The moment they arrived at the royal library, Emilia was overwhelmed by its grandeur. Cardan had other business to attend to, so he left first, not forgetting to remind Emilia to be careful and promising to come back for her in two hours.
Once inside, Emilia was even more stunned. It felt as though every book in the world had been gathered right there.
After sending the nanny off in another direction, Emilia happily wandered the library on her own. The smell of old books utterly enchanted her.
Passing by the magic section, Emilia wondered to herself whether she might be able to use magic the way Cardan did. Curious, she picked up a copy of Magic for Beginners and started reading.
While she was absorbed in the book, she noticed someone sleeping in the corner of the room. Emilia crept closer and saw that it was a strikingly handsome young man.
The young man startled awake and asked, surprised, who she was. Emilia laughed sheepishly and apologized for waking him.
Seeing her tense up, the young man smiled brightly. "It's fine. I've slept plenty already. It's been a long time since I last saw a child in this place."
This man surely was not a child himself anymore, Emilia thought. She smiled and introduced herself.
The young man replied that his name was Fay.
Emilia asked cheerfully if they could be friends.
Fay grew wary at that. "Friends? What do you want from me?"
Emilia was taken aback. She did not want anything at all. Friends just play together and talk and have fun. That was all.
Just then the nanny started calling for her, worried. Emilia had no choice but to say goodbye to Fay, promising to come back another time.
Fay finally smiled. "Then let's be friends. I'll always be here, so come find me again next time."
Delighted that he had agreed to be her friend, Emilia happily promised she would come back, then turned and walked away.
As the two of them left the library, they ran into a crowd gathered together, whispering about her. They were saying something about how that child, the saint, had died. Frightened, Emilia hid behind the nanny's skirt and watched them.
Right at that moment, Cardan arrived to pick her up. Overjoyed, Emilia ran to him, bragging about all the interesting books she had borrowed today.
Cardan took the book from her, glanced at the crowd, and scoffed. "Nothing but a bunch of gossips with too much time on their hands. Don't pay them any mind, Emilia. Let's head home."
Sitting in the carriage, Emilia told Cardan to call her Leel from now on, her pet name. Remembering that Fay had called her that too, she wanted Cardan to use something more affectionate as well.
Cardan, reading a book, muttered under his breath about where on earth this pet name had suddenly come from.
Emilia told Cardan she wanted to learn magic too, so she could be as powerful as he was.
And so the next day a magic tutor was brought in, a charming young man named Tatau. The two of them exchanged cheerful greetings for a while.
Emilia turned to Cardan, puzzled. "Papa, are you here too? Don't you have work to do?"
Cardan answered irritably, telling the tutor to just ignore it.
Though a little nervous, Tatau got straight to work. First, he needed to check whether Emilia possessed any mana at all. He pulled out a white box and explained, "This is a testing device. Just place your hand on it and we'll know how much mana Emilia has. If it's high tier magic, it'll fill up about half the box, like this. Someone with ordinary mana would only fill up a small amount."
Excited, Emilia looked up and asked, "What color is your mana, Papa? Why don't you try touching it so I can see?"
Cardan laughed and said that would not work. His mana would shatter the box the instant it touched it. A child's toy could never withstand power like his.
Tatau broke into a sweat and explained that the Duke's mana was no ordinary thing. Even the measuring devices at the central mage tower struggled to read it.
Delighted, Emilia quickly placed her hand on the box, but nothing happened at all.
Tatau quickly reassured her. If the power inside her was divine power instead, it simply would not show up this way.
Everyone in this world was born with either mana or divine power. Those with mana became mages, and those with divine power became clerics. Mana and divine power could never mix together. Every year, on the children's rite of passage, a ceremony was held to carve a special mark onto their bodies. And in cases of emergency, a mage could be healed by someone who wielded divine power.
Tatau guessed that if Emilia did not have mana, she surely had divine power instead, since the two could never exist in the same person at once. After all, her mother had been a saint at the temple.
Emilia sighed at the thought. So how exactly was divine power supposed to be measured?
Cardan said there was no need, and told her to just look at the box.
Emilia quickly glanced down at it. The colors of mana were swirling together in the strangest way.
Catching the astonishment in Cardan's eyes, Emilia panicked and tossed the box onto the table, asking Tatau pitifully, "Is there something wrong with me?"
Tatau quickly reassured her that nothing was wrong at all. They just had to look into the cause. He himself was stunned. He was certain Emilia's mana surpassed even that of high tier mages. But mana blending two colors like this was something he had never seen before either, since each person usually carried only a single color.
While Emilia sat there worrying whether something was seriously wrong with her, Tatau told her he would head back to the mage tower to search through every book he could find and report back to her later.
After saying goodbye to Tatau, Cardan suddenly swept Emilia up into his arms, lifting her high, and said, "Looking closely, the only thing you got from me is these green eyes."
Emilia had been afraid he did not like her anymore.
Cardan told her not to worry over nothing. "I'm actually quite pleased. The mage tower should be in touch again before long. This is also the first time I've ever seen mana blended with two different colors like that. Now then, it's time for lunch."