James was now stuck in position unable to move. Arya tried to study her own with and cast it on her dad with but it didn't go as planned. Arya had accidentally created a mana prison instead. "Uh... huh... that wasn't supposed to happen" Arya said. She didn't let him go just yet because she tried to understand what went wrong. Arya didn't hear the door open behind her. Her mom came out together with Runo and Mika. "Aha! It's because of the mana signature... maybe... probably. Well, I can't change it to someone else's mana signature" Arya muttered. "Um.. why is James stuck in place?" Her mom asked and broke her out of her thoughts. "Oh! sorry! I forgot!" Arya said and quickly released her dad by using to suck the mana back. It worked quickly since it was her own mana. "Hmm that's interesting... can I make mana batteries?" Arya muttered. "Hey! You just forgot about trapping your dad in place?" Her dad said with a pout. Arya could tell he wasn't really angry and giggled. Her mom also let out a chuckle.

James turned serious again. "Since it's just goblins it should be fine, but I need to go out to help just in case." He said. "But are you going to fight them with a kitchen knife?" Arya asked. "There are weapons in the storage in the village center. The knife is just in case until I get there" Her dad answered.

James left the house after hugging everyone and listening to his wife hammer in how careful he needed to be. The rest of them sat down in the living room and waited.

Arya summoned balls of mana with to try out her mana battery theory. She let Runo play with the mana balls she made while she and Mika chatted about goblins and orcs. Her mom was reading a book.

Arya looked at the cover of the book her mom read and her interest was piqued. 'What we know about the gods' the title said. "Mom? What do you know about the gods?" Arya asked. Her mom looked up from the book. "This is the new book I'm copying, it talks about the known gods and what they contributed to the world. It says that skill books were created by the Goddess of knowledge. And the world itself was created by the God of creation. Quite interesting actually" Her mom said. "What are skill books? I thought the system couldn't grant you anything?" Arya asked. "Well it's not the system that grants them, the system was created by the God of effort. And the skill books are something that is found by random people across the world, we don't know why and where the goddess of Knowledge created them. I have never actually seen a skill book" Her mom said. "Huh.. interesting.. the gods just create items and place them in the world? Why is that?" Arya asked. "No one knows sweetie" Her mom said and shook her head.

After some time her dad came home. No one in the village died. Unluckily one person got hurt by an orc. The orcs were stronger than the average person, but also stupid. They did not work together and they had no teamwork whatsoever. The villagers easily took them out when they worked together. The unlucky person was a bit too cocky and thought they could fight it by themselves.

Some days later Arya and her family were eating dinner. "Does a magic school exist?" Arya pondered out loud. "There are indeed schools on magic... If you want to go you can when you are a bit older" Her mom said reluctantly "I think it would be a good idea for her to go... she is really talented after all" Her dad said. "I will ask your aunt about what kind of schools are good if you want to go" Her mom said. Arya couldn't hide her excitement, she didn't particularly like the idea of going to school with a bunch of kids, but learning more magic would be worth it.

Her mom contacted Vanessa and she soon visited the village to talk about schools.

Arya, her parents, and her aunt were now sitting at the kitchen table. "So there isn't a specific age you have to be to start studying at one of the magic schools, you just have to pass a test to enter. It usually is quite expensive, except if you get remarkable results on the entry test, then you can get a scholarship and go to the school for free. They put importance on talented students after all. I would recommend the school in the capital. Her talents would be wasted if she goes to the regular school in Cragwarf." Her aunt said. "In the capital?! That's two weeks away in a carriage!" Her mom said in protest. "Maybe she could go with Mika?" Her father pondered. "Arya will probably get a scholarship with her talents so we would only need to scrape together money for one entry! And she will be better protected at school" Her aunt said with a grin. "Please, pleeease? If I go with Mika it is fine right?" Arya said. Her mom sighed. "We will need to talk to his parents then... It pains me to say it, but I guess she will be safer there than in the village since word may have gotten out about her talents. I don't understand why someone would want to kidnap talented children! It makes me feel a bit better if Mika goes with her..." Her mom said and let out another sigh.

Some time later Mika and Arya were sitting outside while their families talked about sending them to school. "What do you think about magic school, Mika?" Arya asked. Mika looked a bit unsure. "It is scary... but it sounds fun to learn magic and get more friends, maybe" He answered and smiled a bit. "Ah! Not that I don't like to be friends with you and Runo! It's just that more friends would also be fun!" He hurriedly explained himself. Arya giggled. "Of course! I get it" She answered. Arya wished she could have a bit older friends... it was fun to hang out with Mika and her brother, but only being with her family and people half her mental age was a bit tiring. Arya let a sigh escape. "Are you ok?" Mika asked with a worried look on his face. Arya nodded and smiled. "It will be fun to leave the village and see more of the world, but the village is nice too" Arya said. "Yeah" Mika answered.

The door opened and they were called inside. They were now inside the Collin's house. "So we have agreed to all travel to Dragonhelm so you can take the entry test to the Dragonfly Academy Of Magics, but if one of you fails the test, you cannot go, and one of you needs to get a scholarship because if not, we cannot afford it. Don't worry, if you don't make it, you both can go to a school in Cragwarf" Tinala said. Mika and Arya looked at each other and beamed. They hugged each other and declared victory. "Yesss! Let's go! When do we leave?!" Arya asked.

