Chapter 5 Appetizer

Head ache assaulted me as I managed to open my eyes. Somehow, I felt refreshed and dizzy at the same time. As I looked around our now destroyed house, my eyes fell on Art.

There he was, holding his head as he tried to get up. At this moment, I realized what had happened.

I looked around and confirmed my suspicions. While one side of our house was blown away, the other side looked as if it was sucked in towards us. What had probably happened was that as Arthur first awakened, he pushed the mana out with a loud bang which surprised me and I accidently compressed my own mana core. This time though mana got sucked in, probably because I awakened as a conjurer. Because my body was absorbing mana at such a fast rate I got attracted towards the largest source of mana available, Arthur. This all must have either occurred before the barrier was formed, or we were within the range of the other's barrier to begin with.

Damn it!!!

I cursed within as I though about it. I wasn't suppose to awaken till we reach the city. What if Art got suspicious?

Thinking about it, I quickly looked towards Arthur. Even though he was still holding his head, and his eyes were closed, he had a smirk on his face.

He must be inspecting his mana core!!!

Thinking about it, I quickly closed my eyes and tried to inspect my newly formed mana core. There it was, I smiled as I put my hand near my solar plexus, acting as if I could touch it with my own hands.

Suddenly, I head the desperate cry of our mother, "Art, Ryan...my babies...are you both ok??!!"

As I opened my eyes, I was suddenly grabbed and hugged tightly by her. I was almost about to tell her to stop before she squeezed the air out of my lungs, when Art suddenly said, "Mom..no cry...What's wrong???"

Instead of answering, our mother continued to sob while cradling us both. Then our father placed his hands on our heads while stroking our hair and giving us both a weak smile. Arthur managed to free himself from her grasp and looked around as he frowned.

"Congratulations...", our mother managed to say in a weak voice followed by our father's amazed voice, "You've both awakened!!!"

All 4 of us looked at each other as we were processed what just happened. wait a moment, didn't Art say something around this time??

The picture perfect moment was broken by our neighbor's surprised voice, "What happened??!"

"We'd better clean this up.", our father said while grinning.

-- -- --

We decided to keep our awakening a secret. In a few weeks, our father had managed to contact his old adventuring party to help rebuild our house. Soon spring came to an end, and along with it, came our birthday. I remembered the tradition of not celebrating the first couple of birthdays. Somehow though, probably because of the cake our mother brought, it seemed kind of nostalgic. I looked at Art who was looking at all this with awe. Of course, this guy for as tough he is, moments like these were a first for him. We both got a carefully crafted wooden sword as a birthday gift. Art looked like he was in heaven.

Soon, our mother started teaching us how to read and write. While Art played the role of a genius prodigy, I figured I'll be the talented but hardworking one. For this I made sure to make it seem that I was often stuck at understanding stuff. While Art showed interest in complex mana books, I'd plans of my own and decided to make it seem like I was exceptionally well at arithmetic. Afterall, even if this world didn't had computers, math was still present along with physics.

Oh and Art didn't seem to have suspected me yet. If anything, he regarded me with an interesting gaze. Our father also started teaching about mana along with some physical training. While it started with basic body workouts, after a while our father started making me and Art spar with each other. Art was of course holding back, but occasionally he would slip in some of his crazy moves when dad wasn't around, as if to test me.

I wondered, with the changes I'd made, if Art would still be a qudra-elemental mage, and what elements would I have access to.

Most of our time was spent taking reading and writing lessons from my mother, and mana training from our father. Although our father was an augmenter, he did manage to give some vaguely useful advice to me about the basics of conjuring. Of course, I was reading books as my main source of guidance, but I wasn't gonna tell him that. In the free time, I would just sit near Art and meditate along side him, giving him the impression that I was just trying to copy whatever he does. This was, he'd become my closest alibi without even knowing it.

-- -- --

A year past in the blink of an eye...

-- -- --

One day while we were having dinner, our father suddenly spoke up, "Honey, I think its about time we got both Art and Ryan a proper mentor."