To start with, Zeth decided to teach Sophie what Erza had taught him—mana fields.

He drew out a small ritual circle on the ground, not giving it any sort of sacrifice so that it wouldn’t have any effects, and presented it to Sophie in the dark room. He closed his eyes and focused his sixth sense on the chalky lines, and sure enough, he found that familiar covering of mana that all magic objects had around them, absolutely filled with holes both big and small where mana spilled out of it. These holes were what gave his lines their signature glowing effect.

“Okay,” he said, “so, do you have any points in Shaping at all?”

“I only have three,” she said. “The book you gave me said I should spend exactly one Skill Point to buy three points in it to start with, since you have to have at least a little bit to unlock some of the Skills for magic Classes. But when I got them, I couldn’t figure out how to actually unlock the Skills.”

He nodded. “Alright. Well, I’m not sure how much just three points will do you for what I’m gonna ask, but it should at least let you see some of this stuff. Basically, what you’re gonna do is…Hm, so, just, like, look inward. As if you’re trying to perceive yourself.”

“What?”

Zeth frowned. He hadn’t ever explained how to do any of this stuff before. He’d just figured it out on his own. How would a teacher explain something like this? “Think of it like…Like there are two worlds, right? There’s the physical world, and the magic world. Everything we see exists in both worlds, like they’re mirrors of each other. But mana only exists in the magic world, and it collects in the areas that magic items exist in, and around people. That’s how we have mana, and how we infuse it into things. We aren’t really doing anything in the world we can see, but we’re moving mana around in the magic world. So what you’ve gotta do is stop seeing the physical world, and start seeing the magic world.”

“But how do I do that?”

“Well, your eyes can only see the physical world, so you don’t need them. Shut them, and focus on your mind. Your Shaping Stat is your eyes for the magic world. You haven’t used it before, and you don’t have much of it, so your sense will be really weak, but even the tiniest bit will give you some amount of sense for this other world. You’ve gotta find it in your head, and focus on it.” Zeth didn’t know if what he was saying was true on a theory level—he had no idea if there really was a ‘magic world’ or not—but it was how he thought of things, and he imagined for Sophie, having some sort of frame with which to think of things would be better than nothing.

“Okay…” she muttered.

Zeth opened his eyes and looked at her, seeing her face scrunched up in the way it always did when she focused.

“I think…Maybe…” Her face lit up. “Oh! I see it!”

“Really? Already?”

“Yeah! I think so. There’s this weird circle thing on the ground in front of me. It’s covered in a…net? A net of glowing lines. And this wavy flowy stuff is coming out of it. I can’t see very well, but it’s really really bright so I noticed right when I could see. I don’t even know if I would’ve noticed I was doing the right thing if it wasn’t there!”

“Okay, that’s good. So then, if you can see it, next I’ll show you how it moves.” He put his hands on the ritual circle, closing his eyes again and focusing his perception on the mana field. “All that ‘flowy stuff’ you mentioned is raw mana leaking out of the circle.”

“That’s all mana? There’s so much! Can every magic Class make this much?”

“Probably not at this low a Level,” he said. “Mine’s special. Here, focus on it, and I’m gonna start patching up the holes in the field surrounding it, so that the mana can’t escape anymore. Watch as it changes.”

He did so, attending to a few of the smaller, easier ones so it wouldn’t take too long. As usual, he slowly pulled on the strings of mana, taking care not to rip them apart as he tried gently weaving them together. After a little bit of time and a couple minor complications, he finished. “So, did you see that?”

“Woah…” she muttered. “That was amazing. How did you do it?”

“Well, it’s a little hard to explain. Essentially, I—”

“Can I try?” she asked, apparently too excited to wait for the explanation.

“I guess,” he responded. “It’s not dangerous, or anything. Just try to hone your focus in on a single tiny part of the covering, like you’re grabbing onto it with your mind, and then pull it across the field to attach it to another. But be careful not to—”

Before he could finish, Zeth watched as a massive hole was torn in the mesh.

“...I’m sorry,” Sophie said.

“It’s fine, this one’s meant for practice,” he said. “What happened there was that you pulled way too hard. You’ve gotta move really slowly with this stuff, or it’ll rip apart.”

“But I tried to move as slowly as I could.”

“Well, I guess it’s probably a good problem to have that you’re exerting too much force, rather than too little. But I’m willing to bet your low perception from your tiny Shaping Stat isn’t helping much at all with the fine movements. So don’t worry too much if you’re not able to get the hang of it. Just use this as practice for mana manipulation.”

“Are you meant to close all of the holes?”

“Yeah, that’s the goal,” he said. “But, again, don’t worry if you can’t. Those ritual circles are crazy difficult to work with in the first place. Erza got me started with some little balls that didn’t have too much mana in them by comparison, but these things are bursting with it, and they’re made in an extremely complicated shape, so they’re definitely not for beginners. It normally takes me a while to do a single one of them.”

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“Can I keep practicing until I finish it?”

“What, like close up all the holes? You’d be here forever. You saw how much trouble you were just having. Feel free to work at it for a little while, but you’ve gotta go back home and go to sleep.”

“But I want to practice for longer!”

“If you stay up later, your mind’s just gonna get fuzzier and you won’t be able to work as well. Get a full night’s rest, and then come back to it.”

“So I can come back in the morning?”

Zeth winced. “...Probably not. You can’t spend all your time here—what would you say to mom?”

“But…”

He could hear the desperation in her voice. For the first time in her life, she’d been given the opportunity to receive magic instruction—real, actual magic instruction—and now it was already being torn away from her. Zeth absolutely hated being the one to tell her ‘no.’ but he couldn’t see another way to make it work.

“Can I take it with me?” Sophie asked.

Zeth blinked. “What?”

