Chapter 762: My Little Brother Has No Limits!

"Honestly?" Cassius smiled slightly. "At first, nothing worked out perfectly."

"I had to repeat the process countless times, creating new frameworks and structures, testing them against what I knew about mana theory, discarding what didn’t work, rebuilding from scratch when necessary."

He paused for a breath, then continued with growing confidence.

"But eventually, I got a general grasp of the introductory concepts, and after that, everything became like laying bricks in a building."

"I put them down one by one, creating a specific flow and progression of knowledge that would guide your mana toward creating your own complete domain."

His voice took on a tone of proud determination.

"And as I stepped further and further into the research, I became more and more confident that I was going in the right direction."

"The frameworks started fitting together more elegantly."

"The theoretical contradictions resolved themselves."

He gestured expansively.

"And Aisha was incredibly helpful—she would come over and test the spells and magical frameworks I’d created, giving me real-world feedback."

Cassius smiled warmly at the memory of working with Aisha.

"Even though she’s only an earth elemental mage and below your level, she could still sense whether I was fundamentally on the right track or if I was heading in a completely wrong direction."

"Thanks to her feedback and my continued refinement, I didn’t take too long to reach the final stages."

He let out a breath like explaining the process was more tedious then actually doing it, before continuing as Aqua closely listened.

"I eventually created the complete, final schematic pathway for becoming a Supreme Mage—something that should theoretically take decades of solitary research."

He looked at the book in Aqua’s hands.

"Then I compiled everything in an easily readable, digestible format...as you see here."

He said like it was no big deal.

"I organized all the complex theories into progressive Chapters, each one building on the previous knowledge, creating a learning curve that matches your natural magical progression."

"This way..." He gave a carefree smile. "...when you read the book, you don’t have to do the groundwork—you can just follow the pathway I’ve already laid out."

Aqua stared at him in daze, processing everything he’d just explained.

What Cassius had described was something that would make legendary Supreme Mages and Archmages throughout the world laugh in disbelief if they heard it.

They would laugh so hard, in fact, that some of them would probably cry. Some might even faint from the sheer audacity and impossibility of it.

This was because what he had described was utterly insane and defied every law of magical theory known to civilization.

Creating one’s own domain was something that only the mage themselves could do, a process of profound personal magical revelation that had to come from deep within their own magical essence.

No external person could possibly influence that process or create it for someone else.

That was a fundamental law of magic.

But Cassius had somehow done exactly that.

And even more impossibly, he had done it as a person who couldn’t wield mana at all.

He had basically dismantled a process that should have consumed decades of her life and compressed it into a simple playbook that she could read anytime and gain the knowledge instantly.

Aqua stared down at the book, then slowly looked back at Cassius.

As the full weight of what he’d accomplished settled over her—

Her legs suddenly felt unsteady.

They faltered beneath her, and she seemed to wobble and shake slightly.

This made Cassius immediately alarmed. He called out urgently:

"Aqua!"

He moved toward her, clearly ready to catch her if she fell.

But Aqua quickly held out her hand, stopping him with a gesture.

"Just hold on, Cassius." She said, her voice trembling slightly. "G-Give me a second."

She quickly sat herself down heavily on the nearest chair, looking at him with an expression of complete and utter dismay.

She placed her hand against her forehead, taking deep breaths.

"I need...I need a second to comprehend all of what you just said. If you say even one more single word..." She let out a shaky laugh. "...my mind really will completely explode."

Cassius wisely stepped back, understanding that his sister needed space and time to process the magnitude of what he’d accomplished.

The library around them fell silent except for the sound of Aqua’s slowly steadying breathing as she attempted to process what had just happened.

At first, Cassius found it funny.

The way Aqua was reacting, frozen in place, her mind clearly struggling to process the impossible thing he had just handed her.

He watched her with amusement, expecting her to snap out of it any moment.

But as the seconds stretched into minutes, and she continued to sit there in complete silence, staring at nothing, Cassius started to worry.

He had seen this before. When he first taught Aisha magic that rewrote everything she thought she knew, the feisty little cat had looked at him in a completely different way.

She would sometimes call him god or master in a reverent tone, gazing at him as if she were seeing an almighty deity.

Her eyes would glaze over with something between awe and worship, and Cassius had to constantly snap her back to reality every time she slipped into that state.

This was because to Aisha, magic wasn’t just a tool—it was her life. Her religion.

She had dedicated her entire existence to understanding it, mastering it, pushing its boundaries.

So when she suddenly encountered someone who could rewrite the very rules of magic itself, bend them to his own will, it was like watching the world being created before her very eyes.

She couldn’t help but unconsciously look at Cassius as something more than human.

