Fritz was in a bit of trouble.
Twin tails, red eyes, and a youthful face that was every bit disarming from its cuteness, were it not for the fact that she was his twin in the Empress’ family.
The only thing that changed about her was her black hair dyed into pink—definitely a part of her disguise.
Lilya.
It would appear that the 1st Imperial Princess was the one to make first contact with him.
He continued walking through the halls of the palace, mindlessly listening to Mary’s continuous babbles about the implication of beating the prince of the Kingdom. Indeed, to Fritz’s mind, the Prince Karstahl situation was a troubling one, one that he answered with a rapier and wand, but…he just had a worse one appear then and there.
All of his suspicions were now fully confirmed. The Empress’ agents were here. They were disrupting Queen Cecilia’s rule, and he, Fritz Rolentz, was one of their main targets.
Of course. That must be why I ended up being crippled before I awakened. Fritz frowned. She’s trying to weaken Cecilia by targeting me. Wait, not just me. No doubt Lilya is targeting all of Cecilia’s allies as well, and I bet she’s not alone here either.
“Hey, are you even listening,” Mary asked, frowning as well. “I’m just trying to explain to you, that the complications this duel will have—”
“I understand the complications well. But you’d be silly to think that we could have avoided it. They were testing the waters, that if we didn’t bare our fangs, they'd take it as a signal of capitulation.”
“Of course, we can’t, but now, we’re going to be forced to act. I think you’ll have to reactivate the Decree Bureau soon, and get the Queen’s directives up and running again.”
“Play the dirty game of politics, undermine our opposition, and secure her rule,” Fritz nodded, smiling a bit. “I understand what I need to do. Quite frankly, I’m starting to feel a bit pumped about the prospects.”
“Do you even have an idea how to do it?”
“Do I look like a clueless fool to you?”
“...Nope,” Mary shook her head. “I think it’s quite scary how fast you adapt even when you still have none of your memories.”
“Well, they’ll come back one day, I’m sure of it. But for now, I’m going to gain back momentum by building up from scratch fast,” Fritz fixed his collar. “Anyhow, if you two have those special boosting elixirs available for me, I need it quickly.”
“Sure, I’ll inform Cecilia about it.”
“Oh and,” Fritz turned back to Mary. “That…Sophie von Wismar, keep an eye on her. She doesn’t strike me as the loyal kind.”
Mary tilted her head.
“But the House of Wismar is one of the allies of the crown,” Mary said. “They’ve been quite vocal at supporting reforms that are even more radical than what Cecillia proposes.”
Pfft. I guess that ridiculous strategy still works.
Fritz chuckled a bit.
“I love it,” Fritz shook his head. “Tell me, how is the rest of the nobility reacting to the proposals being made by the House of Wismar?”
“...Negatively?”
“And who’s the reformist here, that’s going to end up being bunched up with ‘crazy extremists’?”
“...Cecilia?”
“Trace the dots, Dame Mary,” Fritz nodded. “Play both sides and sow discord. We’re dealing with puppets on both sides.”
“Are you saying that House Wismar and other noble houses are puppets? Puppets by who?”
“We’ll investigate that,” Fritz said. “That’s why I’ll be updating my timetable. I need to get on the ground quickly and start figuring out what is happening. Because trust me, something is happening.”
Her voice turned cold.
“Are they traitors then?”
“Nothing substantive yet, I have no idea,” Fritz. “But I have a hunch.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t throw these ideas into Cecilia’s mind yet,” Mary warned. “You sound paranoid.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t either. Not without concrete evidence. But, didn’t you notice how unnerving she was?”
“I’m not sure about that, she seemed quite pleasant.”
“Ah, well…whatever, just, I have a hunch. I’m not going to act on it either.”
“I understand,” she sighed. “I’ll look into it a bit. I’ve been so focused on the nobles who vehemently oppose Cecilia’s reform, that I’m having a blind spot.”
“Right. Just pointing you in some useful directions, that's all.”
+++
Fritz swung his sword a little bit too hard, that he pulled the wrong muscle. Pain shot up from his shoulders, forcing Fritz to back off from his training session. It was already the third day of back-to-back work in the palace, trying his best to meet the amped-up requirements of his training.
After cleaning up, he switched off his training clothes and went back to his formal clothes, rushing out of the palace courtyard straight into his quarters. There, he spent hours and hours instead trying to analyze and crack the code of his notes. To speed up his progress, Fritz took another notebook and began writing on it, taking the ideas from his old notes and streamlining them into something he could easily understand and reference.Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
This is going to be a long-term project.
Fritz sighed, stowing away his ink and quill. He looked at the various formulas and lines of notes on the first three pages of his new notebook. It only covered the basics of shadow magic at the moment.
Mainly, he was studying the foundations that made up this magic type—the ‘denial’ principle. There were only six spells underneath it, all of them essentially were varying ways of suppressing, removing, or disabling mana by magic.
So far, he only made good progress with the spell ‘Eclipse Burst’. It was something he had been cultivating endlessly, considering its immediate tactical benefit.
It seemed that he already implemented much of what the spell’s formula offered. To reduce the concentration of mana in the environment using an arc of sharp energy was tricky in practice, but on paper, his understanding should be sufficient.
Of course, I still need to fine-tune how I cast it. He leaned back on his chair. Shadow magic sure is quite a powerful affinity. But there’s nothing here about curses…
That was one of Fritz’s unfortunate problems. From what he knew, shadow magic in general encompassed decay and disorder. That could be in the form of cruel curses that damaged an individual, like what the Empress did to him, or…his methods, suppression of mana itself.
He read one of the passages in the old notes.
Entropy.
