Ryan walked down the hall, Tyler following close by. Over the years, the role of the latter had become a mix of friend and servant, though Ryan saw him as a brother. Even with a new set of events occurring, Ryan's feelings towards his servant were the same as they were before, their friendship forged anew.

Unlike in his initial run of time, Ryan did not 'awaken' after his birthday. When he was fourteen, he began dropping hints that he had his magic awakened, mostly by way of navigating with perfect ease, even in a new location. He would eat with perfect aim, making far less mess than he had before. Until then, he kept up appearances by using his elemental senses minimally.

It was only a few days before his fifteenth birthday that someone finally realized something was strange with the Novar Heir, and that someone was Tyler. Ryan knew his servant had noticed some oddness before, but it was during a meeting where Ryan had grabbed a glass of water without having been shown it and poured his own drink that his servant connected the dots.

From there, Ryan kept the full extent of his abilities a secret, but had developed a reputation for himself. He arranged for Damien Mieria to marry a Novar younger than the older man from a branch family, born of the Novar blood, a marriage which occurred just that past summer, only a few months before his own eighteenth birthday. As Ryan expected, there was already a baby on the way.

The young heir displayed foreknowledge of events, Damien confessing to Samuel Novar just that morning that he suspected Ryan knew the Heisar would appear. It was only natural for that, after all, because of his reputation. It was Ryan's word that stopped Nadia and Amy from drawing close to Tyler, and his which caused Henry Raxvar to begin purging members of his corporation.

The day before the Volnal Heisar expanded, Ryan suggested to his father to visit the Heisar the next day.

Even for things that Ryan hadn't discovered in his original run, the heir 'knew' about in advance. For those things, he reset time after they occurred to later speak of the events when he felt it would be optimal to reveal it.

Because of the Novar Heir displaying a level of foresight which rivaled the Silver Oracle's, the Novar Family thrived even more than it had in his original run of things. For that, he was glad. The people who plotted against him originally feared him instead.

That had become even worse when an assassination attempt resulting in the assassin being fused into a wall, his intestines used as a noose. Ryan had to admit to himself on that one that he was more than a little annoyed. The attempt damaged his favorite shirt at the time. The material was soft and smooth, and he'd not found another shirt in any store which matched it.

With his growing powers, Ryan easily mended the shirt after, reversing the time of the shirt itself to undo the damage, making it as if it had never happened. He still wanted to send a message, though, so the nasty punishment was delivered anyway.

Finally, Ryan had reached his eighteenth birthday once more. The marriage between the Veloas Family and the Novar Family was arranged and to be announced, and Ryan himself was known as the most dangerous person in the world. The Fourth Age of Magic was there.

Ryan reached the dining room as he mused over things, and moved to take the seat at the head of the table. His mother insisted on him always sitting there on his birthdays, and his father sat two seats to his right, his mother sitting between them. Tyler took his seat to Ryan's left, and Ryan assessed the room. It was a mixture of the various Families which had just merged together or would soon merge together. Veloas, Mieria, and Novar were the main ones. Meredith was present as well, though as a guest invited by Ryan's mother for a birthday portrait performed a few hours before, a quick sketch of it and a picture taken, to be completed later.

In addition to them, Tristan Novarax was present, newly renamed to Tristan Novaranax. Until he turned eighteen, that would remain his name, but it showed that he was earning his way out of being a Novarax. Ryan had insisted the boy be moved into the main estate rather than one of their neighborhoods, and the Family Heir personally saw to teaching him magic, finding his joy in it once more.

"Hello, everyone," Ryan said as he noted the simulacrum by the door.

He hadn't sent the message yet, and had come to a decision to allow the Fourth Age of Magic to last around fifty or sixty years, as with all previous Ages of Magic. Then he would summon Selar and Kylnar to Earth and see how things worked out.

"Hello, Ryan," several of the guests responded to his greeting, and Ryan's mother reached over and squeezed his hand.

"Thank you for coming here today," he smiled. "For those of you who hadn't heard, the Mieria Islands have a Heisar now, freshly opened. We've already sent several excavators to it, and based on the presence of a certain beast, it's suspected that we now have a second Heisar with manalirate within it. The power of the Families grows once more."

"Ryan," his father chuckled. "You're talking with the elementals again."

"I am," Ryan responded, remembering only then that he was quite deep into a conversation with the elementals, a detail made obvious by twelve spots of water shifting around him. His father had learned to tell when Ryan was simply practicing and when Ryan was actually communicating, even if he could not understand the messages. "We were discussing the weather, actually. Quite a mundane topic, but something which greatly interests the elementals."

"I'm sure," his father chuckled, then stood. "Everyone, thank you for coming to celebrate with us Ryan's eighteenth birthday. A new Age of Magic begins with the unities and alliances of our Families, as we now control the majority of the world while forming a force more powerful than the collective might of the Guilds and Orders.

"With the changing of the ages," his father told everyone. "There should be a change in leadership. For the last few years, Ryan has run the Novars as much as I have, and he has proven himself to be more than competent. His foreknowledge has caused our Family to flourish and is the main reason the Fourth Age of Magic begins, and he is more than worthy to lead the Family.

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"And so," his father continued. "I now name Ryan as the new Head of the Novar Family."

His father lifted up his glass of wine.

"To Ryan."

"To Ryan," everyone else lifted their glasses of wine, and Ryan lifted his.

"To the Novars," he said. "And the Fourth Age of Magic."

