Tacari’s cry woke me up that morning, that little bugger. Renew calmed his mind, the pacifier shut him up and dad did the faecal work. That hadn’t happened to me much but I truly wished he’d grow out of the phase speedily. More specifically, I wish he’d grow just old enough so I could start teaching him magic. That was long overdue. Those bastards waited until I was sixteen to give me a sibling.

The dim light of the sunrise began to hit the windows. Mom walked in just then, as it was about time for her to get ready anyway. “You’ve still got work?” I questioned her. I know for sure Flynn’s workload increased. A lot more people were suddenly interested in stealth and illusion magic after Ulanos’ attack. Mages who didn’t care for it before flocked to him, and normal civilians who didn’t practise magic at all wanted to know at least the basics, so they flocked to the Order. So much so that the Order had to start charging money for it, since the influx of people was so great. It was damn near free though; Pyro had seen to that.

“Actually, yeah. More even.”

That was pretty interesting. I guess there were more court cases now. My stomach growled, so I summoned an ice wall.

“No,” Mary stopped me, “don’t. Since you came back, all we eat is five-star stuff. Let’s go back to the basics every now and then. And you have to support the economy, that transmutation stuff is cheating.”

Cheating she says, yet she’s wearing probably the most expensive piece of jewellery. Flynn gave her a necklace for their anniversary which I made that was probably worth more than this house.

“Besides,” she ruffled my growing hair. You forgot I went bald, didn’t you? Hah! “You have to let me be a mom and wife.”

“Well, you don’t have to. You don’t even have to work anymore,” I pointed out. “In fact, I’m almost certain I make more than double your salaries combined.”

“Son,” Flynn suddenly turned around, “are you trafficking drugs?”

“Pfft,” I held my japing back, “actually, yes, I am. You’re right on the money.”

He then looked at me strangely, as he wasn’t expecting me to play along with it, but it wasn’t like he was wrong.

“Y-you’re serious?”

“K&A Creations produce health potions, mana potions, and strength potions. It also sells basic enchanted items and auctions the exceptional ones. Further to that, we provide clothing, but mostly custom stuff that’s pretty expensive.”

Dad stepped back, rubbed his chin, “So you’re telling me, all those potions in the Order are from you?”

“Yeah.”

“And the enchanted jewellery I’ve been seeing around the city?”

“Uh, yes and no. I make the stuff but I can’t enchant it. Aug does that.”

He grumbled after, complaining that we kids were cheating life. Ah well.

After mom forced us to stay and eat breakfast, I left for Aug’s place. The guy fell asleep outside. Man, this thick-skinned bastard, I thought. How could he not feel the cold of the night and the heat of the morning beating on him? I decided to leave him like that and just work on alchemy. But that bastard was still sleeping at noon!

There were so many damn potions laying about that I just used them as the transmutation material instead of my usual Ice Wall. Eventually, I woke him up.

“You fat piece of shit, how long do you want to sleep for?!”

“You skinny asshole,” he sat up, his eyes droopy as hell. “Ugh, I need a drink.”

“No, you need help.”

He looked around at the stupendous amounts of potions about the place and just picked up a green one and downed it. I could’ve just healed him but whatever.

“I’m done with enchanting dude.”

“What?”

“I finished the pillar, enchanting. My enchants have full effect now. All I have to do is learn different types of enchantments and I’m good.”

My jaw dropped. I mean sure, I wasn’t exactly keeping track of his progress, but he still finished it way faster than I assumed any of us would. “Okay so, the last time you gave me rings, they had three intelligence points, and one each in strength and agility. What can you do now?”

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“Well, that’s five attribute points in total. Now I can do fifty. So, if I did rings for you now with that same attribute division, it’d be thirty intellect and ten each for agility and strength. Primary attributes are pretty good, but now I can do secondary attributes. They can’t replace the primary stuff but they’re just as important.”

“Well?” I waited, “Give me the list man.”

“Alright, alright. Right now, I got ten in total, two of which you won’t use,” he explained. Unlike how there were specific things to know about strength, intellect, and agility, the secondary attributes were pretty self-explanatory.

There were seven more: durability, health regeneration, mana regeneration, mana power, mana pool, quint regeneration, and quint power. All the secondary attributes, if enchanted at full power as a single enchantment on an item, would increase that attribute by ten percent with the exception of the mana pool enchantment, which gave a hundred percent. And seeing that they were measured in percentile, it meant the increase was multiplicative of whatever your base attribute already was, not additive like the three primary attributes.

