59 Lake Kingdom of Rhodia
Progress was slow, but steady with many workers moving over to the other world to plant their crops and do their jobs as lumberjacks, miners, farmers, herbalists and other professions.
It took a few weeks for the people to get used to this strange idea of coming from and going to such a place every day, but once they realized that they had the advantages of entering a completely different world each morning to use as they wanted and all they had to do to return home was to step through the portal that opened every afternoon, they were quickly finding this novel idea quite nice.
Most of the raw resources that could not be refined in some way directly, were collected and then hauled back to the Mage Tower, a tower that soon got the nickname 'Tower of Portals', due to all the gateways leading to many places.
With all the magical means, hauling and storing items was not very difficult. As every one of their civilians seemed to have some sort of task, Myra prepared herself for her journey through the various empires and kingdoms on the continent.
She could not help a lot with those workers' daily tasks and did her best to provide them with the means to just do their job and not bothering them with any unnecessary trivialities.
"Aaron, are we ready?" she called through the large amount of rooms at the top of the tower that were currently being used as their personal quarters.
"Everything is prepared, the contingent of Celestial Archers that is going to escort us seem to be ready as well. How about yourself, will you bring your flying gear?"
Myra shook her head. She finally managed to get her body adapted to some basic level of power that would enable her to fly on her own.
"I can now fly without it. As long as we don't fly too long or far, I should be fine. It's also a good time to train Rae a bit more."
"You mean, we bring along the bumblebee girl?" Aaron smiled and then caught their daughter, who did her best to use her specially adapted flying gear to fly in a straight line into her father's arms.
"Yeeeiiieee." The excited and slightly dizzy girl shouted, but her straight line looked more like lots and lots of serpentines to everyone else, until she was finally stopped by Aaron.
"Rae still has a lot of room to grow, even you can still easily grow your magical power to the level of a Hierophant, but as for Nell, Liam and Alyn I think they are currently stuck at violet grade power, not to mention Tia who probably won't reach beyond red."
Myra already started to consider how they would be able to improve their own magical power.
"We have to think about ways to let them progress a little bit farther, otherwise they will always be dependent on us and I don't like that. It would be better if they have the strength to rule and defend their own domains and areas."
Aaron had to agree, it just made sense to have their own loyal people improve as much as possible after all.
"What did you have in mind? Shouldn't we worry about that when we return?"
Myra shook her head. "No, getting to know all the empires and kingdoms, is an excellent chance to gather all the rare treasures that would come in handy to improve their natural talents a bit, we just have to keep an eye out for some nice things."
Aaron took out a recording crystal and handed it over to Myra. "Our funds that are reserved for our personal use are not all that great currently. If we really want to get expensive treasures, then we will likely have to buy them.
We don't have the money. Want to enter an auction and sell some of your more unique items to change that?"
"What's an auction?" Rae asked right away.
"It's a way to sell items. Many people gather at a place and those interested can offer an amount of money. The person with the highest offer will win the item for the price they offered."
The basic concept seemed rather easy to understand and Rae's interest quickly returned to her flying routine.
"Are there any auction places on our way? Even if we fly, we likely need several days to reach each empire as we have to find a place to take a break and a place to rest as well. Might as well join one if there are any. It's not like we have any place we have to visit first."
"The Rhodia Kingdom seems to have a bigger auction soon. I didn't really plan to go there, but it's close to some other larger empires and we might as well stop by." Aaron pointed out a small kingdom that was mostly known for its many lakes and nice scenery.
It was a typical vacation destination and people would make their money with tourism more than anything else there, but compared to the bigger kingdoms it was just too small to hold any real importance from a political perspective.
"Sounds good, at least we get a little bit of time to relax as well."
--
With Lady Alyn now appointed as a noble and often very busy, Commander Thur was vice-leader of the Celestial Archers in name, but all the elite soldiers were aware that most of the time he would be the highest authority around when it came to training and leading the Archers.
He was one of the first to make it through the body enhancement training that Queen Myra came up with. At the time, it was nothing more than a strange experiment to find ways to make them stronger in a short amount of time.
What had started as an experiment, had now become their very standard of accepting new people into their ranks.
