"Is your adopted daughter still alive?"
If she was, get closer to her and protect her.
Your Magic Crest is toxic. Don't let your old man start thinking about transplanting it again!
Though he did not understand why Li Mo was asking, Sakuragi answered truthfully. "Shiori is still in Japan. What does this have to do with her?"
She was still alive?
That was good. Li Mo let out a sigh of relief. It was still a human life, and she might even be an adorable little girl.
If she died because of a Magic Crest transplant, wouldn't that make one more future bachelor?
I'm doing this for the young people of the future!
Li Mo nodded in satisfaction, putting away his compassionate thoughts before saying, "Is the Sakuragi family's Magic Crest on you right now? That thing is already useless. It can't be used anymore!"
Useless?
Sakuragi's face darkened. If he had not just witnessed Li Mo's power, he would have grabbed Li Mo by the throat and demanded an explanation.
What did he mean, useless? How had the Sakuragi family's Magic Crest become useless!?
"Uh... what I mean is, your Sakuragi family's Magic Crest has already become poisoned. Whoever it is transplanted into, the result will be the same. Transplant it into one person, and one person dies." Seeing Sakuragi's face turn as dark as if he had just crawled out of a coal mine, Li Mo hurriedly explained.
After all, this was someone his teacher had entrusted with protecting him. He could not go around beating up his own teammate.
Besides, insulting someone's family was one of the easiest ways for mages to become enemies. He did not want someone he had liked so much in the main world to hold a grudge against him.
Yet, contrary to Li Mo's expectations, Sakuragi did not refute him after hearing this. Instead, he calmly spread his hands and lowered his head.
"Poisoned, huh? Heh."
That was it?
Li Mo looked at Sakuragi in surprise and asked, "Aren't you curious why I said that?"
Sakuragi raised his head calmly and said, "No."
How could something capable of returning a declining mage family to its peak not come with a terrible price?
"Everything our ancestors did was only for the continuation of the family."
As for whether he resented them?
Of course he did. During the period after his wife left, Sakuragi had wondered why his ancestors had left behind such an enormous burden—and why it had landed squarely on his head.
But after taking over as family head and struggling through the mage world for several years, the little resentment in Sakuragi's heart had long since vanished.
It was like placing a piece of poisoned bread before someone starving to death. They would die if they did not eat it anyway, while eating it would only let them die a little later. Would you really think they would not eat it?
"So..."
Sakuragi looked seriously at Li Mo's face and said, "Lord Li Mo, is there still a way to lift this curse?"
Li Mo fell into thought. The Mage Association had no precedent for a case like the Sakuragi family's.
Either they found that unknown thing which had signed the contract in the first place, or they found a Holy Church priest specializing in purification magecraft. But leaving aside whether Sakuragi would agree to let someone from the Holy Church examine his Magic Crest, who knew whether the Holy Church even still had a priest capable of purifying a curse like this?
And although it was called a curse, it was really just the accumulation of some kind of toxin that had poisoned the Magic Crest. Whether purification magecraft would even work was another question altogether!
Li Mo raised his head and asked, "Do you know what exactly was the thing that signed a contract with the Sakuragi ancestors back then?"
If you could not solve the problem, then solve the one who raised it!
Figure out what had signed the contract with the Sakuragi family, then go knock on its door and see if they could settle it peacefully. If they could not settle it peacefully, then find a way to beat the thing up. Wouldn't that solve everything?
Such a simple matter. I'm a fucking genius!
Sakuragi frowned. "I don't know..."
I don't know. Don't ask me. Asking won't help!
"But there should be records of it at the family's ancestral land. Lord Li Mo, would you like to come with me?"
They were going to Japan?
Let me think. Tsundere Rin, gentle Sakura, cool Shiki...
Aww, I'm dead!
But it seemed the three future heroines were all still very young at this point...
I mean young in terms of age!
But...
"Let's go!"
It would be nice to see the two sisters while they were still nursing. When Rin came to the Clock Tower later, he could even say, "Yo, Rin. I held you when you were little. I even fed you milk~"
Tsk. Exciting!
Thinking about holding the goddesses of countless otaku in his arms, Li Mo's wicked sense of humor could not help running wild.
"What are you waiting for, Sakuragi? Hurry up, let's go buy the plane tickets!"
Europe, somewhere in an unknown castle.
"What are you doing here?" Before what looked like a chemistry lab bench, an elderly figure suddenly frowned and looked toward a corner.
"We haven't seen each other in so many years. Does Lord Prometheus not welcome me?" A vigorous voice sounded from the corner, and a faint figure slowly appeared. It was Kishua Zelretch Schweinorg, the Second Magician who had met Li Mo not long ago.
And the name Kishua had spoken was even more surprising. Prometheus? This man shared a name with that legendary sage who had stolen fire for humanity?
Prometheus stopped what he was doing. With a wave of his right hand, tea leaves flew into the teapot. Flames appeared from thin air and began brewing the tea on their own.
"Speak. What did you come here for? Your title as the Second Magician is far more famous than mine these days."
Kishua sat down leisurely, a smile like one greeting an old friend on his face. "I found a promising seedling at your Clock Tower. Want to come reminisce about what it felt like to be teachers?"
Prometheus dropped into a seat and snorted. "Back then, the Clock Tower had no choice. But what kind of promising seedling has appeared now that you had to come find me? Isn't having you, the Grand Marshal, enough?"
"Not enough."
Kishua shook his head. "The magical energy stored in his body surpasses even mine. How should I put it? Right, the sun!
"The feeling that kid gave me was like the sun itself. And do you know what he projected using Projection Magecraft?"
Even a Magician considered his own magical energy inferior?
Prometheus suddenly became interested. "What was it? Don't tell me it was the sun?"
Kishua nodded. Under Prometheus's shocked gaze, he sighed. "That's right. He projected a sun!
"Logically speaking, no one would dare project something like the sun, and no one should be able to. But for some reason, he truly projected a sun. And from what I felt, it really was the sun."
As if recalling something, Prometheus suddenly stood up. "Are you sure it really was the sun? And Projection Magecraft can only project one-eighth of a real object's power at most, right?"
Kishua picked up the teapot on the table and spread one hand. "Of course I know the limits of Projection Magecraft. But the sun that kid projected felt just like a real sun to me."
"And I've already given him the Second Magic. Given his abilities, he'll probably master it before long!"
Prometheus frowned and looked at Kishua with confusion. "No matter how talented he is, you gave him Magic. How could he possibly master it so quickly?"
"No. He's different. I did not see him in the Parallel Worlds."
Kishua raised his teacup and drained it in one gulp under Prometheus's look as though he were staring at a brute.
"He has already fulfilled the prerequisite for the Second Magic."
"He is unique across all worlds."
Before you continue