After a stern talking from Althea, Leonhardt still hadn't learned his lesson.

'Hmm. I won't be hunting any creatures today, maybe I can bring Max to help him learn about the forest?'

"Max! Come here!"

Leonhardt watched happily as Max waddled over at speeds far too fast for a stumpy toddler like him. His hair flowed behind him a touch too far, and Leonhardt realized he needed a bit of a trimming, though that could come later.

"Max, What do you think about going to hunt with me tomorrow?"

"Really?! I wanna go!"

"Good, ask Mom first though, alright? You can only go if she says yes."

Leonhardt watched as Max turned around and toddled around the corner, at the same speed he came with. Leonhardt found it funny; how Max always seemed to be in a rush for seemingly no reason.

"Mom! Can I go with Dad when he's hunting? He said I could if you said I could!"

Althea looked back from her workstation, thinking for a little bit. Once she had realized that they had enough food, and only needed to gather herbs, she decided he could—With a clause of her own, of course.

"Alright, you can, but I'm gonna talk with Dad, I'll make a barrier for you too."

Althea walked off to the living room, where Leonhardt rested on a brown leather couch. It seemed he was… charging up his strength for the hunt tomorrow.

"Wake up!" Althea shouted, and Leonhardt opened his eyes, looking a bit dazed. "Alright, I'm allowing Max to come with you, but-"

"Really?!" Leonhardt, in cutting off Althea, proved that Max had a few reasons for being impatient; Like father, like son. Though Althea was annoyed at him, she continued on.

"As I was saying, you can bring him with you, only if you can cooperate on this. First, I want to make a barrier for him, so he doesn't get hurt. Then a tracker, so I can find you guys. Finally, promise not to fight any monsters or beasts with him, if you have to, drop him off before that."

Leonhardt's face dropped at the mention of conditions, though eventually lighting up as she went through them.

"That's not that much, I was thinking something of the sort already!" Leonhardt beamed, getting up. "Max, come here, and listen to Mom, she has some things to tell you! You can come though!"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Althea was confused for a split second, before realizing she needed to talk to Max about the conditions as well. As she thought this, the recipient of said talk came running in.

"Really? Really! I can go! Thank you, Mom!" Max was ecstatic, though Althea stopped him, and urged him to stop being so hyper.

"Don't get excited yet!" Althea—despite saying this—loved seeing Max excited. "There's still some things you need to know. You're getting a barrier and a tracker, and you won't be fighting monsters. Just exploring."

Max had an eerily similar reaction to his father, which gave Althea a good laugh.

"Okay! I don't wanna fight one. They're scary."

"Perfect." With that, Althea went back to the battle station—her artificary—where she crafted.

The art of artifactory was to create certain magic items, such as tesseract bags, or barriers. The reason it was a separate branch of magic, wasn't just due to its permanent nature, but because it relied on delving much, much deeper into the 4th dimension, where mana originated.

It required large reserves of mana, and most artificers would require multiple days to finish a craft and incredible calculations.

They required a knowledge of physics and mathematics, such as live octonion calculations, and a painstaking amount of enchantments, or mana, over a 4D plane.

Barriers were made with mana prisms in the fourth dimension, where their shadow on our plane of existence would cast a semi-translucent hyper-shadow.

A/N: Why did I decide to make this all fourth-dimensional? I'm asking myself that. This is terrible. Comment with any questions, I'll try and clear up any confusion.

Though these barriers were much more difficult to make, they had a plethora of advantages, like them being much less situational, and more advantageous for the user.

The tracker was simply one enchantment on the barrier, which relayed back to Althea the coordinates of Max, relative to the cabin.

"Phew. Gods if I hate those barriers. Honestly some of the worst pieces to craft, so many calculations," Althea wiped the sweat off her brow and cast a rejuvenation spell on herself. "This'll keep the headache away for a bit. Max! Come, I need to test the barrier!"

Max came over quickly, and Althea led him to the training room.

"Alright, Max, activate the barrier. Just try and put some mana in it."

Max did so, and the barrier immediately materialized around him, fitting around him snugly.

"Good, good. Alright. Start the fight. Also, Max, don't worry, and keep the barrier up."

The robot rushed forward, though any strikes it tried to make were thwarted by the barrier. Any attempts to break said barrier were futile, resulting in a wow of approval from Max.

He had some qualms about facing the robot again, though after seeing it struggling, it gave him an odd childish glee from revenge.

Althea saw the barrier working, so she commanded the robot to stop and ended the tests. Max, walking away, looked happy at the development, though Althea thought it was from seeing the barrier.

"Are you excited for the hunt tomorrow?" Althea decided to make Max a little more excited.

"Yeah! Will I get to pick some of the verdana? I really want to!" Max was—literally—jumping for joy thinking about the hunt, and Althea found it quite funny.

"Alright, it's time to sleep, so when you wake up, get ready, ask Leonhardt for some tips on how to look for verdana, and at zenith, you go out!"

Max went to sleep, dreaming a world of wonder, though little did he know, much more was in store.