But there was a limit. It wasn’t like we could wear an infinite number of enchanted items. There was a saturation point for each enchantment, which, not coincidentally, was the maximum effect of the single enchant. So, let’s say he gave me two strength rings, each with the maximum of fifty points, then I’d still have fifty points in strength effectively, not one hundred. It was the same concept for the secondary enchantments.

I made some rings for both of us. They were small and thin enough so they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Each ring had five points of strength, intellect, and agility, a total of fifty. One percent in durability, health regeneration, mana power, mana regeneration, totalling ten percent. And finally, ten percent in mana pool, summing up to one hundred percent. I could literally have eight clones active with these enchantments; ten if I didn’t mind exhausting all my mana. So, for me, I had a number of eight enchantments on one item.

August on the other hand had the eight enchantments I had, plus quint regeneration and quint power, although he wouldn’t need the regeneration. Folks over in Hyzek sure could use it, though.

“Where you at on quint now?”

“Ninety-eight. Once nothing interrupts me, I should be one hundred in just over a month. The last percent is a real bitch to get.”

Hmm, and with that quint power enchant, he’s basically one hundred and eight. “Alright, well, you focus on that. Make sure mom’s good too, dude. I gotta go visit that sword girl.”

He raised an eyebrow, “I got business in Endathal. Take me there.”

And so, I did. But it really wasn’t very efficient. I asked Gale if she knew any flight spells beside Avatar of Wind. His learning of Mind Break was slow, probably because I was just a bad teacher, but he got there nonetheless. So maybe with a better teacher, he would learn to fly like I can.

I placed a Light Link on him when we arrived at the lively capital and we went our separate ways.

Bianca was kept under strict guard at a barely-furnished room in the castle. It was just a slightly fancier prison cell, protected by the palace guards. After I knocked and entered, I noticed there were guards inside as well; no privacy at all.

“Magic boy…”

“Sword girl.”

“You should really stop with the ‘sword girl’ thing. There are millions of ‘sword girls’ back where I’m from.”

“Touché,” I sat on the bed next to her, looked her right in her eyes for a long, probably uncomfortable, time.

“What? Are you in love?”

My lips curled upward at her jest. How do I attract these characters? “No, I’m in pain, or something like it.”

“Oh, right,” she averted the combative stare she gave me downward to her knees, “your girl. Sorry.”

I gave her a small nod, “Did they question you?”

“Tirelessly. In fact, the–” Bianca was interrupted by a random gathering of light. Donna had appeared from the spirit world straight to me. The guards, upon noticing, quickly bowed. It still amazed me that the people of Methelia didn’t question her resurrection further.

She pecked me on the lips and sat next to me, not minding Bianca at all. I reached into my pockets and grabbed her share of rings, “I’ll explain what they do later, for now, just put them on.”

She nodded, and after putting on all ten rings, she disappeared into my mind.

“Why, did they kneel?” Bianca shot a brow of suspicion up.

“The guardsmen? ‘Cause she’s the queen.”

“Then why did she kiss you?”

“The queen? ‘Cause she’s my woman.”

I felt her pinching me, but that durability enchantment stacked over Avatar of Earth dulled most of the pain. She clearly didn’t believe me, and I didn’t feel like explaining. About a half hour into questioning the questions Methelia asked her, a deafening horn erupted, shaking the air into submission. I jumped. Don’t judge me, I can’t tolerate sudden noises.

A horn such as this one would only indicate one thing – enemies. None of my clones had expended any mana yet, so they weren’t in action, which meant the people I left them looking over were safe. I felt a lot of movement through the Light Link on August though.

I Voidwalked right out the castle the flew to his location, eliminating any threats I saw on the way. Fires were growing and screams pilfered the serenity of the capital. The flames were undoubtedly Ulanos, and that was further confirmed the more I killed attackers. Once I rid an area of them, I’d cast Vivify for a few seconds then move onto another area. I met up with August eventually, but he had taken care of a large number of them, even more than I did, with his fists alone.

The battlemages doused the fires to extinguish them and I helped place any deceased Methelians in Crystalline Slumber. I’d been seeing that spell too often lately.

“Take me back to the castle. I need to have a word with Farron.”

Okie. You sound a little angry. Maybe you’d want to cool off, first?

“Nope. Take me there.”

I shrugged. What’s a guy to do? After I dropped her off at the castle, I returned to the most damaged parts of the city to help do quick repairs with transmutation.

“Eric, get here now. That lieutenant woman escaped.”