Everyone drank their wine, then the food was served. Ryan made small talk with the majority of the people present, glad that Michael Srentas had accepted the offer to visit. It looked to the heir that his two friends were hitting it off, just as they had the first time they met in his own past.

That was another change Ryan had made. He made sure to become closer friends with Michael than simply pseudo-friends, as he genuinely did like the man. It also gave him more time to judge just how well Michael would get along with Tyler beyond a quickly formed romance that might fizzle out after a few months.

"Don't tell me that wasn't intentional," Ryan's mother leaned close as she whispered.

"What?" He feigned innocence.

"Those two," she said. "You had me seat them beside each other intentionally, Ryan. Don't think I haven't noticed you giving them time alone together whenever Michael visits the last few months."

"Mother," Ryan said. "I think you're connecting pieces to a puzzle which doesn't exist. Every instance Michael has visited where he and Tyler have ended up alone, I was busy with something and didn't need Tyler."

"And your sudden instance on having him visit regularly a few years ago?" She asked. "You've known, haven't you?"

"Known what?" He asked.

"Ryan…"

"Perhaps," he smiled as he took a sip of his wine.

"You seem to like playing matchmaker," she told him. "You paired Kayla with your cousin, Damien with Jessica, Tyler with Michael… and many more pairings. Are you planning on making your own match?"

"Maybe one day," Ryan told her. "But finding someone worthy of marrying me? That's something beyond normal people. Sure, I'll likely find a lover or two, but I have all the time I need."

"Yes, you do," she gave him a knowing look, and he raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you thought your father and I didn't know, Ryan."

"Know what?" He asked, genuinely curious.

"Your foresight," she told him. "Even if it's said to be different from the Silver Oracle's foresight in how it works and how accurate it is, it's still foresight. That tells us quite clearly what type of mage you are."

Ryan laughed, having not even considered that his parents would have realized he was a chronomancer.

"I am, indeed," he told her. "I suppose having several in our ancestral tree made it a little more obvious, huh?"

"It did," she laughed. "And it told us that you truly do have as much time as you wish, so long as you don't bear the same curse the others did."

"Dying in their twenties?" He asked, and he noticed her hesitation. "I can assure you, Mother, that my particular flavor of magic enables me to convince Death to find other targets."

"Alright," she said. "Don't be overconfident in your powers, though."

"Maybe I will be," he winked, then resumed eating.

After he finished eating his dinner, Ryan excused himself from the table.

"Dessert will be shortly," he told everyone as he stood. "And I shall return before it. Mingle and entertain yourselves, I have something I wish to do before dessert."

Ryan left the dining room, then made his way to one of their gardens, sitting on a bench. Three air elementals drifted lazily there, along with a lightning elemental that moved in when Ryan was fourteen. It claimed it was there to keep an eye on him, but Ryan knew it was actually there to harass people for its own amusement.

Having reset ten years, all of the elementals had plenty of time to prepare for him and how he did things, and the main estate became home to more than twenty elementals between the six elements, all there to either amuse themselves or converse with the young god about random things.

A few minutes after Ryan sat down, a pair of figures appeared, brimming with magic. He stood and smiled at them.

"Hello, Colin and Emily," Ryan said. "The elementals told me you had accepted my offer."

"We did," Colin said, and Ryan could feel his curiosity. "We were wondering, though."

"How did you know about us?" Emily asked.

"The elementals refused to answer," Colin told him. "And we know they know."

"This isn't our first time meeting," Ryan answered with a bigger smile. "And I know you two are aware of who your father really is. Pictures were taken, after all."

Colin laughed in response to that.

"So you have already been back in time, then?" Emily asked.

"I have," Ryan nodded. "I have met Selar and Kylnar as well. They'll return once I'm ready, but we can discuss that later. Come! We are celebrating in the dining hall. Dessert should be served soon."

"Lead the way, " Colin said.

Ryan led his ancestors and children to the dining hall, drawing startled reactions from everyone who saw them, though he knew none recognized them. They were more confused by who the two young adults were more than anything.

"Hello, everyone," Ryan said. "These are Colin Novar and Emily Veloas, the first of our lines and children of the Gray Mage. I had the elementals extend an invitation to them."

Ryan could feel the shock and confusion in everyone's minds. No one was sure if Ryan was serious or not, as he was still the mischievous goofball he'd always been, so such a prank wasn't out of the norm. Part of the reason he had extended an invitation to them was to mess with people, but his true intent rested in having them assist him in how to lead the world properly.

They had spent more than a century and a half ruling it already, so he felt confident they would be able to assist him in his own reign of it.

"Colin, Emily," Ryan said. "Now you're finally getting to meet your family again. Someone bring in a couple of extra chairs and glasses for them."

"If they really are Colin and Emily," Samuel said as Ryan returned to his seat. "Then they look quite young for beings more than a century and a half in age."

"Of course they do," Ryan said. "They're both chronomancers, and as those who matter know, a quirk of chronomancers is that they stop aging once they first use time magic. Isn't that right, Kayla?"

"It is," she answered, and he felt her realizing he knew about her abilities.

"Naturally," Ryan said. "Chronomancers tend to be born of those with the blood for it. It's why all but one chronomancer has been a Novar, and the other has been Kayla. They faked their deaths to avoid assassination attempts on them, as they knew people would come after them to attempt to prevent them from ruling the world with their unaging bodies. They may not age, but they can still die, after all.

"Now!" He clapped his hands together. "I believe it is time for dessert to be served! But first, let us make a second toast!"

He waited for the servants to refill the glasses with wine, then he picked up his own and lifted it.

"To the Fourth Age of Magic, and the reign of the Families!"