“Can you put the circle on something and let me take it home? Then I could practice whenever I want.”

“What? No,” he said. “I mean, technically the ritual circles can be moved around, but that’d be insanely risky. You know what the guards would do if they found this with you, right?”

“I’d be really careful with it! I can hide it in my room so nobody would be able to find it, and only practice when mom’s out of the house.”

“Even then, it’d be way too dangerous. Anyone with enough Shaping can see the glow coming off of these things when they haven’t been patched up, and some Skills can make it even more obvious when it’s been leaking mana all over the place. If anyone got suspicious enough to search your room with one of those Skills, they’d find it immediately.”

“But I’m not a Blood Mage or anything, so they wouldn’t ever want to search my room! I promise, I won’t ever take it anywhere or tell anyone about it. Please?”

The words ‘No, and that’s final’ were just about to leave Zeth’s lips when he looked at Sophie’s expression. It was the exact same mixture of pleading and dejection that she wore when their mom told her she couldn’t do something.

He hated being put in this role. He absolutely, positively hated it. He hated the fact that, for her whole life, he’d been the one to tell her to follow her ambitions and train as much as she could and to never listen to the people who suppressed her, and now he was the one preventing her from following those exact words. Realistically, how often could she safely come to his base to practice? Once a week? Even less often? She wasn’t stupid; she knew he wouldn’t let her come by very frequently, if ever again. And here he was, acting as the gatekeeper of magic, showing her all the cool stuff he’d never teach her.

He was playing the exact same part their mother did, telling her she couldn’t learn magic because it was simply too dangerous. Maybe he had a good reason to say that, but their mom also seemed to believe she had a good reason.

Zeth sighed. “You understand the risks you’d be taking if you brought this home with you, right?”

She nodded adamantly.

“They’d kill you. And they’d probably look into killing me, too.”

At that, she shook her head. “I don’t think they’d kill me.”

“And why’s that?”

“If you give me a circle on a piece of cloth, I can just say that I was in town after the mannitor attack, and I found it on the ground. I picked it up and took it home because I thought it looked cool, but that was all. And since they wouldn’t find anything else in my room, they wouldn’t believe I’m a Blood Mage, right? And if they called the Inquisitors and they searched my Status, it’d prove me innocent.”

He frowned. He hadn’t really thought of it like that; she was probably correct. Chances were, they’d treat a nine year old girl a lot more favorably than anyone else. If she pretended to just be some immature child who picked up everything she found lying on the road, they’d likely believe her.

“Still, that isn’t guaranteed. You’d be putting yourself in extreme danger holding onto this.”

“That’s okay.”

“You really think so? You’re really okay with that? When things die down a little more, I’d be far more able to teach you, with way less risk involved. You don’t want to just wait for that?”

“No. I don’t want to wait any more. I want to get started right away.”

“You’re willing to put your life on the line just for that reason?”

“Yes.”

On a certain level, Zeth understood what she was saying. He even related to it. He knew what it was like to chase after a goal that ultimately wasn’t logical or wise, but you just had to do it. He’d never be able to live with himself if he’d let Garon escape alive, even if he’d found a way to kill the man later. And similarly, Sophie wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she allowed herself to go even one day longer without magic than was necessary.

“And what about me?” he asked. “You’d be putting me in danger, too.”

“You won’t die.”

“How do you know that?”

She leaned forward, a deadly serious look on her face. “Zeth, you’re the strongest person in the whole world. I know you won’t die. If someone tried to kill you, you’d just blow them up.”

Somehow, his kid sister’s words genuinely instilled him with confidence. “I can’t actually blow things up. I don’t have any Skills for that.”

“I think you’d blow them up anyway.”

“Okay,” he said. He sucked in a breath, then let it out. “Okay, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but fine. You can do it.”

Her entire face lit up. “Really?!”

“Yeah. But listen, this does not mean I’m endorsing the idea, or that I think it’s a good plan. It doesn’t mean I think it’s safe, or worth it. What I’m saying is that I trust your judgment. I think you’re a smart kid, and ultimately, what you do with your life is up to you. If you really think it’s worth the risk to start a little earlier—and you really, truly believe that—then I won’t be the one to stop you. You know your goals, and your needs, and your limitations. You know what’s worth it for you. I’m gonna let you know that from my perspective, this seems like a bad idea. But nobody can tell you ‘no’ but yourself.”

She nodded somberly, seeming to put her enthusiasm aside for a moment. “Okay. Thank you, Zeth. I do think it’s the right play. I think it’s really, really, really important.”

“More important than your own life?”

She responded without even a moment of hesitation. “Yes.”

He bit the inside of his mouth. Was this what talking to him was like? This reckless abandon, focusing on a single thing, making a person look completely insane to anyone who didn’t ‘get’ it? Perhaps it ran in the family.

"Listen, if at any point you feel like someone may find this, you can just erase it. Just rub the lines off with your fingers, and they'll disappear. Ideally, you'd do this pretty soon. The moment anyone enters your room for any reason, or if you ever leave it unattended, you just erase it, and then later you can come back to me and I'll get you a new one. Don't hold on to it for long."

She nodded.

"You said you were thinking about taking an illegal Class, right? This can be like your test run. If you take a Class like that, you'll have to hide it just like this for the rest of your life. If it feels stressful to do, or you frequently find yourself in danger, then this is a way for you to know that's not for you. Figuring out that you don't wanna deal with illegal Classes now is gonna be a lot better for you than figuring it out after you take one of them. So the moment you feel out of your depth, or like something bad might happen, back out immediately. Alright?"

"Okay. I'll be sure to get really strong, that way you don't have to worry about me."

“Alright,” he said. “Let me grab a scrap of cloth somewhere, and I’ll draw the circle for you.”