Chapter 321 - Daily Life 1

Cecil didn't know that his wives had a run-in with the family elders. No one bothered telling him anything and Quinn was forbidden by Serilla from saying anything to his master.

During this entire time, the butler was dutifully serving the entire family and had integrated with the rest of the Silvaria family's servants. However, not many knew about his background and only knew that he was a butler that the family's young patriarch had brought in with him after returning from his travels.

Silver and Yuna had followed after Lucia and were going to school with her. Apparently, Silver was only there to act as the two women's vehicle and was idling around until their teaching shifts finished. Lucia was a teacher while Yuna served as her assistant...sometimes.

Remembering all of her mother's teaching materials and methods had proved to be a big help because her classes were said to be interesting. The families of the soldiers that Rowan had immigrated into the kingdom had a use for Lucia's classes since their children were required to enroll in school and many had applied for Lucia's magic classes.

Ren was in school, but he would sometimes go home earlier because he had to help Cecil with the teleportation gate. For the days when he didn't need to help Cecil with his work, he'd hang around with Angelia and his new friends from school.

Serilla was the only one idling about every day. She was currently carrying Cecil's child so she was being strictly taken care of by Anastasia and the family's maids and butlers. It was a little boring for her, but it couldn't be helped since she was pregnant.

The days passed idly like this until one day, Cecil finally received a call from Lucia's mother, Anna.

"Hello? Cel?"

"I'm listening, mother—ah, I mean, mother-in-law..." Cecil awkwardly corrected himself. He still wasn't used to calling his foster mother, mother-in-law.

"Ufufu, it's alright if you still want to call me mother~"

"Okay, well, is there something that mother needs?"

"I just wanted to tell you that the King has given the go-ahead for the Teleportation Gate!" Anna cheerfully said.

"Really? That's good. I'll continue crafting the gate on my end then. How are things on mother's side?"

"We're good to go here~ I've already recruited the help of Ironforge's Radon and Magnum Artifex's Tars as you've recommended!"

"That's good. I can trust them to keep the Teleportation Gate's blueprints a secret. Just in case some other people find out... I'm counting on mother to prevent the information to spread. It's already enough for us few to know about it," Cecil said.

"Don't worry~ we're keeping a tight lid on this project!"

"Tars will be a big help to mother since he already knows a lot of the ancient runes that are needed to create the gate's runic array."

"So~ how long do you think it'll take for us to finish this gate, Cel?"

Cecil thought for a moment and began calculating. It'll take quite some time because the artificer's on his end were only him and his disciple, Ren. It might take a while before they'd finish. There was the crafting, runic engraving, and then the pre-testing. He and Ren couldn't make a mistake so they'd be testing each of the gate's individual parts before they assembled it and tested the gate as a whole.

Cecil pondered for a moment before giving Anna the estimated timeframe that he'd need to finish the gate, "It might take us around a month or two at most..."

"Hmmm... A month or two huh... That's still awfully short since it's only you and your little disciple working on it..."

"What about mother?"

"It might take us a little less than a month, give or take. Radon plans on having his disciples craft the parts for the gate while Tars will have his disciples work on different sections of the runic array. I have no worries on Radon's end because it's only the parts that he'll be crafting. It's Tars that I'm a little concerned with."

"What's wrong?"

"His disciples will be helping out and that's good since it'll speed things up, but the problem's that if even one of his disciples mess up their portion of the array, it'll ruin the whole thing!"

"...that could pose a problem..."

"We have the advantage in speed, but if they keep messing up, it'll hurt the overall progress since we'll have to scrap the parts and start again."

"Mother, how about this, instead of scrapping the whole array, why not just search for the part that's defective and correct it? That's what Ren and I are planning to do," Cecil suggested.

"Cel, please don't forget that we don't have a mind-enhancing technique like yours that'll help us pick out the defective parts! If we had to carefully search through it, it'll take us days before we find something wrong and it would be quicker to just start anew!"

"O-Oh... I'm sorry, I forgot..." Cecil scratched his head in embarrassment. He had forgotten that most of his methods and solutions couldn't be used by others in normal circ.u.mstances. Not just anyone could quickly find the defected parts of an array and correct them.

"Hmhm~ that technique of yours really needs to be put into the artificer hand manual and patented as a must-learn technique! It really gives artificers a certain edge in their field," Anna added. A short moment later, Cecil heard a voice calling out to Anna and she had to quickly end the call.

"I have to go now sweetie, we'll talk again later~"

"Okay, mother."

Cecil ended the call and coincidentally, also heard someone call out to him. It turned out to be his mother. He put a stop to his work and walked out of his workshop.

"You could just come in mom..." Cecil said.

Anastasia didn't reply to his words and instead handed him a box, "Here!"

"...is this lunch?"

"It is, but not yours! It's Lulu's~"

"O-Okay...? Why give it to me then?"

"You really are dense!" Anastasia said as she jumped up and smacked her son's head.

"Mom..." Cecil grumbled as he lightly rubbed his head.

"I want you to go deliver it to Lulu!"

"Huh? But...isn't she working right now?" Cecil said as he looked up and checked the position of the sun. Its current position indicated that it was probably sometime close to noon.

"That's why I want you to go bring it to her! Isn't it nice to have your husband deliver lunch to you during work hours~?" Anastasia giggled.

"Uhh... Sure?"

Hearing his skeptical answer, Anastasia glared at Cecil and said, "Hurry up and go! It's almost lunchtime so you have to hurry!"

