Preparations

The Leywins sat around the dining table of their newly reconstructed house. This night wasn't anything special, as the Leywins were just having a meal. During this night, however, Reynolds spoke up.

"Honey, I think it's time we find Artha a mentor."

Hearing this, Alice dropped her fork onto her plate. She quickly bolted up and glared at Reynolds. "Reynolds! Artha isn't even three yet! Besides, you said if she was an augmenter, you'd teach her yourself!"

"I never expected our daughter to be much of a prodigy in mana manipulation. Who ever heard of an awakening at the age of two?" Reynolds retorted.

"But that means she'll leave home! She's only four! We can't have our baby leave home at such an early age!" My mother replied, tears welling up in her eyes.

"You don't get it. When I watched her meditate, it felt like this was all normal to her. Honey, I'm only holding Artha back by teaching her something she can do in her sleep." Reynolds calmly tried to persuade his wife.

With this, the Leywin couple argued about sending Artha to another city for training. Alice kept arguing that Artha was too young, and Reynolds kept arguing that keeping her here is a bad idea.

During their argument, Artha played a game with her toys. The peas attacked for the Mother Empire, while the carrots of the Father Nation desperately defended their lands.

After a while, the two of them settled down, and Reynolds turned to Artha. "Artha, this concerns you, so you have a say in this as well. How would you feel about going to a big city and having a teacher?"

Artha nearly choked on Reynolds' decision to let a two year old make a life changing decision like that. Artha thought about this for a while, as she neither wanted to give up her family nor stay weak.

"Can't mommy and papa come with me?" Artha tried to sound inarticulate, displaying her amazing acting skills.

As silence enveloped, countless thoughts passed through Artha's mind. She lowered her face in fear that the Leywins discovered her reincarnation, but thankfully, none of her fears happened.

"We should at least have her mana core and channels tested first, and we can choose what to do from there." Alice muttered quietly, breaking the silence.

Reynolds nodded in agreement. After dinner, the Leywins made preparations for the next day. Artha thought they would leave in a few days, but contrary to her expectations, the Leywins were leaving the next day.

The Leywins were preparing for a three week long journey. Artha was expecting to travel on a carriage, and she was correct. The Leywins rented a domesticated mana beast to pull the carriage instead of using a horse.

The Leywins will travel through the Grand Mountains towards something called a teleportation gate, which would get them into a city called Xyrus.

Artha recalled that she read about this place before. It was a floating city built by ancient mage for the sole purpose of housing the most prestigious mage academy and they later built a city around it, but Artha didn't think that was the case.

It was simply stupid to build a floating island to house a school before building any houses remotely near it. Artha didn't know how it was possible to keep a piece of land, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, afloat, but what she knew was that everyone was dumb.

Xyrus was called a flying city in books and in conversations, but it was clearly just a floating city! If they consider Xyrus to be a flying city, then the words floating and flying should be the goddamn same.

Artha sighed and shook her head. This journey was going to be long, and she'd have to progress in her mana usage as well. In order to enter Xyrus, you had to enter through one of the designated teleportation gates in the Grand Mountains. Otherwise, you'd have to learn how to fly.

One reason this journey was happening so soon was that the Leywin's ex-party members recently stopped by and were on their way to Xyrus. Going with them now would mean they'd have four augmenters, two conjurers, and a rare emitter.

While the mountain range didn't have any mana beasts, there was still the risk of being attacked by bandits, so the Leywins didn't want to take any chances, especially when they were about to have another child.

While Artha didn't learn of this in the most ideal way… her parents had the decency to tell her directly. A few weeks before the Leywin's argument, they explained to Artha that she was about to have a sibling.

To say Artha was happy would be an understatement, as she ran around the house for ten minutes before stopping and looking at her parents with a bright smile. Her parents laughed at her antics, but it overjoyed the Leywins to know Artha wanted a sibling.

In reality, Artha just wanted to stop hearing her mother screaming in the middle of the night. Then again, having a little sibling would be an unfamiliar experience, so she might as well go with it.

Artha used to be an orphan with no family, so having parents was a new experience for her, and now, she had a little sibling. Her parents weren't sure if it was a boy or a girl, but they already started coming up with names.

Artha, of course, helped them with picking names. In the end, they ended up wasting five notebooks to write down possible names. They even categorized the names based on gender, hair color, eye color, and such.

All of this effort overwhelmed Artha, but she still enjoyed it.

After packing all their necessities, Alice helped Artha pack her stuff. In the end, Artha only took a wooden sword, her two books, and a water pouch. This journey will be exhausting and will take a long time, so Artha wanted to prepare everything.

By mid morning, the Leywins were ready to go out.