Chương 153: The Basement Was Starting to Feel Small

Mira lowered her hand from her face and watched Sieghart patiently, apparently waiting for him to name whichever dangerous technique had already occupied his thoughts before she agreed to anything resembling another magical reward. Sieghart had considered the question during most of the journey home. His recent training improved every elemental branch he already possessed, but Poison Magic proved Black Magic contained affinities nobody had taught him directly.

"I want variations of Black Magic." Mira raised one eyebrow.

"More specific."

"Elements I don't know yet." Sieghart began listing possibilities he had considered before the Chimerian mission, including metal, acid, darkness, light, smoke, sound, gravity, and anything else classified as offensive elemental magic rather than another independent discipline. Mira listened without interrupting until he finished, then leaned backward and looked toward the bookshelves behind her desk as though hoping one of them might suddenly provide a more convenient answer.

"I don't know those." Sieghart stared at her.

"None?"

"Not well enough to teach you." That answer was disappointing enough that Sieghart remained silent, wondering how the guild master of the only recognized magical organization in human territory somehow knew fewer obscure offensive affinities than he expected. Mira apparently recognized his expression because her eyes narrowed slightly, though she did not become defensive. Instead, she folded her hands and explained the limitation before Sieghart converted disappointment into sarcasm.

"I can probably find books describing their principles."

"How long?"

"It might take a while." Sieghart studied her face quietly. Mira had been saying variations of that phrase increasingly often whenever his questions moved beyond Lunar Arc's ordinary collection of spells, histories, and established magical techniques. It was not necessarily her fault. Lunar Arc preserved more magical knowledge than almost any human institution, yet even the largest guild remained tiny compared with an entire world containing countless civilizations.

Still, hearing it might take a while repeatedly was becoming frustrating when Sieghart's priorities increasingly depended upon information nobody around him seemed capable of providing quickly enough for him. Mira had a guild to manage, descendants to protect, political enemies to appease, agents to coordinate, border problems to monitor, and apparently kidnapped relatives to rescue whenever everything else became insufficiently inconvenient. Sieghart respected that.

Mira had never promised to dedicate her life toward turning him into the strongest mage alive, and expecting her to abandon everyone else whenever he wanted another spell would be absurd. That did not mean her priorities needed to become his priorities. Sieghart had grandparents to avenge, mysteries surrounding his System to solve, and enemies who might already possess powers he had never encountered.

"Sorry." Sieghart looked toward her.

"I'll see what I can find, but rare Black Magic texts aren't something I can pull from a shelf whenever you ask."

"It's fine." He meant it more than Mira probably expected. Her inability to answer immediately was disappointing, but disappointment was useful when it revealed a limitation Sieghart had been ignoring for several years. Lunar Arc protected him, trained him, gave him access to books, missions, information, and people capable of teaching techniques he would have struggled to discover completely alone. It was still only one place.

Sieghart had spent years treating the basement as the safest center of his second life, something between a hidden home, private laboratory, library, and fortress against everyone searching for him. Recently, however, the basement had started feeling smaller whenever he returned. Every expedition revealed another magical tradition, another civilization, another forbidden technique, and another answer Lunar Arc did not possess. Runic Engineering had required traveling north. Poison Magic came from Vessa and Orin.

Chimerian corruption produced Alchemy, while Telekinesis began because Mira happened to possess one useful book. If Sieghart wanted broader knowledge, perhaps waiting underground for Mira to discover every relevant source was simply another form of allowing somebody else to determine the speed of his progress. That thought did not make him angry with her. Mira's competence had limits like everyone else's, and Sieghart was beginning to suspect his ambitions had simply grown beyond those limits. He could travel.

The possibility had occurred before, usually as a distant future objective after becoming stronger, solving the mystery surrounding his grandparents, or gaining enough independence to stop hiding. Now the idea felt practical rather than imaginary. Sieghart possessed money, combat ability, multiple disguises, survival magic, healing, transportation options, and enough experience to travel without immediately getting himself killed. Probably. He would not need to leave Lunar Arc permanently either.

The basement could remain a home while Sieghart disappeared for several weeks or months whenever he found somewhere capable of teaching knowledge unavailable here. Magic cities beyond human territory might possess entirely different disciplines. Foreign nations could preserve elemental branches Lunar Arc had never studied, while independent craftsmen and researchers might teach techniques human nobles considered irrelevant. There were obvious dangers.

His wanted poster still existed somewhere, his family might eventually learn he survived, and people interested in Seraphina's successor could become considerably more troublesome once Sieghart traveled without the Lunar Arc nearby. Those dangers no longer felt sufficient to justify permanent isolation. Staying underground forever would keep him hidden, but it would also ensure his knowledge remained limited by whatever information eventually reached Seraphina.

Mira interrupted his thoughts by opening one drawer and removing a narrow book bound in dark blue leather, its cover decorated with a silver eye surrounded by several concentric circles.

"I do have something else." This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Sieghart looked at the book.

"That sounded suspiciously convenient."

"It isn't Black Magic."

"Less convenient." Mira ignored him and placed the book carefully upon the desk. Unlike most introductory magical texts Sieghart had borrowed, this one looked old enough that several corners had been repaired repeatedly.

"This is ocular magic." Sieghart's attention sharpened immediately.

"Ocular?"

"Magic developed through the eyes." That sounded far more interesting than the vague wording initially suggested, especially after Sieghart had already experimented with Enhanced Smell and temporary hearing reinforcement during previous missions. Mira opened the first pages and showed diagrams of an eye surrounded by mana channels, sensory pathways, layered magical structures, and several warnings written prominently beside the earliest exercises.

"It's troublesome to learn."

"How troublesome?"

"You can damage your eyesight if you are too hasty." Sieghart stared at the page.

