-Chapter 2- The Big City

Arthur Leywin P.O.V.

We enter the manor and are brought into a living room. We all sit down and Vincent asks, "So Reynolds, what brings you and your family to Xyrus? I thought you and Alice wished to live a quiet life out in Ashber."

Reynolds rubs the back of his head, "Yeah that was the plan until this little one decided to go become a mage at such an early age." he chuckles.

Vincent stumbles over his words when he hears what my father said. "Wait Arthur has already awakened his mana core?!"

"Yup, he awakened his mana core at the age of three! And he is at the dark red stage already." my father exclaims proudly. "My son is truly a genius, just like his father" he poses dramatically, getting a chuckle out of me.

Vincent sits there in shock. Reynolds breaks him out of it by speaking. "We came here to ask if you could help us find a place to stay and find someone to evaluate and possibly train Arthur."

"We will be happy to help, here the maids will lead you all to your guy's rooms," Vincent replies.

***

I am brought to my room and open the door, even though it's a room for one person, it's huge. There is a single bed in a corner and the rest of the room is full of dressers and decor. I place my bag onto the bed and unpack some of my stuff. I placed my clothes in a dresser and the books on a shelf. I take my wooden training sword and head out to the backyard.

I begin to spar against imaginary opponents, pretending I am still King Grey battling in the Paragon Duels.

I stand in a ready stance for the battle to begin, my imaginary opponent steps forward and swings their sword at me, I block their sword but they arrange their sword to thrust at my head, I move my head to the side to let the blade pass me and I use my sword to push their sword to past me and I thrust my sword forwards into their neck. It's my win, I continue training my fighting this time adding mana into my movements to train my mana channels.

After a few hours of training, I fall onto my back and rest, my heavy breathing eventually slowing back down. While lying down I gaze up to the sky, being up on a floating island the clouds are much closer to me, they cover such a large part of the sky it nearly looks like I could simply reach my hand out and grab one. When I have enough energy to get up and look around, over near the manor I see that someone had been watching me train, Lilia, Vincent's daughter, how long had they been watching me train for? As soon as I noticed them they seemed to have gotten embarrassed. They have been found and darted inside. After a bit more cloud watching I head back inside and go purify my mana core.

***

The next day my mother and Tabitha brought me and Lilia shopping. They dragged me from store to store, having me try on different clothes, both of them have very different clothing preferences for me to wear, they had me dress up in a large selection of expensive clothing. Now and then we would pass weapons or a magic item shop and I wish to be able to escape there. Maybe I can get my father to bring me later. It's not like I can just walk around the city on my own at the age of 4.

We eventually get back to the manor and I just drop myself down on the couch exhausted from an entire day of shopping. 'How the hell can they spend the entire day shopping and still want to do stuff afterward?'

The front door opens and in walks my father and Vincent returning home from the auction house. My father finds me in the living room and asks, "Hey Art, do you want to go look at some different magic item shops?" As if I were a re-animated corpse I sprung to life replying to him excitedly that I wanted to go.

We leave the manor and take a carriage to a popular shopping district for mages, we stop at a storefront and get out. The shop front is elegantly designed made of marble and had pillars to either side of the entrance, atop is the name of the shop, 'Xyrus Elixirs' we head inside the building and saying this place has amazing architecture is an understatement, I almost wish I had this place when I was a king in my old world. There are beast cores, staffs, element imbued weapons and items, and even stuffed mana beast corpses for decoration. I can't help but be amazed by everything that's in here. I separate from my father and Vincent and look around, over near where they sell staffs a few teenagers are wearing what looks to be school uniforms talking about their classes. I see a small crowd of people gathering on the other side of the store, I walk over to check it out; I squeeze through to the front of the crowd so I can see what's going on, there I see two conjurer mages giving a show of magic, a male flicks their wand and several small sparks of fire shoot out and pop giving off an effect like a mini firework, the female beside him raises their staff and summons a small tornado the size of a small dog to spin around the floor amazing the small audience of people. Sure such spells are weak and impractical in battle, but still seeing the miracle of magic happen is something I'm not used to from being in my old world without ambient mana.

