The past two years were full of exciting events for the world. Telarion over the course of that time had completely uprooted the terrorist group in the elven kingdom, effectively allowing his daughter to come back home. But when he arrived at the cabin he was met with complete disdain, Luna was fully captured by Solstice.

“What do you mean you don’t want to come home honey? I made home so safe for you and you’re going to repay your loving father like this?” Cried Irian, he loved his daughter more than anything but his daughter just ignored him and looked at Ariel to explain.

“Irian, I just want to say how great of a child you raised without a mother, truly great parenting. But I think she needs a female influence in her life. She still loves you dearly, but she needs this I believe. It's still your decision but this is my opinion I'm giving you.” Said Ariel in the most professional way she could.

While Luna had been here, her and Solstice had grown pretty much inseparable, and she was able to teach Luna some useful things about getting her way. She approved of Luna, she could see what kind of strong and dependable woman she was going to develop into.

“Luna, if you truly want this, tell me. I’ll support anything you do,” Irian said with an aching smile. He had already been away from his girl for a long time but if she felt she needed this experience he was sure to give in. Plus, why would he go against the ancestor? He doesn't have an early death wish.

“Please father, I love you very dearly. But you sheltered me so much of my life that I haven't gotten to know another woman or true friend. Ariel has been like a mother to me the time I've been here and it's been eye opening.” Said Luna with a deep smile.

Ever since her mother had died, the only person she had truly around been her father. If she had any interaction with someone other than her father, they would only bow down in respect for her family and only say what she wanted to hear. She wanted to grow as a person, and living in her kingdom at this point of time wasn't going to help her. What fascinated her most about Solstice was how oblivious he was to status; it had its drawbacks but being treated like an equal was an incredibly nice feeling.

“Very well, after the ceremony though I want you to visit home every once and a while, okay? You're all I got.” Said Irian with a bright smile on his face.

“On a side note, Irian, how's my husband doing?” Ariel said with a smirk on her face. After she sent him away to Irian, he hasn't spoken a word to her, and it was incredibly funny to her.

Irian began to tell her the details of all the attacks that could’ve been bad but were all prevented by Telarion. The attacks had gotten bad at one point, but Telarion finally lost it and managed to track down the cell to its homebase. The rest was history, in the course of a two-day long battle, Telarion annihilated many A rank and S rank elves, only through the intervention of Feyrith did they manage to capture a few prisoners and begin interrogation on them.

“He should be coming home soon; I do feel bad for what I did but there's no reason to get a soon to be thirteen-year-old used to killing.” Ariel could understand where Telarion was coming from, but she didn't want to start that phase until before or after the academy exam. After catching up for a little, Ariel opened a portal and as Irian walked through one side, Telarion came through the other. He saw his wife and smiled before asking about his son’s progress.

“Has he been staying busy at least, and where is he?” Asked Telarion looking around. He finally felt calmed enough to come back home but saw Solstice nowhere.

“He’s somewhere on the mountain, he comes home before dinner but other than that? I think you should check his progress yourself.” Ariel said with a grin.

Over the time Telarion was gone, Solstice had exclusively been training his proficiency with the great sword and had improved immensely. Victor had been a great boon for Solstice, and it showed by how quickly he progressed.

Telarion made his way outside and could see a smoke cloud a few miles away and decided to surprise attack his son. He stretched out his wings and leapt from the ground leaving cracks in the ground from the pressure of his jump. In a few seconds he arrived at the smoke cloud and flapped his wings to clear it all. When he began to survey the area, his sense picked up danger from behind and he immediately dodged to see what he felt threatened by. When he turned, he saw Solstice looking at him with a serious face, that was enough for Telarion to know his son wanted a rematch.

“I guess I'm going to have to put you back in your place, kid. Seems being away for a little while seems to have given you a false sense of confidence.” Telarion was ecstatic seeing his son having finally developed killing intent. Seeing that at his age was unheard of, one had to wonder how many demonic beasts he had killed in the mountains to have developed it.

The first to move was Telarion, he immediately bolted straight to Solstice and threw out a punch that he aimed for his stomach, but before it landed Solstice stomped the ground while imbuing his leg with mana to create another dust cloud to conceal himself.

Telarion got annoyed by his cowardice antics and punched the air towards where he last saw Solstice, but he was already gone. Immediately after he did that, he sensed something to his side and saw the great sword had increased in size and was flying towards him, right when he went to deflect the great sword, he saw Solstice had appeared behind him somehow and was throwing a powerful punch at his head. Telarion immediately using his wings to dodge to the side and when he did, he was astonished at what happened, Solstice had anticipated this, he grabbed the sword out of midair and used the momentum it had generated to slingshot him at a speed not possible for his level to catch up to him.

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Right when Telarion went to block the sword he got a foreboding feeling about it. He decided to use some aether in his arms to block it instead, and man was he glad. The sword managed to actually draw blood from his forearm which shouldn't be possible. Dragon scales are some of the strongest forms of defense known, and a mere 12-year-old actually managed to bypass some of it.

