Almost four years had passed, and over time many things had changed.
Two years ago, when Lith was still ten years old, Rena had reached adulthood. She participated in the Spring Maiden contest, winning it by a landslide.
Between the clothes from the Count, the make-up from Keyla, and the beauty treatment from Lith, she basically had no competition.
She soon started to hang out with several young promising bachelors, before finding the right one. His name was Senton, and he was the son of the blacksmith.
After dating for almost a full year, they were ready to marry.
In that same year, Tista had reached her growth spurt at the age of twelve. Her congenital condition was officially healed and she started practicing fake magic under Lith’s and Nana’s guidance.
Her mana core had become deep green, and according to Solus, there was still space for it to grow at least up to bright green. Tista was finally able to get out of the house without supervision and finally started making friends with the neighbors’ children.
It was too late for her to try to attend a Magic Academy, she barely knew the basics of chore magic, but she didn’t mind. After being a prisoner in her own body for so many years, she had no interest in perpetual challenges.
The only thing she really wanted was to enjoy her new life, trying out all the things that had been forbidden to her before. Becoming a magica and one day inheriting Nana’s business was already beyond every expectation she had ever held.
Even Lith’s household had deeply transformed. Between his magic, the help from the Count, and all the money he was able to earn, the walls were now made entirely of stone. Only the floor and the roof were still wooden.
He had also built a new bedroom for himself that also served as a study. Lith was getting too old to keep sleeping with his sisters, and had no intention of moving in with Trion.
He demanded his personal space and privacy, and since he was the one paying for it, no one could make any objections.
As for Lith himself, he too had changed deeply, at least physically. Despite having yet to become twelve years old, he was already 1.6 meters (5’3″) tall. His thin and scrawny build was only a memory.
Now he had broad shoulders and his muscles were well developed but not ripped, as if they had been finely chiselled. He didn’t want to stand out nor to carry useless weight, Lith wasn’t planning on becoming a soldier, after all.
He was more than content with a far from average build and a body that was able to react instantly, according to his will. His mana core was still cyan, but not deep cyan anymore, it was halfway through to the light cyan that would precede the next evolution.
A mana core on the light end of the spectrum had proven to be much more powerful that the previous ones, but at the same time it put a much heavier burden to Lith’s body. He had reached a bottleneck that couldn’t be overcome with training or study.
Only after hitting his growth spurt would his body become strong enough to allow him to refine his mana core further. Before such a time, the use of Accumulation would bring to him only pain and no benefits.
(AN: Accumulation is the breathing technique that allows Lith to absorb the world energy into his mana core, making it grow stronger through expansion and shrinking cycles, with the mana core turning a lighter colour at every cycle.
See the end of chapter 7 and chapter 9 for more details)
Also, since all of his new clothes had the Lark household’s crest on either the shoulder or the chest pocket, he made full use of his newfound authority to protect the village in Nana’s absence. For a fee, of course.
The only criminals he would take out for free were those with a nice “Dead or Alive” bounty on their heads. Lith had a strict policy to deliver them feet first.
Now that he was almost twelve, the number of spells and the skill level he could reveal had increased exponentially, since now he officially had more than six years of magical training.
Seeing him fly around, hunting for pelts or bounties had become a common occurrence in the Lutia village. By having three healers and two protectors, the village kept growing in fame, size, and population.
It was only thanks to him that Rena and Senton were able to date each other. Previously, the idea of the son of an artisan marrying the daughter of a humble farmer would have been preposterous.
Inside, though, Lith had changed very little. He was still the cynical, mistrustful broken man he had always been, with no real friend or loved one outside his family and Solus.
Having to deal with criminals, chasing away profligate boys that tried to molest his sisters and interacting with the nobles had further solidified in his mind the idea that mankind, even in the new world, was a plague that he needed to avoid.
His only real confident was Solus, and despite all her attempts, she had not been able to change his mind, even one bit.
He was also in a very bad mood.
‘Dammit, tier four spells are really hard. I can manage to reproduce them with true magic, but I still feel they are somewhat lacking. When I cast them with either true or fake magic, something always feels amiss.’ He thought.
