"Dear father, your daughter wishes to ask for your consent to let her venture outside and has a chance to train herself." Forus, whose soul was controlling Ocelia's balanced body, slowly sat down on the ground, expressing her respect towards the aged man who was sitting above the highest seat of the Coruscare Family.

Accompanying the eldest mistress of the family, all other servants and the members of the Coruscare Family kneeled onto the ground and kowtowed, showing their devotion and loyalty. Not a single member of the family dared to raise their head and look into the abyss-like eyes of the seated figure.

The figure was naturally the person with the highest control over the Coruscare Family, the current family head of the sorcery family, the enigmatic second-ranked sorcerer, Levota Coruscare.

Levota was not the most talented member of Coruscare at his time, but he was the most cunning and decisive member of the upper echelons. In reality, his talent alone couldn't help him to advance to the first-ranked sorcerer, however, using his great mind and ruthless nature, he had seized the talented and special elemental affection from one of his siblings, crippling them and wasting their sorcery cultivation.

Not only that, but he also managed to win over the majority of the upper echelons of the family, using nothing but his initial connection inherited from his mother, an insignificant concubine that got poisoned to death due to the vengeance of the victim of his power seize.

In the end, he schemed with the Ninguis Family to take down his obstacles between him and the seat of the successor before finally staged their betrayal, dealing an immense blow to the Ninguis Family, causing their hostility to intensify from that point onwards.

However, after reaping the benefits from betraying the Ninguis Family, Levota had amassed enough resource and had unexpectedly broken through the limit and advanced into the rank of the second-ranked sorcerers. With his newfound power, he forced the previous head to retire from his position and became a rightful successor of the family.

Because of the power of the second-ranked sorcerer, the Ninguis Family could only watch the success of Levota in silent, not daring to do anything reckless. After all, the might of the second-ranked sorcerer wasn't something anyone could ignore, even for the sorcerer families like them.

Recalling the accomplishments of the current family head, even Forus Ander, who wasn't related to the Coruscare Family in any way, except for her irresistible affection towards Ocelia Coruscare, admired and respected the man.

"Falsus Nomen is the man you yearn to be with, isn't he?" Ignoring the request, Levota Coruscare directly mentioned the open secret of the family, asking 'Ocelia' about her choices and decisions.

"Dear father, your daughter shall follow your arrangement. Even if she has to sacrifice her life." Forus immediately answered Levota's question, not wavering even in front of the mighty second-ranked sorcerer. Her love was real and would not cower beneath any external force.

Since her first life, after experiencing the hopelessness and despair of the weak, Forus had long since valued the memory of her past and her freedom in dictating her fate the most.

"Falsus Nomen, having no background, having no records concerning him anywhere. What are you going to deal with his mysterious and unknown identity?" Seeing his successor exhibiting her firm confidence and absolute resolution, Levota suddenly thought about his past, seeing his faint shadow in the keen eyes of 'Ocelia'.

"Dear father, although his identity is a mystery, his talents in the arts of alchemy are too good for any organisation to risk having him come in contact with the danger. He also had already offended our rival, the Ninguis Family, almost making Glacies lost his cool during the Steel Cauldron recruiting event." Having prepared of the questions, Forus immediately answered Levota about her 'speculations' and 'discoveries', perfectly disguising Falsus as a wanderer from afar.

"Well done, Ocelia. Embrace your love well, that man will forever become your supporting pillar, helping you overcome your mistakes, going through heaven and hell with you. With his talents in alchemy, he is an excellent choice as your husband." Despite the approval of her love, the only reason she got the approval of Levota was that Falsus was a genius in the arts of alchemy. He could quickly become one of the precious assets for the Coruscare Family to use.

After all, being the head of Coruscare Family, Levota would always put the benefits of the family first, and the happiness of the members later. However, because of his mediocre talents in sorcery, only being able to advance to become the second-ranked sorcerer by cheating the Ninguis Family, his descendants would sometimes have inferior gifts in magic.

Due to this reason, the descendants of Levota would have to struggle harder than the previous generation to complete against the Ninguis Family. With only his eldest descendant, Ocelia Coruscare, becoming the only one currently in the younger generation that advanced into the first-ranked sorcerer at a young age.

Still, talents in sorcery didn't make one achieve everything. If not, Levota wouldn't be able to become the lord of the Coruscare Family. Learning from his experience, Levota would almost never restrict and controlled his descendants' freedom and their decision-making process. Only through mistakes and failures would one become stronger and wiser.

"Thank you, dear father, for your blessing. Your daughter will work harder for the sake of our family." His approval was also the indirect approval in her journey. Overjoyed, Ocelia inadvertently raised her voice, sounding like an excited child whose father had allowed her to play outside, acting childish and cute.

However, seeing his daughter displaying incompetent behaviour, Levota immediately stared down his daughter, using his gaze to pressure her to lower her head and ceased her nonsensical response. Forus, whose body got constrained by the gaze of the second-ranked sorcerer, suddenly turned pale and quickly reduced her voice, kneeling silently, enduring the stress and pain.

