Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.8 - Chapter 17

Hartmut’s First Ceremony and Another Jureve

As we now had the feystones, I got straight to work making my jureve. Accompanying me today were Angelica, Damuel, and Cornelius. They were all adults, which meant they had learned to make jureves in the Royal Academy. Of course, I already knew what to do; my guard knights were simply here to double-check the process.

The scholars who normally would have been helping out were in the High Priest’s chambers. It seemed that Ferdinand was spending his time ensuring that the handover process went as smoothly as possible. He had told me to summon him when the jureve was complete.

“You can already make jureves, Lady Rozemyne?” Cornelius asked, balking at the intensity of Ferdinand’s training. “I only learned to make them in my fifth year.”

Angelica puffed out her chest and said, “I made one in my fifth year too.” This wasn’t much of a surprise; despite her academic track record, she was actually pretty skilled when it came to doing practical lessons.

“It took me until my final year,” Damuel admitted with a conflicted smile. “Making one is such a rare occasion that I chose to use the best ingredients possible, which meant I only finished dyeing them at the very last moment. I actually regret putting so much effort into it; with all this extra mana I got from Lady Rozemyne’s compression method, I want to remake it entirely.”

As it turned out, laynobles often needed to gather their ingredients as soon as possible, since it took them so long to dye them.

“The jureves made in Royal Academy classes tend to be of a fairly low quality,” I noted. “Apprentice knights can gather their own ingredients from their home duchies and the Royal Academy, but others aren’t always able to do this, which limits the final product.” In other words, scholars often ended up with worse jureves, since they had to hire and rely on apprentice knights for gathering instead of doing it themselves.

“That said,” I continued, “you can reduce the drop in quality by removing the mixed mana from the ingredients.” I was just repeating what Ferdinand had taught me, but my guard knights replied that they couldn’t wield enough mana or control it precisely enough.

“It requires a lot of mana just to push the mixed mana out, Lady Rozemyne,” Damuel explained. “Laynobles would struggle to do that and then dye the ingredients afterward. We aren’t as capable as you, and we do not need jureves of such a high quality.” He shrugged. “Our job here is merely to oversee the process. Shall we start?”

Damuel and Cornelius had made jureves before and understood the process well. Angelica had already forgotten what we needed to do, but she was getting help from her manablade Stenluke. He really was quite helpful.

And so, I made the jureve while following Stenluke’s instructions. It was a very familiar experience, considering that he spoke in Ferdinand’s voice. My arms started getting heavy, but I sucked it up and continued to carefully mix in the feystones. Unlike last time, I was using a schtappe morphed into a mixing stick, which was overwhelmingly more efficient when it came to conducting mana. I was moved.

“Put that amplification potion in next,” Stenluke said, prompting Cornelius to take out the pitcher it was being stored in. It was a very practical size—most people could easily pour from it with one hand while stirring with the other—but when he went to hand it to me, he suddenly stopped. He must have realized that I was a special case.

“Lady Rozemyne, shall I pour the potion in for you?”

“...Please do.”

The black liquid was poured into the pot, causing the contents to puff out considerably. I continued stirring until Stenluke said, “It is time for the finishing touch.”

Damuel plucked a tiny bottle from the table and added a drop to the concoction. An instant later, the surface of the potion shone brightly, indicating that the jureve was finished. “I shall inform Lord Ferdinand,” he said, then exited the workshop.

Cornelius peered into the pot. “So, when will you be using this?” he asked.

“Good question... After Ferdinand leaves for Ahrensbach, maybe? He said that he plans to remove as many dangerous elements as he can before then, so perhaps I’m better off waiting until things are safe.”

I was so busy with my studying for the Royal Academy and with the work I was doing to help prepare for the succession that even my reading time was being shaved down to nil. I didn’t think we had time right now for me to be sleeping in a jureve. In truth, I wasn’t that keen on the idea of going back into one either; I was happy to delay it for as long as I could.

Soon enough, Ferdinand came in with his retainers and with Fran, who was holding a net containing many feystones.

“Rozemyne, you are to get into the jureve immediately,” Ferdinand said as he started pouring it into the large white box. “There are still clumps of mana inside your body. The sooner they are dissolved, the better. Get changed while we prepare.”

I really hadn’t expected this to happen as soon as it was ready. My heart wasn’t at all prepared, and my blood suddenly ran cold. I instinctively shook my head and replied, “No. I don’t want to.”

