Coveted

Starry Country, Sword Flower University. "Huh? Doesn't she just really like those dishes? Whenever she goes to the cafeteria, I always see her picking the exact same ones." "Sonia always eats those because they offer the best value for money. Flavor, nutrition, price, and energy—they're irreproachable in every aspect. Even those of us in the Swordsmanship Department often go for them. But since your living allowance is so high and you eat so little, you probably never paid attention to the prices. That said, Sonia shouldn't be short on money lately, yet she still eats them. It just shows she doesn't care much about pampering her palate." "So that's why... Next question. Besides the dormitory, the training building, the library, and the Meditation Building, does she frequent anywhere else? Ever since she became a sorcerer, she doesn't seem to attend any of those old social gatherings anymore." When Lois returned to the dormitory, she found Adele and Ingrid discussing someone else's personal affairs with utter solemnity. She couldn't help but ask, "What are you two doing?" "Researching Sonia," Adele replied. "I know you're researching Sonia, but what's there to study?" Lois set her backpack on her desk, looking bewildered. "If there's something you want to know, can't you just ask her directly when she gets back?" "That won't do! I can't let the president of the Paw-Stretching Club know I'm investigating her," Adele said. "I'm doing bad things." "How could you possibly do bad things? You're not the type." "Loi!" Adele was deeply moved. "I had no idea you had so much faith in my moral character!" "It's not your character I believe in—it's your intellect. You're someone who gave up on cheating on a final exam because it was too much hassle; I can't imagine what mischief you could manage." Lois sat down and added, "I'd say the ceiling of your villainy is buying cream puffs and using a straw to suck out all the filling beforehand." "Loi, you don't know me well enough at all." Adele snorted. "If I bought cream puffs, how could I stop at sucking out the cream? At most, I'd leave one each for you guys!" Lois sighed. "Alright, alright. Ingrid, you tell me." "Adele's family wants her to gather intel on Sonia—things like her connections, eating habits, and frequent haunts," Ingrid said calmly. "In short, they want to analyze her and figure out her secrets." Lois, who had been unzipping her backpack, froze. "...Huh?" "I had no choice!" Adele complained. "When I went home, my mother dragged me into a room and went on and on about how terrible our family's situation is, how my father still has a chance to advance his career and title, and all sorts of exhausting things. I finally managed to escape and hang out with Frey. Everything was fine at first, but while we were cuddling and stargazing, he actually started talking about Sonia too! Bringing up another woman on a date? Demerit!" "The root of the problem isn't your parents or your fiancé," Lois said. "If I recall correctly, your father is a Shield Baron, and your fiancé's family holds the title of Spear Baron. Neither family has produced a Sanctuary Sorcerer in ages; how would they dare covet the secrets of one? Your family is merely an intermediary. The people pulling the strings behind the scenes are definitely Court Nobles." Nobles of the Starry Country were also known as Imperial Guard Nobles because the nobility was divided into two entirely separate systems: Court Nobles and Guard Nobles. Court Nobles were split into four ranks: Duke, Marquis, Count, and Viscount. Guard Nobles were divided into five classes: Armor, Bow, Spear, Shield, and Sword. The two systems differed not only in their titles but also drastically in their spheres of responsibility. Members of the Court Council, the Legislative Council, and the House of Nobles were chosen exclusively from the Court Nobles, whereas the vast majority of magistrates in the Administrative Hall, law enforcement officers, and city administrators were Guard Nobles. To put it simply, the Guard Nobles formed the national civil service system that executed the Empress's decrees, while the Court Nobles formed the parliamentary cabinet that served as her advisors. Though not explicitly stated, Court Nobles could not hold civil administration posts, and vice versa. If a Court Noble truly wished to pursue an administrative career, they had to renounce their inheritance rights, pass various examinations alongside commoners to become a low-ranking Sword Baron, and step onto the path of an official from the bottom. Furthermore, while the titles of Court Nobles were hereditary, they were not immune to demotion. The House of Nobles maintained a complex set of calculation rules; simply put, if a Court Noble family proved too useless, they would be reassigned straight into the Guard Nobles. Overall, Court Nobles held higher social standing than Guard Nobles, but for those with political ambitions and a hunger to wield real power, the Guard nobility was the only answer. The Shield Baron and Spear Baron mentioned by Lois were two ranks within the Guard Nobles. There was a major difference between the Guard and Court nobilities: Court Nobles found it exceedingly difficult to advance, often holding the same rank for generations, whereas Guard Nobles were different. Regardless of what rank the previous generation achieved, the next generation always started from Sword Baron. Thus, a Guard title did not represent family lineage, only personal rank. Within the administrative and judicial system, a promotion was typically equivalent to an elevation in title. Even if one's parents were ordinary commoners, becoming