Chapter 42 - A start of a Good Rest

[Luz Leywin POV]

After all that conversation and discovering a possible connection between Arthur and Elijah, I was shaking my head. Down the stairs and heading towards the Dining Room to talk to Rey and Vince. It was strange but at the same time good to see, they were managing to hide the emotional exhaustion they had in an excellent way, if it wasn't for my essence reading, I would have thought they were doing very well.

We talked to them about recent adventures we've had, and we talked about Elijah possibly joining Xyrus Academy with us. Unlike how Tabitha had told us, Vincent seemed to accept the idea very well. Maybe because all the things Art and I do cause some positivity for the Helstea? Yeah, that was an easy situation to understand.

But we soon got into a slightly "controversial" subject, mana cores. With our father looking straight into our eyes and asking. "Can you tell me how my amazing and great kids are doing with the core stages?"

"Well, it depends, how are you doing, Old Man?" I said teasingly as I stopped eating dinner so I could talk.

"Unfortunately, since the last time, I haven't left the Solid Orange Stage. That mana core you gave me helped a lot, but after using it, even meditating, I can't get past it. And... Strangely, the mana core doesn't turned to ash." When Reynolds said that I laughed.

"Luz! It's rude of you to laugh at your father!" Alice exclaimed looking at me.

"That's not it, Mom. It's just that I'm surprised that neither Dad nor you guys know the situation. Old man, you said the mana core didn't fall apart when you sucked the mana. That means it contains a beast will! " I exclaimed, happy for my dad, everyone was silent for a moment and then Reynolds started laughing silly, covering his mouth with his left hand.

"Oh my god, I never thought about having a beast will, so it never crossed my mind that it was for that reason! Wow, that's amazing. But can I stay? I mean, as far as I know, you got it, Luz. Plus I don't even know which mana beast it came from." Reynolds said still laughing.

"Oh! True. I never said what the mana beast was, did I? Well, clearly the element was fire. That mana core came from an A-Class mana beast, the Lava Serpent."

"Lava Serpent?!? Wait, aren't those mana beasts known to be Fire and Earth duo-elementals? How did Rey manage to absorb all that mana?" Vincent asked.

"The Lava Serpent that I took that mana core from, strangely used more fire attacks and no earth attacks. There is a chance that it is an anomalous beast, having affinity only in fire, not earth. Or at least its earth affinity was incredibly low, I think the only attack involving earth it gave was a mixture of earth and fire, and it took a long time to be able to use it." I replied while stroking an imaginary beard.

"I'd say you could assimilate this beast will if I help you, Old man. I mean, you're already an adult with a well-defined body and you always train physically, so the process shouldn't take long. For example, someone without a well-prepared body, like Arthur, took 3 whole years to assimilate. So be happy with that, in that sense, you'll be faster than us." I still had a smirk.

"Me, an A-Class beast tamer... Hehehe! I love the idea! Okay! Can we do that starting tomorrow?" Rey said all excited.

"Honey! They just got back from a dungeon that almost killed them, please understand the situation!" Alice exclaimed.

"Relax mom, unlike Art and Elijah, I'm actually pretty good now, even though I was the person with the biggest backslash between we three." I would answer.

"Biggest backslash....? Explain yourself." Alice said seriously, looking deep into my eyes.

"Aaah! True! We still don't talk about the color of our cores these days, do we, pops?" I said staring at Rey, with cold sweat running down my forehead, wanting so much to change the subject.

"O-oh! Of course! Yes! What color are your cores?" He agreed to help me change the subject.

"Hm... Well, I'm at the Light Orange Stage..." Arthur said awkwardly and after that everyone was suddenly silent, until Vincent spoke.

"L-light Orange....?" He said it as if he was doubting his own sanity.

"Hahaha! Surprising me like always?! That's my boy!" Rey said excitedly and looked at me.

"Argh, you know I've always, from the beginning, been ahead of Arthur in the core evolution sense. I'm on the Solid Yellow Stage." I said with another sigh, instead of silence, the only thing we heard was the laughter coming from Vincent and Reynolds.

"H-how about you, Elijah?" Tabitha asked, startled by the level of the situation.

"I'm more 'normal'... I think... I'm in the Dark Orange Stage... That's because one of my abilities is that.. my mana core has awakened aggressively, even though I'm a conjurer, and works differently, it purifies itself when I don't use mana, but it's at an extremely slow speed... It's still advantageous for me to purify myself." He said scratching the back of his neck.

