Chapter 11: To Kilbury, again.

"Huh?"

After she saw that the three of us were currently looking at her she said, "I have a say in this?"

"Obviously, you're her mother and part of this family, it's obvious that you have a say in her matters."

I looked at her weirdly, what was she even worried about?

"I mean, I'm not her real mother, I became her step mother just a year ago, but I believe that she's mature enough to decide wether she wants to go or not."

"You still don't see yourself as my mother?" I asked with a hint of shock on my face, "You've been with us since I was five years old, are you dumb?"

"What?!" She obviously didn't expect that I'd call her dumb, but she was being dumb so she deserved it.

"Yes, she is, sorry Sigmund, but some things need to be addressed as soon as they come out."

"Oh, no need to worry about me, I do enjoy a bit of drama once in a while." replied the old man with a chuckle.

"Okay…" said my father, a bit unsettled by the old man's answer, but it was time for more important things so he ignored it, "Now, little dumb Sophia, I'm not her birth father either, but I'm still her father just as much as you're her mother, as she said, you've been with us for years already, you should cease your dumbness."

"Stop calling me dumb!" she snapped and rebuked, but then fell silent for a second, "I guess you're right, I said I saw her as a daughter, so I need to act like one too, but I mean what I said, Avys is more mature than other kids, she should decide on her own on such things that change her future."

Good job, that was exactly the answer I wanted, father saying no without asking my opinion about it made me slightly mad, but mother's answer made me really happy.

"Thank you, mom," I said, "but I want to know more about this, how different is the outside in magical theories?"

Sophia showed a big smile and muttered something I had failed to hear as my concentration was focused on the old man, "To give you a little perspective, I am one of, maybe, ten residents of the wild lands who has learnt space magic enough to teleport around, those who went even further are maybe two or three.

In the outside, learning teleportation is mandatory to those who learn in the top schools around."

"Since you and others know how to use it, why don't you teach it too?" I asked, to me it seemed like this problem would be gone just by teaching more people.

"It's not that easy, even Kilbury, the biggest armored city, only has around two hundred mages, but even outside only one in a hundred mages are able to learn it, it's too complicated for most and many who could understand it don't have the magical talent necessary to use it, your father had the potential to become great at it, but he wasted it by playing around instead of learning enough in the outside."

"I wasn't playing around, I learnt how to fight better, I don't need complicated magics to kill beasts." rebuked my father, but the old man shut him up.

"Laurence, you dumbass," said the old man looking at father straight in the eyes, "you could have done both just like the rest of us who went outside and then come back to take my mantle as a protector of this city or anything else you decided to do, but no, what did you do?

You just learnt how to swing a few more weapons than the rest of us, not even to a great level, I might add, and even after that you still only use a sword, you wasted your time outside." his words oozed sarcasm.

Those were harsh words and his tone was somehow even harsher, I recognized, but if what the old man said was true then he was a hundred percent right, my father was indeed a dumbass, whatever that meant.

Wasting a chance to learn such magic and waste it was a dumb thing indeed.

Father lowered his head slightly in embarrassment with a wry smile on his face.

"Now, back to you," said the old man as he refocused his gaze on me, "I think that you could go when you reach twelve years of age, as far as I remember the magical schools there started at around that age, but the new rulers might have changed things, are you fine with that?"

This meant that I still had around two more years to learn everything there was to learn here, "How long will it take to learn everything in this school thing?"

"I have no idea honestly, but I doubt you could learn absolutely everything even after a number of lifetimes just from the sheer number of books in those places, you and your father will go back to Kilbury to talk with their envoys again in a few days, you should ask them about the duration of their education." he replied and followed up with a head pat.

"How come you don't know?" asked my father.

"Shut up Laurence, do I look like I know everything? I haven't gone out since I brought you there thirty years ago."

The difference in treatment between me and father was really fun to witness, but now I knew that the old man was the one who brought father there, I wondered how their relationship was all those years ago.

"How come you melt over Avys, but treat me like this?"

"That's a really easy question Laurence, she's small, smart and cute, you are none of the three." He replied with a jolly voice, clearly mocking the man that he considered his son.

I couldn't argue, I was indeed all of those, but I didn't like being called small even if it was true.

"Still, Laurence, remember the things we talked about in the assembly." his voice instantly shifted to a serious tone.

"I know, I'm not senile yet, unlike you."

"Yeah sure, I'm leaving now, I have to take a look at the spacial barrier around the forest, if you'll excuse me, Avys, Sophia," he replied with a pleasant voice, which changed the moment he turned to my father with a sneer, "Laurence."