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A month later they had borrowed a large carriage and two strong horses from the village. They were ready to leave. in the group were Vanessa, Tinala, Runo, James, Edward, Emily and of course Arya and Mika. Edward, the father of Mika, was a good friend of James so they sat in the front of the carriage chatting while driving. Emily and Tinala hadn't had the chance to talk much despite their kids being good friends, but they were clearly hitting it off.

Arya tried to make some mana butterflies with . She was able to make some that looked like glass butterflies, but she hadn't managed to figure out how to color her mana creations. But she was able to make small mana figures of various kinds. She figured this out after she made the mana balls. Before that, she had only practiced with the four elements as advised in the book. Arya tried to make the mana butterflies fly but that was harder than expected. She could make them fly with but she wanted them to flap their wings like butterflies. She gave up for today after a while of trying.

Arya took out a bag full of mana balls. They were the same ones she made a while ago. She decided to try absorbing them again now. She had left them be for so long to check how long they would last, but they still hadn't disintegrated. To be able to see how much mana she got for absorbing them she first needed to lower her mana pool. She pondered a bit and decided to just make a lot of new mana balls and put the new ones to the side.

Runo picked them up and started to play with them. The mana balls looked like fist-sized marbles, they were quite pretty. Arya used on the old balls and saw that she didn't get that much mana from them. She then decided to try absorbing the new ones. She forgot to test how much she got for them right after she made them last time, and only focused on the battery aspect. Arya was disappointed to find out that she didn't get nearly as much mana from them as she used to make them. If she made mana batteries they would need to be super huge at this rate!

Maybe it was possible to concentrate a lot of mana on a small point. Compact it somehow? Arya knew that different things had different concentrations of mana, maybe she would be able to do the same? Arya decided to wait until the carriage stopped for the night and go outside in case it exploded or something.

It was now nighttime and they just had dinner by the fire. It was really cozy and felt a lot like camping. Well, it was camping, but it made her feel nostalgic for when she used to camp back in her old world. She always had a thing for exploring, she would often go hiking alone in the mountains in her old life. She always dreamed of sometime climbing Mount Everest. Arya missed exploring. She knew she needed to be older to be able to do that and sighed. At least now she would be able to go to magic school. If that was not thrilling she didn't know what was. She just had to get a scholarship somehow. Since she would be going to a school far away from home, she could probably sneak out on some short adventures without her parents finding out. She giggled at the thought.

Arya now stood with her back against the rest of the people. She told them she would be practicing a bit. Arya tried to compress as much mana as possible into a mana ball. The ball got too big for her liking so she tried to force it smaller. The ball then cracked into pieces. "Uwah!" Arya said as she was caught off guard. Luckily it didn't explode, just shattered into pieces. Arya tried again a few times before her mana pool got empty. Arya sighed she wanted to continue, she felt like she was almost there, but there wasn't much she could do with an empty mana pool. Well obviously not completely empty as that could be dangerous, but as good as empty.

Arya opened her status page to check her progress.

----- Status Page -----

Level 153 (0%)

Health: 1020/1020

Stamina: 590/610

Mana: 8/6530

Stats:

Strength: 30

Dexterity: 31

Constitution: 51

Spirit: 597

Intelligence: 56

Passive skills:

lvl N/A

lvl 6

lvl 9

lvl 259

lvl 59

lvl 34

lvl 1

lvl 3

lvl 2

lvl 1

Active skills:

lvl 142

lvl 102

lvl 72

lvl 46

lvl 42

lvl 30 (Max)

lvl 3

lvl 2

-------------------------------

She hadn't had that much progress since the last time, the skill descriptions hadn't changed at all. It seemed like the odd one out on her stats was Spirit. She wondered why that one leveled so quickly. Intelligence was quite high too, but her other stats were average for her age. She needed to start training her physical starts. In her past life, she was very active and often went to the gym when she wasn't training outside. She liked best to train in nature, but the training machines in the gym were very convenient.

Arya wasn't allowed to wander off on her own on the trip, so training physically would have to wait until school days.

When sleeping they split into two groups that switched between sleeping in the carriage and sleeping in a tent. There wasn't space for everyone to sleep in the carriage. Arya didn't have anything against sleeping in a tent. There was always someone keeping watch while the rest was sleeping. They had to be on the lookout for bandits and monsters. Only the adults were put on watch duty.

Arya usually traveled by herself in her last life, but she enjoyed camping with others too. There was something serene about being all alone in the middle of the wilderness that she missed. She remembered one time she traveled over the mountains alone, coming across a calm lake. The stars looked beautiful without the light pollution reflected in the water. The tranquil feeling was like no other. 'I will soon travel again, and in a world filled with magic no less' She told herself and grinned.

The night sky in this world was really pretty, and they had five moons! The moons had various sizes, and you could only rarely see all five of them at the same time. Some of the moons looked way bigger than the ones on Earth. Arya wondered how that would work with flooding but she had already accepted that the small amount of physics she learned in her past life didn't necessarily apply here in this world.