Right after the caravan entered the
capital, Emelyn instructed the coachman to go towards the Palace. The first thing she wanted to do after arriving
to Shephiria was to let her husband know they were there. When Anthon finally showed up, Emelyn just told him to ask for a two week leave
at the Palace, and meet them at their house, then she turned around, and went
back into the carriage after giving the directions of their house in the city
to the coachman.
Merlin was really surprised when he saw the house,
despite it being half the size their house at Laklostia, it was larger than he
had imagined. He explored the whole house, and when his mother assigned the
rooms to the children, he interrupted her and asked for the basement to be his
room. Emelyn didn’t understand why a four-year-old kid would want to live in
the basement of a house he had never been staying at before, but his answer
left her dumbfounded and a little worried, because he had said he wanted to
start doing basic compounding and he needed a workspace. With this answer,
Merlin tried to convince her mother, but it backfired.
Emelyn: “C-compounding? What are you talking about? You
are merely four years old! There is no way I’m going to allow that! It’s too
dangerous!”
Merlin: “Don’t worry about me, mother. I’m old enough
to manage the materials without any assistance. As for the theoretical
knowledge, I already know the formulas up to intermediate level…”
Emelyn: “Argh! Look, Merlin. No matter how much
theoretical knowledge you have about it, that doesn’t change the fact that you
are still a four-year-old child! Working with fire and dangerous materials
which can blow up anytime… as your mother, I can’t allow that!”
Merlin: “In that case… If I only use non-dangerous
material, and don’t use fire… would you give me your permission to do it?”
Emelyn: “Ok… but I’ll be checking on you from time to
time… and if I ever discover you breaking those conditions, I’ll forbid you
from doing compounding until you turn 15, understood?”
Merlin: “It’ crystal clear, mother!” *It’s not like
I’m going to let you find out if do anyway… *
Emelyn: “It better be!”
After they came to an agreement, Emelyn assigned the
rest of the rooms: The two rooms on the north would be used by Arnold (who
would sleep alone), Josh and Bly (who would share a room). The room on the
south was assigned to Jasmine. Emelyn would use the guest room, while Leyla
would sleep with Anthon in the main room. This kind of room arrangements were
unexpected because Emelyn wouldn’t share the main room with Anthon and Leyla,
but the announcement she made right after, made them forget about the room arrangement.
She told them they would stay in the capital for a year and a half, until
Merlin’s awakening took place. Afterwards, they would return to Laklostia.
Merlin was quite pleased by his mother’s announcement.
Being in Shephiria for a year and a half would allow him to do compounding to
his heart’s content. Thanks to their house being close to the Magic
Association, he would be able to start practicing magic spells without his
mother finding out about his magic awakening, for she wouldn’t be able to
distinguish the mana fluctuations of his magic from the ones coming from the
Magic Association. And as a bonus, he might would be able to watch his father
training the Crown Prince… or the training of the knights… and maybe pick up a
few things on the way.
His brothers, on the other hand… They weren’t as
enthusiastic as him about remaining in the capital. The primary reason for that
was their father. Back in Laklostia their father would come and supervise their
training once a month, while the rest of the month they could fool around a
little when training. Here, in the capital, their father would supervise their
training every day… and they didn’t like his strictness.
***************************************************************************
When Anthon arrived, Emelyn took him and Leyla into
the master room to explain matters and decide how to proceed from then on. In
the room, Emelyn told Anthon about Leyla, the rape and the reason she had
ordered him to ask for two-week leave at the Palace. When he found out about
what Leyla had gone through, he lost all the color in his face, brought her
towards him and embraced her.
He understood Emelyn’s plan and although he didn’t
exactly liked it, he didn’t have any choice if he wanted to save some face… but
that wasn’t his main reason to accept her plan, the main reason was Leyla. If
he slept with Leyla non-stop for two weeks neither of them would know whose
child the baby was, and that would give them some peace of mind. Anthon was ovewhelmed by the situation, and regretfully
thought *If only I had more money, she
wouldn’t have to go through this… *
This world had two kinds of birth-control potions: the
“Donna potion” and the “Nadon potion”. The “Donna potion”
was a contraceptive potion, its use was widely spread and its price was 2
large-copper coins per vial. The “Nadon potion” was an abortive potion,
but as its main ingredient was “Firebreath flower”, an S-Class
ingredient only found in fire-dragon dens, its price was 30 gold per vial,
which made it available only to the aristocracy or people of similar wealth.
The following two weeks Leyla and Anthon barely went
out of the room. Meanwhile, Emelyn took Jasmine and the kids around the city
and bought the things necessary for the family to live in that house for a long
period of time. Since up to that moment Anthon was alone in the house,
furniture and some other basic items were lacking a little.
**************************************************************************
Six months later…
Merlin finished his meditation, got up and started his
martial arts practice. He had made a surprising discovery a couple of months
before and now, after two months of practice, he had finally managed to get the
hang of it. He accidentally discovered that if he circulated the mana in his
body through his blood vessels, it permeated through them to the cells, and he
was able to naturally strengthen his cells, without causing mana lost. This
resulted in him having the strength of an adult when using this technique. It
was similar to what he had read about ki strengthening in his previous world,
so that’s how he called that technique.
