Journey? Let's Go!

When we turned three, mum began giving us lessons for a set time, teaching us how to read and write. I learned how to read and write like a sponge so she was proud. While Art who is already can read and write pretends to be a genius son which is a jackass move.

These last couple of weeks passed by in a flash. Art is already ahead of me on learning the basics of mana manipulation because he awakened earlier so after I awakened, dad began teaching me too even though he explains things poorly. Fortunately, I'm an adult in a child's body so I can understand the important parts. But if a normal toddler listened to Dad's lessons, they wouldn't even comprehend a single word that came out of his mouth.

To summarized

An easy way to know to measure your strength lies in the color of your mana core. Starting off, the mana core would be black, due to the body's blood and other impurities mixing with the mana particles as they formed into a mana core. As the mana inside the person's body becomes purer and the impurities get filtered out over time, it'll change into a dark red color. From there, the color of the mana core would get lighter; from dark red to red, and then to a lighter red.

The color order goes as follows: black, red, orange, yellow, silver, and then white.

From the red mana core until the yellow mana core, the colors split into three shades (dark, solid, light). Rule of thumb, the lighter the mana core's color, the purer one's mana core was and the more power they would have access to.

A typical day would involve taking reading and writing lessons from Mum and augmenting training from Dad. After he covered the basic theory and application of augmenting, we started physical training. Seeing how our bodies were too small to start sparring, we opted for running, and body workouts which are ridiculous for three year olds to do workouts. Even though in my past life, doing pushups was as easy as slicing cake, now I feel hopeless as doing a few pushups makes my arms become jelly.

When I'm not taking either of these lessons, I usually stayed cooped up in the newly improved library, reading and meditating to further condense and purify my mana core.

As a year passed with not much happening outside of my typical schedule, dad spoke up while we were having dinner one night. "Honey, I think it's time we get Art and Alex proper mentors."

A *clang* drowned out the silence as my mother dropped her fork onto her plate.

"What? Reynolds! Arthur and Alexander aren't even four yet! No! Besides, you said if our children were an augmenter, you'd be able to teach them!" Mum spoke with evident desperation.

"I, also, never expected our children to be this great of prodigies in mana manipulation. Who's ever heard of an awakening at the age of two or three?" Dad responded a lot calmer then Mom.

"But that means they'll have to leave home! They're only four, Reynolds! We can't have our babies leave home at such an young age!"

"You don't get it. When I observed them while they meditated, I couldn't help but feel that all of this was natural to them. Alice honey, I'm holding my children back by trying to teach them something they can already do in there sleep."

Thus began my parents' quarrel.

They went back and forth, basically repeating their initial points; mum kept saying that we were too young, dad saying that they couldn't hold us back from reaching our full potential, blah blah.

In the meantime, I continue eating my food peacefully whilst Art is playing with his food.

Finally, my parents settled down and dad turned to us.

"Art, Alex, this is concerning you two, so you both have a say in this as well. How would you two feel about going to a big city and having a teacher?"

I spoke first.

"I'll follow big brother!" I smiled happily like a normal baby, Art winced seeing the decision fall into him.

"Can we at least try meeting some mentors and have them see if we need to be tutored or not?" Art looked down and waited for their response, while I continue munching my food as I hate wasting food.

Mum finally spoke, quietly she muttered, "We'll at least formally have their mana core and channels tested. We can figure out what to do from there."

As dad nodded in agreement, we began making preparations the next day.

We were planning for a three-week-long journey. A journey via horse-drawn carriage through the Grand Mountains to something called a teleportation gate which will get us into a Xyrus city.

I don't understand how Xyrus city is floating but I don't think I will ever know how the city floats.

Anyway!

This journey was going to be long. It's times like these that I wished modern transportation existed. In order to get to the city, we'd have to enter through one of the designated teleportation gates in the Grand Mountains, otherwise, it would take months to travel across towns to reach the gate below the actual city, which floated near the border of the Kingdom of Sapin and Darv.

One reason why dad pushed for us to go on this journey now was that his ex-party members had recently stopped by and were on their way to the city of Xyrus. Going now, with them, meant that we would have three augmenters and two conjurers, along with mum, who was a rare Emitter and my Dad, a B-class augmenter. While the mountain range didn't have any mana beasts, there were still the potential dangers of bandits and wild animals.

While mum and dad took care of packing all of the necessities, I packed my wooden sword and a storybook called "A Foolish Hero" whilst Art packed his wooden sword and two books, Encyclopedia of Dicathen and Foundations of Mana Manipulation, for the journey.

By mid-morning, we were ready to head out.

I grasped Dad's hand while Art grasped Mum's hand. We followed Mum and Dad to meet their ex-party members.

I don't remember their faces and names anymore, I just forgot.

The information I learned from Dad about the party members of Twin Horns was:

Helen Shard: Female augmenter, specializing in magic archery.

Adam Krensh: Male augmenter, whose main weapon was the spear.

Jasmine Flamesworth: Female augmenter, who specialized in speed with dual daggers.

Angela Rose: Female conjurer, specializing in Wind Magic.

Durden Walker: Male conjurer, specializing in Earth Magic.

We reached the inn they were staying at in Ashber and saw them out in front, near the stables.

My Dad, after hugging his friends, exclaimed, "Fellas, I want you guys to meet my sons, Arthur and Alexander! Go on Art, Alex, introduce yourself."

Art giving a slight half bow while looking up at them, introduced himself first. "Hello, my name is Arthur Leywin. Thank you for traveling with us to Xyrus. We'll be in your hands."

I'm no noble in my former life so I muster up my best introduction. "Hello, my name is Alexander Leywin. Nice to meet you all."

"HAHAHA, what is this? Such manners! Are you sure they are your children, Rey?" The one to respond was the Spear wielder, Adam. Taking a closer look at him, he seemed like the energetic, talkative type. While fairly good-looking, he had bright red hair tied in a messy poof at the end, almost like a flame, and a couple of bangs escaping from the hair tie, he reminded me of some sort of vagabond. His eyes were bright and almost seemed like they were always laughing. The first thing I noticed though, was the scar across his nose, reaching both cheeks.

Art then gets picked up by a blond woman with big racks. "Awww...Isn't he just too precious? You should be glad that he doesn't look like you, Reynolds." I smirk as I see Art gets suffocated by the blond woman's big racks, I think today is my lucky day.

"Alexander isn't it? Nice to meet you, I'm Helen Shard." I turned around to see black hair with shoulder-length hair tied tightly at the back.

She's my type; a tomboy girl with a flat chest and a beautiful face! "Nice to meet you too, Miss Helen! You can call me Alex." I smiled as I shook her hand. Lately, my acting skill as a cute little baby has improved because of Art.

After we got to know the twin horns members a bit, Art and I hopped onto the carriage.

After our party finished loading in all of our travel necessities into the two carriages we were taking, they strapped in what I thought would be horses. It turned out, this world had domesticated mana beasts called Skitters for transportation. These giant lizards, with spikes across their backs and powerful claws, were D-class monsters that were a lot more efficient to use, albeit more expensive than horses, but much more efficient when traveling mountain terrain.

The carriage then moves, besides me is Angela while Art has mum with his side. Angela is pestering me, Art only grinned seeing me suffering. At least, I don't get suffocated by her big breasts.