Ellie

Ellie was born into the Madeleine family, a noble house of Herma that, despite its aristocratic lineage, was considered a lesser noble house because it had yet to produce a renowned scholar of magic.

From a young age, Ellie was exceptionally bright and intelligent. Her family pinned all their hopes on her, and Ellie loved nothing more than to earn praise from her loving and devoted parents. Determined to live up to their expectations, she studied and trained tirelessly. By the age of eleven, she had completed the advanced magic course, securing her reputation as a generational prodigy.

While Ellie had already brought honor and prestige to the Madeleine family, she was not content to stop there.

She believed the attention she received was only because of her youth, and that nothing she had achieved would not eventually be surpassed by others. If she became complacent, she feared that the prestige she'd earned would fade, and her parents would grow unhappy.

Ellie resolved to conduct her own independent research into magic that wasn't taught at school, and so every day, she shut herself in her room, tirelessly pursuing new magical findings.

According to the Law of Magical Dynamics, the amount of mana consumed to perform magic can infinitely approach zero, depending on individual capability, but it can never reach zero. Casting magic must always consume mana.

This was an established principle within magical academia. However, through years of independent research, Ellie succeeded in demonstrating a form of magic that, though limited in effect, required no mana at all.

This was a monumental breakthrough. She had produced magic out of thin air. Thanks to this achievement, Ellie not only secured a position as a professor at the Magic Academy but was also entrusted with further research into the magic she had developed. The Madeleine family finally had a prodigy to call their own, and Ellie became their greatest pride.

Not long after Ellie began researching her magic more closely, she realized a terrible truth.

She wasn't performing magic like she'd thought, producing it out of thin air. Her magic worked by converting her body's nutrition and blood sugar into mana. While this was an astonishing innovation in itself, it was far removed from the magic that the world believed she was performing. In addition, her magic carried a serious side effect.

Due to a severe nutritional deficiency, Ellie had physically stopped growing around the age of thirteen, and if she continued using her magic, her body would never grow any further. And so, Ellie quickly made plans to publicly acknowledge her mistake.

However, Ellie's parents put a stop to her plan. Her achievements had brought the Madeleine family an unprecedented level of prestige, and if Ellie were to reveal the truth now, the family would be branded as frauds, stripped of their honor and noble titles alike.

Ellie insisted to her parents that she could not live a lie, but, faced with their tears, she couldn't bring herself to defy them. And so, reluctantly, she continued to hide the truth.

Resolved to continue lying, Ellie first had to address the most critical problem. Her blood sugar would plummet each time she used magic. She quickly devised a solution. She would use her own magic to create sugary snacks, like candy, and consume them.

This way, she could naturally replenish her blood sugar in front of others while practicing magic. Over time, Ellie honed her magic to conjure various candies and sweets, ensuring that her secret remained safe and her deception went undetected.

For several years, Ellie managed to maintain the lie without much trouble. But eventually, her excessive sugar intake began to take a toll on her health. Fatigue became her constant companion, and her chronic nutritional imbalance led her to suffer frequent illnesses as her body's ability to heal weakened.

When her parents finally realized how serious her condition had become, they were overwhelmed with remorse. They urged Ellie to reveal the truth, even if it meant sacrificing the family's honor and losing their noble title. But for Ellie, after all she'd sacrificed, coming clean was no longer an option. She resolved to find another way to keep the lie alive.

And then one day, Ellie came up with an idea that completely changed her perspective.

If her lie was the problem, she would simply have to make her lie the truth. In other words, she had to actually develop magic that could be performed without consuming mana. She was determined succeed where she had failed before, producing magic out of thin air.

To pursue this new goal, Ellie decided to travel the world in search of more knowledge. She had already researched extensively in Herma and had concluded there was nothing else to be learned there. Ellie's parents supported her decision. Whether or not she was able to attain her goal, they wanted to encourage her to pursue her own desires, as she'd been losing passion and motivation as she obsessed over her lie.

Thus, Ellie formally resigned from her position at the Magic Academy and embarked on a journey to turn her lie into reality. To the public, however, she had simply burnt out and quit her job to take an indefinite leave of absence and sample all the sweets the world had to offer.