With this, Elric’s mind had immediately gone blank as he hurriedly started to plead Monster to teach him this method.

Only a wisp of dark smog could be seen entering the Moonlight Lens, looking as if the surface of the mirror was boiling over with steam. But then dark cracks started to form on it. With each strand, it looked as if it was crawling over the surface of the mirror as if it were alive. Each dark crack had been like a rope that looked like it could absorb life itself, and the more cracks that accompanied the dark strands formed from the bubbles, the smaller the Moonlight Lens became. It was almost as if it were being evaporated. Soon enough, the entirety of the Moonlight Lens had disappeared from sight. And with a clap of thunder, Elric had fainted.

Time had gone on for some time before Elric finally awoke right on top of a tremendous but complicated magic array. As soon as he awoke, the magic array underneath him had started to fade. And in the blank space of his mind, Elric could remember an extremely lengthy incantation run through it.

It had taken around two hours before Elric had finally felt himself back to normal. The incantation had really been a long one! It was also an incantation he wasn’t familiar with too.

Gingerly, Elric attempted to enunciate some magical incantation. And as soon as it was muttered, a transparent wall erected itself right in front of him. If not for the slightly twinkling words, Elric would have thought absolutely nothing happened at all.

Creaakkkk!

The sudden opening of the door startled Elric, prompting the light in the room to flicker and disappear.

It was Belladonna who had entered the room, but she hadn’t been attentive enough to see what Elric was just doing. The only thing she had seen was the fact that Elric was alive, but that was enough for her to be happy. Pulling at him, she led him to eat supper.

When he was seated at the table, Elric made an attempt to make a request from Crazy. An attempt that would help him learn some knowledge on magic arrays. Originally, he hadn’t bothered to think that he’d able to learn anything, but then he was pleasantly surprised when Crazy had actually agreed. But the fact that she did so gave reason for Elric to grow hesitant. Because of her past actions, Elric was actually afraid of the reason why Crazy had agreed so readily to him. 

In fact, even his companions felt the same way as he did.

Crazy had clearly realized the sentiments of everyone in the room, prompting her to speak out to reassure him.

“Relax.”

“There’s no way Elric wouldn’t be afraid.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“As if.”

 Everyone thought.

“Don’t forget, you’ve signed an agreement with me. As of right now, you’re my personal property. Naturally, I’d like to treat my things well.”

“Aaah.”

For the following period of time after that, Elric had finally received a formal education under Crazy. One just had to look past the deranged and crazy nature of Crazy; she was by all rights still an erudite magus. Her research and knowledge in the field of magic could still be said to be second-to-none and could even erect magical arrays that could link Nadirheim to the human world.

Everyday Elric woke up, there was a new pile of knowledge to learn from. From the start, he could at least surmise that learning about formulating magical arrays were many times harder than using magic. What made it worse was just how Crazy liked to teach. Not only did she barely talk about the principles of formulating a magical array, she rarely touched upon the implementations of it or the meditational methods. The only thing she focused on was making Elric memorize the way to set up and use these magical arrays. 

Afterwards, she’d make Elric try them out himself.

As expected, he came across plenty of near-death experiences, but at the very least, he came to memorize each of the magical arrays taught to him.

This type of teaching method had a direct relationship with how much the student could learn and how much the student valued his life. With this teaching style, even the dumbest and most magical illiterate barbarians and students could become the ideal student.

It really felt as if this was the only way Crazy knew how to teach--or, at least, as far as he could tell. When Elric looked at how Kite was being taught, he saw very little differences between the two.

Two months had passed in this serene matter of studying before Elric’s life as a student came to a closure. But don’t think that Kite or Elric had finished their studies. Don’t think that Belladonna finished her mission of washing all of Crazy’s dirty laundry either. Even worse, don’t think that Crazy found the goodness of her heart to set them free from their miseries. 

No.

The only reason their pitiful lives as examinee students came to an end was because of the sudden coming of a guest.

The next morning, Elric and Kite had only just finished their morning routines. By morning routines, one had to remember the fact that Elric had his unforgettable lessons being baked alive from his experiments with magical arrays. Then one also had to remember that Kite was constantly in danger of being eaten like a plate of vegetables and fruits whenever he went in to take care of the two thorn dragons when they fought. And then, one also had to remember that it was Belladonna’s duty to heal the both of them.

Just then, a strong light suddenly came pouring out from above the ceiling along with an explosive sound that caused both Crazy and Jerry to come out from their rooms. Crazy had been in the middle of her experiments and Jerry had actually been sleeping.

By the time the light cleared up, a young pretty noble woman came walking out from its light. Her long golden hair was especially dazzling with how it was tied up and shined with the light. She wore a splendid dress and held a velvet fan in her hands; making her seem as if she was dressed for a banquet--a stark contrast to where she actually was. 

But Kite—who was in the middle of being healed--immediately clawed his way back up and dressed himself down as soon as he saw this new visitor. Striding two steps forward, he bent down to his knee and proclaimed, “Princess! What brings your Highness to such a place like this?”

“Princess?”

 Elric gasped to himself. He heard once before that the king had two children; a son and a daughter. But as the son of a grocer, he and the children of royalty lived in completely different worlds. 

Not once did Elric imagine that he’d live to see the day where one of the two would be in the same place as he. 

From the looks of it, the princess wasn’t too different in age from Kite, but she was still quite clearly much more mature than he was.

Upon notice of Kite, the princess curtsied to him. “Ah, so we meet again in a place like this, mister Kite.” 

Then, ignoring the other people in the room, she walked towards Crazy and gave an even deeper curtsy to her, “Greetings, honorable teacher. Your student has a request to ask of you.”