The Guard Palace nobles would not fear a "demotion," but the situation was different for the inner palace nobles. The Noble House had a stringent criterion for them: the situation of Mage training. For every Mage trained, a certain number of points was obtained; the points for silver, gold, Holy Domain, and Legendary all varied. Simply put, Dukes had to train a Holy Sanctuary Mage every thirty years to extend their noble status (Holy Domain from generation to generation), while Viscounts could relax this to every one hundred and twenty years (Holy Domain every four generations).
Although it was possible to offset the criteria by drawing in Holy Sanctuary Mages, first, Holy Sanctuary Mages could become nobles themselves and might not bother with you; second, if you wanted to snatch up Holy Sanctuary Mages, Dukes and Marquises were also competing, and you might not succeed. Therefore, those Earls and Viscounts who knew they would eventually be demoted would proactively switch to being Guard Palace nobles to avoid wasting their lives in council.
This was precisely why Lois was so certain that Adelle’s family was just a middleman; after all, Guard Palace nobles have a very low desire for Holy Domain, adopting an attitude of ’if you don’t have it, you still live well.’ Only inner palace nobles yearned for the secrets of achieving the Holy Domain, for it truly concerned a fall in class.
"Alas, I bear pressures that do not belong to my age," Adelle sighed. "The taste of maturity is so bitter."
"Cut the act." Lois gave her head a whack, took her notebook, and had a look. "Posting these notes to the Claw Club would make others disdain—it’s all trivial stuff about Sonia! And this line here, cross it off, her lingerie brand has absolutely nothing to do with the Holy Domain."
"Why? You can’t just make assumptions!"
"I wear the same brand as her. She copied mine."
Adelle, clutching her sore head, snatched her notebook back and protested, "Then you guess what Sonia’s secret is!"
"Why should I guess with you..." Lois sighed, pulled a chair over, and analyzed seriously. "The most abnormal thing about Sonia right now is that her achievement of the Holy Domain was too fast."
"She summoned her first Technique Spirit in April and until the Meteor Disaster five days ago, it’s been just over seventy days. If we count from the day she demonstrated Two-winged Combat Power during the friendship matches, it took her merely twenty-something days to go from One-winged to Two-winged, meaning she crossed the Time Continent in just fifty days and ascended to the Distant Realm."
"But the Time Continent is different from the Sea of Knowledge, which has the Vortex shortcut. If a Mage has astounding Talent, it is possible to complete the transformation into the Silver Wings and the faction realm in a short time. The Time Continent, however, lacks such a mechanism as the Vortex."
"The Dazzling Star records the fastest breakthrough from Two-winged to Three-winged as Legendary Mage Magus’s ’Hundred-day Holy Domain’ five hundred years ago, but this was based on Magus’s mastery of moving Miracles, and his soul energy was twice that of ordinary Mages—in other words, his Exploration time was double that of an ordinary Mage."
"Not only did Sonia break his record, but she also halved the time required," Lois sighed. "It is natural for everyone to suspect she possesses a powerful Exploration Miracle."
In the world of Mages, Talent could not explain everything.
After all, no matter how high your Talent, you could only breakthrough faction realms, eliminating the bottleneck from your dictionary. But Magic Power is a hard indicator directly linked to Exploration time, pretty much like pregnancy—if a genius needs one year, you only need half a year, everyone considers you extraordinarily talented; if you only need a hundred days, people see you as unusual, and reluctantly accept; if you only need fifty days, and you look no different from a normal person, who would believe there is no Miracle involved!
"But most Exploration Miracles are used for repairing soul damage or countering Death penalties," Ingrid pondered. "However, speaking of which, Sonia’s several deaths in the Void Realm did recover very quickly."
Lois nodded, "I had a faint feeling back then, but I didn’t expect her to have such a big ace up her sleeve... To form the Golden Wings within fifty days, she either has a Miracle that allows her to move safely and quickly in the Void Realm, or she has a way to increase her rate of Magic Power absorption. Either one is the kind of secret the inner palace nobles have been dreaming of."
Perhaps some wonder why it’s significant to speed up the condensation of the Golden Wings—what’s the point of saving a few years if it would still take four or five to form them? By saving this time, would they be able to break through from faction realm to Holy Domain?
But don’t forget, there’s a golden age for learning; twenty to thirty is the prime time for Mages to breakthrough. The earlier you condense the Golden Wings, the more Magic Power you have for training Technique Spirits, and the higher the chance of breaking through faction realms. Moreover, the penalty of dying in the Void Realm might not seem severe but distracts Mages from focusing on refining their skills.
Even if a Mage only dies three or four times a year (which is considered few), they would still waste nearly half of their life. Those golden ten years would soon pass. That’s why inner palace nobles who possess Exploration Miracles have a much higher probability of producing Holy Sanctuary Mages than ordinary families, as they greatly reduce the death penalties Mages face.
Now with the emergence of a Miracle suspected of speeding up Magic Power condensation, how could the inner palace nobles not covet it? How could they not play tricks to obtain such a secret?
"Even if those people want it so badly, they can at most put pressure on families like Adelle’s to compel them to pry into Sonia’s secrets," Ingrid smiled. "Sonia already has the ability to protect her own secrets."