[kagato3]

Originally Posted by babbo3d

No the clans already existed since before, I think what you meant was the when magic came into the picture as a weapon magically gifted received numbers in their last name as a show of status.

You are mixing up the Ten master Clans and the hundred Families.

The power of the Ten Master Houses ascends beyond that of judicial authorities.

Once it was known that talent in modern magic is influenced by one's genetic predisposition, as a matter of course, lengths were taken to strengthen one's blood.

That means, for countries which systematically classified magic as the form of national power, throughout all the countries in the world, there are already differences from the age when magic was still unknown.

Of course, that also applied to this country.

The result was the formation of a new group to oversee the magic realm in the country.

Those were the 10 Master Houses.

Their history is less than a century old, so the hierarchy is still fluid.
However the fact is, in the families called the Ten Master Houses, a barrier has already appeared between them and others which is hard to overcome.

By repeatedly reinforcing their blood with ties between the Houses, the Ten Master Houses, along with the related 100 Families, possess a marked difference from those who are not.

They were both of the Hundred Families, but Kanon belonged to the Chiyoda Family near the pinnacle. Talented Magicians from prestigious families were the true representation of "Hundred Families".

Here, the "Hundred Families" didn't actually mean the number broke one hundred.

Just as the hundreds digit followed the tens digit, the same meaning applied in that they were "families that were second only to the Ten Master Clans".

In addition, the Ten Master Clans did not consist of only ten families. There were a total of 28 families worthy of the name the Ten Master Clans, and whoever possessed the strongest magic (notice that this was not the most talented, but the strongest), the top ten would be collectively known as the Ten Master Clans.

Mayumi's Saegusa Family always boasted a large number of talented Magicians, whereas the Yotsuba Family possessed one of the strongest Magicians in the modern era. The "Demon Lord of the Far East", the "Midnight Queen", Yotsuba Maya was the current head of house, which caused both families to be acknowledged as the twin aces of the Ten Master Clans.

Currently, the Ten Master Clans consisted of "Ichijou", "Futatsugi", "Mitsuya", "Yotsuba", "Itsuwa", "Mutsudzuka", "Saegusa", "Yatsushiro", "Kudou", and "Juumonji", which just happened to number from one to ten chronologically. However, this was the first time this had occurred since the Ten Master Clans had been formed, and there have been situations where one or two numbers were either duplicated or missing altogether.

The strongest of the strong became the Ten Master Clans, with the other 18 families as replacements, followed closely by the authentic "Hundred Families".

the Hundred families are real families while it seems the ten Master clans were formed less then 100 years ago Volume 8 even hints at a darker meaning of the 10 master clans

“That’s because this is the site of the infamous ‘Fourth Institute’.”

“The site of the deathly[1] Magic Ability Development Fourth Institute huh……just looking at the building here now, there’s no way to tell.”

During the rise of modern magic, just as in other developed countries, many research and development institutions sprang up dealing with magicians. 10 numbered institutes were set up, and now half of them are still operating. The remaining half, as rights for magicians started to pick up, were closed down one by one for inhumane research amongst other reasons.

Amongst even these was the institute whose research was whispered to have disregarded human life and humanity itself, the Fourth Institute of Magician Development, or the ‘Fourth Institute’.

Due to the confidentiality surrounding both the Fourth Institute and it’s research, not even it’s location had ever been publicly disclosed, only an announcement that it was to be shut down.

The centre of the former Fourth Institute, was located right in the basement of the Yotsuba main house.

The products of the Fourth Institute, the magicians they developed, were designated only with the number ‘Four’—the Yotsuba.

Magicians with the letter four in their family name, aside from the Yotsuba, are known to include the ‘Yomo’, ‘Shihoudou’, and ‘Watanuki’, but they are unconnected to the Ten Master Houses and the 18 auxiliary houses.