The guard to the Mage Tower felt a chill run down his spine. What was this feeling? It was something he had only felt from the head of the Magic Tower! The kind of feeling that told him he was inferior in every way! But he couldn't leave! He had to do his job.
"Esteemed young master, please wait for a while," he said quickly, hurrying into the mage tower to inform the head.
The guard hurriedly ascended the tower, panting harshly at the speed he pushed himself. He took a brief moment to collect himself before he knocked on the sleeping quarters of the head mage.
"Head, there is someone who insists on entering the Mage Tower!"
He received no reply, so the guard could only continue knocking.
"What is it!" Daspell Nicomar growled, flinging open his door. He had already been deep asleep before this idiot started knocking. "Don't you know how to handle those people already!"
"Head mage, it's not that I don't want to, but you should really take a look before that. There's something strange about him."
"Something strange?" Daspell murmured, getting a faint unsettling feeling. This guard had been working here for roughly fifteen years already and had become used to all manners of people coming and going. What could cause him to react like this?
Daspell didn't waste any unnecessary words and just headed down the tower. His eyes landed on the form of the Crown Prince.
"I wonder what the Crown Prince needs, to so hurriedly enter the Mage Tower at night?" Daspell asked, his tone neither servile nor humble.
For him to act this way was already quite rare, for Daspell was like most other mages in the city who belonged to the Mage Tower. That was, he contained a bone-deep arrogance that only mages Fourth Tier and above held in themselves.
In exchange, the Mage Tower didn't get involved in politics as well as whatever succession battle might occur. They were one of the leading powers of Cosmos City but maintained their neutrality.
Nine's faint smile redirected itself to Daspell. The head mage felt his danger sense scream at him that this teenager wasn't to be messed with. The feeling shocked him. How long had it been since he felt something like this? He could tell that this wasn't because some hidden master was behind the Prince, but instead true, genuine strength.
Instantly, his conduct got better. "I wonder how we can help the Crown Prince today?" he said, smiling kindly at the young teen in front of him. His instincts were screaming at him to kneel down and beg for forgiveness, but he struggled against it.
"Just let me in and ignore me," Nine said in a low voice.
Daspell couldn't make out any emotions from the Crown Prince's voice, so his smile got brighter. He hadn't seen a person with this much potential in all of his years of living. Unfortunately, this teenager was the Crown Prince and would be destined never to join the Mage Tower.
The more he looked at the Crown Prince, the more he felt like bending the rules and accepting him. He would be willing even if he had to join the ranks of politics. It would be such a waste for this teen not to be wholly devoted to magic!
"Of course, of course," Daspell said, pulling out a black card from within his robes. He gently handed it to the Crown Prince. "This card will allow you access to wherever you wish to go. The Mage Tower invites you to be our honoured guest. I wonder if Your Highness will accept?"
The guard was watching all of this happen with wide eyes. It looked like he wasn't losing his touch after all. But was this teenager that the head mage was treating with such respect really the same Crown Prince as in the rumours? Sure enough, rumours could never be trusted!
Nine received the card from the head mage's hands, feeling her bad mood alleviate somewhat at his tactful actions. She had half been prepared to storm her way inside should she be rejected. Now that she calmed down slightly, she reflected on herself. Such behaviour wasn't befitting a Crown Prince.
"Thank you," Nine said, her face returning to its normal indifference. "Of course, if the Mage Tower wants someone like me as a guest, I won't decline."
The head mage and the guard inwardly heaved a sigh of relief as the threatening danger that had been pressing up against their senses abated. Looks like the Crown Prince was appeased with this card.
With this, the guard and head mage both tactfully left the Crown Prince alone with free reign in the Mage Tower. The head mage headed back up to his sleeping quarters whilst Nine went about the tower.
Nine headed up to the highest floor of the library, starting to get busy.
Meanwhile, Daspell, who couldn't reign in his curiosity, couldn't help but follow the Crown Prince's actions through a monitoring spell that was built in the tower as part of its defences. What he saw couldn't help but cause him to be in shock. Any doubt he might have had about the legitimacy of the Crown Prince was blown away by admiration and awe.
Nine, although aware of the spying of Daspell, let him be since he had so graciously provided her with a black card to the tower. She could feel that he wasn't trying to suck up to her, like some might have done, but instead something about her had intrigued him.
The old man was at the peak of Seventh Tier and was soon reaching the end of his lifespan. Should he gain some insight from her, he would most likely breakthrough and extend his lifespan yet again. This was her graciousness to him for the black card.
Kindness for kindness, blood for blood. That had always been the way she handled things, and it hadn't changed a bit since coming to this world.
Left in peace, Nine applied a spell that would cause others to overlook her as she worked, but allowed the monitoring spell to take hold.
Mages of various ages started trickling into the library, but Nine ignored them as she steadily engrossed herself in her research. Instead of using the System to learn the knowledge instantly, she was slowly but steadily devouring the knowledge instead, leading her to many different thoughts and processes before she arrived at the end.
Once she finished, she then used the System to once again learn the knowledge, letting her compare her various different insights. This was in fact a lot more productive as compared to just learning straight away. She regretted that she hadn't done the same thing with the books in her room, left by the previous Nine.
Just by doing this, she achieved a breakthrough in her theoretical knowledge, leaving her in a good mood. Nine left the books where they were as she headed down to the underside of Cosmos City to get some practical knowledge in for her new theories.
After she left, a young mage discovered that the area across him that had been previously empty was suddenly filled with books and writings. He jumped in shock, his instincts instantaneously leading him to shout 'Ghost!' before he suppressed his voice as it tried to leave his throat.
Silence was the strictest rule in the Mage Tower library. If he broke it, he would be thrown out for a month! A month! That was equivalent to falling behind his peers in knowledge for a whole month! His brain then caught up with him. How could it be a ghost? Ghosts couldn't affect the material world instantaneously. Even if they did, how could it possibly shift all of these books here instantly? There were so many of them!
Curious, the young mage leaned across the table as he suppressed the hair that stood up on his arms. His curiosity outweighed his fear, which was a rather defining trait of mages of all ages.
The various insights written down, signed 'Nine', really made his eyes open. The various knowledge caused his vision to swim as he struggled to make sense of what was being written. He could instinctually tell that his was a rare treasure, but he couldn't understand any of it!
Young mage Reinhart felt like crying, but diligently imprinted the knowledge into his memory.
As time went by, more and more mages gathered around him as they looked at the knowledge and books left on the table. Once they took a glance, they could no longer look away as they lost themselves in a daze.