And now he also understood: because his father and grandfather in the family were die-hard beast-enthusiasts, this gesture of Eris's was basically her playing the part of a lop-eared beastman, pretending to let her ears droop... at least against her father and grandfather, it was an absolute knockout move.
Even Sauros, that stern-looking old man, would instantly turn into a kindly grandfather because of this gesture. Even Ash thought, 'Nobles' hobbies aren't completely without merit.'
Though when Sauros had nothing to do, he also liked to do adult things with beastman maids all over the house. This was something Ash, who would occasionally walk in on it, really wanted to condemn on moral grounds.
———
In the days that followed, Ash devoted himself day and night to self-research on magic, occasionally returning to the Sword Sanctuary to check on the progress of material collection.
And then there was that princess, the tool princess who had been educated so well during this time by the maid whom the king had entrusted to be his mistress... she had turned into such an obedient and sensible puppet.
The head maid even directly asked him what kind of princess he wanted, making him realize for the first time that this could be customized? These maids weren't serving the princess, they were mainly serving him?
This royal family sure knew how to have fun, he sighed inside, and casually said he wanted one who was docile, obedient, compliant, and with a normal personality.
He also promised that after the job was done, he'd go to the kingdom and have the king richly reward them and their families.
And every time, without realizing it, he'd tease Ariel a bit while she was working hard at the Sword Sanctuary, and bring her and the maids some supplies.
As for Eris... he had no intention of being her teacher.
After all, teaching her himself would be a huge waste of time. So after feeding Eris some empty promises, he had Sauros hire a retired adventurer grandmother and the house maids, one to teach magic, the others to teach etiquette, reading, and arithmetic.
After all, professionals certainly knew these things better, that's what he thought, and that's what he told them. Maybe it wasn't even a lie.
He promised that once Eris became a Saint-level mage, he would teach her everything he knew. So Eris, though half-doubting, still followed his advice... and tried her best not to lay a hand on her tutors.
She even made the remarkable progress of not hitting any teacher for three whole days straight. After that, with Ash protecting the teachers, she really didn't run away or hit them. This made Ghislaine fully believe that he really was good at teaching children, and she herself kept studying arithmetic, magic, and letters alongside them.
And so, in the blink of an eye... two years passed.
During that time, Ariel couldn't stand the bitter cold of the Sword Sanctuary anymore, so he allowed her to go home for a while to rest. As for him... he would occasionally visit Sylphie's village.
But worried that Sylphie might become too dependent on people, he didn't interfere in her life. He was also afraid that he'd lose track of time petting the girl, so he never actually went to see Sylphie herself.
He just wandered around the area occasionally, checking on things with her parents. He learned that the entire Fittoa territory of House Boreas, including this village, had been overrun with abnormal monsters, so he unconsciously cleared out the surrounding area.
After finishing everything and returning to the Boreas estate, he could see from his guest room window, through the glass, that strange energy sphere in the distant sky, absorbing magical power at a far faster rate than before.
"Has it reached the fission stage, or the growth stage? Or... the completion stage?"
After more than two years of research, he could more or less confirm that this chaotic magical power was a blind-box bomb.
He didn't know who had made it, but it seemed to have some connection to his arrival.
Because after investigating for so long, he could basically determine that this world had some kind of strange power, if he had to describe it, it was something like fate?
For example... if he did too many things that changed the world, he might face the world's resistance, a kind of erasure reaction, so to speak? A rejection reaction from the world against a foreign object? Or maybe not, he was still exploring.
But he could more or less confirm that when he had crossed over, he had disturbed space-time and something like fate.
This was something he truly couldn't figure out, completely outside his area of expertise. So for the past two years, he had mainly been studying magic related to fate and causality through that sphere.
Though he didn't understand it, after thinking it over and over, he actually achieved some results, allowing him to turn coincidences into certainties on small matters... but in terms of results, it seemed a bit subtle, probably only useful at the card table.
———
Ash had stared at the strange energy anomaly for two years, but aside from making some progress on fate and such... of course, to be precise, he had done it by imitation and by feeling that it should work.
He went with his gut and, without fully understanding the principles, crafted a fate-based formula. Through his personal experiments, it actually worked in casinos and on some small matters.
Whether this formula's success was due to luck and trial-and-error or to his own talent, he didn't know either. But if it worked, it worked, right?
A program running on bugs was still a program, wasn't it? As long as it ran, that was what mattered.
"But... why does this have the smell of spaghetti code... oh well, improvements will have to come slowly. Better not overthink it..."
He hadn't achieved any good results in researching the sphere itself; he'd only gotten some subtle gains thanks to his racial bonus, which left him with complicated feelings.
Still, that thing was absorbing magical power even tonight, and it felt like it was summoning something. But space itself seemed to be under a lot of strain, if it actually shattered, it would probably affect the entire outer area of the fortress city.
Fortunately, Sauros had followed his advice and relocated the residents living below the sphere, but... as for the final outcome, he really couldn't say.
Just as he was thinking he should try some different methods to get rid of the thing...
"May the great blessing of fire descend upon where you seek! Fierce and raging flames, burn away the great favor! Fireball!"
A childish yet familiar chanting voice came from behind him, and the temperature of the entire room rose abnormally.
Turning around, he saw a fireball about a meter in diameter, flawless in power and speed, carrying destructive force enough to kill instantly, it was hurtling toward him, as if in the next moment it would burn him to ashes. However...
Ash remained as composed as if a mountain had crumbled before him, he didn't move at all, just stood there quietly. The fireball, just as it was about to touch his body, suddenly seemed to enter an invisible warped space, affected by an abnormal gravitational force, and instantly began to shrink rapidly.
The huge, blazing sphere shrank at an almost unbelievable speed, turning into a tiny red dot of light in an instant.
And in the next moment, as he reached out both hands and clapped them together... the red dot was "smacked dead" like a firefly.
But this sudden attack didn't end there.
Just as the fireball was neutralized, a sharp whistling sound suddenly rang out, coming fiercely from Ash's side.
"You really don't know when to give up...", Ash sighed helplessly and slowly turned his head to look. Calmly, he extended two fingers and precisely pinched the blade of the speeding sword. The flying blade stopped instantly as if caught in iron tongs, unable to move an inch.
Naturally, this result made the red-haired girl holding the sword, Eris, absolutely furious.
Her little face flushed red, her big eyes wide open, and she shouted angrily at Ash, "Why can you block it! And so easily!? Didn't you say yourself that using magic as a feint and then attacking from the side works well in most situations!?"
"Not bad, that's what I said... but have you considered one thing?"
Looking at this girl who had learned intermediate magic in just two years, Ash found it a bit amusing.
The retired old mage really did have rich teaching experience, even Eris, this dunce, had learned intermediate magic a few days ago.
But while learning magic, Eris hadn't given up swordsmanship, or rather, swordsmanship was still the focus. Under Ghislaine's tutelage, she had nearly reached the Upper level of the Sword God style. Her swordsmanship talent seemed quite good, she might even reach the Emperor level when she grew up.
Ash was already looking forward to the day she became a Sword Emperor, challenged him to a duel, and got pinned to the ground again with a tearful face.
As for magic... there probably wasn't much hope. Her total capacity couldn't increase any further, she'd be intermediate at best for life, maybe Upper level at most.