“And that’s why it’s critical that young witches and shapers eventually go to the surface from time to time. Restraining bright young minds with the potential to recover lost knowledge is just foolish,” said Ella, giving my mother a barely restrained glare.

I stifled the urge to groan. True to my fears, my mother and my teacher were not getting along well. In fact, I was under the impression that they were barely a few more provocative words away from beating each other to death in the living room.

Well, my mother would be the one getting beaten to death. My mother was a seamstress who, as far as I knew, had never held a weapon in her life, while my teacher was a competent adventurer who specialized in using shaping in combat. I doubted it would be much of a fight.

“But encouraging a mere twelve year old to explore the wastelands is just madness! Children should be free to make their own choices, but only when they’re old enough to understand what they’re getting into! Until then, they should be given neutral information so that they don’t form a positive view of throwing their lives away on the surface!” Snapped my mother.. Despite facing down one of the few shapers in the city, she wasn’t backing down, much to my unpleasant surprise. My mother nearly had a fit whenever Jonathan occasionally mentioned his admiration of adventurers that went to the surface, and if anything, she seemed even more upset when I mentioned it. “You can’t seriously think that portraying an adventure to the surface in a positive light won’t have a bad influence on her thinking, especially when she’s as young as she is!”

“It’s her life, and her choice,” said my teacher flatly. “If she wishes to explore the surface when she’s older, it’s not like you or I am going to physically tie her down and prevent her from leaving. If she wants to explore the surface when she gets older, I will give her the tools and knowledge she needs to have the best chance of returning alive. If she changes her mind halfway through, she can at least pass down the information to her own students in the future. And she’ll have be a competent shaper either way. I intend to make sure that she has every drop of strength and every piece of knowledge I can drill into her skull by the time she leaves my tutelage. If you forcibly keep her ignorant of the surface and she still ends up going, her survival odds will only be worse as a result.”

My mother glared at Ella, as if she were going to say something else, but my father gently touched my mother’s shoulder.

“Dear, maybe it’s best if we calm down for a minute and assess her words,” he said, softly. I shot my father a grateful look, though I wasn’t sure if he saw it. Heedless of my grateful glance, he continued speaking to my mother. “Besides, I think Miria has wanted to go to the surface with or without the influence of her teacher. If we can’t get her to change her plans, we should instead make sure she has the best odds of surviving she can get.

“Miria is only twelve right now, so she might very well change her mind as she grows up. But if she doesn't, do you really want her to get herself killed because you stopped her from learning what she needs to know in order to survive? Besides, being inspired by a dream can do wonderful things for a person’s motivation. If you stop Miria from moving forward, she might not ever reach her full potential.”

“But she’s only a child. She doesn’t know what she wants in life yet. And if she spends all of this time learning combat shaping and spellcasting, what if she doesn’t have the skill set needed to swap to a less dangerous path later on? Besides, learning under a former adventurer definitely won’t discourage her from learning more about adventuring and fighting. If Miria learns under this teacher, how can we convince her to change her mind?” My mother said, her voice starting to crack. For a moment, it sounded like she was on the verge of breaking down.

My father gently caressed my mother’s head, and she took a few moments to compose herself. The two moved a little further away, and my father began gently murmuring in my mother’s ear.

Finally, my mother sighed, and pulled herself back to her feet. She gave Ella a bitter glare, before giving me a more appraising look. Finally, she sighed. “Miria, is this really what you want?”

“Ever since I saw the fort that separates us from the surface, I’ve wanted to see what lies beyond it,” I said. I made sure to leave out any influence other people might have had on my interests, since I didn’t want my mother to point fingers at anyone besides me if I got myself killed in a few decades.

Besides, in my first life, the first thing I had done after learning about the incredibly dangerous ocean was decide that I wanted to explore it.

The fact that I was fully aware that I would get more lives in the future was definitely reducing my aversion to risks by quite a bit, and I was starting to realize that it showed in my behavior. I cleared my thoughts, before I began speaking again. It wouldn’t do to space out while I was trying to convince my mother. “Even if I change my mind later, I want to become as good as I can right now. That way, in the future I can have the freedom to choose.”

My mother didn’t seem happy with my answer, but she gave Ella another glance, before finally snorting. “Fine. But every single time you come home, I’ll try to convince you that it’s a stupid idea to go to the surface.”

