Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 10===

In District 7, Mina and Moina were facing each other on the late-night street still covered by red snow.

Dion Fortune was left behind despite all her effort until now.

“You are drawing on myths and legends from across the world, setting yourself up as Egyptian gods, and controlling a great power like putting on a play,” said Mina Mathers. With a snort of laughter. “That is indeed a spell discussed even in the original Golden cabal. But it’s so shallow and surface level. You’re still stuck in the Outer Order found immediately within the entrance. A sorry display for someone who claims to be Mathers’s wife. To be blunt, you’re still in the waiting room for Neophytes.”

“Wait, wait, wait! Why are you provoking her!? If you want to goad the enemy into attacking you, can you not do it when I’m right next to you!? Ah, wait, mistress!?”

“It’s true I am strategically provoking her, but I need you here to act as my shield. Do not forget your rightful role here, my dumbass student.”

“Ha ha ha. Why did I ever think having a second one of her here would improve my situation? This just means I have twice as many nemeses around. I’m so damn stupid.”

Ignoring her student’s nonsense, the black cat witch lightly swung her palette knife.

That was all.

Pleasant popping sounds surrounded them. Something had risen up. They were walls. A lot like a stage set or a pop-up book. The next thing Dion Fortune knew, tall side walls surrounded them all, cutting them off from the larger world. A space larger than a baseball field had been turned into a closed space by seven side walls, one for each group of tall buildings.

Moina Mathers silently glanced at her surroundings. Looking somewhat puzzled.

How much of a novice was she?

You couldn’t call yourself a Golden expert if you didn’t instantly catch on.

“The Golden cabal’s teaching guidelines can be roughly divided into two halves: the fundamentals where you learn magic knowledge through Kabbalah, Egyptian mythology, Greek philosophy, and so on, and application where you manage and optimize your own mind by following the story of the discovery of the Rosicrucian founder CRC in the seven-walled tomb.”

The Golden cabal could be thought of as having two stages: the Outer Order which covered the grades up to 4=7 and the Inner Order where the 5=6 and 6=5 grades gathered.

…Some like that braggart Mathers had claimed to hold a nonexistent highest grade of 7=4, but that could be ignored. After all, he was only using his privilege as one of the founders to say it. You could never last as wife to that eccentric and overly confident man if you couldn’t humor him on such things. There was also the Portal grade and a category higher than the Inner Order, but they were irrelevant here.

“The upper levels know everything about the lower levels, but the reverse is not true. The adorable beginners studying so hard at their desks are not taught the later practical methods until they have passed their exam. Just like you now because the great demon’s poor job reproducing you means you have forgotten everything beyond the bare necessities.”

Now, that first stage was incredibly boring. So boring that Aleister had completely given up on it partway through. Not that he had ever been someone capable of respecting those who came before him and following the rules. …Also, despite being barred from officially reaching the later stage, he did appear to have somehow learned all its secrets anyway.

Otherwise, he never could have challenged the world in the Battle of Blythe Road and destroyed all those other famous magicians on his own.

(Nothing makes that human want to do something more than being told he can’t. I imagine he pursued them, eavesdropped and spied on them, and tried every other method he could think up.)

But at the very least, this created Moina Mathers was not like that.

She did what she was told and did not ask the question dangling before her eyes. That attitude was not a good fit for a magician.

Mina Mathers twirled the palette knife in her hand and made a calm announcement.

Of a death sentence.

“I will now demonstrate the power off the Inner Order found in the deepest depths of the temple.”