When Johan walked through the front door of David's, he was immediately blindsided by Anne, who slammed herself into him, then also latched onto him.

"Where have you been!?" She screamed at him, looking at his face, checking to make sure he wasn't injured.

"I made my first Construct yesterday. I wound up falling asleep at Clara's after that. Sorry if I worried you." Johan hugged Anne back, having seen her eyes watering, stroking her back with the palm of his hand.

"I... I thought something bad had happened to you..." Anne began to cry. "I was scared that it would be like what happened to dad..."

Johan was a bit taken aback by her words, but quickly realized that it made some sense. Anne had always been a bit reserved since they left Ambevelance, yeah she had come out of her shell a bit in the last year, but that didn't mean she had no sore spots. It seemed that the sudden and abrupt absence of their father had affected her more than she had let on.

"Sorry. I didn't realize that you felt like that. I'll try to make sure I let you know when I do something like this again in the future." All that Johan could do was hold her and comfort her.

"I'm sorry... I know that I shouldn't be this nosy..." Anne apologized...

"No! That's not something you apologize for. I hadn't realized that you were feeling like that, and that's on me. I hadn't paid as much attention to you since you recovered from your selective mutism, especially with me spending so much more time studying. I should've done more, not you." Johan explained. "Moreover, I'm the one who is supposed to take care of you. I'm your older brother after all."

Anne sobbed lightly, and continued crying, pressing herself into Johan. It seemed a bit over the top for her to do this perhaps, but if it was due to what had happened to their father... It had likely been building for a while.

--------------

After Anne finally calmed herself down enough, the two of them went and found Markus, letting him know of both Johans return, as well as the fact that Johan had also made an advancement.

"So, you made your first Construct? That's good, ridiculously fast perhaps, but good. Is, Anne... Alright? She seems distressed."

"She was panicking due to me being gone without notice. It reminded her of our father." Johan explained, looking at Anne who was holding his hand like a child.

"Ah, I see, I understand." Markus nodded, though he hadn't known much about what happened to their father, he probably knew a bit given his relationship with Nath, who told Markus to help the two of them in the first place. "I'll see you later today then. We leave tomorrow morning, so take today to make sure you have everything you need."

"Alright. Ah, I forgot to say it, but I'm planning to learn wind magic, I think that I should dip into combat magic now, since I have more mana than before, and I think wind magic will do well, given we don't want to really be noticed by people, though I might learn some amount of fire magic soon as well, though that will likely be utility based. Stuff like lighting fires, or snuffing one out." Johan said, before turning to head to the room that he was staying in.

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"Alright, good luck with that." Markus said to the backs Johan and Anne, who followed behind Johan.

Anne decided to study some trapping to be able to stay near Johan. As Johan was reading up on wind mana and its effects and uses, he watched Anne peek at him from the corner of his eye. It was almost like she was checking every few minutes to make sure that it was him, and not some imposter.

Johan smiled a bit at that, and went back to studying.

'Wind magic, similar to light, is rather difficult to guide. There have been many ways that people have tried to guide it, but one of the easiest and simplest ways is to just push the mana with more wind mana, similar to how wind pushes clouds in the material realm. This is most simply demonstrated by the spell Wind Blade. Wind Blade works by pushing a decent amount of wind mana with a larger amount of wind mana behind it, thus giving it the speed required form the sharp form to actually cut. It's not actually very intensive with mana because it isn't conjuration, but rather it is simply manipulation of an element' Johan read.

If he was right, he should be able to achieve a better result in a similar way to how he utilized his light mana gathering construct. Mana blocks. He could block the blade part of the wind blade with a mana block, thus allowing him to need less wind mana for the spell since it should, in theory, be held on one side by the mana block.

This would also allow for him to use more variation in speeds. The original wind blade needed to be fast enough to hold the wind mana in place, which would be the base line, for Johan's idea though... He would be able to go at almost any pace. The only issues with this plan were the fact that he would have to become quite a bit faster at casting spells than he currently was in order to use them in combat, as well as become used to the spell in order to modify it properly.

This was not even mentioning the fact that he would need to get really good at removing the mana block before it hit the enemy, other wise it would just be like getting hit by a brick. It would still hurt, but would be an entirely different effect.

It was an interesting concept. One that would need to meet plenty of prerequisites as well. He would first and foremost, need to actually learn how wind mana worked, then he would need to become proficient with the spell Wind Blade, and finally he would also need to figure out how to quickly make and dismiss mana blocks. Currently he was able to make mana blocks in 1-2 second intervals, and the same for dismissing them. It was one of the few things that hadn't changed from his advancement into the realm of Construct. All of this also hinged on whether the spell would work the way he expected it to with the block.

With these thoughts in mind, Johan turned to his sister. He *was* going to tell her that he would be unmoving for a while as he learned a new mana type and immediately would try out the new spell, but he found her asleep. The book she had been reading was now next to her, still open.

Johan chuckled a bit, and got up. He moved the book to a better spot and closed it as well. Then he put his sister into a laying position and covered her up. She had been so stressed that she managed to fall asleep once she was no longer standing.

It was then that Pat came in. Johan could guess what she had been up to based on the small flecks of dark oils and such on her. She had likely been helping with the machine that David had in his basement. It wasn't anything special, just an older model power saw, it seemed like it ran off magic though, which was of some interest to Johan.

"There's lunch if you'd like some." Pat then saw Anne. "Oh, she passed out. Makes sense. she was quite worried about you all night, she didn't sleep at all. She's so cute when she is asleep too. I just want to nibble on her..."

"Leave her alone. She was worried that I would disappear. From her perspective out father just was suddenly gone, and we left. She was worried I'd do the same. I hadn't even realized that she was worried over that still." Johan sighed.

"Ah... Alright. I knew that she was worried about you last night, but I didn't know that was the reason."

"Yeah. Makes me feel like an asshole for not realizing that, honestly. Anyways, lets go eat for now."

"Alright."