a city administrator guaranteed the rank of Armor Baron; conversely, even if one's parents were Armor Barons, working as an ordinary clerk left one as a mere Sword Baron. The primary significance of these titles lay in the conveniences one enjoyed, the clearances one could unlock, and the benefits received after retirement. Evidently, the names of the five Guard baron ranks originated from cold-weapon warfare: shield beat sword, spear surpassed shield, bow had the advantage, and armor was paramount. Adele's family were Shield Barons and her fiancé's family were Spear Barons, making them a well-matched match. Guard Nobles never feared "deranking," but Court Nobles were another matter entirely. The House of Nobles imposed a rigorous metric on them: the cultivation of sorcerers. Each sorcerer produced yielded a certain number of points, varying among Silver, Gold, Sanctuary, and Legendary ranks. In short, a Duke had to produce a Sanctuary Sorcerer every thirty years to maintain their title—a Sanctuary in every generation—while a Viscount was granted up to a hundred and twenty years, or one every four generations. Although one could fulfill the quota by recruiting and retaining a Sanctuary Sorcerer, Sanctuary Sorcerers could become nobles in their own right and might not care for such offers. Furthermore, if you wanted to recruit one, Dukes and Marquises were also competing for them, so your chances were slim. Consequently, Counts and Viscounts who knew they were destined to derank would proactively transition into Guard Nobles rather than squander their lives idly in parliament. This was why Lois was so certain Adele's family was merely an intermediary. Guard Nobles had a very low desire for Sanctuary Sorcerers, taking the attitude that they could live perfectly well without one. Only Court Nobles would desperately covet the secrets to reaching the Sanctuary realm, because it directly threatened their social standing. "Sigh, I'm shouldering pressure far beyond my years," Adele lamented. "So this is the bitter taste of maturity." "Stop being dramatic." Lois stepped over, gave Adele's head a light chop, and picked up her notebook to browse through it. "If you posted this stuff to the Paw-Stretching Club, even they would turn their noses up at it—it's nothing but trivial daily trivia about Sonia! And cross this one out; the brand of her underwear has absolutely nothing to do with the Sanctuary realm." "Why? You can't just jump to conclusions!" "I wear the same brand. She copied mine." "But your cup sizes—" *Smack!* Adele clutched her stinging head, snatched the notebook back, and complained loudly, "Then help us guess what Sonia's secret is!" "Why should I guess along with you guys..." Lois sighed. She pulled a chair over and began analyzing seriously, "Right now, the most abnormal thing about Sonia is that she achieved Sanctuary far too quickly. "From summoning her first sorcery spirit in April to the Meteor Tribulation five days ago, it's only been around seventy-odd days. Even if we count from the day she revealed her Two Wings combat strength during the friendly match, she only spent twenty-odd days going from One Wing to Two Wings. That means it took her a mere fifty days to traverse the Time Continent and ascend to the Distant Sky Realm. "However, the Time Continent isn't like the Sea of Knowledge. The Sea of Knowledge has Vortexes that serve as shortcuts, allowing a sorcerer with astonishing talent to complete the transformation of their Silver Wings and faction realm in a short time. The Time Continent has no such mechanism as a Vortex. "The fastest recorded breakthrough from Two Wings to Three Wings in Starry history was the 'Hundred-Day Sanctuary' achieved five hundred years ago by the Legendary Sorcerer Megas. But that was built on Megas mastering movement miracles and possessing double the soul energy of normal sorcerers, meaning his exploration time was twice that of anyone else. "Sonia not only broke his record, but cut the time in half." Lois sighed. "It's only natural everyone suspects she possesses a powerful exploration miracle." In the world of sorcerers, talent could not explain everything. No matter how high your talent was, it could only help you break through faction realms and erase the word 'bottleneck' from your vocabulary. But sorcery power was a hard metric directly tied to exploration time, very much like carrying a pregnancy to term. A genius might need half a year where ordinary people needed a full year, and everyone would chalk it up to exceptional talent. If someone did it in a hundred days, people would view them as extraordinary and could just barely accept it. But if someone did it in fifty days while appearing entirely normal on the outside, who would believe there wasn't a miracle involved? "Yet most exploration miracles are used to mend soul damage and offset the cost of death," Ingrid mused. "Though speaking of which, whenever Sonia died in the Void Realm, she really did recover remarkably fast." Lois nodded. "I sensed something back then, but I never imagined she was hiding such a massive trump card... Condensing Golden Wings within fifty days means she either possesses a miracle for high-speed, safe traversal through the Void Realm, or she has a method to accelerate her sorcery power absorption. Whichever it is, it's something Court Nobles would kill for." Some might wonder: even the slowest sorcerer only took four or five years to condense Golden Wings, so what was the point of saving a few years? Could saving that time really guarantee a breakthrough into the Sanctuary realm? People forgot that human learning had a golden period. The