Rina stormed out of Norman's room with a huff as we made our way down to the tree room.

Before we went however we both grabbed our practice staves from our bedroom so that we could continue to train our summoning.

The moment we got downstairs Rina sat on the floor next to the giant tree to meditate with a visible scowl.

Just seeing her attitude told me that we were more than likely not getting much done today.

Seeing how capricious she was recently annoyed me. One of the reasons I liked being around her was her ability to stay in a consistent mood.

She was very goal oriented and stable always having a clear set of plans for what she would like to accomplish with the neat and easy steps to get there.

This contrasted our brother to the extreme who was smart but lazy and seemed to have a much more go-with-the-flow sort of attitude to life.

“Are you ok? you always get like this after you have a fight with Norman,” I sat next to her patting her on the shoulder to give her some reassurance.

I needed to try my best to calm her down because if she continued on like this It would become a problem.

Normally, letting vent out loud was enough to calm her down.

It wasn’t good to use the “happy face” I used with Norman and the others, in this situation a serious and direct approach was better.

“What argument? Norman was simply being a jerk and refused to listen to anything I had to say like he normally does,” She said rather flatly.

On the outside, she seemed very calm but I knew her enough at this point to know that she was definitely getting extremely emotional on the inside.

Despite her words, she respected Norman more than anyone in the house. Something which I was never able to understand.

I don’t even think that she consciously realizes it but she’s constantly fighting for his recognition.

“What do you mean by that,?” I asked her seriously.

“Didn’t you hear him, he said he wouldn’t be helping us anymore even though were his siblings. How could he say that to his own family? He's selfish.” Rina said while pouting a bit but her face and tone were still mostly void of emotion.

That wasn't even close to what he said.

Despite Rina being the easiest to understand emotion wise she was the person whose thought process I understood the least and not for a lack of trying.

Norman simply dismissed her as an idiot and quite boldly stated as such to her face during one of our classes which was a huge blow to her self-esteem.

That being said as the person who was around her the most, I knew better than anyone that she was a genius.

This may sound ludicrous considering that Norman was ahead of her in everything but that was because of his high Intelligence stat which helped him learn things faster than the rest of us.

If you were to even things out in that regard the only things I could defiantly say Rina was worse at than him at were math and science, everything else she excelled at due to her high academic talent and great work ethic.

The best way that I could describe the difference between the two of them is that Rina is incredibly consistent with everything that she does and learns at a very stable but rapid rate.

Norman on the other hand learns things in an almost exponential fashion. He has a hard time with new concepts but once he figures it out he tends to get better and better faster and faster.

It's almost like he just gets a deeper understanding of anything he is taught than the rest of us.

Bring up stuff and asking unique questions that even the teachers were stumped by and on rare occasions it even seemed like he had otherworldly knowledge that we mere mortals simply did not have access to.

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The only thing that I could honestly compete with the both of them in was using our family ability and the only reason I was good at that was because of my high Charisma stat.

I was already able to talk to the spirit trapped in my pendant and thus had gained my first family point allowing me to pick a specialization, but Norman was not far behind and Rina was gaining pace at a frightening speed.

Those two were so much better than me in whatever they tried and that fact alone caused me untold amounts of jealousy.

Every day was a constant struggle for me trying to keep up with them and I already knew that if I didn't figure something out there was absolutely no chance that I could become the head of the family.

“Well, we also agreed not to tell him about the fact that the tree helps you to regain our mana, stamina, and mental fortitude after one of the maids told us about it. Doesn't that make us bad siblings too?” I told Rina.

I didn't really care that she was being a hypocrite but if she ruined our relationship with our brother over something stupid it would cause unnecessary problems for us.

“Also he has already done plenty to help us. Remember when you were struggling to understand multiplication and fractions he stayed in your room to teach it to you all up until midnight .”

“Or that time you couldn’t understand how to see mana and he taught you how to meditate so that you could focus better. You know the exact technique you're using right now,”

Her face scrunched up even more after hearing me say that.

“I mean what exactly have we done for him, nothing exactly comes to mind. Not that he seems to care about that but if you're going to complain about him being selfless you better look in the mirror first”

“It’s not the same, our older brother is supposed to help us, that's his job”

As I looked around I saw that Tresha was giving Kent a piece of her mind in the dining room which was open to view from the tree room.