Those who made it were accepted as Celestial Archer recruits, while those who didn't make it, were dismissed, but their hard work usually showed at least some results that would benefit them in their future lives.
All of them, from the lowest recruit, to the most highly esteemed officer would have at least the strength of a strong orange grade magic knight, or magic archer as they currently called it, while many of them had a power of red or even violet grade now.
While not yet strong enough to take on someone like a skylord on their own, there was no other regular troop on the continent with such an elite fighting force.
"Commander, all 20 of the archers who will accompany the highnesses are ready to leave at your command."
Thur nodded and looked through all the things that required his attention once more, before getting ready to join this group as well.
"Lieutenant take good care of our remaining troop. Managing those 300 odd archers is not an easy task, but I am confident in your skills. Don't let us lose face while I'm gone."
"Yes commander, I will make sure everything is still in order when you are back."
Commander Thur headed to the portal that lead to the very top of the tower and knocked on the large entrance door that lead to the rooms of the Celestial Kingdom's royal family.
'I still wonder why they refuse to have any servants around all the time and only let them come in to clean and do chores from time to time. Quite unusual for a noble family.'
"Your highness, the Celestial Archers are ready to escort you whenever you want to leave." He called out.
When the door opened and he started to kneel down he was suddenly hit by something and got knocked down. The small bundle that had hit him was not some weapon or concealed attack, it was a little girl.
To be precise it was a little princess that did her best to learn flying as they did. Chuckling, Commander Thur put Rae back on her feet after checking if she was hurt and looking at her with a stern expression.
"Princess Rae, please be careful when trying to fly in enclosed spaces. We don't want you to hurt yourself."
'It's already amazing that she can use the flying gear as a five year old. I wonder where she gets the power and control from. It probably won't take long and this young girl will make our flying skills look horrible before she even turns ten.'
"Yes! Thanks uncle Thur!" The little girl quickly stopped her adventure in order to flee into her mother's arms. She would be save from any further scolding her there. As much as she liked her 'Uncle Thur' he was rather strict when it came to her flying and running around the place.
Myra on the other hand would just spoil her all the time, no matter what mischief she caused, as long as no one gets hurt. Rae quickly learned that she had to treat everyone with respect and to never hurt someone intentionally or cause them any harm because of her pranks.
Soon, King, Queen and the little Princess as well as an escort of about twenty Celestial Archers could be seen flying through the sky heading for the Rhodia Kingdom.
--
The place was extremely serene, with a peaceful aura spreading through the grasslands and over the water of the lake.
"No wonder they call this place a favorite destination for vacations. The area is absolutely amazing. Look at the clear water and the endless green hills. Isn't it pretty!" Even Myra who had seen quite a lot was really impressed.
They quickly found some nice accommodations close to the capital of the tiny kingdom where the auction would take place and would spend the afternoon and night here relaxing a little bit before heading into the city the next day.
"Mommy, can I go play too?" Rae pointed at some of the kids who seemed to play various games not far away and being used to approach other people without reservation, Rae wanted to go meet the other kids.
"Sure, but don't go too far away. Do you remember what to do when you are in danger?"
Rae nodded obediently. She knew that Myra would consider her safety as immensely important and the first thing she was taught once she could gather magical power was to make a magic shield.
As with all of Rae's magic, it was mostly about control. The amount of power that she required was for the biggest part provided by her hidden magical item that she received from Myra that would link the little kid to the powerful mage.
"I make the strongest shield I can!" she answered right away and Myra smiled happily.
It was not just about being able to create a shield that Myra had taught her, but also creating a shield under stress and danger. Rae would be able to make a shield in the blink of an eye even under the most stressful situations.
"You're my precious little darling. Off you go. I will call you when dinner is ready."
The other kids were cautious at first, but they were young enough to soon forget about things like where Rae was coming from, or if she was a local child and just had her join their games. Young kids always seemed the most honest of all humans.
They would easily accept someone, would easily get upset about something and would as easily forgive someone.
Without the influence of adults telling them otherwise they were far more direct and simple in their approach to others as any adult who was already shaped by a society's expectations.
