The next three weeks were a headache for Nia and her friends. While the physical training was fairly straightforward, the Enkt training afterwards was, at best, dubious.

“Just imagine your blood flowing into your eyes and gently pushing it out. Except it’s not actually your blood. We aren’t trying to bleed from our eyes!” was the only piece of advice that Annette had given her daughter and the children.

The rest of the “lectures” were Annette stammering over her words, before muttering under her breath about how she grasped the concept in under a minute.

Ironically, the first child that figured it out was Pauline, who only attended the trainings once a week.

“Auntie Annette, you look a little scary.” Pauline had chimed in when Annette was angrily muttering to herself while splitting firewood.

Nia and the other kids turned to look at Pauline, her usually light-blue eyes were now glowing a pleasant sunset red.

Annette clapped her hands together in excitement, picking Pauline up in her hands and twirling her around. “I knew someone would get it!”

Nia pouted a bit, before continuing her attempts at doing the same thing.

It can’t possibly be this difficult, if even a child can do it this quickly… Maybe Mama’s example doesn’t work for me?

The gears in Nia’s head began to turn a bit.

If Enkt is something that’s supposed to be personal, it would make sense that the way Mama does it would be different than how I would do it…

“Mama, did anyone else ever tell you about how they used Seeing Eyes?”

Annette put Pauline down, who immediately dropped to her knees and thanked the spirits for letting her return to solid ground.

“I think your Papa said he lets his eyes tear up a bit before his mana gathers around his eyes. It never made sense to me though. Crying before using Seeing Eyes sounds like a totally inefficient method.”

Nia told the other children about the alternative route that her mother had mentioned. For the rest of the week, many concerned parents came to Annette, asking if she had hurt their children and made them cry.

Due to the numerous rumors swirling around his wife, Nelson had stopped by to see what Anette had been putting the children through. To his surprise, he had found that they were all unharmed.

“Of course!” Annette had exclaimed, “Their parents would never let me hear the end of it if one of them got injured!”

Nelson ended up taking control of the Enkt training lectures, and many of the children ended up developing their methods of activating Seeing Eyes soon after.

Nia’s father had a much more thorough explanation for how Seeing Eyes worked, and was able to guide more of the children with accurate lectures.

“Has… my wife told you guys that the nature of your Enkt is almost entirely dependent on your personal nature and attitude?”

The rustling of heads shaking in unison could be heard.

“Figures.”

“Hey!”

“You may have noticed that both Pauline and my wife’s eyes turn a shade of red when Seeing Eyes is activated, and that Pauline was the only child that my wife’s method worked for. This was most likely a total coincidence.

It is common for multiple people to share similar activation triggers for any type of Enkt technique. It all comes down to what works for you. Don’t be afraid to try what instinctively feels right for you.”

With that, every child except for Nia was able to activate Seeing Eyes before Annette had to leave for work again.

Khyl had to blink extremely hard while rolling his eyes upward. Nelson had given this one out as a general example, and it happened to work for Khyl.

Sammy had to tap the right side of his temple. He found this one out when he scratched his head and felt his vision shimmer for a moment.

Joey’s was similar to his older brother, where he had to place his hands over his eyes and say “Seeing Eyes!” out loud.

Thankfully for the children, turning off the Enkt technique was simple and universal. One simply had to will it to deactivate, and it would immediately do so.

--

“Mama, do you really have to go?” Nia held onto the hem of Annette’s shirt as her mother did one last baggage check.

“Darling… the magistrate was gracious enough to let me leave for as long as I did. I’m sure they’ll let me visit soon enough, but there have been troubles at the borders with our lovely neighbors. They need me to remind them why we’ve been at peace for so long.”

Annette turned towards with her arms outstretched, and Nia begrudgingly let go of her mother’s shirt and gave her a hug.

“You know…” Annette began to muse with a smile slowly growing across her face. Nelson noticed and began to pale.

“Honey, I don’t think the timing is right --”

“I could enroll you into the Royal Academy so that you could be closer to me!” The smile was fully grown.

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

“That would be great! Could I do that, papa?” Nia turned to look at Nelson with glittering eyes.

“Nia… The Royal Academy isn’t something that you just enroll into without thinking --”

“Can I? Can I, pleaaaaase?” The glittering in Nia’s eyes intensified.

“I guess I call in some favors so that we could have a teleporter set up between here and the Royal Capital. It didn’t make sense before since Mama was the only one going back and forth, but if you want to join her, it would only make sense.”

Nelson massaged his temples before continuing.

“We could also get the other children into the Royal Academy through recommendations if we’re already going through this route, since Mama’s already personally trained them. James and Peter could also use the teleporter since their academy isn’t far from the Royal Capital. Although, it would seem to be in bad taste if their younger siblings ended up going to a better renown…”

Nelson’s muttering was interrupted by Annette beginning to massage his shoulders.

“It’ll be fiiiiiiiine. Worst comes to worst, I’ll make Papa Mya handle the recommendations and paperwork.”

“That’s true. Father Mya’s word would make it much easier to expedite all of the processes. Could you drop by and let him know?”

“Of course.”

Nelson and Annette exchanged a quick hug and kiss. Nia gave her mother one more hug before waving her off.

“If all goes well, I’ll see you next week!” Her mother winked towards Nia and Nelson, before launching herself towards the village’s town hall, where Elder Mya was likely working.

Nia’s excitement towards going to the Royal Capital dropped a few degrees when she felt her father’s hand rest on her head.

“Papa?” Nia nervously asked.