Kent looked like an emaciated shell of his former self as the young-looking lady argued and complained about how childish and immature he was being without giving him so much as a small chance for him to explain himself.

It was honestly terrifying that she could turn our stone face teacher into a lost puppy with just a couple of words.

Despite her harsh attitude towards him, she was by far the one who cared about Norman the most in the entire family which was another thing that made me needlessly jealous.

“The only reason Norman got in the fight in the first place was that he couldnt accept that by the time the Astra came around if we were going on our current training schedule he wouldn't be able to learn the basics of spell shaping.

That would mean that he wouldn't be able to participate in the magic-related events like we would be at the time which caused him immense frustration.

He argued with Kent endlessly that he would be able to learn everything fast enough for him to participate in the Astra which eventually lead to the little bet they made.

If after three tries fighting he could touch him once with a melee weapon showing at least some basic level of mastery he would help him learn spells earlier which was what lead him to where he is now a broken mannequin in his bed who is barely able to walk.

“I mean honestly I don't understand his problem his so prideful about the most random things of course we would be able to learn magic faster we are literally learning the skills necessary first”

“If he wanted to practice magic skills first, he should have just chosen it as his primary weapon type instead of melee. He is being such an idiot for no reason and it bothers me because know for a fact that his smarter than that.” I said to Rina to make her feel a bit better but in truth, I could somewhat understand his feelings.

Over my time with my brother I learned that Norman had two main moods, not showing any emotion at all and faking his emotions for others.

This made him incredibly hard to read but under his false bravado, I could sense insecurity even if I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“It’s like he can't accept that anyone is better at him at anything he has to be the best at whatever he tries no matter what,” Rina added in a huff.

“It's a weird mixture of pride and jealousy” I theorized.

“I prefer to call it what it is which is childishness,” Rina continued

“Anyway, I hope he fails and gets beaten up by Kent again” Rina whined

“Why?”

“Because if that happens hell be forced to learn how to use magic from someone else and since at that time we will be the only ones who will be willing to teach him we can use it as leverage so that he can't keep secrets from us anymore.”

Rina got up from the ground slowly and picked up the practice staff she took from her room before coming downstairs with me.

“Whatever the case Norman is working a lot harder than usual, he even learned how to move small bits of mana and vaguely sense it around him with no help from the teachers or through the use of a book as he was banned from using them by Kent” Rina added as she held the staff up.

“If we're going to keep up we need to push ourselves even harder than before” Rina quickly closed her eyes and started to move the mana within her to the staff she was using in an attempt to complete a basic summoning.

A small bit of mana accumulated at the top of her staff but it rapidly became more and more unstable until it exploded sending Rina into a coughing fit.

I tried to help but she pushed me away. The moment she collected herself she stood back in her stance closed her eyes and tried again without hesitation.

I really couldnt keep up with her.

She was so fierce and determined in a way Norman and I just weren't I felt like even if I had her talent and ability or even surpassed it I would still eventually end up behind her.

I didn't let that distract me I grabbed a practice staff similar to her and got to work.

Sitting here doing nothing but complaining wasn't going to suddenly bring me to their level I had to work for it.

Our training continued like that long past the point where we were completely fatigued.

Working with someone else just had that effect on you which kept us moving forward.

While we were training Norman came by to do some pull-ups and quickly left without saying anything.

As we both lay on the floor covered in sweat with a pulsing headache I smiled and looked at my exhausted sister. “I propose a truce.”

“Ok” Rina replied instantly.

“What? Arent, you going to ask me what I mean by that?” I asked genuinely surprised.

I wasn't ready for such a quick response.

“You want both of us to completely give up on competing with each other sharing all possible information and providing any information possible to one another until we're both far enough along to the point Norman is no longer a threat,” she replied flatly.

“How did you get all that from two words”

“You said four words”

“(a and I) are not words they're letters, anyway my point still stands. How did you get all that from my short phrase?”

“I'm not nearly as good as you when it comes to understanding how the people around me feel but I am quite amazing at figuring out their thought patterns and what they're planning on doing next.”

Once again I was reminded of how much of a genius my sister was I knew that if I had her on my side even with my lack of talent I would be invincible that's why I decided to stick around her.