It had taken a lot of time and effort to make sure she didn’t become a full-blown follower, trailing behind him and murmuring prayers.

And now, Aqua seemed to be going through the exact same thing.

Even though she kept her eyes averted, every time she glanced at him, there was a certain reverence in her gaze, a look of someone gazing upon something far beyond their understanding.

Cassius could see the shift happening in real time, and a cold knot of worry formed in his stomach.

He didn’t want that.

He didn’t want a religious fanatic who followed his every word like scripture.

He wanted the Aqua who teased him, who bounced around with boundless energy, who pouted when she didn’t get her way.

He was about to step forward, to snap her out of it before she went too far down that path—

Aqua blinked.

Then, to Cassius’s utter shock, she raised both hands and slapped herself across the cheeks.

SMACK!

The sound echoed through the library.

Cassius jumped back in fright. "Aqua! What are you doing? What’s wrong?"

But Aqua didn’t answer.

She slapped herself again. And again. Left cheek, right cheek, left cheek, right cheek—her fair hands delivering crisp, sharp strikes to her own face.

Her small, bouncy cheeks reddened with each impact, the skin flushing a deep, embarrassed pink.

Cassius stood there, utterly dismayed, unsure whether to intervene or run for help.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Aqua stopped.

Her cheeks were bright red, almost glowing, but there was a change in her expression.

The confusion that had clouded her eyes moments ago was gone.

The reverent daze had lifted. In its place was something else entirely.

Resolve.

Calmness.

Clarity.

"Aqua." Cassius said carefully. "Are you alright?"

She looked up at her brother with a gentle smile.

"There’s no need to worry about anything, Cassius. Your big sister is perfectly fine."

She patted her chest confidently—which, given its size, bounced quite noticeably. Cassius tried not to stare.

She then let out a somber sigh and looked down, her voice softening.

"Well, the truth is...just a moment ago, I was spiraling into a world of darkness. I couldn’t tell left from right."

She chuckled.

"After all, seeing someone completely dismantle the rules of magic right before my eyes isn’t something an Archmage like me can accept so easily."

She looked up at him.

"It affected me so much that I honestly thought about giving up magic altogether. Because when someone like you exists in this world...what use is someone as useless as me?"

Cassius’s chest tightened. He hadn’t intended for this. He hadn’t meant to make her doubt herself.

"When I thought about the future, it looked completely bleak." She continued. "I felt like I was standing at the bottom of a mountain so tall I couldn’t even see the top."

"And I realized...I would never reach it. Not in this lifetime. Not in a hundred lifetimes."

Cassius opened his mouth to say something—to reassure her, to tell her that wasn’t what he meant at all—but before he could, Aqua’s expression shifted.

A smile broke through the gloom.

"But then, as I went deeper into that darkness, I realized something."

She tilted her head.

"I asked myself: what is all of this for? Who is the one helping me?"

Her eyes softened.

"And then it hit me. This isn’t some divine revelation. This isn’t the universe showing me how insignificant I am."

"This is simply...a little brother helping his big sister."

Cassius blinked at her change.

"Even though you did something absolutely stellar, something that would make any other mage in the world want to gouge their eyes out just to experience it..."

She chuckled even though she knew a couple of mages who would sacrifice their lips to catch a glimpse of Cassius’s work.

"...I realized that at the end of the day, you’re just trying to help me with my problem."

She grabbed his hand, holding it tightly.

"No matter what you did, it’s still just a simple act of love. The love you’re showing to your sister."

She smiled warmly.

"And just like I said earlier, at the end of the day, none of it really matters to me, because it’s my little brother who’s helping me."

She added with a huff. "Of course, if anyone else had done something like this, I’d probably doubt my own existence and give up magic entirely."

Cassius let out a relieved chuckle, while Aqua looked up at him, her eyes shining with sincerity and love.

"But you? You’re my little brother. You did all of this for me. So, instead of spiraling into despair, I should just be grateful."

"Grateful that I have such a caring, loving brother who was secretly helping me this whole time."

Cassius let out a massive, dramatic sigh of relief, placing a hand over his heart.

"Thank god, Aqua. You seriously had me sweating there for a minute. The look you had in your eyes was deeply unsettling."

"I thought I’d permanently broken my favorite sister."

Aqua snorted, a brilliant laugh bubbling past her lips as she aggressively poked him right in the abdomen with a slender finger.

"Which reminds me! I also need to completely stop trying to place limits on your abilities, Cassius!"

"From now on, I am just going to assume you can do absolutely anything you want, no matter how ridiculous it sounds."

She shook her head with a helpless, affectionate smile, her finger still dug playfully into his side.