He discovered that use of mana when he tried to
circulate it through his body in an attempt to purify it, but it didn’t work.
Instead, he discovered a way to use mana to momentarily boost up his physical
abilities, and it had an unexpected side effect: after its use a 5% of the
total boost up remained, at a cellular level. Which meant that after using this
technique, Merlin would become a little stronger, and that was a side effect
which would make the most out of his training.
He then checked his own status:
Status Window
|
|||||
Name
|
Merlin Pendragon
|
||||
Age
|
5
|
Race
|
**** Human
|
||
Level
|
5
|
Gender
|
Male
|
||
Health
|
800/800
|
Health Regen.
|
0.009 / Sec
|
||
Mana
|
145 671
|
Mana Regen.
|
0.017 / Sec
|
||
Magic
|
|
||||
Attribute affinity
|
Fire (extraordinary), Water (extraordinary), Wind
(extraordinary), Earth (extraordinary), Space-time (extraordinary), Light
(extraordinary), Darkness (extraordinary), Non-attribute (extraordinary)
|
||||
Skills
|
|
||||
What he read on the window showed to him that his
harsh training schedule really had paid off. He had levelled up in every way,
and his mana pool had almost tripled, he didn’t actually expect that 8 - 10
hours of meditation per day would have this effect on his mana pool, he
expected a significant increase, but not this significant! Besides, he had
checked his mother’s status the previous week and her mana pool was 12 349 MP,
which confirmed to him, he had a mana pool which could probably rival a High
Elf’s. His mana pool clearly exceeded the limits of a human, and it was still
growing… this led him to think of the problem called “Magic Awakening
Ritual” which he would have to attend the following year. He still hadn’t
thought of any countermeasures for it, so it was about time to start doing some
thinking…
Two weeks after mastering his ki strengthening
technique, Merlin went to the Alchemist Association to buy some materials (he
had achieved mastery of Avalon’s intermediate level in compounding) because he
had started making antidotes the previous month and run out of many materials.
He was especially proud of one antidote called “Amariena”. He had tried
out the formula and was successful, but he had been extremely lucky in this
case, not only in getting it right at the first try, but also finding the main
ingredient, “Amara flower”, in their garden.
The “Amara flower” was thought to have become extinct
500 years earlier, so seeing one was no short of a miracle. Merlin, after
finding the flower, he collected its seeds to plant it in the future and have
his own personal share of “Amara flowers”. The “Amariena” was an
antidote said to be able to eliminate any toxin and damage caused by it to the
body, and it lasted for hundreds of years, hence despite the flower’s alleged
extinction, there were some vials of “Amariena” still in existence.
The people at the Alchemist Association thought he was
running an errand for his parents, who would have dared to imagine this
five-year-old boy was actually so proficient in compounding that he was able to
produce even A-Rank antidotes? Obviously Merlin wasn’t going to correct them,
he wanted to keep a low profile, so their misunderstanding of the situation suited
him just fine. When he was done, he passed by the library memorized a couple of
spell books and then decided to go home because it was getting dark.
On his way home, he heard sounds of a fight and the
suffocated cry of a girl. Anyone else would have probably been unable to hear
them, but his enhanced senses allowed him to do so. The sounds came from a
side-alley in front of him and when he got there, the scene he saw made him
lose it. He couldn’t care less about the six dead guards on the ground or the
man in butler clothes who was receiving a beating, but he saw three men with
black knives attacking a little girl. To make matters worse, the girl had a
black stab wound on her left arm and the blackness was spreading, which
convinced him of two facts: first, the knives should have poison, be enchanted,
or maybe both; second, they wanted to kill the girl and unless he interfered
they would be successful.
Merlin immediately used his strengthening technique
and attacked the men, he started with the ones attacking the butler and
finished them off by breaking the neck of the one who was crouching down, and
crushing the skull of the other one with a downward kick. Then, he took their
knives and threw them at two of the men attacking the little girl, two hits,
two deaths, one of the knives pierced the heart of the man on the right, the
other knife severed the carotid artery of the man on the left. As for the one
left standing, Merlin broke one of his legs with a low kick, forced him to
kneel and killed him with a heavy punch to the temple.
He then turned around and talked to the little girl:
Merlin: "Hello, what’s your name, little miss?"
???: "Ad-Adelle."
Merlin: "Ok, Adelle. I want you to drink this. Don’t
worry it’ll make you feel better."
After saying that he brought out a vial of “Amariena”
and tried to make her drink it. To his surprise, the girl was so scared because
of the fight she had just witnessed, that she spilled and wasted the vial, but
didn’t drink it. Seeing this and that the poison in her was quickly spreading,
he resorted to the ultimate method. He took out a second vial of “Amariena”,
kept the contents of the vial in his mouth, approached Adelle, kept her down
against the ground, kissed her and gave her the “Amariena”
mouth-to-mouth.
Then, after making sure the poison was gone, he used a
basic healing spell of water attribute to heal her stab wound. Once he made
sure she was completely recovered, he checked the butler and saw he had been
rough up, but overall he was ok. Merlin heard a group of knights coming in his
direction, so he quickly left the alley, just before the knights arrived at the
scene.
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