Observing the mysterious woman with an impassive gaze glued on the landscape outside the window, Alice gently rose from the bed and quietly began to get dressed. It was as though she was afraid that any noise might disturb the other's contemplation. Why was she in this room? What happened here? She did not know... She was in a trance and acted as if nothing was amiss. Her foggy mind could not and did not even try to catch the reasons of her presence in the room of someone else... Because it does not matter right? No time for such useless thought, she was healthy and fine, whatever she had to do is now done.

  In just a short span of time, she was ready to go back to her daily routine. Alice exited the room, leaving behind on top of the bedside table the first reason of her visit: the excess elemental stone from Beatrice's payment.

  ...

  The sound of the door closing behind her reached Beatrice, who had remained engrossed in her window gazing. She found herself subtly shaking her head and releasing a weary sigh.

  Shortly afterwards, Beatrice experienced a drastic drop in the surrounding elemental energy concentration, prompting her to clench her teeth.

  "I need to adapt to this," she muttered, sensing the noticeably thin veil of elemental energy present in the air. Inevitably, the elemental energy concentration would continue to decline until Beatrice reached Gollwal Island, where it would maintain at a low level.

  In her previous life, when she first returned to her homeland, Beatrice had relied on elemental stones to offset this issue. However, due to her prolonged stay this time, she needed to be more prudent with her elemental energy consumption.

  'Perhaps there's a solution,' Beatrice mused, observing the receding Magic Continent through the window. Though the means eluded her, she was aware that the continental elemental energy was being artificially amplified.

  While Beatrice wouldn't attempt anything on such a grand scale - she didn't require it - the creation of such a system could prove beneficial.

  Shortly after, Beatrice shut her eyes, took a profound breath, and commenced the process of mana refinement.

  ...

  Two hours later,

  After a quick nap, Beatrice opened her eyes and looked around her, while observing whatever was in her room, she couldn't help but think about her current situation and plan for the future.

  'The decline wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, It seems that I won't necessarily need to use elemental stones to refine mana relatively efficiently' she thought.

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  Thanks to the fact that she had become an official mage, Beatrice's understanding of mana had gone far beyond that of her self at the same time in her previously life, which allowed her to cram even more mana into her body compared to before and be more adaptive to a new type of mana density in her surroundings

  But even so, originally, Beatrice had thought that she would have to use elemental stones if she wanted to not completely waste the entirety of her time simply refining mana and not doing anything else.

  Thankfully though, this did not seem to be the case, as even in an area where the elemental energy was extremely thin and weak, Beatrice was able to fully saturate her body with around 0.3 points of mana in just under two hours.

  Despite this situation being significantly less favorable than her mana accumulation capabilities on the Magic Continent, it was still better than nothing at all. Nevertheless, Beatrice couldn't shake off the sensation that she was wasting precious time on a basic process, one she could ordinarily sustain as effortlessly as breathing, while engaging in more compelling projects.

  'I guess things won't be so bad,' Beatrice mused, lightly tapping a finger on the table. The digit easily punctured the surface, leaving behind a hole the exact size of her finger.

  ...

  A month later,

  As she looked at the ground, which was getting closer and closer to her, Beatrice, who was still in her room, couldn't help but faintly smile.

  The fact that she was on a ship where several official mages were present meant that Beatrice had to restrain herself and continue acting naturally, fearing that she might otherwise alert them.

  But once she arrived in the Malto Archipelago, with her current strength, Beatrice would be able to act without many scruples, as other than the mage that would be picking up those two kids, no other Official Mage was present in the Archipelago.

  Then, a few minutes later, just a moment after the ship had just landed on the ground, Beatrice opened the door of her room and walked out, quickly making her way out of the ship.

  Even as she walked past a very familiar old woman, no change could be seen in Beatrice's expression, as she simply walked out of the ship as soon as possible.

  ...

  Skye Higgins, observing the young mage's hurried strides down the ship's corridors, couldn't resist a mild head shake.

  "Youth today... always so rushed," grumbled the seasoned official mage, oblivious to the fear she had inadvertently stirred in Beatrice, who on the surface appeared to be unaware of her identity.

  Meeting Skye Higgins had not been part of Beatrice's agenda, but she maintained a flawless poker face, at least until she disembarked from the ship, where a single bead of sweat formed on her forehead.

  The moment this sweat droplet surfaced, Skye, who had been still observing the young mage despite her own movement through the ship, furrowed her brows.

  The inexplicable change in the young mage's expression immediately upon leaving the ship piqued Skye's curiosity, creating an itch to uncover the reason.

  However, Skye was presently overwhelmed with tasks and lacked the time to delve into such minor oddities.

  Of course, if the young mage had piqued her interest even slightly more, Skye might have initiated a conversation with her.

  ...

  Even though she was unaware of just how much of a close call her exit had just been, Beatrice still quickly made her way away from the ship whilst maintaining that same expression on her face, not wanting to show any emotion in the slightest.