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“Wait… It tells everybody?” Aella’s heart sank at the realization that her anonymity was shattered. Her parents would undoubtedly hear about this achievement. The weight of the situation settled heavily on her shoulders, visible distress painting her features as her plan of hiding her power from her parents was thrown out the window.
“Fuck…”
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Amidst her turmoil, Aella heard a faint mechanical sound, accompanied by a distant pocket of mana, just barely at the edge of her senses. With an annoyed sigh, Aella’s attention was diverted, her senses sharpening as she honed in on the source.
‘A mana pool? If that’s the case, I could probably break straight into the early [Ursa Major] stage. I’ll also probably die if I do that… This is just great…’
As her irritation began to reach its peak, Seraphina and her parents descended on Aetherion, landing near Aella. The moment they touched the ground, Aella’s expression turned stern, her eyes narrowing in disapproval.
“Aella! Are you okay? I tried my best t-” Seraphina tried to speak, only for Aella to cut her off.
“Seraphina! Do you know how dangerous that was?!” Aella scolded, her voice surprisingly genuine. “If I wasn’t capable of killing the mimic, you could have been in danger! I said I’d handle it!”
Seraphina, who had just hopped off of Aetherion, took a step back in shock, She didn’t expect to be scolded by Aella! She just wanted to help.
Before she could say anything, Indigo stepped up. “Now, now. What you did wasn’t much better. There’s no need to get worked up over such a small thing.” He said, doing his best to mediate the situation.
It took Aella a moment to understand that she might have been too hard on Seraphina when she didn’t really do anything wrong. During that moment, her face grew softer, moving towards Seraphina.
“I… I’m sorry.” She said, her voice continuing to keep the genuineness in it. “ Just… Please don’t get yourself hurt for me. Nobody should hurt for my sins.”
“Aella…” Seraphina whispered, worry lacing her tone.
Naturally, the family wasn’t able to tell the difference. Aella’s acting was perfected against beings who lived just as long, if not longer than her. There was no way a mortal human family with such a short life expectancy would notice.
Quickly shaking her head, Aella turned around. “Forget it. You did a good job.” She said, falling to the floor and coughing up blood into her hand right after.
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“Aella!”
“Young Girl!”
“Lass!”
Looking at her hand, Aella glared at the amount of blood she lost.
‘This is my limit? Even if my wind isn’t effective against heavily armored creatures yet, to think a mere fake lizard was capable of placing me in such a state. Status.’
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Aella Rossi | Foxin | Baby Dragon
EXP: 17,800 | Level 13 (12%) | Stat Points: 40 | Skill Points 12
Dragon Slots: 1 used, 0 remaining
Dragon Core: Auilanthros Stormweaver | Rank: 1
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Health: 93/1500 | Mana: 831/14,500 | Stamina 444/800
Traits: 1 Tail | Whirlwind Maestra
Dragon Skills: [Dragon’s Breath] | [Electricity Manipulation] | [Water Manipulation]
Personal Skills: [Foxfire LV 1] | [Transformation LV 1] | [Appraisal LV 1] | [Whirlwind Maestra LV 1]
STR: 5 | DEX: 5 | SPI: 25 | AGI: 15 | MND: 5 | CHA: 5
=
As she looked at her status, she saw her HP dropping due to her bleeding.
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Power suddenly shot into her tiny body as she felt herself not only get physically stronger but her vitality growing by leaps and bounds.
“I’m fine… Stat points are very fair.” Aella stated half-jokingly as she used the remaining amount of mana to allow her aura to begin healing her. It wasn’t enough to do anything significant, but it did close the worst of her wounds after a couple of minutes.
She didn’t expect her overall amount of Vitality to go up. She just wanted her body to be strong enough for when she stopped the bleeding, but this couldn’t be better! The silver lining in a string of annoying occurrences.
The exact numbers required eluded her, but with Strength also increasing her vitality, her statement of dying when entering the Ursa Major realm was now wrong. More than likely, at least.
With the trio surrounding her, Aella stood up and swung her arm around, making sure nothing else was wrong with her body.
“Krr…” Stormy finally appeared, finishing whatever he was doing near the corpse of the mimic, chirping resonantly while curling around Aella’s neck.
With that little incident out of the way, Aella once again turned her attention to the pocket of Mana she noticed. “I sense an area with denser ma-”
This time, however, it was Aella’s turn to be cut off as Seraphina rammed into her, tackling her to the ground and causing Stormy to get launched a short distance away.
“Eh?!” More words tried to leave her body, but the impact had winded her, leaving no breath to spare.
‘I deserved that.’
Her mind wandered idly until her thoughts were deafened by the sound of sniffling from on top of her.
“You… You’re crying?” Aella mused, struggling but eventually succeeding in turning her body to face Seraphina.
‘Was apologizing and praising her not enough? Are children more complex than I thought?’
“Don’t… Ever do something like that again.” She spoke. Her voice wavering in between her tears which mingled with the dirt on Aella’s cheek as she buried her face in the crook of Aella’s neck.
Taking a deep breath, Aella chose her next words carefully. Driving a wedge between her and Seraphina would make her have to completely change the course of her OTHER plans. She didn’t want two different ideas of hers to go wrong right after each other.
“I’ll be fine, Seraphina. I won’t do anything too reckless.” Her response was vague, Aella knowing full well this would not be the last time this would happen. She wouldn’t even be surprised if it ended up happening within the next 24 hours whenever she finds the boss.
Seraphina pulled back slightly, her teary eyes searching Aella’s face for reassurance. Aella offered a small, understanding smile, her fingers gently brushing away a tear from Seraphina’s cheek.
“I’m strong, remember? Nobody can keep me down except myself.” Aella said, her words soft and soothing, though the promise felt less certain than Seraphina had hoped for. Despite the lack of a firm commitment, Seraphina clung to the hope that Aella would keep her word, finding solace in the warmth of their embrace.
Aella, on the other hand, just wanted free. This felt awkward, and she could just tell Stormy was about to do something. She could feel his hot breath on her ears.
As if on queue, Stormy took a big bite of Aella’s ear, causing her to yelp loudly, her hands forcing Seraphina off of her as she grabbed the small rodent. Without any Mana to reinforce her body or pour into her Aura, the pain she felt was Stormy’s full power chomp.
“STORMY?! WHY!?”
The little dragon only chirped playfully smiling at her, causing Seraphina to lightly chuckle from behind.
The duo made Aella sigh once again. ‘This is my life now.’ She thought, unsure if she should be lamenting the situation or chuckling at her own plight with them.
“Ugh… If that’s done. I noticed a spot with particularly high Mana. I assume it’s gonna be a Mana pool or something. If that’s the case it could very well solve any sustenance problems we’d have. We should get going before any more creatures come because of the sounds of that battle.”
A part of her wanted to stay for that exact reason. Fighting hordes of weak monsters while she was in such a state sounded fun, but she had a schedule she needed to at least pretend to follow so that could wait until next time.
With the family unanimously nodded, they hopped back on Aetherion with Aella leading the way on foot.
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As they grew closer to the destination, both Aella and Seraphina were filled with varying amounts of curiosity, Aella questioning just how powerful this system was to allow for such fast growth, and Seraphina... Being herself.
Conceptually, it had to be weaker than her fan if it was failing to show its information related to it, but that didn’t tell her much. Her fan was an item that had bathed in the blood of countless Gods. At this point, its full power was nearing the top rankings of magical artifacts in the universe.
That was just one more thing on Aella’s ever-growing list of things to look into. She wondered if she would ever make it through the list, considering that she’d been in this world for less than a decade, and it already expanded so much.