‘Yeah.’ Solus mind nodded. ‘Maybe it’s just my impression, but this kind of spells feels like it’s supposed to hold some deep and profound concept that we are not able to grasp. Maybe, if we had access to tier five books…’
‘Ifs and buts are just a waste of time. Who would have ever thought that Count Lark wouldn’t buy them? He is still dead set to try and send me to the Lightning Griffon academy, no matter how many times I repeated that I prefer being home-schooled.’
‘Well, you knew how stubborn the Count can be.’ Solus replied. ‘Also, from his point of view, not buying the books kills two birds with one stone. He manages to save a mountain of gold and forces you to attend the academy at the same time.’
During those four years, Lith had relentlessly tried to convince the Count that an Academy was not good for him, he even resorted to using the need to protect his family and the village as leverage.
But the Count was immovable.
“Dear Lith, you have a dire need of the Academy, and I say this only in your best interest. I cannot stress how important it is to learn how to properly interact with your peers and to establish the right connections.
“Not to mention that you have no friends of your age! You need to socialize, maybe even fall in love. Otherwise you’ll grow into a cranky and cynical man.”
‘Been there, done that.’ Solus giggled.
“Also don’t worry about your family. As soon as you enrol, they’ll gain a newfound status, and until your graduation, the Magic Association will take personal care of them. At that point, not even the most reckless madman would try something funny.”
Lith had run out of excuses, and could not tell him the truth.
He was sick and tired of being looked down on by nobles and foreign merchants. Even resorting to violence or intimidation after a while had lost much of its charm.
Lith just wanted to be left in peace and treated with respect, like any normal human being.
He didn’t know how long he could suffer the contempt and abuse from his so called “peers” at the Academy, before shoving their high and mighty attitude up their throat. Probably after taking a detour through their a*ses.
The idea of not being able to practice true magic, spirit magic and fusion magic was enough to give him a big headache. In an Academy he would be crippled, losing all of his advantages so as to not blow his cover.
It was a lose-lose situation.
Lith’s mood was made even worse by the thought of Rena moving out of the household. After what happened to Carl, he had developed an obsessive-compulsive need to know where everyone was at any given time.
He needed to feel that everything was under his control to be at peace with himself.
‘If you really love them, you have to let them go.’ Solus tried to console him.
‘After all, Academy or not, when you reach sixteen years and leave the house what are you going to do? Stuff them and store them in our pocket dimension? You need to learn to let go and focus on what’s really important to you.
‘If you really wanted to make them your puppets, you wouldn’t have cured Tista. Her illness was the perfect leash, yet you willingly chose to free her. They are not Carl. The whole world is not filled with trash like the one who killed your brother.’
Lith’s mind recognized the truth of her words, but his heart refused to even consider it. It would keep screaming “F*ck the world! They are mine! Mine! Mine!”
‘Is this what a father feels when his children leave the nest?’ He thought.
He couldn’t avoid noticing that even Raaz, despite all the smiles and happiness he showed, was actually quite depressed to be losing his eldest daughter.
‘If I’m like this with adults, I’m afraid to discover what I would become if children were involved. It seems I am destined to be single for life.’
Now that Lith was eleven and a half years, he had reached the minimum age requirement to apply for a scholarship at the Lightening Griffon academy.
Count Lark was waiting for him at his manor, from there they would travel to their destination by stagecoach. According to the Count, flying in the vicinity of any building owned by the Mage Association was strictly forbidden.
To even get into the vicinity a special pass was needed and an appointment had to be set up through the proper channels.
The academy wasn’t that far, but using a stagecoach would require several hours of boredom. While looking through the window, Lith could only hope that all those years of preparations and self-sabotaging would pay off.
Being accepted into such an institution, away from home, would be the beginning of his worst nightmare.
I’ll try to keep the release schedule, but stuff happens, so no promises. Also please, have a bit of trust in me. Whatever I decide to do with the story, I’ll always try to make things interesting as fresh, like I did so far.
