Early morning.
This was a rather spacious bedroom.
Although there was no carpet and the walls were simply painted white, it had everything it needed—desk, wardrobe, and bed—and there was even an oil painting hanging on the wall.
Sunlight poured through the wide glass window onto the desk, bathing the entire room in a faint golden glow, reminiscent of a countryside minor noble’s bedroom at first glance.
“Petty spirit of fire, gather your small flame in my hand—『Firework』.”
A ball of flame appeared in Lulumia’s right hand, then quickly fizzled out.
After a few seconds, she repeated the movement, summoning the flame, then extinguishing it.
She wasn’t doing this to kill time out of boredom, but to engage in another highly valuable task aside from designing and revising the type mold.
Raising her magic power.
A person’s magic power isn’t fixed—it gradually increases with experience in using it. In Lulumia’s view, it was quite similar to leveling up by defeating monsters in games, except that fighting monsters wasn’t the only way to improve here; sparring with others, continuously casting spells, or reading magic books would all increase magic power.
Moreover, in the real world, people can’t see their own experience bar; unless they use a magic tool to detect magic power, they don’t know exactly what level their magic has reached.
But Lulumia was different.
Sitting at the desk, she opened her panel.
Though her level was still just 1, her magic power had changed from the 13/13 it was before meeting Amy to 1/15.
Her magic capacity had increased by 2.
The higher one’s magic limit, the closer one is to advancing to a higher magic rank.
She wasn’t sure exactly how much magic was needed to reach level 2, but being able to clearly see her magic power increasing gave her an edge over others.
If only there were a more intuitive display, like an experience bar.
Lulumia clicked her tongue; her current Mindfulness Value was 17.
She wondered if, after dropping even lower, she’d be able to see the experience bar.
No, don’t get distracted by pointless thoughts.
It’s better to keep working hard—without enough level, no one will take you seriously.
She took a deep breath and turned her right palm upward.
“Petty spirit of fire, gather your small flame in my hand—『Firework』.”
Whoosh.
A flame ignited in her palm out of thin air.
Then, with a thought, Lulumia ended the spell.
She glanced at her panel again and widened her eyes in surprise.
Her magic had jumped from 1/15 to 0/16; after a whole morning of effort, her magic limit had increased by 1.
This meant that starting today, every time she completely depleted her magic, she could reliably gain 1 point of maximum magic power.
“Still too slow.”
Lulumia muttered to herself.
When she first arrived in this world, her magic cap was only 13.
After a round with Amy and the smugglers, it rose to 15.
She’d barely used any magic during that fight, yet her maximum magic jumped by 2.
Now, even after exhausting all her magic, the cap only rose by 1. In other words, real combat gave much more experience than simply casting spells repeatedly.
Eno’s previous comment—”Training is pointless; better to go monster hunting in the Great Forest”—was grounded in reality.
“I’m still far off.”
Lulumia let out a long sigh.
Right now, she was nowhere near strong enough to fight monsters; she could only start from steadily exhausting her magic every day.
She might as well drain her magic first thing every morning, then get to work.
Once her magic recovered in the afternoon, she’d repeat the process.
If she worked hard enough, she’d surpass everyone else in the end.
If only she had money to buy magic potions, then she could be a pay-to-win warrior, chugging potions while burning through magic.
Don’t underestimate a penniless young girl!
Gritting her teeth in frustration, Lulumia pushed away her worries, picked up the quill pen on the desk, and threw herself into designing type molds.
To move the newspaper project forward as soon as possible, she’d been shuttling between the temple and Sean’s carpenter workshop these days.
Designing type molds was a complex process that required constant trial and error.
She needed to bring her finished designs to Cooper, who would carve them, then pass them to Sean for processing, and finally test them with the printing press.
If the printed letters were still spaced improperly, she’d have to redesign the type mold and repeat the process until the results were satisfactory.
Though the molds had already been improved several times, since Ounheimese wasn’t Lulumia’s native language, and she wasn’t familiar enough with it herself, the finished products were still not up to standard.
But for Lulumia, fixing the spacing was just a matter of time. The real problem was production.
Wooden type molds wore out easily and didn’t last long—they had to be replaced with metal ones, and making those wasn’t cheap.
On top of that, the ink used for printing was another headache: the local ink didn’t dry fast enough for printing, so it needed improvement.
It all came down to one thing: money.
She could use the excuse of making the printing press to borrow more money from Eno, but she’d already borrowed some not long ago and was embarrassed to ask again so soon.
Besides, she didn’t even know how many gold coins it would take to make metal molds.
If she borrowed too much at once, it would ruin her image as a hard worker in Eno’s eyes, but if she borrowed too little, she’d have to keep asking.
Going to Eno was really a last resort.
No matter what, she had to maintain her lovely, thoughtful, and hardworking image in Eno’s heart—that was the key to her safety.
For now, she’d have to print a few books using wooden molds and try to earn her first bucket of gold.
She might as well start with the holy texts of the Istelle Church.
The so-called holy texts were not just a single book, but a term for all books that contained the doctrines of the Istelle Church, recorded the deeds and words of the Great Water Spirit Istelle and her followers, and chronicled the words and deeds of Saints of the church throughout the ages.
For instance, the Istelle Church doctrine Lulumia used to demonstrate the printing press earlier was one type of holy text.
The holy text she was using now was a book she had borrowed from Eno, with a market price as high as eleven gold coins.
As these thoughts ran through her mind, Lulumia picked up the type molds she’d finished and walked to the printing press set in the corner of her bedroom—since she couldn’t keep the printing press at Ryan’s place forever, she’d spent a few copper coins to have some laborers carry the disassembled machine to her room and reassemble it.
