As the tea cooled, time felt much slower than usual as Alex gathered a list of questions inside his head.
"Can I ask why our bloodline has this curse? And why do we have to reach at least archmage to break it?"
"That's a good question... But I'm afraid I can't answer that."
"Why not? Aren't you the archmage? Who's preventing you from telling the truth?"
Seeing Sarah look back at him in silence, Alex stared back before looking back down at his teacup.
"Fine, how about can you tell me the history of our family? Like from the founding to now?"
After a short silence, Sarah seemed much more willing to answer the question he asked this time.
"The story is more disappointing than you think... Are you sure you want to hear it?"
"I want to hear it."
"Very well then... Have a watch yourself."
As Sarah snapped her finger, shrouds of darkness suddenly surrounded him before it all vanished.
When he could see again, he was floating in the air, with everything he touched going through him.
"My lord, we lost the war... Please, we can't fight for any longer."
A man was on his knees right before an old man seated on the throne.
With the crown on his head and the fancy clothes he wore, it was clear he was some sort of king.
Several people, seemingly the king's advisors, were standing behind the man who was on the floor.
"We can't fight any longer! It's a lost cause, my lord." One of the people in the back pleaded.
It was clear all of them were trying to pressure the lord to surrender for some sort of fight.
"We haven't lost yet! Guards!"
As the guards entered the room, several of the bureaucrats started to panic.
But the man on his knee didn't flinch a single bit, with both knees on the floor.
"If it takes my death to convince my lord, I'm willing to die."
With the guards walking up, the king seemingly finally backed down for a bit.
"Is there really no way for us to win?"
Seeing the man on the floor shaking his head, the king let out a sigh before waving his hand to dismiss the guards.
"Those damn mages! I knew I should have never trusted them. All they do is backstab."
Despite the king's angry voice, his face seemed calm and collected.
"Fine, where's the enemy diplomat?"
"He's right outside."
Alex watched as the king talked to the diplomat and was then presented with a peace plan that shocked him.
It was a much older map that Katherine had never taught them about, with various countries on the continent rather than just one.
He could also see that the 'enemy' diplomat was in the same place as the empire's current capital.
"None."
Alex was a little shocked, but it didn't stop him from asking his next question.
"How about how many of those relatives have kids?"
"All of them had at least two or three kids," Sarah answered.
"Then how come we don't have any relatives at all? Why did Grandpa say the castle used to have a lot of people living in it?
Surely, there would be someone who is related to us out there, right? It just doesn't sound realistic."
Alex pointed out after remembering how famous people in history have thousands of distant, distant relatives that they could trace to.
"Because all of them died in a tournament accident... Your grandpa was the only one who was too young to go."
"What tournament is it? Why did they all go to it?" Alex questioned.
"I can't tell you that. But all you need to know is there used to be one every hundred years in the capital.
All of those people you saw earlier eventually died in it trying to reach Archmage or Grand Archmage."
Sarah's answer only raised more questions in Alex's head, but she clearly wanted to avoid the question.
"How about you? Did you join the tournament and become the archmage?" Alex curiously asked.
"Nope. Just like your grandpa, I only lived because I was too young... I was just born a few months before the tournament."
"Sorry to hear that..."
"No need. I never developed any feelings for them anyway..."
As Sarah took a pause and sipped her tea down, the room once again fell into silence.
After she finished drinking, Alex raised his last final question.
"How about the whole male curse thing? I remember seeing the gender split was mostly 50/50.
That didn't seem to be true back then. So why did the curse suddenly change to having mostly females?"
Sarah, this time, seemed a little hesitant, but she eventually answered it.
"Because I'm a Grand Archmage."
"Huh? What does that have to do with us being cursed?"
As Alex looked confused by her answer, Sarah's face suddenly blushed for the first time since he had met her.
"You don't need to know about it. All you need to know is being my descendants means you have zero chance of being a man."
"Wait, what do you mean zero?"
Just as Alex was about to question her about it, his surroundings suddenly changed into the middle of a grass field again.
"Enough questions. Let's see if your level 2 mage can beat a level 1 mage."
This time, the fight was much more formal as an arena suddenly appeared around them.
A crowd of people also appeared in the seats, with cameras and microphones, as if they were in a livestream or something.
"Come on, Alex, bring it. The people in this world are going to be watching you fight."
Alex ignored Sarah's pressure as he took a deep breath first to prepare for the upcoming grueling fight.