[Lifespan Remaining: 25 days, 15 hours, 43 minutes.]
"I have no idea what you’re talking about."
Noct started backing away, hands flailing in front of his body. He hadn’t accounted for this, any of it. Whatever she was talking about...it looked serious.
"H—hey...Let’s calm down now. We can talk to each other slowly and—"
But instead of getting blasted with an ice spell and suffering an eternal damnation like he expected, the witch was suddenly clinging to his leg, bawling her eyes out.
"Please tell me how you did it! How did you make a spirit appear? How did you convince it to choose you? I’ve tried everything!"
"I’ll pay you anything. Please just teach me!"
"..."
The last remnants of Noct’s first impression of her shattered completely. But this whole time, he still didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.
’Fairy? Do I really have one following me? How the hell does she know?’
Even Noelle, who usually didn’t show much but her aloof resting face, had widened her eyes as soon as the whole fiasco went down.
Having a 7-Star Magus bawling at his feet felt strange, so Noct quickly helped her to her feet. "Alright, alright. Please get up. This is kind of awkward..."
Though the more he thought about it, the more Noct realized he had overlooked a certain piece of information from the game.
Despite being a highly sought-after teacher, Lenia only taught one subject at Rexford Academy—Summoning.
’But she gets invited after everything goes down in Altaire...so how the hell can she teach summoning when right now she’s clinging onto my leg like this?!’
Then, out of the corner of his vision, he felt the presence of something. It looked like a ball of glowing green light, but he could feel something inside it. Though almost as soon as he did, the light flew into a pocket in his coat and stayed there.
"Ah! Why do the spirits hate me..." the witch wallowed in despair. "Why...?!"
Though with his mana sensitivity, Noct realized there might be a correlation. Lenia leaked a lot of mana from her body, so much that it was less like a leaky pipe and more like a broken dam.
Noct couldn’t believe that a Magus of her caliber was incapable of controlling her own output. The only other explanation he could think of was the fact that she was excited to see a spirit in a long while?
’Is her presence overwhelming to them or something? Wait, then how come this one likes me?’
Before he could examine the phenomenon any further, Lenia sprang to her feet. Having apparently promoted Noct from unwanted intruder to prospective teacher, she hurriedly dusted off her pajamas.
"Ah, forgive my discourtesy! Please head upstairs, esteemed guests!"
Noct and Noelle exchanged a glance. Just minutes ago, Lenia wanted to throw them out. Now she was practically rolling out a red carpet.
The maid quickly retrieved the small arsenal she left outside before following her Young Master into the tower. Lenia didn’t seem concerned about the weapons anymore.
If anything, she looked more afraid of the fact that Noct might’ve taken offense from her attitude early and was trying to butter him up.
"Why are you so interested in spirits?" Noct asked between breaths, climbing up the fifth flight of stairs already. "I mean, you’re already a 7-Star Magus..."
"I reached 7-Star more than a decade ago," she eventually said. "At the time, I believed it was merely another step."
’She really is a humble person, huh?’
"But no matter what I tried afterward, I couldn’t progress any further," she continued. "Meditation, mana-crystal absorption, reconstructing my circulation..."
"And none of them worked?"
"Do you think I would be begging you if they had?"
"Fair point."
They reached the next floor. Lenia led them into a circular study filled with books, incomplete magic circles, and stacks of handwritten notes. Several expensive gifts had been shoved carelessly into one corner, most likely offerings from Faust and Amelia.
Lenia swept a pile of papers from the nearest couch and gestured for them to sit.
"Eventually, I began researching alternatives," she said. "That was when I discovered spirit contracts."
Noct remembered reading an explanation on it. He wasn’t sure how exactly, but spirit contracts usually helped with bottlenecks in advancements at higher ranks.
Though compatibility was an important factor, which meant a Magus like Lenia would be looking for an equally strong spirit.
"Does that mean you’re looking for a High-Class nymph?"
"Not just any." Lenia crossed her arms. "After years of research, I finally tracked down the Queen of the Nymphs, Undyne!"
The name wasn’t unfamiliar to Noct.
In the game, spirits exist as additional buffs to a character, and the most talented usually possessed a spirit contract. And there was a base class dedicated to harnessing a spirit’s power called the "Summoner."
If he remembered correctly, the strongest spirits ranged from "Sacred" to "Destructive", with the former known to have made contracts with humans throughout history.
"Is that what brought you to Altaire?" Noct put the pieces together. "You believe that Undyne currently resides here?"
"Precisely."
"The Altaire river carries mana directly from the surrounding mountains. The waterfall provides a constant concentration of pure water-aspected mana," the witch explained. "There was no better place to attract a water spirit."
"...And how long have you been here?"
"Five years, four months, and eleven days...and counting."
Hearing Lenia explain her history didn’t prove Noct’s theory, but it made it a hell of a lot more sense now that he had the pieces to work with.
Mana was more complicated than he had initially realized. It retained traces of its owner’s emotions and intent. Lenia constantly leaked mana, and her obsessive desire to secure a contract had become imprinted upon every trace of it.
To an ordinary spirit, her mana must have resembled a suspicious stranger sprinting toward them with a collar in one hand and a contract in the other.
"Of course they ran..."
Before Noct could decide how much of his theory to reveal, a faint blue light caught his attention.
Several mana crystals had been scattered among the various shelves in Lenia’s study. Some were used as paperweights while others were in random glass jars spread everywhere across the floor.
’What the...are these actually...?’
He bent over to pick one up. The color slowly drained from it, turning dim and moving towards his fingers.
〔Mana-Lifeforce Synthesis [★★★★★★★] — Activated.〕
[Lifespan Remaining: 25 days, 16 hours, 38 minutes.]
’They’re real...!’