She arranged the improved molds according to the contents of the first page of the holy text and began another round of testing.
***
Cardinal Bishop Sander Coquain of the Istelle Church’s West Oed Diocese was striding furiously toward the temple’s dormitory area.
Here, a Cardinal Bishop, unlike the ones in Earth’s Catholic Church, was one rank below a Red Bishop.
Though both oversaw a single diocese, the Red Bishop was responsible for big matters—negotiating with local lords, organizing Holy Knights to subjugate monsters, presiding over divine descent ceremonies—while the Cardinal Bishop handled internal affairs, like supervising the clergy for abuse of authority or improper conduct.
Organizing the training for candidates selected from each diocese as Saint Children fell within the Cardinal Bishop’s responsibilities.
In a sense, he was the teacher and direct supervisor of all Saint Child candidates.
Lately, it was common knowledge in the temple that the Saint Child of Leisure, Eno, often skipped classes.
The reason?
She had taken in a magus automaton discovered during the recent anti-smuggling operation.
Sander had investigated that magus automaton—lazy, gluttonous, deep in debt, had even offended the nation’s fourth princess.
Most crucially, though an assistant to the Saint Child, her magic power was astonishingly low.
Apart from having a better innate build than other magus automatons, there was nothing noteworthy about her.
In Sander’s eyes, Eno had simply become spoiled, distracted by toys and neglecting her duties.
He had been a Cardinal Bishop for over thirty years, and never before had anyone dared ignore his orders.
Now, he was storming to the nuns’ dormitory to drag out the automaton who was holding back the Saint Child, to see just how she had bewitched Eno.
As a contrast, every nun who saw Sander in the hallway avoided him as if he were the plague, especially since his face was dark with anger.
None of them wanted to be the target of a leader so harsh that he would come to scold them over even a speck of dust on the carpet.
With no obstacles in his way, Sander soon arrived at the corridor where Lulumia’s room was.
Seeing the door open, he paused, straightened his vestments, and prepared to enter and interrogate the good-for-nothing magus automaton.
But before Sander could open his mouth, he stopped in his tracks.
A girl, about ten years old, her silver hair tied in a single ponytail with a black satin ribbon, was sitting at the desk, practicing magic with total concentration.
The green of her eyes reflected the flickering fire, her young face tinged with a maturity that didn’t belong to a girl her age.
Bathed in sunlight, her delicate chin and fine profile were outlined in a faint gold, like an angel descended to earth, her earnestness so striking that he hesitated to disturb her.
Her magic practice was fluid and natural, without the slightest hesitation.
Although she was only using the lowest level 『Firework』 spell, she was utterly patient and attentive.
Having taught generations of Saint Children, Sander had seen this look on many faces—it was the mark of a hard worker, never overreaching, patient even with the most basic of magic.
He couldn’t help but relax his stern expression, his eyebrows lifting in perplexity.
Wasn’t she supposed to be arrogant and lazy?
Why was she so different from the rumors?
Everyone knew that repeated spellcasting increased magic power, but very few actually persisted in daily practice.
The reason was simple—when magic becomes part of daily life, setting aside time to practice each day becomes unbearably dull.
It’s like everyone knows exercise is good for you, but only a handful actually keep it up.
Watching Lulumia continue to use 『Firework』 tirelessly in her room, Sander quietly channeled his magic.
“『Mana Sight』.”
A bluish glow covered Sander’s irises, turning his vision into a scene akin to infrared imaging.
Lulumia appeared as a pale, blue-tinged white figure, indicating that her magic was nearly depleted—she’d been practicing for quite some time.
Impressive.
Sander was slightly moved.
To practice magic unsupervised until all one’s power was exhausted—that level of self-discipline was astonishing, enough to put even most Saint Children to shame.
Though her casting was a bit rough—her teacher probably hadn’t taught her well.
Sander evaluated silently, but a faint suspicion crept into his heart.
Was this a sporadic effort, or just for show because he was watching?
After all, she’d just been purchased by the Saint Child; a sudden burst of hard work made sense—every new Saint Child candidate started out eager to impress, but after a month or two, the lazy ones reverted to their old ways.
As for doing it just for show, perhaps the nuns had heard he was coming and tipped her off.
He needed to observe for a while longer.
Sander nodded to himself quietly.
If Lulumia truly worked this hard all the time, she wouldn’t have such a terrible reputation.
Suddenly, Lulumia stood up.
She walked to a bizarre machine, set the wooden blocks from her bag onto it one by one, and placed a copy of the Istelle holy text nearby.
What could she do with her magic depleted?
Sander frowned.
Even he, as well-informed as he was, couldn’t tell what she meant to do with the holy text—thankfully, she was only setting it aside.
Otherwise, he would have suspected her of trying to tamper with the holy text.
He watched, as Lulumia neatly arranged the wooden blocks, applied ink, laid a blank sheet of paper onto the machine, then pulled a lever.
In the next moment, she held a sheet filled with text up to the sunlight.
Sander’s eyes, narrowed by years of wrinkles, flew wide open.
What was this machine?
Did it instantly write out text?
Before he could get a good look at the paper, Lulumia shook her head, swapped in new type molds, and repeated the process.
With a “click,” another page full of text appeared before Sander’s eyes.
Again?
Magic?
Sander used 『Mana Sight』 again, but the results showed not a trace of magic from the machine.
This wasn’t a magic tool.
Driven by curiosity, he used 『Far Sight』 to see distant objects; through the back of the paper, he could just make out that both sheets bore the first page of the Istelle Church’s doctrine.
This was…
“Excuse me, Grandpa, do you need something?”