“Then every time I come home, I’ll remind you of the fact that I’m determined to go,” I said, grimacing. It sounded like my mother might hold a bit of a stubborn stance for the next few years over my decision. However, she was far less confrontational about it now than she had been at the start of the conversation. I felt I could get my point through in a few years.

My mother’s shoulders seemed to deflate a little, but finally, she nodded.

Since my mother was done arguing my teacher, my father finally made his way over to Ella and offering her an extended hand. “My apologies, shaper Ella. Thank you for being willing to teach my daughter, and, erm… sorry.”

Ella rolled her eyes, but seemed to relax. She reached out her hand towards my father’s, and gave him a somewhat awkward handshake. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve heard that some other casters and shapers also have a hard time convincing the parents of their prospective students that their child’s career choice is perfectly valid. It comes with teaching magic users, I suppose,” she said, sighing.

“Now, I do apologize, but I don’t think I got your name. You’re…?”

“Ajax,” said my father, giving Ella a more formal smile.

“Mister Ajax, then,” said Ella, as her expression finally seemed to ease completely. “I take it you have no problems with me teaching your daughter how to fight and operate as a shaper?”

My father winced and eyed my mother from the corner of his eye, before he shook his head. “I have no problems at all with that, miss Ella. And again, thank you for teaching my daughter. I appreciate your willingness to work with her to make sure she stays as safe as possible in the future.”

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Ella gave my father a more relaxed smile this time.

With the biggest problem headed off, the conversation quickly became more relaxed. My mother was still stiff and unwilling to fully participate in the conversation, and she still shot me a stormy look from time to time, but it was more manageable than before, at least. This was probably the best I would get for a while.

Eventually, Ella excused us from the conversation, and then told me to get my stuff. I didn’t have many possessions, but I quickly grabbed everything I didn’t want to spend an hour or two walking back home to access, such as my clothes and other daily necessities. Then, Ella bade my parents farewell and began leading me to my new living quarters.

* * *

The two of us walked through the outer districts of the city, before we eventually arrived in the central district. As we strolled through the city streets, I couldn’t help but notice how much nicer the buildings got once we entered the central district of the city. The buildings went from relatively undecorated and simple huts of stone to multicolored domiciles engraved with carvings of the white dragon.

“Very colorful,” I remarked, more than a little curious. I would have expected the color-coding people used for their clothes to have also influenced how they decorated their houses. However, unless I was seriously mistaken, the amount of white I was seeing on people’s houses would be completely inappropriate if that was the case. Not to mention, most people’s houses were riots of color. I seriously doubted that every single person in the central district had dozens of different jobs, so there was clearly some sort of different rule being used here.

“Is that a comment, or a criticism?” Said Ella, chuckling.

I was startled out of my thoughts. Usually, adults didn’t pick up on more nuanced statements I made, since they expected me to be a child and never looked for a deeper meaning in any of my words. However, Ella seemed to pick up on my subtle confusion, which made me a little glad I had chosen her as my teacher. Even if I technically was a child right now, being treated as someone who wasn’t old enough or mature enough to make my own decisions by my mother was frustrating.

“I was wondering if the way houses are colored here follows the same rules as people’s clothes,” I said. “There’s a lot of white here. And a lot of different colors.”

Ella chuckled. “Not many kids would pick up on that. You’re pretty observant. Which is good. Being perceptive is sometimes a matter of life and death if you really intend to go to the wastelands above later.”

I winced, thinking of my Grade 4 Perception. The only reason I had noticed the weird colors was because I found the cultures that Sallia, Felix and I had encountered to be interesting, and so I paid close attention to them.

“The houses here aren’t bound by the same rules as clothes, as you probably guessed. People take the decoration of their house as a method of showing their artistic creativity and expressing their dreams, hopes, and aspirations for the future. Of course, the number of white dragons one can display in decorating their house is restricted by the same rules as the number of white threads one can add to their clothing. However, since houses are shared by families, they tend to have much more white on them than any one person’s clothing ever will. For example, the overseer’s daughter is a spellcaster, so she’s allowed to wear a little white in her dress, and the overseer himself is also allowed to wear pure white, which means that the number of white dragons they can use when decorating their house is the sum of their honorable acts and status, rather than just reflecting the head of the family or somesuch. There are plenty of other families with honorable wives and husbands pooling together their ‘honor’ and creating extremely decorative houses as well.” I grinned, happy to learn a new aspect of the city I lived in, and Ella gave me an appreciative glance from the corner of her eye. Then, she beckoned me forward. “Come on, let’s hurry up and get to my house. I’ll show you to your sleeping quarters. I didn’t know if I would get an apprentice this year, but I keep a few apprentice rooms ready every year since the year I started looking for a student. You’ll be the first person to actually inhabit a room though.”