"That kind of troublesome."

"Exactly." Mira explained that ocular magic belonged broadly to sensory and utility traditions rather than one universal school. Different techniques enhanced distance, movement perception, mana observation, structural analysis, or magical prediction. The book she offered concentrated upon mana perception, beginning with exercises designed to teach the caster how to observe energy without allowing excessive magical reinforcement to damage the eyes.

Sieghart remembered his first Enhanced Smell experiment immediately. Starting with his nose instead of his vision had saved him from discovering whether First Aid could repair magically damaged retinas.

"What does this one do?"

"At first? Not much."

"That seems promising."

"You'll learn to see mana." Mira tapped one diagram showing multiple colored streams surrounding a human silhouette, immediately reminding Sieghart of the utility spell she had just revealed during their conversation. The technique was not identical to Mira's ability, but it followed related principles. With enough training, Sieghart could distinguish mana quantity, density, movement, affinity, and abnormal concentrations inside living beings. That alone would have been valuable.

The Orc King had transformed directly in front of Sieghart, yet he possessed no method to understand the corrupted reinforcement until surviving enough attacks to observe its effects. Against Chimerians, magical sight could reveal altered organs, concentrated cores, prepared spells, and whichever sections of their bodies carried enough mana to represent obvious threats before combat began.

Mira turned several pages toward the more advanced portions, where diagrams showed mana moving through limbs before physical attacks and gathering around internal channels before spell activation.

"If you master it, you can read people before they move." Sieghart looked up.

"How?"

"Mana usually moves first." A mage preparing Fireball gathered energy before flames appeared. Reinforcement concentrated around muscles before explosive movement, while Aura users often strengthened whichever limbs would carry their next attack. The interval could be tiny, especially against experienced fighters, but somebody capable of recognizing those patterns might predict an attack before the opponent physically committed toward performing it. Sieghart immediately imagined the Orc King charging again.

Even half a second of warning before those devastating swings could have changed several exchanges and possibly prevented the kick that nearly destroyed his ribs. The ability would become equally useful outside combat. Seeing magical structures directly could accelerate runic engineering, alchemy, corrupted-core research, Telekinesis experiments, and whatever other disciplines Sieghart collected later.

"You're giving me this?"

"Loaning."

"Of course." Mira closed the book before sliding it across the desk toward him. Sieghart accepted it carefully, feeling the weight of several hundred pages and enough dangerous exercises to occupy another inconvenient portion of his life.

"Do not experiment on both eyes immediately."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"I started Enhanced Smell because damaging my nose seemed safer than damaging my eyes." Mira stared at him.

"That explanation somehow made me less comfortable." Sieghart tucked the book beneath one arm and ignored her expression. Ocular Magic might not provide another Black Magic element, but its applications could become considerably broader than one additional offensive spell. Still, the earlier disappointment remained quietly underneath his interest. Mira had given him something valuable, yet she could not provide what he had originally requested. That was happening more often.

Sieghart looked toward the shelves surrounding Mira's office and realized he had once considered them nearly limitless. Now he could imagine entire magical traditions existing beyond every volume inside them. Perhaps that was inevitable. The stronger he became, the fewer beginner answers remained useful, and the more frequently his questions reached places ordinary guild knowledge had never explored. Mira noticed him staring toward the shelves.

"What?"

"Nothing." That was not completely true. Sieghart was already imagining maps, roads, foreign cities, distant guilds, ruined laboratories, old battlefields, and places where magic developed without Aura nobles deciding what counted as respectable. He could explore them. Not tomorrow. Probably not next week either. But soon. The idea felt different from accepting another mission. Missions belonged to Mira, Lunar Arc, clients, or whoever happened to need someone with excessive mana and questionable survival instincts.

Traveling alone would belong entirely to Sieghart. He could choose destinations according to what he wanted to learn instead of waiting for useful knowledge to accidentally appear during somebody else's problem. That independence carried risks he could not dismiss. Nobody would automatically rescue him, provide intelligence, arrange transportation, or explain which seemingly harmless village secretly harvested organs. Sieghart almost smiled.

Then again, Lunar Arc missions had already sent him toward unfinished dungeon guardians, invading orcs, explosive workshops, and Chimerian territory, so the difference might be smaller than advertised. Mira leaned forward slightly.

"You're thinking about something."

"I'm always thinking."

"..." Sieghart looked down at the ocular-magic book rather than answering. There was no reason to announce plans he had not yet made, especially when Mira would immediately produce several arguments for remaining nearby. He did not want another person deciding whether he was ready. That thought surprised him with its certainty. Sieghart respected Mira. He trusted her more than almost anyone currently alive, which was precisely why he needed to recognize that trust and dependence were different things.

Her guild came first. His goals needed to come first for him. There was nothing wrong with those priorities existing separately until they conflicted, and Sieghart had no intention of waiting for that conflict before learning how to stand independently.

"For now, I'll learn this." Mira nodded.

"Preferably without blinding yourself." Sieghart turned toward the door before she reconsidered lending him the book, already planning how to test the safest introductory exercises without repeating the nosebleed incident somewhere considerably more important. He reached the doorway and glanced back once. Mira had already returned to paperwork, shifting seamlessly from worrying about him toward whichever guild problem waited next.

That single image confirmed something Sieghart had been considering throughout the conversation. Mira would always have responsibilities pulling her attention in dozens of directions, and that was unlikely to change. Sieghart stepped into the hallway with the book beneath his arm and began walking toward the basement, though his thoughts were already traveling considerably farther than those familiar underground rooms. He did not intend to abandon Lunar Arc. Not permanently.

But perhaps it was finally time to stop treating the basement as the entire world and start treating it as somewhere worth returning to.