Natasha led Mark and the twins to a carriage and rode towards the noble district. They’d arrive at a huge, beautiful marble building after around thirty minutes and Natasha said it was the council chambers.
In a huge room, Natasha pointed to Mark a group of ten people who were wearing noble clothes and she said that they were some of the council members. Mark just shrugged since he really didn’t care about those people. He just wanted the earth dragon’s corpse to be gone and sold off.
Natasha introduced Mark and the twins as Mark’s brothers to the council which made the boys smile. After that, as per Natasha’s instruction, Mark summoned the earth dragon’s corpse. He expected the council members to exclaim or something but after checking the corpse, they nonchalantly called someone to take it away and he was given a pouch of Mana stones.
“You’re a bit surprised. Are you thinking that the council members will be amazed at the huge earth dragon’s corpse?” Natasha asked Marked.
“Something along those lines.”
“You have to remember that most council members are wizards and some of them were powerful enough to have seen creatures more powerful and menacing than the earth dragon. The city of Argent may not be considered as a wizard city but even though people may try to deny it, the fastest and sure road to power is still wizardry.”
Mark was given one hundred Mana stones for the earth dragon’s corpse and Natasha informed him that included was the reward for helping the guards in their mission and the slaying of the earth dragon. He didn’t know the price of the said corpse, so he didn’t know if what he received was lacking or generous, but the important matter was, that he now had Mana stones. He would study it during his downtime.
Mark and the twins said their goodbyes to Natasha when they were back at the guard station and the trio went shopping. They purchased plenty of ready-to-wear clothes for the kids and commissioned a tailor for high-quality clothes that had increasing sizes so the twins would have clothes even if they grew up fast.
After shopping for clothes, Mark and the twins ate lunch in one of the famous restaurants in the Noble Quarter and the kids proudly told Mark that his food was better. They rented a carriage and went back to the circus caravan compound so he could have the twins take some afternoon naps since they looked tired.
When Mark saw that the boys were resting, he went to Dozon’s place.
“Hello Mark, are you here to join us for practice?”
“No Dozon. I would like to inform you that I’m quitting the Acrobat team. I would like to focus on my studies and as you know, I adopted a couple of boys and since I don’t know anything about taking care of children, I assume that, including the learning process, it would take a huge chunk of my time.”
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Dozon laughed when he heard Mark say that.
“It surely will, that’s why I’m glad my wife’s there to take care of the kids. Regarding quitting the team, you don’t need to worry about that, and you can always join us as guest performers anytime.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
Mark went to Hamil’s theater so he could renew the comprehend language spell on the devices there and was glad to see that the Solinae was there as well.
“Mark, I’ve made some improvements on the rune that Hamil commissioned regarding lengthening the duration of your Comprehend Language spell. Instead of 48 hours, we made it so that a Mana stone could power up the rune and as long as there was mana in the mana stone, the spell would not end in theory. Of course, that is only in theory. In reality, you would probably need to renew the spell every four weeks due to deterioration of the rune even if Mana stone is supplied.”
“That’s great! That meant that Hamil could just inform me whenever there’s a need for me to renew the spell.”
“I was informed by our illustrious leader that he watched a new movie together with your family. I would have liked to have been invited.”
Mark laughed. “It was just an animation movie for the kids before they go to sleep but of course, you’re more than welcome tonight to see it. I will also prepare food so please invite Eilintraee and Mentorra.”
“Can my family join in as well?” Hamil asked.
“Sure. We can use my old cart and that means that we can seat up to twenty people so you can invite up to that many people to watch the animation tonight. I’m planning to show a different movie though. I want my brothers to see something new tonight, one of my favorite animated movies.”
Mark saw Hamil and Solinae become visibly excited when they heard that they would be able to see a new movie and that it was a favorite one of Mark where the shows come from, so their expectation climbed through the roof.
“What about your theater schedule for tonight though?” Mark asked the caravan leader.
“It’s the middle of the week so the theater is close. When you were on a mission, I decided to open the theater four days a week starting two days before the weekend so we can rest and clean the theater during downtime.”
After casting the Comprehend Language spell, Mark went back to his RV so he could prepare for the event tonight. When he arrived back home, he saw that the twins were already awake and were waiting for him from the door of the RV and when they saw him, they ran to him and hugged his legs. Mark knew then that it would take time for the twins to be secure enough to be left alone.
Mark comforted the twins and told them that they would need to prepare the cart since they would have a lot of visitors tonight for movie watching. They saw that Nedertu was already waiting for them, so they started preparing the cart.
Mark first replicated the couches that they’d previously used before and Nedertu, with the attempted help of the twins arranged the couches in the cart. Next, Mark replicated the huge television set, speakers, generator, and heaters since he took them away before he left for the mission with Natasha. He was a bit sad that Natasha couldn’t join them that night since the guard captain said she was busy and would only have time during the weekends.
After everything was settled inside the cart, Mark replicated some tables and chairs outside that would fit about twenty people then replicated a lot of food. As usual, he made sure that the variety of the food would amaze the visitors and he saw that Nedertu, and the twins were already drooling but he warned them not to touch anything not until everyone arrived.