“Rozemyne?” Ferdinand asked, furrowing his brow in confusion. All eyes fell on me, and I took a step back without thinking.

“I don’t want to be left behind again. I don’t want to wake up to find that everyone looks even older than me. And if another two years pass, then y-you... you might already be gone, Ferdinand.” I had already endured the Urashima Taro experience once, and I didn’t want to go through it all again. I was finally developing some stamina too, and doing this would set me all the way back to square one.

“You will only be in there for a few days,” Ferdinand assured me. “It will not be like before.”

“But... I’m scared.”

Last time, I had been told that I would only be asleep for a season, yet my time in the jureve had ended up lasting two whole years. Maybe that had simply been because of the poison, but still, there was no way for me to confirm that I really would wake up in a few days’ time.

“Rozemyne, I want to ensure that all of your mana clumps are dissolved while I am still here to serve as your doctor. Only then will it be safe for other doctors to see you. Furthermore, do you not want to start growing?”

“I do, but that can wait until after you’ve left for Ahrensbach. I don’t want to wake up to find that you’re already gone.”

“Rozemyne... I agree that you should use it before you go back to the Royal Academy,” Cornelius said after some thought. He was speaking honestly as my brother, rather than politely as my guard knight.

“Why?” I asked, gazing up at him.

“Lord Ferdinand said that you collapse from excitement because clumps in your mana stop it from flowing properly. If you dissolve them, won’t that get rid of the problem entirely?” he asked gently, looking down at me and patting my head. “Seeing you collapse reminds us of when you were poisoned. It’s really bad for our hearts. And now that I’ve graduated and can’t keep an eye on you in the Royal Academy anymore, I want you to be as safe there as possible. Lord Ferdinand wishes to do all that he can for you before he must leave... and this feeling is something I understand painfully well.”

The only people who had actually seen me poisoned and unconscious were Bonifatius, Cornelius, and Ferdinand. My heart ached as I realized just how worried about me they were, and with this newfound understanding in mind, I reached out and grabbed on to Ferdinand’s sleeve.

“You’re confident that I’ll only be in the jureve for a few days? I won’t wake up to find that everyone’s grown up even more, I’ve lost control of my body again, and you’ve gone, right?”

“I will not leave before you wake,” he said, his light-golden eyes fixed on me. “I promise.”

I nodded, then turned around and said, “I’ll go get changed.”

I made my way out of the workshop and asked Monika to help me change into thin, white clothing. I also needed to take off my socks so that the mana lines that would appear on my legs would be fully visible. So long had passed since the last time I wore shoes without socks that the sensation threw me off a little.

Once I was ready, I returned to the workshop, where the other preparations had already been finished. The large, white box was filled with the translucent blue jureve, and Fran was standing beside it so that he could put in the feystones. Also near the white box was a bench, which Ferdinand pointed to.

I sat as instructed and took the presented cup with both hands. Inside was more jureve. I drank it, then Fran took off my shoes for me.

“Rozemyne,” Ferdinand said. He picked me up like he had done for my first jureve and sat me down inside the white box. In an instant, bright-red mana lines appeared on my skin. “The process will take three to four days. You will wake in time for the coming-of-age ceremony.” He traced his fingers along the lines on my arms and nape, and as he carried out his inspection, I felt my eyes growing heavy.

“Ferdinand... You’d better not leave, no matter what happens...”

“Enough already,” Ferdinand replied, a half-smile on his face as he covered my eyes with a large hand. “Sleep.”

I could feel my body gently sinking into the jureve... and soon enough, the world around me faded into nothingness.

“Awake, I see.”

No sooner had this familiar voice reached me than I was pulled up out of the jureve. I was taken aback for a moment, but my surprise gave way to a relieved sigh as I realized it was Ferdinand in front of me.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“Four days, as I expected.”

Fran, Monika, and my retainers were here as well. They certainly all looked and seemed the same.

Ferdinand checked the flow of mana in my arms, legs, and neck. “They have all dissolved without issue, it seems. Now... a bath has been prepared. Once you are clean, spend the remainder of the day resting. You will be busy once again starting tomorrow.”

Fran carried me to the bath, and from there, Nicola and Monika helped me in. “You can still sit and stand,” Nicola observed, “so it must not have been too hard on your body, Lady Rozemyne.”

“We were very worried, since you were completely unable to move last time,” Monika added.