"Hahahaha!! This is AWESOME! I said I would call Cynthia in a few weeks to arrange a time for your entrance test, Elijah! But I think I'll do it TOMORROW!" Vincent said all excited, with my father finally stopping laughing and regaining control of himself.

"I just wanted a normal family day..." Alice said and I took a deep breath at that.

"Relax Mom, how about tomorrow morning we go shopping with Elijah? After all, he needs new clothes." Even if it was torture, maybe going shopping would help her, and apparently she had a big smile at the idea.

"Hmm.. I just can't refuse, it would be nice to have new clothes, currently I've only been walking around with 4 changes of clothes, which I cleaned whenever I could." our little Four-Eyes said adjusting his glasses.

"Okay! That's right! Tomorrow we go shopping!" Tabitha said happily.

"Unfortunately I won't be able to be here, so good luck." Lilia said looking at me, leaving me confused.

"Oh! It's just that at Xyrus Academy, depending on the choice of classes, some students live in the dorms there and get permission to go out and visit their family on weekends. So tomorrow Lilia has to go back there." Tabitha explained to me and I heaved a sigh.

"I hope you're doing well over there, Lily. I want to hear rumors about how amazing you can be." I said with a smile and saw her whole face turn red.

With a few more conversations done and all, I decided to stay in the backyard of our house while most of them went to sleep. I decided to lie down for a while on the grass of the place while watching the sky, the night was very starry, even though I was in a floating city, there was no cloud in my vision, just the various stars and a full moon.

"Finally getting a break?" Zalgnity asked.

"Well, of course, from now on, if Kaspian doesn't call me for anything, the days will be calm..." I said quietly, smiling.

"You deserve this rest, it's amazing how that second phase of yours works..." Sylvia said softly.

"Did you hear the conversation Arthur and I had with Elijah today?" I asked curiously.

"To be honest with you, we saw you talking, but we couldn't hear your voices.." Zalgnity said in a curious and doubting voice.

"Actually, Sirius put some lock so that sometimes Zalg and Sylvia wouldn't hear things related to him.. But why…?" I thought to myself, until an idea came to my mind.

"Of course, the reason they can't hear anything about this Nico, is the same reason they can't hear anything about Sirius... Nico and Sirius must be connected... Or at least... They knew each other before memories are erased and he becomes Elijah..." I thought some more.

I don't really understand what Sirius wants. The decision and way he makes information to be censored is kind of... confusing...

I decided to put that aside for a bit and stretched my hand towards the sky, as if I were pretending to catch the moon. My arms were still lightly damaged from the backslash of my Corrupt Trigger, and that reminded me of something.

With my second phase, it was the first time I had the slightest chance to control that transparent mana, other than through my ring, MW. This started to make me incredibly curious, so I stood up, preparing to do something I would probably regret later.

I turned off my mental connection to Sylvia and Zalgnity, I wanted to try and experience this for myself, without their assistance. My idea was that because I wasn't in a fight, the way the manas would react would be different.

I took a long breath, positioned myself right there and recited. "Second Phase: Corrupt Trigger"

Unlike before, in a slower way, my body was being surrounded by the two strange manas, they covered me completely as if they were a layer of protection, to soon afterward sticking to my skin and entering it. This time, the two manas began to enter my body calmly, without being aggressive, as they were in the Dire Tombs. But there were still some similarities.

The strange energies entered my mana veins and were moving through them as if they were dense honey in a straw. It gave me a feeling of pain, but I could take it. But what I couldn't take were the horns.

"AAAAAHH!!!" I screamed as I felt the horns starting to pop up in my forehead, as before, they aimed upward.

Before, they appeared abruptly, causing a quick pain, but now the pain was slow and excruciating. Lasting about a full minute for them to be fully grown, the right horn was a deep purple color, while the left was a mix between black and blood red.

After the pain, I started to take a deep breath while letting my body relax a bit. Runes began to appear one after another on my arms, unlike before they were not colored, they all emitted a beige, almost white glow. I slowly put my hand on my face, and I didn't see blood coming out of my eyes like the last time, but instead, I realized that my face had a kind of glow, I would need a mirror to study it better. As for my hair, it got longer, with the top part getting whiter while the ends turned green, red and blue, like in the first phase.

"It looks like it's acting this way because I'm not in battle?... Or maybe it's related to my emotions...? Maybe that's it. Maybe it was my adrenaline that made this form so crazy and insane when I used it the first time, to the point that even with the help of Zalgnity and Sylvia, I had some problems..." It was my train of thought at the moment as I stood watching the changes that happened in my body.