"Trying to put barriers and logical constraints on what you can achieve will only result in me getting shocked over and over again. My poor brain simply won’t be able to handle the whiplash."

"I just have to accept the fact that you are some sort of bizarre, unexplainable entity that your older sister will never fully figure out."

She leaned back on the chair, her lips curling into a wicked, teasing smirk.

"So, honestly, even if you were to look me in the eye right now and tell me that you can fly through the sky without using a single drop of mana, I would blindly believe you."

Cassius’s own lips twitched upward into a slow, confident grin. He mirrored her smirk, leaning down slightly to match her posture.

"Well, funnily enough, Aqua...I can most definitely do exactly that."

Aqua’s smirk faltered, her eyebrows shooting up in utter surprise.

"Wait...What do you mean?"

"Exactly what you just said." Cassius replied casually, crossing his arms over his chest with an air of effortless superiority.

"Making you fly through the air without a single shred of magic or an incantation. I can do it easily. It’s child’s play!"

"What on earth are you talking about, Cassius? How could you possibly achieve something like that?"

Aqua shook her head, a look of outright skepticism momentarily returning to her face.

"Unless you secretly belong to the dragon race, or you’re a bird, or maybe a fairy with wings hidden beneath your clothes, it’s physically impossible to fly on your own!"

Cassius reached out, placed both hands on top of her head, and started shaking it playfully from side to side.

"Did you not just say—literally moments ago—that you wouldn’t doubt me anymore? What happened to that?"

Aqua’s head wobbled under his hands.

"Your brother says he can do it." Cassius declared with absolute confidence. "So he can do it. There’s nothing in this world that I can’t do."

Aqua’s eyes shimmered with a peculiar light. She stared at him for a long moment—then broke into a brilliant smile.

"You’re right, Cassius. If my brother says he can do it, then he can do it."

She shook her head.

"It’s stupid of me to even doubt you."

Then a sly look crept onto her face. She rose up on her toes, leaning into him, her voice dropping to a coquettish murmur.

"Little brother...if you really do find a way to make people fly without magic or wings, then you absolutely have to let your big sister go first."

She poked his chest.

"That’s compulsory."

Cassius gave her a helpless smile, trying to deflect.

"What should I do?~ I have so many wives~"

"They’ll probably want to experience it too. I can’t just give you special treatment so easily."

Aqua’s face scrunched up into an adorable pout.

She pressed herself against his arm, specifically, pressed her generous chest against his arm and looked up at him with exaggerated coquettishness.

"No, Cassius, you have to! I’m your big sister. You have to give me special treatment!"

She batted her eyelashes.

"And speaking of which—between your wives and your big sister, which one do you care about the most?"

Her eyes sparkled with eager anticipation.

This was a question she had really wanted to ask.

After all, her brother seemed to be ignoring her now and not even treating her the least bit like a women.

But unfortunately for her, Cassius was smart enough not to answer.

He simply shrugged, stepped back, and started walking away.

"Who knows?"

Aqua refused to accept that.

"Wait, Cassius! Hold on! Come on, you have to tell me!" She chased after him, her voice rising. "Give me an answer! Is it me or your wives?"

"Who do you love the most?"

She pointed at herself.

"It’s me, right? It most definitely has to be me!"

Cassius just shook his head with a playful smile.

Aqua stood there in utter dismay, her frustration mounting.

Here she was, pouring out so much love for her brother, and he was leaving her hanging like this.

"You big bully!" She finally called out. "Your big sister hates you so much!"

In response, Cassius simply glanced back over his shoulder, a charming smile on his lips.

"Well, my big sister may hate me so much...but I love her quite a lot."

The words shot straight through Aqua’s heart.

Her face flushed crimson. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

She had been struck by the most effective attack imaginable, a sincere, unexpected declaration of affection delivered with that devastating smile.

Cassius gestured for her to follow.

"Now come along. Now that I’ve given you such an amazing book, it’s your duty to properly test it out. See if you can enact a domain." He nodded toward the door. "We’ll go to the garden and check it out."

Hearing this, Aqua calmed her racing heart. She smiled—warm, genuine, full of anticipation.

"I’m coming, little brother!"

She grabbed onto Cassius’s hand, clutching the book in her other arm, and pressed herself against his side as they walked. Her face rubbed against his arm like a cat seeking affection.

And in her heart, she made a quiet resolution.

Even if her brother didn’t prioritize her over his wives. Even if she got the lowest position in the entire family.

Even if she was last in line for his attention, his time, his love.

She didn’t care.

Because as long as she got even the tiniest bit of affection from him—a smile, a touch, a kind word, that would be more than enough.

That was all she needed.

That was all she had ever wanted.