"Take it. With this, you can save yourself once from a full power strike of an ordinary second-ranked sorcerer." Levota expressed no concern over the silent weep of his eldest daughter. He snapped his fingers and hurled out a solidified flaming particle, impaling into the chest of Ocelia, joining itself with her flesh and skin.

"Your daughter thanks her father for gifting her such a great treasure." The process was painful beyond compare, however, learning from her experience, Forus gritted her teeth and stopped herself from letting out any sound nor showing any pained expression.

After the pain of fusing with the flaming particle ended, Forus said some superficial words before expressing her desire to leave, wanting to go back and started preparing her properties.

After the eldest mistress of the family bade her farewell to her father, the family head casually waved his hand, permitting the others to leave. Noticing his hand gesture, no one dared to disobey. The upper echelons expressed their praise while the servants saluted in an orderly manner, emitting out the air professionalism.

Once there was only Levota Coruscare in the meeting hall, his emotionless face turned into a thoughtful one, tapping his finger across the throne in a constant rhythm. The approval of the desire of Ocelia to be with Falsus Nomen was an unanticipated surprise for him. However, it was a welcoming one.

He had plans to draw Falsus Nomen to his side, helping his bloodline descendants to gain a useful asset. As a second-ranked sorcerer, he had already known that Falsus Nomen didn't have any background and had no real threat towards his family.

If not for Ocelia's affection towards Falsus, he would have pitted Falsus in a scenario where he would unknowingly offend the Ninguis Family, dealing a blow towards their benefits and fame, forcing him to become their enemies. Then making use of his plan, his Coruscare Family would be the only helping force that could contend with the Ninguis Family.

The associations that span wide and far would not intervene with the local's affairs and political scenes as they didn't wish to offend someone with the home-ground advantage. However, the main factor was that these sorcerer families had strong support from the second-ranked sorcerers, making them hesitated to help a sorcerer apprentice from their wrath.

However, now that Ocelia and Falsus had fallen in love, which got confirmed by both surface-level and in-depth observation, Levota didn't need to run those meaningless schemes now. By helping them realised their love and attachment, wedding them together, Levota would have the absolute loyal from Falsus.

The best contract that could bind the strong and the wise was always the contract that based on their emotions, especially love.

Still, there was one aspect regarding Falsus Nomen that made Levota hesitated to immediately arranged their marriage, which was why he had agreed for Ocelia to go adventuring with Falsus for the time, trying to collect information and observed his potential.

Thinking about something, Levota couldn't help but kept smiling, feeling please about himself.

"With this in my mind, I might even reap even more than I thought." Chuckling to himself, Levota slowly rose from his throne. His robe swayed with the heat that his body emitted before suddenly froze. In the blink of an eye, his existence melted into the flaming particles, disappearing into nothingness.

...

A faint light shone, accompanied by the vibration sent out from the unimpressive necklace. Because of this phenomenon, Mabilis who was concentrating over revising his daily works got distracted and accidentally wasted his papers.

However, despite he had wasted one of his work, his face had shown nothing that could indicate him to be bitter or annoyed, only his grave and solemn expression remained.

Slowly walking towards the glowy necklace, Mabilis adjusted his attire and checked his overall appearance twice before clearing his thought, focusing his mind into thinking about what he should do after activating the necklace.

After an instant of pausing, Mabilis held the necklace up and gently pressed his thumb on the gemstone at the centre of the said necklace. The instant Mabilis pushed his finger onto it, various spell formations immediately poured out of the accessory, covering the entire room with many detections and isolation spells.

A faint white mist leaked out of the necklace, slowly forming a single circle, condensing itself into a humanoid shape. A part of the white cloud at the core of the mist turned into the black mist, recreating the facial features of a human and mimicking the expression said a human was trying to display.

"Lord Elder, Mabilis extended his greeting." Seeing that the communication device activated successfully and didn't go out of control, Mabilis spoke his prepared line before bending his back into a bow, showing a sincere expression of admiration.

"Listen well, Mabilis. I have peered into the wave of Destiny and saw an incomplete fragment of the future. Inside the ancient ruin of Fleeting Emotions, there lied a great fortune, an opportunity for one to change their destiny!" The elder quickly spoke his vague statement that could very well come from the mouth of a madman. However, Mabilis had trusted this elder unconditionally, not even thought about the possibility of its falsehood.

"Lord Elder, Mabilis will not disappoint you!" After receiving the guidance of the elder, Mabilis only asked about the overall situation of his clan before bidding the elder farewell, wanting to go and prepared for his exploration.

The elder was naturally one of the upper echelons from Mabilis' family, succeeding in advancing into a first-ranked sorcerer. These sorcerers would sometimes get a chance to peer into the future, seeing the possible scenarios and performed to reap the benefits for their clan.

Moreover, this elder was also on his side, helping him to win over the successor seal of the family, causing Mabilis to trust him the most.

"The Fleeting Emotions Ruin? Very well, Falsus Nomen, it is fate that brings us together again." Thinking about the mysterious man whose alchemy talent exceeded many, Mabilis felt that there was much more beneath the surface.

Once again, the wheel of fate started to move, coming closer and closer towards the inevitable end.