In agreeing to let Rosay join his faction, Mercy of Death, Leomaris had asked for three things. Among them were the ingredients to create the solution for his first evolution, from Magician to Sorcerer.

These items weren’t hard to get hold of if you had the money. The trick was knowing where and how. They could be picked up from either of the two magic towers: the Blue Magic Tower or the Red Tower.

Most aristocrats and businessmen bought them up and auctioned them off for easy access rather than waiting months or even years for one from the magic towers.

With his current social network, neither option was within reach, but Rosay was a different matter. So he’d had her nab everything he needed.

The box rested on the table before him. He sifted through the ingredients and fished out a small transparent jar of white fluid, setting it gently on the other side of the table and making sure it held steady.

He fetched another jar, nothing but ashes, and finally settled on a clear, processed water that looked to have been purified. Despite how steadily he tried to hold himself, his body shivered considerably, yet the water didn’t so much as bubble.

There were nearly seven more ingredients left in the box, but none belonged to him. He’d earmarked them specifically for his allies: Raine and Charlotte.

He was well aware of the financial bind they were both in, but he needed them stronger within three months, before Rosay woke from her hibernation. Becoming a Sorcerer was one step toward that.

"Honestly, I had no intention of including Charlotte. The academy already funds her completely, so her ingredients would have been covered. But after Hazel refused to become a Sorcerer, claiming it was blasphemous to evolve at the same pace as me, I decided to add Charlotte instead."

Rosay’s mansion had a room for this — shelves across every wall, packed with test tubes and potions. Leomaris stood at the table by the window, adjusting his gloves as he prepared to make his solution.

With a single thought, his grimoire materialised in his hand. He flipped to the sixth page, and there, laid out in detail from one step to the next, was everything he needed to create the solution.

"First, the tube must be cleansed with 50 milliliters of Welcoming Tears. Do not discard it after the cleansing process; preserve it for future use."

He looked about the room and grabbed a test tube, a dropper, and a flask. Next, he took the clean water he’d set aside earlier, twisted it open, and placed the dropper in carefully. Fifty millilitres exactly, as instructed, then he cleansed the test tube with it and poured the water into the flask.

He called forth his grimoire once again and read the next step. "Fetch three tablespoons of the Blessing of Carlos and shake it until every surface of the tube is fully coated with it."

He reached for the jar of ashes and fetched a clean tablespoon, doing exactly as the grimoire asked. The moment he opened the jar, though, he was coughing his lungs out. The Blessing of Carlos smelled of ginger, tobacco, and vinegar, and somehow, against all reason, rotten milk.

Despite feeling like the smell alone was going to finish him off, he pushed through to the next step.

"20 drops of the Dove Fluid... then shake until everything within the tube has completely dissolved into liquid."

This proved tricky. Leomaris had no way of knowing exactly how much each drop was supposed to contain, but after a moment’s thought, he fell back on something from his previous life. The knack of taking eye drops without needing to know how much each drop held.

Carefully, he drew all twenty drops with the dropper and gave the tube a gentle shake. He took a whiff and smiled.

A moment ago, his nose had been assaulted by the foul smell of the Blessing of Carlos, and now it was as though he’d caught a whiff of something heavenly.

Done correctly, the instructions said the solution would smell of fresh vanilla and hold the warmth of the coast. That was what Leomaris felt. Exactly that.

It was a dangerous business. One wrong move or an incomplete solution, and he’d become a black mage, carelessness wasn’t something he could afford.

"I think it’s time to add only 25 milliliters from the 50 I used to cleanse the tube," he muttered carefully.

He reached for the flask and measured out exactly twenty-five millilitres of the fifty millilitres of Welcoming Tears he’d set aside earlier. Then he sealed the tube with a rubber stopper and shook it ten times with steady, equal force.

"Now... the Ascension Orb is complete," he said with a smile.

His body shivered slightly as he watched the test tube settle on the rack. Subtle trembling followed, and before long, he was forcing himself backward, as though terrified of his own solution.

He pressed his back to the wall, crouched down, and pulled at his hair in irritation.

He was done. His first-ever solution, Ascension Orb, was complete. All he had to do was remove the rubber stopper, and the white potion would enter his body of its own accord.

But was he ready?

But first, before he could become a Sorcerer, he needed to synchronise his personality with Mystery, his entity. Was he mysterious enough? Elusive enough?

The enthusiasm had been there from the start. He couldn’t consume the remaining myths in the hymn book, Le Mythe des Quatre, without becoming a Sorcerer, and the one-use pass Mystery had given him was already gone. Without consuming it, he was leaving it ripe for the taking.

On top of that, this was his path to strength. And yet the Leomaris crouching on the floor right now was anything but confident. He was terrified.

He chose this risky path because facing death again had made one thing clear: being too uptight about surviving would only get him killed. His past mistakes said as much. To live, he needed to take risks and enjoy doing it.

But that philosophy wasn’t worth much to him right now. If he hadn’t embodied Mystery’s personality, the Ascension Orb would turn him into a black mage the moment he consumed it, stripping him of his humanity and killing him slowly.

That was what he feared.