I even took off my shirt and noticed that the lines of runes that were on my arms, went along my shoulders and connected to each other in the area close to where my mana core is.

"Interesting." I spoke low to myself.

Soon I heard a strange noise around me and I turned around quickly, feeling the mana trying to flow more aggressively by my changing mood and abrupt movement. I saw Lilia, she was there at the door, it looked like she was watching me. So I deactivated the second phase, as I didn't know what could trigger more the ferocity of anomalous manas.

"How long have you been there?" I asked her, as my hair returned to normal and the horns disappeared into the air in the form of black particles.

"Since you let out a scream, you're lucky no one else has woken up... I guess..." Lilia said with a sigh and then looked deep into my eyes.

A smile soon appears on her face. "This situation.. It reminds me of when I found out you could control ice.. Isn't it?"

With her comment, I ended up laughing and remembering the situation. It was comical that Lilia had caught me in my First Phase training, and now she did the same when I was trying to figure out my Second Phase.

I walked towards her, but soon I seemed to lose a little balance, I just didn't fall, because I turned the MW into a staff, so I used the cable to support myself. Lilia saw this and ran towards me.

"Are you okay?" She said with obvious concern on her face.

"I'm... I went to test something today, the same thing I had to use it in the last dungeon I was in. Apparently it affects me depending on the emotion.... As I was calm and not in battle, besides being with it active for a very short time... This just made me a little dizzy." I answered her honestly as she gave me a hug.

"Tomorrow I'm leaving very early, I don't think you will have woken up." She answered me, ending up giving me a strange feeling, she didn't seem to want to question me exactly about what she saw, she was acting normally. Maybe it was because she is already aware that I'm anything but normal, and it's no use wanting to understand something crazy, without first letting the madness speak first

"Fine, Lily, but still, I'll try to get up early." I said with a slight laugh and she hugged me a little tighter. I returned the hug and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, she blushed but didn't seem to mind.

{A/N: And in this moment, we all know, they will be the "dokidoki" type.}

After that, I decided to go to my room to sleep, when I opened the door, I could already hear my two roommates, they didn't seem to have slept yet.

"...to do about Lucas?" I ended up taking a question from Elijah halfway through.

"Why are you guys talking about that bitch?" I said with a slight laugh.

"Oh. Hey, Luz. We were here talking about Xyrus Academy." Art said, he was sitting on the bed.

"Oh, I see... And you're wondering what we're going to do about that worm called Lucas? Well, if he tries to piss us off, even though he doesn't know who we are, I'm going to punch him in the face with a Ice-Fire gauntlet." I said kissing one of my fists and striking a pose that showed how my body was trained.

"Well, really, if he tries anything on us, we'll finish him! But before, we need to be stronger, as we know now, that his brother is one of the Royal special guards." Arthur said in a very animated way.

"Do you think he'll recognize us?" Elijah asked curiously.

"Hmm.. Maybe he doesn't recognize you because he was more focused on leaving us to die than knowing more about us.. Maybe he doesn't recognize me because of my mask and the agreement that 'Note and Diamond are kicked out of Xyrus until Lucas finish his studies.'... But maybe he'll recognize Luz if he uses his Bloodlust." my brother said watching me.

"Heh. It's not my fault he pisses in his pants with just a drop of my presence~" I'd say doing a grandiose, snobbish pose that slightly resembled Lucas, making the three of us laugh harder.

"But.. Hey. Maybe there are several girls there, don't you think? Can I try to get... A girlfriend?" Elijah said looking at the ceiling, I ended up choking on my own saliva and Arthur had a big laugh.

"Oh oh, if you really are my old friend, I can already see, that not even in the second life you stop thinking about having a girlfriend." Art said laughing some more.

"Hm? Really? Was my other me thirsty at this level?... Wow! Ah, but you said that this other me ended up getting married, didn't you?" Elijah said with a smile.

"Yes, but she married your otherself mostly because she saw him as a friend and didn't want to leave him suffering without a love. Besides, she wanted me, but I kept refusing her because I focused on other things." Arthur said still smiling, but I could see that his essence was turning a little blue like the last time.

"Shit!!! So I need tactics! Tactics my other me would never use! LUZ! You're going to have to help me!" our Four-eyes exclaimed looking at me.

"Why.....?" I asked confused.

"You and the Helstea's daughter! You're clearly a couple!" When he said that, Arthur started to laugh like crazy, no longer having the blue essence.