I realize I've been separated from my father and Vincent for too long and they were probably looking for me. I leave the crowd of people and see my father and Vincent talking over near the beast cores. I walk on over and when I get close enough I begin to hear their conversation.

"It's amazing your son has already awoken at such a young age Rey, It's spectacular to see such potential in such a small child."

My father laughs a bit and responds, "Yeah it's truly amazing, how are things for your family? Any chance your daughter will awaken?"

"Tabitha and I worry that our daughter may not awaken due to neither her family being mages, there is a slim chance but it's unlikely."

'None of them are mages? Is that why Lilia was so surprised to see me training in the backyard?' I ponder the idea in my head until my father notices me.

"Hey Art, come here." I walk closer and he picks me up and shows me the glass cases that have the beast cores inside, "Choose one and we will buy it for you, they are all D-rank level beast cores."

I look over all the beast cores, they all shine with majestic color swirls and patterns. One has a green and purple swirl design to it, another one is entirely purple with little white dots sparkling in the light, but looking over them I spot one that captures my eye. It is a mixture of four colors, yellow, red, green, and blue; they spiral around into one point. "That one," I say while pointing at the multi-colored beast core.

***

We returned home after buying the beast core. The shop owner gave Vincent a second one for free because they were friends. Although it was only E-ranked it would still be useful.

I returned to my room when it was getting late and I decided to practice something I thought of back on the trip here. Absorbing mana while moving, wasn't like it was impossible considering there were magic items and mana beasts were capable of doing it. I couldn't think of a reason why it wouldn't work so I decided to find out for myself by attempting to do it.

I started standing still trying to absorb mana- I moved on trying to make small movements but when I did so the absorption stopped. 'Damn this will be harder than I thought. I didn't know what I was expecting but it felt like it would have been easier. I continue training with this throughout the rest of the night.

***

The next day came and I went outback to train my body more. As if on queue about a half-an-hour into my training Lilia has shown up to watch me use magic. Now knowing that her family aren't mages and seeing magic being done is something she hasn't seen much of before, I can understand why she chooses to watch me perform magic, even if it's just the enhancement of my body.

I stop training and turn to her and wave to try and be nice. She waves back and I walk over to them. "How would you like to learn magic?"

It's a dumb question telling by how she immediately said yes, she seemed to already know it would be unlikely for her to be able to awaken a mana core. I had an idea in mind to help her awaken a mana core at an early age, using the same principles that I had used for awakening my mana core should work but in case I could transfer mana into her body for her to use as a base for creation.

I had her sit down and start to concentrate, normally people would be able to see little lights which were the mana particles inside one's body. She however couldn't see any. I placed my hand on her back and started to transfer mana into her body.

"I think I can see a light." She says in a happier tone from before. This single light was the mana I had placed in her body, it doesn't seem to be enough though, in my book it mentioned making a mana core did use all four attributes being at play.

I currently only had use of the wind attribute, I haven't tried to use the other elements yet so attempting to here may get risky. But suddenly I had an idea, I took the D-rank mana core out of my pocket and started transferring that mana through me into her body, in response to this happening she excitedly cried out. "I can see many more lights!"

"Good," I tell her. "Now try to move these lights into one place. It will take some time."

She nods and she begins concentrating again. Some time passes and I am amazed she is continuing this long, any other kid her age would have stopped or given up due to their short attention spans. But she seems determined, if she continues at this rate I bet she will awaken by the time she turns 6. Maybe sooner if we continue using this beast core method.

The only problem is to continue doing this I would need to use up both of the beast cores I had gotten from Vincent, but it's a worthwhile investment. Lilia becoming a mage will not only make her happy but her family. This will be my way of repaying the debt I owe to the Helsteas for helping us.