We passed through the wild greenery while killing the mana beasts we encountered and at last, we arrived in the middle of the forest, then we stopped in front of a majestic tree around 40 meters long with an ancient-looking trunk.
This tree wasn't just a typical old tree but a door to the secret base of a scholar mage but not any scholar mage either, an information mage that came from the Ceurie family.
In the novel, the protagonist came here with Lucy after escaping from abyss creatures and they survived with the protagonist's heavenly luck.
Because when Lucy came here and leaned to this tree with her bloodied hands, a door opened in the middle of the trunk of this tree.
And there is a particularly useful artifact here, so I came here to pick up an artifact instead of roaming randomly.
Anyway, I nudged Lucy and pointed to the tree.
"Can you prick your finger and smear your blood onto the tree?"
After hearing my request Lucy wore a confused expression but she didn't ask any questions and did what I wanted from her.
My 2 years of pampering her bore its fruits as she became quite a bit obedient to me like this.
After her blood touched the trunk, a sudden crack noise came and the wood opened like a door for us to enter.
Lucy looked at me curiously as if how did I know this, hence I made a lie on the spot.
"I read a book in the Ceurie library and learned that this place was used by one of the old generations of the Ceurie family." I said and put her pricked finger into my mouth, licking it clean.
Lucy's face burned up as she tried to hide her face because of embarrassment thus I stopped my licking session as I didn't want to push her too hard.
"But don't tell this to anyone okay? It was a very old book so I don't think even our father knows it. Let's make this our little secret between siblings." I whispered into her ear like a Devil, then entered the tree.
It was dark inside as there was no light but the scent was fresh.
'Living here for a while will probably be okay.' I thought and took out my magical flashlight, then activated it.
The light illuminated the inside of the trunk, making me able to see a ladder that goes below.
I began to climb down and after me Lucy, which lasted for a while.
When we got down below, Lucy let herself to the ground as she was tired as heck but this time I didn't help her, because I saw a skeleton that had collapsed onto a table.
This was my target as I went to the skeleton's side and looked around at its eye sockets.
There I saw tiny, curved glass. I took it immediately and put it into my pocket, then went back to Lucy's side.
I helped her up and wiped the dust around her clothes without giving any attention to her rejection of my touching even her butt area to wipe the dirt.
I wasn't a pedophile who lusts little girls, though I didn't have any lust either but she didn't need to know this.
After that, I took out some blankets and pillows, and laid them on the ground.
It was pretty late and we were just children at the age of 12, so it was our sleeping time.
"Come here, my dear Lucy! Let's get some sleep." I said while patting my side.
Lucy's face heated up again, then she nodded her head bashfully while coming to my side.
'What a strange girl…' I thought because we have slept together like this for 2 years but when I said it out like this she became embarrassed about it.
I lay my head on the pillow and pulled Lucy into a tight hug. We were not in the Ceurie Mansion, so there was no need for me to hold back my pampering.
Excessive pampering might have made me look bad but now that no one was watching my every action, I was free to do what I want.
Though, I needed sleep as I didn't sleep more than 40 hours.
I closed my eyes and buried my face in Lucy's fragrant hair. I could hear her strong heartbeat and feel her heated-up skin.
Then I fall asleep without minding Lucy's internal struggles.
***
I woke up after an unknown time and rolled Lucy to the side as she was sleeping on me with a silly smile on her face.
Then I got up, stretched my limbs, and took out the tiny curved glass that I had put in my pocket.
This little thing was the reason I came here as this was an, [S] rank artifact of Information magic.
Its name was status lenses and it shows the stats of the people via information magic.
Though it isn't omniscient, hence it has some flaws.
For example, it can't show any stat stronger than [S+].
Anyway, I put the status lenses on my eyes and activated them.
======
Name: Kayle Ceurie
Race: Human???
Rank: D
Talent:???
Potential: ???
Strength: E+
Agility: F+
Dexterity: D–
Constitution: D–
Stamina: E+
Charm: ???
Mana quality: D+
Mana quantity: D–
Mana control: C–
===Innate powers and Curses===
Eyes of Revelation: ??? (Dormant)
Situational intuition(passive): B+
??? Of ??? : ???
Curse of affectlessness(weakened): ???
===Compatibilities===
91% Ice
78% Revelation
73% Illusion
59% Blood
44% Sound
23% Space
12% Time
6% Mana
2% ???
======
My stats were what I expected them to be but innate powers and curses weren't.
My crystal eyes had the power of revelation which I didn't understand too much and I have intuitional power.
My Intuition was strange ever after transportation to this world so I expected something like this.
But I didn't expect that the curse on me was stronger than [S+]. Which was equivalent to a minimum 8th circle mage, who can flatten cities with some spells.
Lifting my curse was harder than I thought and there was a completely unknown power or curse in me.
Fortunately, I didn't have any proper emotions or else I would be in deep despair.
After looking at my stats one more time, I turned to Lucy and activated the artifact again.
======
Name: Lucy Ceurie
Race: Human
Rank: D–
Talent: S+
Potential: ???
Strength: F–
Agility: F+
Dexterity: E–
Constitution: F+
Stamina: E
Charm: A–
Mana quality: D
Mana quantity: D+
Mana control: D+
===Innate powers and Curses===
???(passive): A+
===Compatibilities===
77% Information
73% Wind
57% Earth
38% Water
9% ???