My face turned slightly red, but I took a deep breath. "Me and Lilia aren't a couple... We're just great friends... Who do cute things together... That's it." my voice sounded more embarrassed than I thought it would, making them both laugh more at the situation.

"A-anyway! Don't worry! Maybe there's a nice girl for you, someone who has the same interest and stuff, since according to Arthur, in your past life you were more attached to his personal group without ever leaving for new things. So there's a chance you haven't found anyone else because you haven't interacted with others." I said trying to change the subject.

"Hmmmm...! So one of the tactics would be to interact with a lot of different people? Great to know! But before that, I should think about which course to choose to study." Elijah spoke looking at the ceiling again.

"As far as I know, there are two courses at Xyrus Academy, the battle mages and the theoretical mages. As what you lack in a type of knowledge that you can find in advanced books, and according to Arthur, the you of the past was super smart, maybe the decision for the Theoretical mage course is VERY worth it. I, for example, think I will enter the battle mages part, even if the theoretical mage course is interesting for me, I want to enjoy and train physically during the practical classes. And you, Art?" I spoke excitedly.

"Hm, I'll follow your line of reasoning too, Luz. Having the opportunity to train during practical classes seems to be something interesting. Hmmm Elijah, if you really go to the theoretical mages course, could you bring with you some books from your classes? So we can read it too?" Arthur spoke looking at our companion.

"Of course! I don't see a problem with that. But isn't it kind of cheating.... Because we use your past life knowledge to know what type of choices we should make?" Elijah said curiously.

"Well, in my case, my old world didn't have mana, so this Battle Mage stuff is really new to me.. But for Luz..." Art seemed to ask me to say something.

"Oh well, in my world there were already spells and such. But the way magic behaves is quite different, so even though I'm experienced in magic battle, I still have to get used to the way mana works here. " I responded by throwing myself on the bed, now the 3 of us were lying there and facing the ceiling.

"I thought of something just now.. What about our ages?" Elijah asked the question that should never be asked.

"Argh. Just take into account the age of our current bodies. Like I said before... We have to focus on the present." I responded by closing my eyes and smiling.

"What do you mean Elijah what are you talking about??" Arthur didn't get what Elijah was saying and asked that question, soon I breathed another sigh.

"I'm talking like... in the sense of relationships with girls and such." When Elijah says this Art's face turns red.

"Look, just ignore these things, you're a kid, I'm a kid, elijah is a kid. If it's to help you, when you get someone, the LAST thing that you'll thought it's how old are you, and for what I know, this world is more like an Medieval one, in that era, a lot of old guys had young girls as companion. What do you think?" I said already a little annoyed, I knew very well that there was a certain princess who loved my brother, and I don't want him to get in trouble with that just because he's mentally older.

"Uh... Okay, that's still weird for me..." Art spoke.

"Just enjoy." It was the last thing I said before falling asleep.

._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.

[Arthur Leywin POV]

The soft, clean glow of dawn went in and touched my eyes, making me open them carefully, while I put my hands in front of my face to shield myself from the glare. I slowly sit up and rub my eyes a little, with the silence of the place surrounding me completely. It was a great silence, in previous situations, it could represent danger, but now, it represented complete peace.

I looked around to see Elijah, sleeping next to me in that bed, with a not elegant pose and even drooling a little, it made me giggle and have a little memory of when he decided to make a wall of pillows to sleep apart of me and Luz, but over time he seemed to have gotten more used to us, or maybe he was tired of having to do this same process every night.

I got out of bed, giving a big morning yawn as I went into the bathroom. Sylvie ended up waking up when I walked in there and she came with me, jumping on top of my head.

"Good morning papa~" I heard Sylv's voice still sleepy in my head.

"Good morning, Sylv." I said patting her a little.

Even though I was cleaning my face and doing my hygiene, my face continued to show that I had just woken up. I went to the closet and grabbed my clothes that I would wear today, putting them on and then leaving my room.

Usually, when I wake up, I can already hear Ellie's voice all excited and several footsteps coming from the employees. But now what I heard were a few steps in the distance and a clean whistle, caused by the wind passing through one of the windows in the hallway.

I walked towards the stairs to go to the first floor, but first I ended up knocking on the door of a study room. In these days, Luz seemed to have gained interest in runes, especially the ones that appeared on our bodies during our second phases. He then asked Vince if he could use some empty room just to study and be alone for the afternoon. Luckily there was a bedroom that served as a study place that was in the house but never used before.