I nodded with a smile. Apparently, I would collapse less now that the mana clumps had dissolved, but I still needed to wear my mana-absorbing necklace from Ferdinand. I had compressed my mana so many times that I now had far too much, and although getting overexcited wouldn’t make me collapse, it was still pretty bad for me.

“I still need to train my body, though,” I said. “I can’t say that I feel all that much better.”

“It may be a while before you start to see results,” Nicola noted. “You say that you feel mostly the same, but compared to before when you could not move at all, I would say that you are doing much better.”

“Ah, right...” I replied. “Even reading was a struggle back then.”

“Still, I think a little exercise will do you a lot of good,” Monika said with a smile.

“I will consider it.”

I steadily advanced through my studying for the Royal Academy, feeling relatively unchanged in terms of my health. It had been decided that the High Bishop would not receive much work going forward, partly to make things easier on Melchior when he succeeded me, so my time was divided between the jobs I absolutely had to do and preparing for the next academic term.

Some of my time was spent working on my various assignments. For entwickeln practice, I made a tiny box garden, adjusted the strength of the barrier surrounding it, then added a hole that would serve as the border gate.

“Thinking about it like this, the foundational magic is like a really big feystone with a ton of magic circles carved into it,” I said.

“Indeed; it is a sizable magic tool with feystones of every element built into it,” Ferdinand replied. “I believe there is a blueprint somewhere in these documents.”

For the most part, my studying for the archduke candidate course was done in my workshop after my retainers were shooed out of the room. Wilfried and Charlotte sometimes came to participate, but it was normally just Ferdinand and me. I was glad that we were getting to spend some time together when his departure was coming up so soon, but I noticed that Ferdinand often looked quite sick, as though he was forcing himself quite a bit.

“Ferdinand... You’ve been cutting down on sleep, haven’t you? Are you getting enough rest?”

“Somewhat.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ve been cutting down on sleep somewhat or that you’re getting somewhat enough rest?” Either way, I decided that it was best to warn Justus, and then it occurred to me—I hadn’t actually seen him or Eckhart in the temple as of late. “Could it be that Justus and Eckhart are busy too?”

“They are doing work that only they can do, since your retainers are here to carry out everything else,” Ferdinand replied. I pursed my lips; he was acting like it was normal for him to give orders to my retainers in the temple.

“If you’re going to complain about me using Raimund, then don’t use my retainers as tools.”

“I could say the same to you. If you are going to use Raimund, then do not complain about me using your retainers.”

It was all a matter of perspective, and when Ferdinand put it like that, there wasn’t much I could complain about.

“Now then, practice what you have learned well,” Ferdinand said. “We will practice dividing the duchy into provinces next—a necessary technique for granting land to giebes.” As he spoke, he started gathering what we would need from a teleportation circle on the floor. My workshop was getting more and more cramped as he brought in everything we needed for our lessons.

And so, I continued my studies every day until the end of spring. It was almost time for the coming-of-age ceremony, which was going to be Hartmut’s first religious ceremony.

“Now that I think about it... Hartmut, what are you going to do for ceremonial clothing? Even if we order it now, there’s no way that it’ll be ready in time, is there?”

It had taken Benno quite a while to sort out my ceremonial clothes—and mine had taken less time than usual to make, since the seamstresses hadn’t needed to weave the cloth. Getting something ready for Hartmut would take even longer.

“There are many ceremonial robes from previous blue priests that fit me,” Hartmut replied, “so I will use those until the clothes I ordered arrive.”

One would prepare their own ceremonial robes under normal circumstances, but Hartmut naturally didn’t have the time, so we were lending him some from the many that the temple had in stock. This hadn’t been an option for me because of my commoner origins, and none of the clothes had come close to being my size.

“I am looking forward to the ceremony,” Hartmut said, having spent yesterday in a room we had previously used for guard knights. He ate with me in the High Bishop’s chambers, then moved to the High Priest’s chambers, where his future attendants were going to help him get dressed.

I got changed into my High Bishop ceremonial robes and called for Fran.

“The chapel has been prepared. Let us go.”

Several blue priests had entered the chapel already. Eckhart was waiting by the door, so I took this opportunity to ask him about Hartmut.

“I see you’ve come to the temple today, Eckhart. I was wondering—does Hartmut seem nervous, what with this being his first religious ceremony?”

