During that same nine month period, a lot of things happened in Theo’s home life. Peter's parents had a daughter, while Jonathan and Sara also had a son. Peter's little sister was named Teresa May Parker and was born on April 2nd 2000. Sara and Jon's son was born on May 21st 2000 and was named Dylan Pangborn.
Milly seemed to be the happiest person in the whole family about the news. When Theo asked why, Milly replied, "More birthday parties, means more cake!"
Theo could only shake his head at how Milly’s brain functioned. He loved his little sister, but she was too much sometimes. As for Theo’s little brother Isaac. Theo wasn't completely sure but he seemed kinda clingy and shy. He didn't remember Milly being like that at all. But he was smart, he could already talk a little.
Isaac's first birthday party was pretty fun and Issac might end up being a sweet monster like Milly. He absolutely demolished the little cake he was given. He even wanted more and made a big fuss when he didn't get any. It was kinda cute since he acted a lot like Milly with his puffed out cheeks.
Another thing that happened was Theo and Peter being kept out of school when it had started last year. While Jean and MJ started first grade. Peter and Theo were going to start school this year with Milly. The actual plan was to enroll all of them into the second grade together this year.
Since Milly was so close with Peter and Theo, they figured it would be better that way. Plus with how smart all of them were it wouldn't be an issue. They were actually a little worried the school might want all of them to skip multiple grades. They were fine with all of them skipping first grade. Since they wanted Milly to go to school at the same time as Peter and Theo.
But they didn't want to rush them through school. Daniel was the most vocal about the issue. She slightly regretted rushing through school herself. She wanted the kids to enjoy their time in school and hoped they would make a lot of friends. Something she never had the opportunity to do. Since once someone knew who her family was, they changed how they treated her.
Since Theo and Peter weren't in school, they still spent time at May’s house instead. But it would also be split with going to work with Jacob, Ben and Richard. Milly even started to join them because she didn't want to miss out. Even though at first she didn't really like going to the shop.
Jacob in his wisdom ended up treating her if she behaved when she was in the shop and even gave her more treats if she helped out. After about a month Milly enjoyed going to the shop and even liked helping out. Even if she no longer received extra treats. Jacob hoped she would get more into cars as she got older since she didn't need to be bribed any more.
But Daniel wasn't too happy with how Jacob pulled it off though and likened it to how you would train a dog. Theo kinda agreed with his mother. But Theo also knew his mom used the same tactics to get Milly to do things sometimes. Heck even Theo used it, because it worked.
Besides that, Peter, Milly and Theo also made good progress on their game while they were at Aunt May's. While he could do most of the work with his clones, he wanted to create it with his sister and Peter. Since they now had the extra computers to work on a functional multiplayer, that's what they focused on. While Theo knew what he wanted for the game overall, both Milly and Peter came up with some new ideas he hadn't thought of.
Theo’s planned goal was to release the game in the next few years. But first he needed to pick up a few coding books from the library on how to build websites. Then he needed to build a website for the game and everything else that goes with it. And lastly he needed to convince his parents about letting him launch the site. He wasn't sure how he would talk his parents into that, but he would figure it out.
About three months before Milly’s fifth birthday party, Theo and Peter started working on her birthday present. Theo wanted to do something special, so he set about programming a new area into the game. A special quest prompt would happen, inviting the player to a new land. You then had to gather certain items to create a portal to the new area.
The new area was called Sweetland. It was a special area designed around anything sweet. Candies, cookies, cakes, you name it, it was there. It took Theo and Peter over a month to build it. Then they spent the rest of the time testing it. It's lucky Milly’s computer was on the other side of the table Theo and Peter used. They were able to easily hide what they were doing from her.
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Sweetland mostly reused a lot of the old assets, just reskinned. Theo and Peter also added some new items and had to tweak a lot of the assets to work correctly.
Like the water in Sweetland was made of frosting, so Theo needed to tweak how it flowed. He also needed to slow the player's movement speed when they moved through it. Lava was also changed into hot chocolate, which needed to flow faster than normal lava.
It also didn't set you on fire, but would slowly fill your health back up. But if you were inside it for too long it would give you a slow debuff from being too full.
In Sweetland you could also collect special resources to craft new items. The items ranged from a cool cape, in Milly’s favorite color. You could get other items to change the color after it was made, but the default was purple.
A new weapon that was a slingshot. A new recipe to paint any armor with purple highlights. And one of the key features was new food recipes, all of which were based on sweets. You could take pieces of the world and mix them together to make cookies, cakes and other things.
The whole area was made around a quest line to have a birthday party. You would meet a few npcs who would ask you to gather certain items. Then you would have to craft everything for the party.
At the end you get to attend the party. But during the party a new monster would spawn called the party pooper. You would be forced to fight them off and protect all the party guests.
Once you completed that, all the guests would thank you and give you small gifts of thanks. After the party is finished, you would then have free access to Sweetland whenever you wanted through the portal. Overall both Peter and Theo were very happy with what they made and even showed it off to their parents.
It was still kept a secret from Milly till after her birthday party. Mostly because they didn't want her to play it during her birthday. That being said, Milly was over the moon with joy at what Theo and Peter had made for her.
She even offered both of them some of her birthday cake. Not all of her slice of cake though, but a small slice from it. You know less than a fork full… It was Milly after all.
Besides that Theo spent a lot of time training at night. Since he only needed a maximum of four hours of sleep a night. Theo spent at least eight hours a day training. His workout routine hadn't changed yet. He spent around four hours a night climbing his rock wall.
The other half was spent learning magic from either Tao or Agatha. If Theo had to pick who was a better teacher he would be hard pressed to choose. Both of them were masters, but both had very distinct styles of training and teaching.
Agatha at first, was only planning to teach Theo about certain aspects of the mystic arts that Tao and practitioners from Kamar-Taj didn’t study. But after watching part of Tao’s first lesson with Theo, she decided to co-teach Theo with Tao. Tao herself didn’t find any issue with Agatha’s request and easily agreed.
Tao’s teaching method was honestly brutal to put it bluntly. Oh, she would give you some demonstrations and answer any questions you had about the spell formulas she was teaching you. But otherwise you needed to figure out the rest on your own. It could be incredibly hard for more complicated spell formulas.
The worst part about her lessons were when she wanted to test your creations. She wouldn't hold back against them and would completely crush them. Once you could hold a spell matrix for over ten seconds. Under her onslaught of spells, did she consider it barely passable.
Considering she tossed Strange on the top of Mount Everest and expected him to come back when he couldn’t do portals. Theo probably should have expected something like this. But it still took him by surprise.
Agatha on the other hand was subtle and gentle. She would study your completed spell matrix or formula and then point out weak spots. Before she used a spell Theo could never really see to gently attack the weakest spot of his spells and destroy them. The nice thing was she would give pointers on how to improve the spell as she did this.
The normal lesson would start with Tao explaining what they would practice for the day. If books were needed, Theo would have his clones read them while he practiced on the rock wall. Once finished reading the martial, Tao would show him some examples of the spell. Then she would answer any questions he might have about it.
After that he would be watched by both of them while he practiced the spell. Once he could complete the spell, that’s when Agatha took over. She would pick apart his completed spells until she found no weak spots in it. Once that was done, Tao would take over and just crush his spells repeatedly until he could hold the spell for a decent amount of time.
Once all of that was done, they would repeat the process with the spell, but they would work on improving his casting speed and timing with it. It was a pretty slow, but very good teaching method. He was pretty sure he would be one of the slowest learners of the mystic arts, but also one of the most powerful once he completed his training.