My brother didn't answer, so I carefully opened the door, revealing him with his head lying on a table, sleeping, with the surroundings having some open notebooks and pages taped to the wall with symbols and reminders, there also had some of Ellie's drawings in that wall and a painting hanging on the closet door, of a blonde girl with green witch style dress next to something that looked like Lilia.

God, he is really good at painting.

I entered the room and saw that there was a blanket thrown on the floor, I took it and covered my brother, but then I heard footsteps approaching and one of the maids appeared with a tray.

"Oh! I'm sorry little Arthur, I didn't know you were here." The maid said.

"Okay, you came to bring my brother's breakfast, right? You can leave it on his table, I think he'll wake up soon." I said and she did as asked.

So I got out of there and finally went to the first floor, now able to hear some things coming from the kitchen, I passed by there seeing some employees of the place cooking breakfast. I ended up just getting a full cup of coffee for myself.

I walked straight to the back of the place, looking out over the open field there, and seeing that my father was sitting there meditating. I sat on the lawn and watched him longer as I sipped my coffee and Sylv slipped out of my head, now lying on my lap.

As Luz had promised, the day after we arrived, he and my father were training a little overnight, currently he was in the process of assimilating Lava Serpent's Beast Will. As we did with Virion, the process was related to making all the mana flow through the whole body and not through the channels or mana veins, because my father already had a strong physique, he was clearly faster than us . But I still guess that it will just end just a few months before the time I had.

I was studying him more with my eyes until he ended up noticing my presence and giving me a big smile, approaching me.

"Ah! You're up early today, son. Why didn't you say anything?" He said, passing a towel on his forehead, the assimilation process slightly wears out his body, we always needed to give him jugs of water to hydrate himself.

"I didn't mean to interfere with your assimilation process, Dad. How's it going?" I said taking another sip of my coffee and getting up, making Sylvie now lie on the grass.

"It's going well for now, Luz managed to cheer me up even more when he said that theoretically after this training is complete, I can gain a higher passive resistance to fire and maybe earth too, as well as a possible chance of being able to shoot strong fireballs." my father said excitedly.

"Actually dad, you could always shoot Fireballs" I said with a slight smile.

"Uh... What? But I'm an augmenter, not a conjurer." He said confused.

I created an orange fireball and threw it up, it lasted a great distance, longer than usual for an augmenter, until it dissolved in the air. "I'm also an augmenter."

I explained to my father that, in fact, we could cast such a spell using concentration and a higher temperature, it would also save us so much mana. It took a while for him to understand, but when he did, I threw other fireballs to demonstrate, one being more yellowish and the last being bluish in color.

"Are you sure you're my son?" he gave me a suspicious look but still smiling.

"I must've gotten Mom's brain, right?" I smirked.

Just then, Elijah walked in, his hair a bird's nest and his glasses crooked. He cast a drowsy glance toward us.

"What are you guys doing?" he said as he yawned rubbing his eyes.

"Training." We replied in unison.

"Actually, I was already done here for now, anyway, thanks for the tip, son." He said entering the house again, that way Elijah and I were alone to train.

Elijah's training was a bit slower. What I realized with him was that his control over Earth was unstable, metal even more. It wasn't so much a problem with mana manipulation of earth attribute mana, but more so the quantity. Elijah's lack of control over the strengh of his power mande it so he couldn't make precise and coordinated spells.

I started to think about the ways he could summon those earth spikes, he could do it on objects like wood and among others, but he couldn't do it in water or in fresh air. It was as if he unconsciously changed the molecules of things and made that attack, instead of the usual one that would be using the already existing earth around and shaping it for the spell. Maybe it's Nico's extreme intelligence that is working passively, causing Elijah to cast these spells without much thought. Indeed, he was and remains a misunderstood genius.

Elijah's training consisted of playing around with a small ball of earth. He had practiced doing different things with that small ball: rotating it really fast, changing the shape of it, expanding or condensing it, splitting it into different pieces, etc. This way, he could train both his mana control and shorten his incantations by learning the so-called "theory" of how the spells worked.

I walked into the house, letting my friend train for himself a little while Sylvie was waking up again and following behind until she jumped on my shoulder. I returned to the dining room table, where I could finish my coffee in peace, until I heard a few things coming from upstairs.

"BRUDAH LU! WAKE UP!" it was Ellie's voice, which was soon followed by the sound of various things falling.

"Argh!! ELLIE!! Stop it! I already told you not to wake me up like this!" It was my brother's voice, sounding like he was already wide awake.

"Another ordinary day." I said as I went back to the kitchen, to get something else for my breakfast, a simple mug full of coffee wasn't enough.