ages between twenty and thirty were the prime window for a sorcerer's breakthrough. The sooner one condensed Golden Wings, the more sorcery power one had to train sorcery spirits, and the higher the chances of breaking through faction realms. Moreover, the penalty for dying in the Void Realm was neither fatal nor negligible; though it didn't immobilize a sorcerer, it severely hampered their ability to concentrate and hone their arts. Even if a sorcerer died only three or four times a year—which was already considered low—they would waste nearly half their life recuperating, and that golden decade would slip by in a flash. The reason Court Nobles possessing exploration miracles produced Sanctuary Sorcerers at rates vastly exceeding ordinary families was precisely because they drastically mitigated the death penalty. Now that a miracle suspected of accelerating sorcery power condensation had surfaced, how could Court Nobles not salivate over it? How could they not resort to underhanded schemes to pry into that secret? Still... "Even if those people want it that badly, the most they can do is exert pressure on Adele's family to pry into Sonia's secrets like this," Ingrid said with a faint smile. "Sonia already possesses the power to protect her own secrets." If Sonia were still a Two-Winged Sorcerer, then even if the Starry nobility couldn't break the law, they would have plenty of ways to manipulate her within the rules. If nothing else, Adele's parents were Two-Winged Sorcerers and administrative officials, yet they were subjected to pressure they couldn't refuse. But the problem was that Sonia was already a Sanctuary Sorcerer. Even if she hadn't constructed her Sanctuary yet, it was only a matter of time. A Sanctuary Sorcerer was equivalent to nobility in their own right, a standing sufficient to render the vast majority of schemes useless. Short of the Empress personally applying pressure, not even the five Dukes could force Sonia to bow her head. "That's true." Lois lowered her head slightly. "She is no longer the same as us." "Hey, hey! Aren't you two here to help me? Quick, help me think of what else to write so I can hand in my homework!" Adele urged, biting the end of her pen. "Adele, why don't you seem to care at all?" "What do you mean I don't care? If I didn't care, I'd already be lying in bed watching Daidalos's new show!" "I mean you don't seem to care about being caught between your family and Sonia," Lois said. "On one hand, you have no intention of hiding Sonia's information, but on the other hand, you only plan to give your family half-baked answers... I thought if you ended up in this situation, you'd either sneak around gathering her secrets or feel aggrieved about being coerced by your family." "Because caring won't change anything; it'll only keep me from enjoying my shows in peace," Adele replied. "Besides, I'm no good at digging into someone's privacy. My tracking skills are so awful Sonia would spot me in a heartbeat. "As for being coerced by my family... Well, I do feel a little aggrieved. I finally went home, only for my parents and Frey to ask me to betray my friend. But Sonia is my friend, not theirs, so it's natural they'd act like that. Beyond that, they're still the parents who love me and the fiancé who grew up with me. After sulking for a bit, I got over it. "Besides, it's not like they don't know what kind of person I am. If there were any other way, they wouldn't have come to me. They must be bearing pressure I know nothing about to trouble their darling daughter and fiancée like this, so how could I blame them? "That's why I need to write this diligently—so I can submit my homework, and they can submit theirs." Lois couldn't help but look at Ingrid. Ingrid shrugged and went back to guiding Adele through her assignment. *No wonder the aloof Ingrid agreed to help...* "Still, you're pretty awful. If Sonia finds out, who knows how she'll punish you. Last time you took her wooden sword and swung it around, your wails could be heard from the next building." Adele pressed her hands together pleadingly. "Loi, don't tell her! Ingrid already promised she wouldn't say a word!" Lois didn't disturb them any further and turned back to tidy her things. She hadn't been back for days, and dust had gathered on her desk. After the Intercollegiate League concluded, Sword Flower University gave students five days off, followed by two months of the 'Sorcerer Independent Training Period,' colloquially known as summer vacation. Students could train at home or return to school. Any student with ambition chose to return, as a home environment couldn't compare to the school's training facilities. Adele had surely returned half to escape and half because she had to; she could binge her dramas anywhere, and her bed at home was definitely more comfortable than the dorm's. Lois had originally intended to stay home, having planned numerous social gatherings for her summer break. But spurred by Sonia and Ingrid, she too wanted to chase her dream of becoming a water sorcerer. Furthermore, she had a reason she had to return. As the radiant star sank in the west, Adele set down her pen and stretched lazily. "I'm exhausted!" "I did all the talking," Ingrid remarked. "What do you have to be tired about?" "Writing is exhausting!" Adele stood up. "Let's eat! Loi, cafeteria tonight or dining out?" "You two go ahead." Lois kept her eyes on her book. "I ate too much at home and need to watch my weight. Fruit will do for me tonight." "I think you should eat more, or you'll never catch up to Sonia—I mean in size—eep, missed me! Ingrid, run!" Ingrid glanced at Lois, then followed Adele out.