After the old man left the door I finally asked, "What does senile mean?"

"It means that his memory starts failing because he's old."

"Oh, but you are old too, do you really remember what you talked about?"

He seemed to have taken a blow from something, but there was nothing that could have hit him so it was probably my imagination, "I'm not that old, we want to meet their king before joining their kingdom and a few more conditions that we want to put forward."

"Oh wow," it seems like he really wasn't senile, "I want to meet their king too!"

As someone who rose from the common people to lead a rebellion to overthrow a corrupt government he seemed a really interesting person to meet, like someone straight out of a fairy tale.

"Sure, I'll ask Sigmund to let you in when he comes, but you'll have to be a good girl and be silent while we talk with him, okay?"

Really, father? Was this how lowly he thought of me?

He, my own father, thought that I would disturb them while talking about important and boring stuff?

How… accurate, yes, I would probably do that.

"I'll try."

Maybe I'll fail, but at least I'll try.

"Good, now, go to bed little one." he said, clearly not wanting to argue anymore.

I bid my goodbyes to him and to mother and make my way to my room, to read through Ufine's notes a bit more obviously, not to sleep as my father hinted that he wanted me to do.

Two days passed and it was time for us to go back to Kilbury, I tried applying what I learnt from Ufine's notes, but I couldn't even begin to sense spacetime, forget bending it with gravity magic.

What I really needed was to master all the elements much more than I did at this point, I still knew basically nothing about light and dark magic.

I didn't even have any idea on how to use mana to do what I wanted to do, I really needed much, much more knowledge.

The good thing was that I understood what I needed to do, which was already a good way to start things.

Magic is a slow process and to improve one needs patience, stubbornness and intelligence, one or two without the others just isn't enough.

It had been a few hours in travel when I finally felt a beast approaching, "Dad, can I take this one on my own?"

"Are you sure?" He asked and when I replied affirmatively he continued, "Then go for it." it wasn't the first time I did this so he wasn't really worried.

The beast was still a few hundred meters away, so I prepared myself psychologically.

It was coming from our side at a speed of around fifteen meters (50 feet) every second.

I stood up from my seat and awaited the beast's arrival.

Around twenty seconds later it finally came into view, just as ugly as all of them were.

It was around two meters (7 feet) tall and three meters (10 feet) long, standing on its seven legs, one of them being much shorter than the others and didn't even fully reach the ground.

This one was covered in orange fur from head to toe, even the three tentacles coming out of its mouth were covered in it.

It had two humps on its back also covered in fur, but from the top of said humps a yellowy pus like liquid came from a cavity non stop.

This was probably one of the ugliest one I saw, probably in the top 10, but it mattered little even if it was around twice the size of the common beasts, it was still prey to me.

It didn't slow down in the slightest after seeing us and charged straight towards me, but it fell the moment I raised a bump of earth right on its path.

As its ugly tentacled mug scraped the ground I created a few thin blades of water right above it, I would have frozen them for extra cutting power if I had more time, but I didn't, and pulled them down on the beast.

Those disgusting things don't really have predictable natural weak points, their insides differ a lot from beast to beast, the heart could be in the head or inside one of the legs, they all had differences.

So I did as I usually did and slashed at the limbs, cutting off three of its legs instantly.

It howled to the air like a wounded beast, maybe because it was, but it seemed almost pitiful.

At least it would have, if it weren't for the tentacles that came out of its mouth that slithered in the air, no matter how injured these things were, they would always look monstrous.

They were mindless, something proven by the fact that it soon came back on its four remaining legs it charged at me not realizing that it was outclassed.

This time I tried something different, the thing was still around ten meters (30 feet) away from me when I changed the ground below of it into sharp spikes that impaled it from below.

I made them long and wide enough that the thing was lifted in the air, it howled once again, but it was finally time to finish it off, I hollowed out the inside of the spikes and shot a jet of flames inside of it, cooking from the beast from the inside out.

Lastly, as one could never know if these things were really dead or not, I dragged it below the ground and impaled it some more with earth spikes.

Pretty easy, all in all.

I went back to the carriage and asked father, "How was that?"

"You didn't move from the spot, but you can still do better, you wasted too much mana in too many spells, having enough mana to offset this isn't an excuse, counting everything a seven out of ten, but you get a nine in style."

I pouted and went back to my spot, wandering how to get better in my spell casting and overall battle capability, but the only conclusion was still more knowledge and experience, both things I craved for.