25. Am I not allowed to care for a troublemaker?

As one might expect, Master Brian reappeared in Simon's laboratory before the latter could even blink. In his hands was a black folder with runes engraved on it.

"Yo, Brian," stammered Master Simon while immediately opening a few graphs before commenting on them. "Luz woke up for a short while before falling asleep again. Also, take a look at his measurements."

The lord of the mansion raised an eyebrow before muttering, "It seems like everything has returned to normalcy. We should still observe him for a week before discharging him"

Simon nodded in agreement before proudly remarking, "Yeah, I already prepared a room for him in my mage tower. Also, you better not doubt my skills again, hehehe. I'll be sending you all the research data I got from the young boy and all further data I collect from him."

"Perfect," added Master Brian while maintaining a straight face. "Well, I don't doubt your skill. However, I despise your recklessness. One can't always be successful, my dear Simon."

"Yeah-yeah-yeah, I know, Brian," yawned Master Simon while throwing a booklet containing notes and measuring data from Luz's body at him.

The latter caught it with his free hand before taking a seat and opening it to deepen his understanding of Luz's situation. "Go take a nap. I'll be taking over from here."

"Thanks," yawned Master Simon before leaving the laboratory.

After hours of reading, Master Brian got bored reading through the data and placed the booklet aside.

"I shouldn't be opening it here," he sighed as his gaze fell onto the dark folder he carried with him as runes glowed on it.

"Fuck it. I'll just cast a few anti-surveillance arcane spells before reading through it," cursed Master Brian impatiently.

The first spell Master Brian cast was a dual spell, a combination of two simpler magic spells that are easy to wield but useless on their own.

「Reflective room and Mana wave.」

These two spells do as their name implies, and in combination, they can be used as a "mana echo," detecting any device running on mana or a living creature.

This detection generally occurs due to the fact that the moment anything magical gets struck by mana, a small portion of the mana wave is immediately absorbed, altering the wave profile instantly. If the caster's mana senses are sharp enough, one can pinpoint the location where the alteration likely has occurred upon feeling the mana wave's reflection.

To Master Brian's surprise, the reflection he got was strange as he didn't even get a signal from Luz's place, meaning that the latter absorbed it completely, which shouldn't be possible.

"Strange…" After shaking his head, Master Brian utilized a few other spells for precaution.

「Air bubble.」「Vacum.」「Black box.」

Only then did Master Brian feel safe enough to open the black folder, which was glowing brightly by now.

However, in order to open the folder, a special key with the owner's signature was necessary. Master Brian opened his fist, and mana immediately got drained from the environment while accumulating in his palm till a key manifested in his hand.

However, creating a key wasn't enough because otherwise, people such as lockpickinglawyer could easily open it. There was something missing… a secret sauce… maybe it's love, or maybe, it's even the crabby patty recipe from SpongeBob.

Unfortunally, the missing components were the elements, or rather, their concentration to each other, which took Master Brian a few minutes to create.

Upon taking out the documents inside the folder, Master Brian's eyes immediately narrow.

The paragraph of the first pace:

"FATAL CASUALTIES. OVER 80% OF THE BEGINNER MAGES DIED DURING THE BATTLE IN PLACE 「REDACTED.」 PROVINCIAL LORD WILL PROPOSE A NEW TRAINING PLAN TO CREATE THE NEXT FURTHER OF POWERFUL MAGES. ALL LOCAL MASTER MAGES ARE OBLIGATED TO JOIN THE MEETING."

After finishing reading through the classified notes, Master Brian was left with an uneasy feeling as he began pondering with a somber expression what the provincial lord might be up to next as he stood beneath him.

In the end, however, he could only sigh.

"I feel pity for them. The young ones fight wars that got started before they were even born. They've been told that they are fighting for the honor of the country when in reality, they are fighting for natural resources."

Hours passed, and Luz woke up with a groan. Hearing the noise, Brian slowly stood up to greet the young troublemaker.

Luz stretched his limbs while loudly yawning as he inspected his body in hopes of finding anything different from the norm. Unfortunally, his body hasn't much changed, except that he lost fat and muscles, making his body thinner than he was.

'Yeah, I gotta eat more from now on,' Luz thought as another yawn escaped his mouth.

"Yo," commented Brian with a smile, shocking the half-awake Luz in the process, as he didn't expect his Master at all.

"Master Brian, what are you doing here!?" stuttered Luz while covering his naked body.

The latter grabbed Luz's cheeks while saying, "Am I not allowed to care for a troublemaker?"

A pain shot immediately through Luz's body, and he immediately grabbed after the latter's hand while whimpering, "argh, it hurts." Next to his Master, Luz was like a feeble child, as he couldn't defend against the latter.

After toying with his servant, Brian began lecturing him for an hour about why his action was stupid. Luz should have asked him for advice instead of making such important decisions with little to no afterthought.

"Fine, I promise. I'll never do something like that again without asking you," sighed Luz with red cheeks.

Brian nodded before stating, "Brat… you will be staying here with Liv for a week before your work resumes. Till then, you are forbidden from leaving the tower and using magic. Also, that girl should teach you some basics."

After stating that, Brian unplugged most of the tubes responsible for mana, nutrition, and air supply, before changing most of the measurement sticks with ones that were the size of grains.

Only after that did he bring Luz to his new guest room before leaving the tower altogether.

The door to the guest room reserved for him was made out of mahogany wood that had a warm touch. After taking a deep breath, Luz opened the door and was immediately amazed by what awaited him. It was twice as big compared to the one he shared with his four siblings while also being decorated with exotic objects he had never seen in his life.

Of course, the room had the basic stuff such as a bed, a few closets, and a desk made of brown ebony wood. Above the desk was a shelf filled to the brim with books.

But that wasn't all. Over the bed was a goddamn monster head embedded into the wall. Luz couldn't care less about the monster head, whose species was unknown to him if it wasn't for it moving its gaze from time to time.

Gulping, Luz ignored it before grabbing a random book off the shelf so that he could kill his boredom till he fell asleep or till someone visited him. After holding a small but thick book, Luz immediately jumped onto his new bed, which felt like heaven compared to the ones from the mansion.

"[What awaits outside the human kingdom? An introduction to the countries surrounding us.] Yeah, that sounds interesting," Luz commented upon reading the book's title.

But before he could continue, someone ripped the door open.