He tried to visualize it in his mind. Mana itself was simply particles in the environment that could manipulate the ‘fabric of reality’. Fritz knew that to do that, concentration of these ‘particles’ was necessary. To create, for example, a barrage of fire, one needed a lot of mana to create not just the objects that burned, but mana that would act as energy that would create the fire itself.
That was where the main principle of ‘denial’ came from. The idea of his old notes was simple—create disorder by scattering mana, and no magic may come out of a caster’s wand. Even if they were able to scrounge up mana, they wouldn’t be able to cast much, because the disorder created by him ‘accelerating entropy’ would mean they wouldn't have enough mana to manipulate reality.
He stood up, eager to once again try something. He stared at three potions, each of them containing liquid water infused deeply with mana. It was a potion designed to rapidly restore mana in a person’s body. He closed his eyes, feeling the organized concentration of magic coming from the vials.
Then, he aimed his wand at it. Envisioning a variation of ‘Eclipse Burst’, he readied himself, then, he chanted the spell. Immediately, a wave of light washed through the potions. Fritz felt the mana rushing out of the path taken by the wave of light, scattering through his room.
Did it work?
He went to the table containing the potions. Then, he grabbed one of them, feeling as if there was mana still inside. He tried to gauge if it was reduced, taking a while to feel it with his untrained mana perception abilities. All he could tell was that it was only slightly less concentrated in terms of mana content than his previous assessment.
“I did manage to make it useful against Prince Karstahl, but he was able to cast a spell after it anyway,” he looked at the potion curiously. “I’d be in trouble if someone stronger like Lilya…err, Sophie fought me.”
He remembered that Lilya was a Tier VI soul arts-class assassin. Someone who specialized in water and fire magic. It was a deadly combination. Not only was she an opponent who could manipulate temperature, but with water magic, she could manipulate biology and water.
She can freeze me, burn me, and if I somehow get through that and slice her, she’ll heal herself easily with regeneration.
He went for his shelf, then he looked at a stock of twelve mana potions, all arrayed with the rest of the potions and elixirs he had stocked. Collectively, the mana potions were something he acquired for four marks.
Two days’ worth of my monthly salary. He stopped briefly. Ah, whatever. Better to use it as a target to test myself.
He set up a new goal this time—to wipe out a mana potion’s mana content in one strike. That would certainly be a good goal to take.
+++
“What are you doing?” Cecilia boredly asked when she found him casting spells again and again in the palace’s courtyard. It was already the sixth day since he started this dreary routine, and he had already burned through eight marks worth of potions.
“Practicing,” Fritz replied, feeling the tiredness in his body after expending so much mana. “I need to perfect this. I’m just having a bit of trouble, but I’m getting there.”
He went to the stand and grabbed the potion on top of it. He tried to feel how much mana was left on the potion, and indeed, he hadn’t reduced it much yet.
“It barely even budged. On average, it seems that I need to fire eight to ten of these spells just to drain one potion. That’s shameful,” Fritz said. “Utterly shameful.”
“You do know that mana in a potion is more concentrated, and thus, harder to disperse?” Cecilia asked. “Right?”
“You know what I’m doing?”
“Of course,” she smiled. “I remember that you were obsessed with that spell too back in our academy days. Always writing about it and fine-tuning it.”
Hmm…so she does have an idea how my magic works.
“Right…wait, you and I studied together in an academy?”
“Yep!” she laughed. “Mary, you, me, oh, Ludolph too. Actually, Ludolph is coming here soon to visit you. He’s back from their diplomatic visit in Norland, so that’ll be a nice reunion!”
“Ludolph?”
“Captain Ludolph Widmer, your buddy in the military, and a member of the Decree Bureau,” Cecilia sighed. “I guess you also forgot about him too, eh?”
“I did see him in my records…”
“Your records are a dry administrative recollection of the missions you took,” she approached Fritz. “Nothing but reports. They’re not representative of who you were. Don’t rely on it too much.”
Then, he felt her grab his hand, helping him aim his wand at the potion.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“I’m helping you out,” Cecilia explained behind him. “Here, listen, take a deep breath, and feel the concentration of mana on that potion. Find out where it is.”
“I’m trying…”
“Aim at the center, that’s where the highest concentrations lie. If you can strike it precisely, the bonds they have holding each other together will collapse much more easily. Most importantly, calm down and accept my mana.”
“Mana sharing? Wait, are you serious?”
“You want to test this out or not?” she frowned at him. “Don’t worry, we already did this many times. You’ve never been someone who had a lot of mana at his disposal anyway. That’s why…”
Fritz felt mana surging through his body, replacing the emptiness left by him using up more than half of his reserves from practicing. He frowned, as he was soon nearly filled full by it.
“How are you able to do this? Wait a minute, isn’t this dangerous?!”
“Not if you use it all up, so send my mana to your wand, silly,” Cecilia chastised. “Do it now, place all of the mana you have on this spell, don’t worry, I’ll fuel it.”
Fritz took a deep breath and followed her orders. He sent most of his mana straight on his wand, intensifying the magic circle in front of him, its light glowing more and more. But Cecilia seemed to be pouring more of her mana into him. He didn’t understand how it was possible.
Until he remembered her affinity. Light magic—something used to accelerate magic.
“Do it now,” Cecilia excitedly said. “Open fire!”
“On it. Eclipse Burst!”
A massive wave of light washed through the courtyard, the arc of light striking neatly at the middle of the potion, before it dissipated when it struck the wall. Fritz was wide-eyed, feeling how the mana around them almost seemed to disappear. Even he felt it, with his mana reserves also being scattered.




[SHADOW MAGIC I (2 -> 3/10)]
[LVL: 25 -> 26/70]
[MP: F (14%)]




What…
“Now, let’s check the results!” Cecilia said, her smile bright. “I told you I had some ideas about how to do this.”
What did she just do to me?