After about ten more minutes of walking, we arrived at a two-story tall house. Much like the symbols I could see on the pillars supporting the roof of our city cavern, her house was littered with strange glowing symbols on the sides of the house.

I gave the symbols a more curious look. I had no idea what they meant, and they didn’t seem to be related to attunement or general shaping. However, now that I knew what to look for, I realized that they were using alteration essence. Not very much, but it was definitely noticeable.

Noticing my glance, Ella pointed at one of the runes. “Curious?”

I nodded.

“They’re magic, you know,” she said, cackling. “Took me forever to figure out that the runes weren’t just decorative, but eventually, I realized that they were actually using magic. Just like the columns that support the city ceiling! These runes help shape the air around my house, keeping the air fresh and clean, and also making the area slightly more resilient against erosion from rain. As for how they work… nobody has any idea. It’s one of the lost arts of shaping, and I tossed the bricks I used to build my house at a few of the more scholarly shapers for seven or eight years for them to study. They couldn’t figure out how the magic abilities of a brick actually work, so eventually, I took them back and used them to build my house.” Ella shrugged. “I’m still hoping another shaper discovers how to make magic items someday. It seems like such a useful field of study, but sadly, nobody knows how to make it work right now. Anyway, the fresh air is quite nice. Makes me wonder if the surface had nice fresh air like this as well, before the collapse of the second Orthan empire.”

I took in a deep breath of the air around Ella’s house, and felt a bit of appreciation rise up in my heart. The fresh air truly was quite nice; the air on the islands had always smelt of salt and the ocean, which I found quite comforting, but the smell of our city in this world was a little bit more metallic and damp smelling. It wasn’t the worst smell in the world, but fresh air was a luxury I hadn’t realized was missing until I encountered it again.

“Come in,” said Ella, leading me into her house.

Inside of her house, I could see that she had two stories to her house. Each floor had six rooms in it, making the house a veritable mansion compared to my family’s house, where we had seven rooms in total.

The house I had spent most of my life in was much smaller. We had one kitchen/living room/dining room, and then each of us siblings got one room each, except for my parents, who shared a room. Finally, in a small out of the way room we had our bathroom.

Ella had three rooms filled from floor to ceiling with books, along with a few comfortable places to sit down and read. Each of these rooms was nearly as large as the three or four of our bedrooms combined. Then, she had one kitchen, a dining room, and a large chamber I couldn’t figure out the use of on the top floor. Perhaps it was a training room? I imagined Ella would introduce it to me when it became relevant.

The bottom floor had three bedrooms, only one of which seemed occupied, a bathroom, and two storage rooms filled from corner to corner with old equipment, weapons, and random objects.

Seeing my interest in the storage rooms, Ella cackled. “The bricks for my house aren’t the only thing I’ve brought back from trips to the surface. I’ve found plenty of magic items that we’ve never managed to figure out how to make. The best we can do is stuff like witch wands, but those don’t really count, since they’re just external spell circles.

“Of course, I do know what all the items here do, even if nobody has any idea how to make more of them. I wouldn’t want to be near an unidentified magic item, in case it was a magic explosive or something.” Ella chuckled as she gave the weapons in the storage room a second glance. “Well, I’ll teach you how to use weapons later. It’s a good idea to pick up one weapon as a fallback option, in case your shaping or your spellcasting can’t keep you safe. I recommend sword or dagger, but we’ll figure out what you’re good with later.”

I thought about my {Two-Purpose Training Sword}, as well as my intermediate-grade swordsmanship, and resisted the urge to grin. I wondered what Ella would think once I showed her my swordsmanship.

“We’ll focus on weapons later, though. They’re a much lower priority than shaping and spellcasting. Put your stuff in one of the unclaimed rooms, and after that, I’ll get you started on your attunement. And I’ll also have a friend of mine stop by tonight to give you your first lesson on spellcasting. No time like the present to get working on your magic, after all!” Said Ella, cheerfully.

I became much more excited once she mentioned learning to use my alteration essence properly, so I quickly headed to my room and dropped my stuff off, before reporting back to Ella for my first proper magic lesson.