Toshiro and Aoi sat in the conference room. Talks and treaties were being completely finalized but a few things hung in the room. For one, a good amount of nobles from Azuria couldn’t be taken out of the negotiations for ‘rehabilitation’ so not everything was 100% favorable to Azuria as a whole.
Everyone was on the same page about the incoming conflict and even those who won't fight side by side with Azuria will still need the information and possible technology provided by Azuria to combat the armies of Wanui. It had someone who was from said army after all.
The biggest problem was some concessions that had to be made, not anyone with a brain would think anything would come out of them, but he had to accept them and it was going to be a whole other headache for the king of Azuria. Almost every powerful sect or country wanted that after the war Mia was sent to their lands so she could ‘tour’ it. Toshiro could see from a mile away they wanted to try and get the girl for themselves, not that they would, but he still did some protective work along with his wife. Every request about sending Mia somewhere was changed to freedom to invite Mia and Azuria would not block her from going anywhere if she so wished. Nobody seemed to think anything of the change. ‘Inviting’ is usually just a polite word to summon someone when you are powerful enough.
If this was just it, Toshiro would be a little less stressed, but the second concession was what was eating him away a little.
“So, when can we see the girl?” Hastaros, the king of a powerful military nation on the north of the continent asked. He, along with a few other nations that were closer to Wanui geographically, wanted to see Mia in action. Strangely enough Timet tried to stop people from doing that but he fell on deaf ears.
“That depends entirely on you or anyone who wants to see it, Hastaros. I will not send anyone from my own kingdom to be beaten up by her.” Aoi said with a strange confrontational tone.
“Hmph! One of my guards will do.”
“Well, I will make preparations. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.” Toshiro said before leaving the conference room.
—-
Mia was in the academy’s library for once. She managed to survive another day of training, she still had a lot of bruises but she would survive. She hated the training with her mother if she had to be truthful but she was fully aware that it was necessary. Her mother had to quite literally beat every bad habit Mia had out of her, even if it hurt her as much as it did Mia, emotionally at least. Mia was not a fighter. She could fight, she could kill, but she wasn’t exactly good at it if you looked at it objectively. In basic terms, Mia used her powers, mana, cultivation, etc… to compensate for her lack of actual skills. Without cultivation she couldn’t process information fast enough to fight, her body would freeze in the worst moments because she couldn’t think fast enough about what to do. She couldn’t move fast enough to dodge the things she actually saw coming and she didn’t have any power to counter attack. Magic wasn’t just a safety blanket to Mia, it was a safety cover artillery. She depended so much on it to fight that it wasn’t funny. As she was now, if she ever ran out of mana, she would die to another kid her age if it was just slightly stronger than her.
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But even with all that in her mind, she chose to just let it all go. She was with the book club, reading and discussing a book. Mia was reading less than she wanted but it was around what the members of the club did normally. The club was also exempt from any of the club fights since everyone agreed that fighting Mia wasn’t worth it or advised.
The book everyone was having a discussion over was a strange tale about a man cursed to be a pig where he slowly became more and more human as he did good things to offset the bad things he did that caused him to be cursed. The story had some surprise depth and could be read by both children and adults, men and women. There was something for everyone in there and just enough to not damage a portion of the audience.
The man in question was someone of power, not necessarily a noble, and his initial goal was to get his life back, his body back. He was somewhat vain in the beginning but by the end of the book he chose to not have his curse completely broken, making him a beastman so he could stay with a beastwoman he fell in love with. The part Mia liked the most was the final fight against a dragon, something that one of the members explained was actually based on a real fight and that said the dragon might still be alive in the place described by the book. Mia was going to dive into history and geography when possible. This was the first confirmed location of a dragon she ever heard so she wanted to be ready when the time came.
The club also had a new member, someone Mia identified as Hinata Furakawa. She wasn’t really a friendly person but she was polite enough. She asked for help in how to write books and various members were helping her with that. Even Mia gave her a few ideas on what to write about. She was a well of ideas after all.
“Mia.” Her master said as he suddenly appeared in the library.
“Master!” Mia said in surprise. Everyone quickly got up and half saluted, half waved to the principal.
“Sorry, but I need you to come with me.”
“Ok…Sorry about this. Can you put the book back in place for me?” Mia asked the members.
“No problem. Good luck with whatever it is.” Kaatak said.
Mia followed her master through the portal and found herself in the colosseum.
“Who do I need to beat up this time?” Mia asked, clearly seeing what was going to happen.
“Don’t know, just try to leave this one whole.”
“Only if they are respectful.”
“Ok…”