======
'Hmm… Her potential and talent are good and there was an unknown power in her, which I don't know what to think about it but for now, there is no reason for me to meddle with her.'
After I was done looking over Lucy's status, I started to search for important books until Lucy woke up.
Being the base of a scholar information mage, there were many different books about different magic and affinities.
I separated the important books from the unimportant ones.
After that, I took out ingredients from my storage to prepare something to eat.
I woke Lucy up and we ate in silence. Although for some reason I didn't know Lucy was very happy.
"I found some books about Illusion, Blood, and information magic. My idea is, we will stay here for a month. Read books and practice magic and occasionally hunt some beast. Are you okay with this, my dear Lucy?"
"It would be boring. So you have to play with me daily and hug me when we are sleeping." Lucy said with shame apparent in her voice and smiled shyly.
"I can always do that as long as my sister stays a good girl like she is." I said and grinned.
Lucy was embarrassed but her embarrassment didn't stay long.
"Brother spoiled me, so it's your fault. You have to take responsibility and spoil me more!" Lucy shamelessly declared.
I guess I spoiled Lucy too much, which made her a little bit shameless to me.
Though I was okay with it as I will be able to spoil her a little more before her 13th birthday. After that, I will make excuses about puberty and I will put distance between us to prevent false rumors about our relationship.
"I will spoil you, but you will train your stamina. You are weak physically, even if you are a mage, you have to train your basic stamina." I said sternly.
"Brother but-"
"No buts, you should train your stamina. If you don't, you would be killed by some weak wolf because of some exhaustion from walking."
***
(1-month time skip)
"Be ready Lucy, we are leaving in 30 minutes."
I called out to Lucy.
For a month we were practicing hard.
I learned new illusion magic and some blood magic while Lucy trained her stamina and absorbed the information mage's notes like a sponge.
We regularly hunted low-rank beasts to practice, which worked fine. Lucy can kill [D–] rank monsters rather easily.
We took everything important or valuable.
After that, I took out the hologram map from my storage and began our one-day journey to Ceurie city.
After a while, I saw the city and cast illusion magic on us to make us look like average-looking adults.
"When you speak, voice will come out of the illusion's mouth. So you can talk freely but don't blurt out something important and if someone asks you questions, direct them at me."
Lucy nodded and we proceeded toward to city.
Afterward, we went to a random merchant and sold our mana cores.
We get 60 silver for about a hundred [E] rank and three [D] rank mana cores. Although I didn't know the exact prices, I knew that low level mana cores fetch low prices.
We discussed what we should do right now.
Lucy's idea was to rest in the city for a while. And I agreed with this idea.
Initially, I was thinking of going around the forbidden zone [Abyss forest] to pick up an important artifact.
But after 1 month of slaying low-level beasts, I understood that even if we go around the [Abyss forest], not inside. We would die to a mana monster or titan pretty quickly.
That is why I postponed this mission to a minimum of 5 years. There wasn't any need to hurry, because the protagonist will pick up that treasure about 9 years later.
After some thought, I rented a house for 2 months and rested for the day.
***
The next morning Lucy came to my side when I was reading and asked:
"I am bored brother let's hang out."
'I am more bored than you Lucy. I don't know why but my every emotion other than boredom is dull. Isn't boredom an emotion? If not, what is boredom?'
"Sure Let's go." I said with a warm smile.
Lucy got enthusiastic but i calmed her down and casted illusion magic to make ourselves average looking kids.
Lucy pouted and I asked her "why?" She answered "I wanted to roam around freely without illusion."
"Nope, we can't do that because you are too beautiful and we don't want trouble with troublesome kidnappers. Right?"
"...yeah." Lucy said quietly.
After that, we take a stroll around the city, looked at shops and bought some food.
While we were going back to our house, we encountered a kidnapping incident.
Some thugs kidnapped a beautiful woman and they were running to an alleyway.
Lucy tried to help the woman with magic, but i prevented it.
It was a good time for her to drop her childish heroic ideals.
Lucy looked at me angrily but didn't do anything else.
'It is a good thing that even if she is angry, she is listening to me. It seems that my importance to her is more important than her idiotic ideals. Breaking them will be easy.' I thought.
We arrived at our home, i made tea for us and sat down next to Lucy.
I made Lucy lay down on my thighs, her face turned to my face.
I slowly started to caress her head and began to speak.
"My dear what you tried to do was a good thing to do but you don't have to do these things."
"Even if you saved that woman from that kidnapper, another one would kidnap her because she was beautiful but normal. She didn't have any power to protect her beauty."
"What matters is power. If you have the power you can do anything. Take something from someone because you liked it, kill someone because you didn't like them, anything. When you have power, you won't have to hide behind some shity illusion magic. You will live longer, more luxurious, and more comfortably. And if you're worried about something, i won't judge you, no matter what will you do. You are free to do as long as we can back it with our power." i said with a cold and steady tone.
Lucy remained silent, she was thinking about things i said.
'I spouted lots of bullshit. But it will work i am sure of it, she is just 12 year old naive child that puts importance on my every word.'
"Brother you said that i can do anything and you won't judge me, right?" Lucy said with a smile. Her smile was strange, but i couldn't find the strangeness of her smile.
"Yeah, i said that. Do you have something in your mind?"
"No, i don't have something right now. I just wanted to confirm one more time."
Though Lucy became strange for a moment, she returned to normal after a while.