“He seems more excited than anything. Pretty sure he wants to see your blessing,” Eckhart replied. First ceremony or not, it seemed that Hartmut was the same as always. “Still, he’s a competent one; he memorized the flow of the ceremony in no time at all, and even Lord Ferdinand finds him easy to work with. You found yourself a solid retainer, Rozemyne.”

Eckhart was basing his judgment of my retainers on how useful they were to Ferdinand, despite them being my retainers. It was a bizarre thing to witness. In a way, he was very similar to Hartmut.

“High Bishop. Enter.”

Ferdinand gave the order, at which point some gray priests opened the door. Lined up in front of the shrine were blue priests waving sticks, producing a melodious ringing sound that echoed through the chapel. Hartmut was among them, and I could tell from his eyes that he was conscious of my entry. He watched closely as I leisurely ascended the stage, with Ferdinand taking my hand as usual.

From there, Ferdinand spoke of the gods, then I prayed and offered a blessing. The coming-of-age ceremony itself ended without incident.

Mom and Dad came to the door and watched me with worried expressions; they must have heard from Tuuli that relations with Ahrensbach were resuming. I couldn’t wave to them or contact them overtly with Hartmut watching like a hawk, so instead, I balled my right hand into a fist and tapped the left side of my chest twice, making it look like part of the ceremony. Other than that, the most I could do was shoot them glances while pretending to watch the new adults leave, and I did just that until the gray priests shut the doors.

“Hartmut, do you understand the workload expected of the High Priest now?” I asked after Ferdinand helped me down from the stage.

“He helps you climb onto the stage, reads the bible in your place, accompanies you until the doors have been closed, helps you down from the stage... In short, the High Priest is one who takes care of you, Lady Rozemyne.”

“Not quite. Ferdinand did other things as well, no?” He had clearly been registering medals, among other things, but when I tried to explain that, Ferdinand simply shook his head.

“That is the work of all blue priests, not just the High Priest,” Ferdinand said. “In truth, I did not need to help in this way with the previous High Bishop. The bulk of my assistance is simply ensuring that you do not cause the ceremony to fail.”

“I am confident that I will complete it perfectly next time and from then onward,” Hartmut declared. Ferdinand nodded in response, noting that he didn’t doubt this in the slightest.

I didn’t need to know that the High Priest’s job during ceremonies is pretty much just to babysit me...

“D-Do you have any other thoughts on the coming-of-age ceremony?” I asked.

“I do,” Hartmut replied without missing a beat. He clenched his fists, suddenly looking quite upset. “Were there not more blessings here today than there were at the Royal Academy’s coming-of-age ceremony? I wish you had been the one to bless mine, Lady Rozemyne.”

He went on to grumble about commoners having all the luck, which I didn’t quite understand; would he consider it fair if everyone received my blessing?

“You have been tackling a tremendous workload with great diligence, Hartmut, so if your wish is simply for me to bless you, then I will do just that,” I said. “Though the nobles’ coming-of-age ceremony is over, and the season has changed...”

“Truly?!” Hartmut exclaimed, his eyes brimming with hope. He dropped to one knee, crossed his arms, and said, “Please do, then. I will gratefully accept the blessings of the winter gods.”

He had said the winter gods, but it was the very end of spring; by this point, the God of Life had been washed away completely. I elected to go with the Goddess of Earth instead. I was pretty sure she was overseeing the growth of new life in this season.

“O Geduldh, Goddess of Earth, hear my prayers. May you grace those who have newly come of age with your blessing. May those who offer their prayers and gratitude be blessed with your divine protection.”

I channeled mana into my ring as I prayed, and red light rained down upon Hartmut. I moved to leave as soon as the blessing was done, but he remained on one knee. “Is something the matter?” I asked him.

“I am moved.”

“Hm?”

“I am beyond grateful to experience the bliss of monopolizing one of your blessings,” Hartmut said, looking happier than I had ever seen him. He reached out and pressed the back of my hand to his forehead. The whole point of my blessing had been to cheer him up, but seeing him rejoice this much was making me a little uncomfortable.

“Ferdinand...” I said, seeking his help.

“He is your retainer,” Ferdinand replied, averting his gaze. “His loyalty is unquestionable, at the very least, so he will make for a strong ally if you use him properly.”

“And if I handle him improperly?”

“Disaster. I experienced as much with Eckhart.”

Um, Eckhart?!