigil's mood dampened immediately. Even John felt helpless. He continued.

“I will send you some documents, go through with it and also one more thing, you have to stay cautious of RedHawk family.” John looked at Sigil.

“What do you mean, father?” Sigil frowned slightly. What trouble did he get himself into now?

“My personnel reported that you met Ivan before he decided to kill his own kin. If I can find out about this, so can Roman RedHawk. He just lost his youngest and eldest son. If it were me, I would want to vent my hate and anger on one common point between the two, that is you.”

After all, Charles and Sigil were buddies and also hanged around Ivan. Sigil sighed and nodded at John.

“One more thing, even though you took the images of the parchments in the library, if they happen to leak out, you will be dealt with Family rules.”

John passed the comment casually and Sigil nodded in understanding. He never thought that John wouldn't know about his idea. He still chose to take the images because he truly wouldn't have the time to return back to the library.

After the dinner, Sigil returned to his room and opened the folder placed on his bed. This was the recent information about the inner circle of the Alliance. This information was recently released by the alliance for its members to provide them with a clear picture of the inner working of the alliance.

“Hmm? ‘We like to present you the new future of the Witchcraft– The Carefree Alliance, where mortals and witches are treated alike. Where we have only one common enemy– The Devilkin and Otherworldly Monsters’….. quite a formal presentation for an alliance of dark Guilds.”

Sigil read the introduction and felt speechless. It was public knowledge that Mortals were often exploited by strong witches, but this new alliance claimed the opposite.

Such a formal and orderly introduction piqued his interest as he finally started reading the whole document. The document included the name of every Dark Guild inside the Alliance and various witch families that became the member of the alliance. According to their word– There are no subordinates, but simply the members of a different hierarchy.

The document also showed the map of the whole continent where their influence was the strongest, this also included the area where the Grey family was situated. Another map was drafted on the next page showing the Dark Guilds running the branches of the Carefree Alliance in different parts of the continent.

Glory Continent was divided into 6 countries. Out of the five countries, 67 percent was shaded darker than the other regions. That was the area controlled by the Carefree Alliance and this also showed their might. This map served as a proof that a united organisation of Dark Guilds could compete with the former Strongest Organisation without losing their foundations.

The next part of the document included the details on the various families pledging their loyalty to different Dark Guilds.

Sigil's family was also mentioned. Their family was now a part of the Dark Guild– Black Spiders. As Sigil read the alliance of various families, he finally understood the purpose of the Black Spiders and other guilds forcing their family into subordination…… no, making them the members of a lower hierarchy.

Their purpose was to have a good standing within the Carefree Alliance. Right now, Black Spiders had a position in top 100 for bringing in two witches families during the establishment of the Carefree Alliance.

They were the Grey Family and the Yellow Spider Family.

The thing to note about the Yellow Spider Family was that their leader had changed and it was a man named Alan. Even though the Yellow Spider was a Matriarchal Family, nobody questioned Alan's leadership because he was the blood brother of the previous Leader and he was stronger than her.

After finishing the document, Sigil took the document and handed it to one of the maids before sleeping.