Capitalizing on his dads wonder, Solstice kicked out and landed his first clean hit ever on his dad. His kick landed right on his chin, sending him flying into a tree and splitting it in half. When Telarion got up he couldn't understand what was going on. Whatever Victor was teaching him was insane, if anyone at his age or even below rank C were to fight Solstice they would lose miserably. At this point of time, Solstice could comfortably fight a B rank and hold his ground easily. Telarion had seen enough to know his son wasn’t wasting any time around Luna, all he did was take one step and appear in front of Solstice surprising him before locking him into a hug.

“God, you fucking monster of a child, whatever the hell Victor had you doing worked like a charm, I’m proud.”

Solstice was surprised by this reaction; Victor had made it seem like what he was doing right now was fairly common but now he knew it was a lie. He could feel Victor laughing inside of him at this absurd idea.

“Do you actually think any normal fucking kid could pull off any of this shit? Geez you definitely inherited the intelligence of your idiot dad” Victor said while dying of laughter.

“Fuck you, why the hell did you make me suffer all this time then? Do you know how much blood and sweat I've had to put in to meet your standards?” Solstice yelled internally.

Over the course of this training camp he's had, multiple occasions have almost resulted in his death. If it weren’t for his mother keeping a watchful eye on him at all times, he would've died forever ago. Victor had him going into nests of C ranked demonic beasts and clearing them solo. Only groups of C ranked and maybe some solo B ranked adventurers and warriors would do something like this. But there was no crying over spilled milk now, at least with this kind of foundation nobody could overpower at least.

While Telarion was hugging his son, he saw a portal open and out stepped Ariel, Luna, Bela and Darius. Darius and Bela knew about the hard work that Solstice had been putting in and were excited to see him surprise his dad. What they didn't expect was Solstice to be able to cut through dragon scales. They all knew Victor showed him something, but they had no idea what, Victor was always secretive with his methods so asking questions was useless.

“So, I guess it's time for a talk about the ceremony finally, yeah?” All the people who had a hand in training Solstice were excited to see what kind of waves he would cause in the world. The ceremony was sort of like an introduction to the world on who to keep an eye on, and Ariel had been prepping for this moment since the day Solstice was conceived. She had cashed in every favor she was owed, and now it was time for it to payout.

“Let's go to the cabin to talk about all this, I don't want to overwhelm Solstice with this.” Said Ariel with a very loving smile on her face. Once they all made it back home, they all sat down and awaited what shameless things Ariel was fixing to spew.

“The ceremony is around a month away now, so I think it'll be a good time to go ahead and let Solstice start downing these potions I've so graciously acquired for him, no?” All these people who have been showing up and some they haven't even seen have dropped off incredibly rare potions. These potions are none other than the ones who can grant race specific and bloodline specific attributes of mana, like blood from Bela, metal from Darius, and a few more she was able to get.

“It’s going to hurt like absolute hell when you drink these, but I think the coma you’ll go into will be over before the ceremony. Your soul by now should be healed from the fusion with Victor.” Deep down Ariel was afraid of doing this, but she had no idea how Aevis was going to end up, so she wanted to at least give her son the resources to defend himself. As a primordial she had a job to make sure Aevis survived, that's something that wouldn’t change with any amount of time.

Solstice was silent for a few moments while thinking about how much hell he had gone through, before he could really reflect on anything, Victor said something that made him pause.

“I don’t mean to badmouth here, but I hope you do know you can only count on yourself here. Ariel loves you, she truly does. But if she has to pick between you or the Aevis? She’s going to pick Aevis every time. She has a job to do, and nothing will change that. But because she loves you so damn much, she’s giving you every possible resource to survive. Take this opportunity, i mean have you ever heard of some freak in this world with more than three affinities? I may be dead, but I'll be damned if I'm stuck with the biggest sissy in Aevis.” Victor tried to sugarcoat it at the end but what he said was true. Hearing this eye opener made Solstice harden his resolve, and he merely nodded to his mom before walking with her to the workshop.

Inside a special safe sat some potions that Solstice was going to drink.

“I have a big selection for you, but just know with each potion, the more pain your soul is going to suffer. Only take what you think you can handle. I'll be waiting upstairs.” Ariel patted her sons back and walked back upstairs.

“I think you know what you’ve got to do. Don't worry about dying at least, I can sustain you, but it’ll come down to your willpower.” Victor said, all the harsh training he put Solstice through was partially for this. He knew what Ariel was planning when he was roaming around the house, as Solstice increased his mana capacity, he was able to stay fully sustained and wander around. The amount of stuff he learned from Ariel’s planning was frightening, but more than anything? It maddened him beyond belief. The fact she planned his sacrifice was something he couldn’t forgive. Yes, she had made a plan which in fact was a good plan, but without regard for his own life. Only she knew about it, so he didn’t blame his best friend or anyone else. He had met a few Primordials and each of them in his own opinion are fucked in the head with their sense of duty, it was borderline cult like.

He knew for a fact she let him see the evidence, but it still hurt him deep down. All he could do now though is suffer and make sure that his little protege didn’t suffer the same fate as him.

While Victor was angering himself over the past events he found out, Solstice had started downing potions as fast as he could.

What neither of them saw was the frown on Bela’s face as she was watching them from the stairs.