In the morning a maid found the soundly sleeping body of the thief that James had stuck under the stairs. Her face dropped seeing the great condition of a thief who had yet to escape the scene of the crime in a deep slumber.
After informing the guards, a thorough investigation was conducted throughout the mansion which uncovered the mirage spell that James had cast. Seeing all the precious books from an entire section of the library gone, the head of the house was furious.
The thief who was now a prisoner was interrogated about the location of the missing books. Truth serums and different types of spells to search the mind were used to try to get the but to no avail. The thief's answer to every question regarding the books was always 'I don't know'. This had been James's plan which was formulated as soon as he saw the thief.
After more intense interrogating and torture, it was found out that thief had been hired by the Lin family to assassinate Zahira, the heir of the Smith family and rob the precious items belonging to them, but things had gone south after an unknown figure had knocked out the assassin.
The assassin was to send a message to the Lin family saying that the heir had been murdered. Hoping to take advantage of the situation, the Smith family sent the message confirming Zahira's death to the Lins. Afterwards, the thief had been tortured to death.
In the afternoon, James heard footsteps approaching. Zahira and her butler entered the cell with the poor boy who was kind enough to warn James to run away.
"I heard from the butler that this kid was being unruly. It's time to discipline him." After saying those words with a sadistic look, Zahira continued to kick the boy, slamming him into the ground same as what happened to James in the carriage.
James fought back vomit after seeing the same tools that were going to be used on the boy that he had also been exposed to. He didn't think that he had a weakness like this. His heart was aching seeing the knife inches away from the boy's skin who was now sobbing and trying to run away only to be held in place by the butler.
James thought if he begged Zahira to stop just like she wanted she would let the boy go. He did exactly that but to his horror Zahira impaled the boy with the knife she was holding in her hands. The young boy screamed in pain as James was overcome by his emotion of not sorrow, but anger.
He used the water conjuration spell to unlock the chains and rushed towards her, yelling FIRE BURST, making a huge ball of fire which flew at an incredible speed aimed at Zahira's head.
Although surprised by the sudden events, Zahira's instincts didn't betray her. She ducked, avoiding the blast which crashed making a huge sound ring throughout the dungeon.
At the same time, above ground, hoping to take advantage of the grieving father of Zahira who was also the Smith family's leader, the Lin family attacked with more than a thousand soldiers and a dozen mages.
Little did they know the Smith family was fully prepared for the attack. The maids and butler's quarters which surrounded the main mansion acted as a fortress towards the attacking forces. The canons on top of the fortress were loaded with special bullets which could easily penetrate armor.
From behind, the Lin family's hired archers who shot enchanted arrows right at the canons disabling them but before that could be done, the first round of canon shots had already been fired, killing the warriors at the front.
First blood had been drawn.