Chapter 126: A Strange Dream

"What happened to your face?" Renna sat on the bed beside him and leaned closer, studying his face carefully.

He looked like he had lost all the baby fat from his cheeks. Even his jawline had become sharper.

Faye heard that and grew curious too. She popped her head out from behind him to get a closer look. "Oh, really, you look like my father now."

Magna’s mouth was full. He glanced at her sideways before swallowing. "How is that even possible?"

Titus had blond hair and blue eyes, while Magna had black hair and golden eyes.

"I just trained a lot today," he said casually.

Renna was the only one who knew his secret. She seemed to understand something, but she chose to stay silent.

Then she said something interesting.

"My grandmother sent an application to the Tower for me. She wants me to train there." She watched him carefully to see how he would react.

Magna stopped chewing and looked at her, intrigued by what she had said. "Application? You can do that?"

From what Titus had told him, the Tower also served as some kind of school for Witches, though he wasn’t entirely sure what kind.

He thought the Tower would only choose people, not be some kind of place you could apply to with a CV online.

Renna nodded. "If a high-rank Witch decides to take me as her disciple, I’ll go there. There’s a 16th Trial Witch my grandmother knows. She already sent the request letter, so we’re waiting for a reply."

The decision seemed sudden, going to study at the Tower out of nowhere. Magna was about to ask her reason, but she spoke first.

"Mastering a bloodline trait at a young age, or finding a new way to use one, causes quite a stir in our society, you know? My grandmother said this could catch the interest of a powerful Witch, and she might take me on as her disciple."

She said it with a sigh, sounding a little down.

Magna could guess why she felt that way. Renna wasn’t the one who had actually discovered the technique. She had only learned it.

The Tower gathered only the brightest and most talented Witches, and she knew she didn’t really fit that description. Some part of her felt like she was cheating her way in.

"Is it a good opportunity for you?" Magna asked, watching Faye out of the corner of his eye as she quietly stole fruit off his plate.

"Of course it is. It’s almost every Witch’s dream to study at the Tower, even for a short time."

"Then you should make the most of this opportunity. Knowing how to seize the chances in front of you is a kind of talent too." He gave the advice from his own experience.

Hearing that seemed to lift Renna’s mood a little as her lips turned up into a smile. "You’re right. I just need to work hard to close the gap with everyone else."

She even got up and walked to the middle of the room to continue her bloodline training.

’Why don’t you just train in your own room?’ Magna thought, too tired to say it out loud.

"Faye, can you take it outside? I’m too tired." He pointed to the trolley and then lay back on the bed.

He wasn’t used to sleeping with people around, but the moment his head hit the pillow, he sank straight into the dream world.

—

For the first time in a long while, Magna dreamed while he slept.

The dream itself was strange, but not in the way dreams are usually strange. It was strange even by a dream’s standards.

He was walking down a long corridor, its walls painted a dull, dirty yellow.

The corridor never seemed to end. No matter how far he walked, more corridors stretched out ahead of him.

The air already felt tense enough, and the fluorescent lights overhead kept flickering, clicking and clacking as they switched on and off, which only made things feel more unsettling.

He couldn’t say how long he had walked before he finally came to a door.

The door looked exactly like the one to Celeste’s study, an ordinary wooden door with no handle, only a keyhole.

Without thinking, Magna reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. He didn’t even question why it was in his pajama pocket as he slid it into the lock.

The lock clicked open, but before the door could swing wide enough to show him what lay behind it, his eyes snapped open.

—

"What kind of dream was that?" he muttered, staring up at the ceiling.

Through the whole dream he had felt strangely aware, aware enough to know he was dreaming, yet his body had kept moving on its own.

"I must have been more affected by Titus’s stories than I thought." He got up from his bed slowly.

The morning sun had already risen, filling his room with golden light through the windows.

Cool, clean air drifted in through the open window, along with birdsong from the inner garden.

Renna and Faye were gone. They had probably left once they saw him fall asleep.

He walked to the window and stretched his stiff body, easing into the calm view of the inner garden.

Oddly enough, he felt no soreness at all from yesterday’s harsh training.

If anything, he felt full of energy, enough that he wanted to start training right away to raise his stats.

He headed to the bathroom for a cold shower, to empty out what he’d eaten the day before and to change into his daily clothes.

Once he finished his morning routine, he was ready for breakfast.

With his energy still running high, he didn’t want to eat alone in his room, so he stepped out into the hall.

For some reason, the maid who usually waited by his door was nowhere to be seen, but he didn’t think much of it and kept walking down the corridor.

He wanted to check the dining room first, since that was usually when the Winterbornes gathered for breakfast, and Magna sometimes joined them.

But when he got there, no one was around.

He decided to try the kitchen next, but once again, there was no one there.

"What’s going on?" This time the strangeness of it actually struck him.

He hadn’t run into a single person so far, and the halls and rooms being this empty wasn’t normal.

On an ordinary day, he would have passed two or three maids along the way, yet he couldn’t sense anyone nearby, not even a whisper of the maids’ daily gossip.

To be sure, he left the kitchen and kept walking through the mansion to find out where everyone had gone.

He moved quickly, pushing his senses to their limit, checking every room he passed, but he still couldn’t find a single soul.

Finally, he decided to head for Celeste’s study.

The door was closed. He took the key from his pocket, slid it into the lock, and it clicked open.

He pushed the door to see who was inside, but before he could catch a glimpse of the room, his eyes snapped open again.