Anastasia pushed Cecil towards the house and told him to quickly shower before heading out. Serilla giggled when she saw how helpless her husband was in front of his mother.

"...I'll be going now... you could have just told Silv to send it..."

"Quiet, this is an important task that a husband needs to do!"

"Fine, fine..."

Cecil walked out of family estate with Anastasia and Serilla seeing him off. While walking down the road, Cecil suddenly remembered that he didn't know where the school was...

"...I should've asked... oh, well..." Cecil decided to just search for Lucia's presence and head over to her location. After he quickly locked onto her, Cecil rushed over while using Blink.

******

Inside a classroom, Lucia was currently teaching her students about the elemental magic system of Alterna. The class was nearly finished so she was currently wrapping things up with a simple demonstration.

"Low-tier elemental magic spells all generally have the same spell structure. Firebolt, Aquashot, Wind Blade, Rock Bullet, Lightning Shock, they're all mostly the same so it's easy to visualize. All you need is the right elemental affinity and correct invocation to invoke the spell!" Lucia explained while slowly demonstrating what she meant. She first conjured the Firebolt spell before quickly changing it into Aquashot, then Wind Bullet, and so on.

This was something she couldn't do before, but after further cultivating in her family's Nine-Tail Demon Core Arts, she was slowly able to do this. Lucia noticed that each of her tails had somehow gained their own elemental affinities which resulted in her gaining those affinities herself. Her Fire and Water affinities were still her strongest so she stuck to using those in battle and would only experiment with other affinities outside of battle.

She currently had 7 tails and 7 different affinities. However, Lucia had only discovered 5 out of those 7. The other two were still unknown to her because although she had the affinities, she didn't understand what they were and thus couldn't use them.

A student who wasn't an earthling raised his hand and asked, "Instructor, you just said earlier that the spell structures are the same and that it only depends on which elemental affinity we have that'll enable us to use them, right?"

"Yes, but remember you also have to make sure you memorize the proper spell incantation or else you won't be able to invoke the spell."

"Okay...uhm, my question is why can Instructor use 5 different elements?"

The other students in class who were not from earth also wanted to know the answer. The native students weren't like the earthling students who only came to listen. They weren't here just because it was a mandatory class, but most importantly, all of them aspired to become a respectable mage in the future.

Before moving to Silvaria, these students' futures didn't have the option of becoming a mage. Their paths were limited to training and learning in the adventurer guild's newbie courses and growing up to become adventurers, enroll at the Regulus Kingdom's military academy and become a soldier, apprentice themselves at a local smithy, tailor shop, apothecary or somewhere to become a craftsman, or stay at home and help the family manage the fields.

Only the rich and better-off families would be able to enroll their children in the kingdom's Magic Academy to learn magic and aspire to become a mage in the future. However that wasn't the case in the Silvaria Kingdom. Here, all children were required to enroll in the Kingdom's academy for primary education and selective education that would pave out the path for their future.

Another student raised their hand and quickly asked, "Instructor Lucia, my father is also a mage, but he's only able to use Earth magic! From what I know, having more than one element makes you very talented! Since teacher has 5 elements, does that make you a prodigy?!"

This invoked discussion in the class and Lucia had to quickly settle them down. She smiled helplessly at her students and turned towards the first student who had asked her a question, "Listen, Mark, during the previous classes, you all tested your elemental affinities, right?"

"Yes!��

"Your first elemental affinity is the affinity you want to focus on while training! Being too spread out isn't really good because it'll affect your development in the long run!"

Lucia then turned towards the other student who had asked her a question and continued, "Katie, having more than one element is indeed a sign for talent, but it doesn't necessarily mean that a mage with more than one element will progress faster than a mage that only has one! Talent won't mean anything if you don't work hard!"

"O-Okay..."

"As for why I can wield more than one element... that's because of my unique cultivation technique. Soon, you all will be able to pick a cultivation manual and you can choose one that'll enable you to cultivate more than one element IF it's suitable!" Lucia especially emphasized the last part.

"Really Instructor? There's something like that?!" The student named Katie exclaimed in excitement.

"Now hold on! Although there are cultivation manuals that'll let you do that, it doesn't mean you have to choose them! Remember, most of those cultivation manuals are suited only to mages who have more than one element! It'll help them further their mana cultivation if they employ the techniques and methods inscribed in the book when they cultivate."

"Teacher, doesn't that mean—"

"However," Lucia quickly cut off, "If you choose recklessly, it'll severely impact the progress of your cultivation! If you choose one that's not suitable for you, it might lead to your cultivation stagnating or worse, deviating!"

"Deviating?"

"Yes, that's why you have to choose carefully! Don't recklessly choose something that isn't compatible with you!"

"Teacher, what's deviating?"

"Deviat—"

Before Lucia could continue, the school bell rang and the class ended.

"Awww.."

"It's over already?!

"Ahhhh, I still haven't asked my question!"

Many in the class grumbled when the bell rang. Lucia could only smile at them and say, "Class is over now so we'll have to continue this discussion tomorrow! I'll answer your questions then!"

Lucia quickly took her leave from the class and went over to the school's faculty room. When she arrived, Lucia noticed that there seemed to be a commotion around the faculty room.

From afar she could hear some of the female teachers discussing something.

"Hey, who is that?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't seen him in the kingdom before!"

"A new face...and a handsome one too~"

"Isn't that the new teacher's desk? You know, the one recommended by Lady Fatima."

"Hey, there she is, let's go ask her!"