“If you’re serious about going to the Royal Academy, you’ll have to show me with academic effort. Forget the Seeing Eyes for now. It’s an intermediate Enkt technique that isn’t relevant before you learn the basics.”

The weight of her father’s hand was replaced by the daunting weight of a textbook.

“Don’t worry, I’ll still let you see your friends. Of course, as a condition, it will have to be as a study group.”

--

Nia wasn’t a poor learner. Her main issue when it came to studying was mainly due to her belief that she only needed basic education to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Because of that, she deliberately chose to fulfill the bare minimum that her father asked of her, but diligently studied anything her mother brought up.

However, both her father and Elder Mya set the condition for her enrollment at the Royal Academy to be that she passed both of their tests before the end of the week. Faced with the new challenge, Nia had no choice but to hunker down and rigorously study the material that she was given.

Elder Phalk and Nelson took turns teaching the children the Fychian Glyphic Alphabet. There were a few dozen glyphs that the children needed to memorize before the men were comfortable were sending them off.

“Preferably, I’d like to teach them basic runic structure as well, but a week isn’t enough time for that.” Elder Phalk had mentioned to Nelson while they were discussion

Thankfully for her, Khyl and Sammy had the same ordeal ahead of them if they wanted to go to the Royal Academy. Nelson and Elder Mya had decided that the two younger children were talented enough as is, and had already received acceptances for them to attend.

“Khyl, Sammy, why do you two want to go to the Royal Academy? You two know I’m going there just so it’ll be easier for me to spend time with my mom, but I don’t remember if either of you have family over there.”

Nia leaned backwards for a quick stretch break, looking for a brief respite from the dozens of runes that swirled around in her head.

The pen in Khyl’s hand briefly paused.

“It would be really boring to be home when everyone else is out at the Royal Academy. Elder Phalk reassured me that you guys would come home often, but I think I’d also be really jealous that everyone else would be having fun without me.”

They both turned to Sammy for his answer.

“...”

He was too immersed in his notes to notice the pair of blue and brown eyes staring him down.

The duo sighed and picked their own notes back up.

I guess glyphs aren’t as bad as I thought they were. Nia stared at the squiggles that sprawled across the paper in front of her. It’s just memorizing what each symbol stands for, kind of like words and letters.

“Mister Nelson, is there a particular reason why we are not learning basic runic structure with the glyphic alphabet? I believe it would be helpful to have context behind how the glyphs interact with each other.”

Sammy had somehow noticed Nelson walking back in the room with his cup of tea, and immediately asked him a question.

“Runes are extremely particular with how the glyphic structure is set up. Unlike with how incantations work, spirits and elementals are unable to sense your intent from glyphs. In comparison, you have to be extremely careful and very literal with runes. It would be irresponsible for me to teach you basic runes before you know the entire glyphic alphabet.”

Satisfied with his explanation, Sammy immediately went back to studying the glyphs, and Nelson sat down into his chair.

“Any questions for me, Nia and Khyl?”

They both shook their head, and Nelson took a sip of his tea and got comfortable in his chair, occasionally rising whenever Sammy had a question to ask.

--

Nia, Khyl, and Sammy ended up managing to pass the exam that Elder Phalk had prepared for them. Sammy passed with a perfect score, while Nia and Khyl struggled when it came to sorting the glyphs into their correct host elements and parent spirits.

Nelson’s beaming face towards his daughter when he scored the tests was one of the happier faces that Nia had seen on her father.

“Nia, let’s go and tell Mama the good news. The teleporter should be fully set up by now, so we can see her together.”

The teleporter was located next to the cafe that Nia and Elder Phalk usually frequented. It was a local favorite, and the refreshments were high quality, so the village council decided there were only benefits in making it a high traffic zone.

Nia basked in the morning sun at one of the cafe tables as she watched the older men scurry around the teleporter, quadruple-checking its safety and reliability.

“Ugh… I just realized, Counselor Keyn is going to nag me about developing our village into a commercial town.” Elder Mya was inspecting the teleporter, double-checking the runes and overall structural integrity to ease his small worries of a catastrophic failure.

“That’s a good thing. If he brings it up, he can provide the funding for the village’s growth. Some of the midwives have been complaining that we’re putting them out of work by sending the children to the Royal Academy anyways.”

Elder Phalk patted Elder Mya’s shoulder and laughed, the expression on the shorter one’s face softening a bit.

“Everything looks fine on my end, Father Mya. Were there any issues on yours?” Nelson ran his hand over a segment of shimmering glyphs, and Nia could swear that she heard whispering trail behind his fingers.

“All looks good on my end as well. Will you two plan to come home, or will you be staying with Annette tonight?”

“Nia, did the letter that Mama sent over to you mention the plan? Her letter to me was just a list of food that she wanted me to bring.”

“Mama said that the Majesty upgraded her living quarters so that we could sleep over!”

“There you have it. Let me know if you need me back in the village for an emergency. I’ll leave a Notification Rune with you.”

“Thank you for being as well prepared as usual. If all goes well, I will see you at the cafe for lunch to discuss optimizations for the teleporter.”

Elder Mya gave Nelson a quick, awkward hug, before waving over to Nia for her attention. Nia sprang to her feet and gave her grandfather a quick kiss on the cheek.

“See you too, Elder Phalk!”

Nia grabbed her father’s hand as they stepped onto the teleporter.

“Hold on tight, Nia!”

Nia heard her father murmur an incantation, and the world melted into a kaleidoscope of colors.