Suddenly, Alex could feel a foreign object entering his body directly, making his head hurt severely.
"Don't move. I'm going to help you put your mana back in place."
Amelia's calming voice helped Alex calm back down, but the headache was only becoming worse.
Slowly, he could feel his mana being pulled upward as he could see a body made up of bright, dark stars standing above him.
As it continued to be pulled up, a shocking pain struck Alex right in the head as his mana went too far up.
Only after Amelia's stars moved away did the mana slowly gravitate toward his stars again.
Feeling the foreign object disappearing, his headache was finally subdued as he quickly gathered as much mana towards all of his stars.
After what felt like forever to him, the tunnels had retracted to a reasonable size.
The man had also returned to normal, flowing from his outer body towards the central star inside his head.
"How do you feel?" Amelia asked as Alex exited meditation.
"I... I feel a lot better."
"How about your mana? Does it feel any different? Like stronger or weaker?"
"I can feel it moving slightly faster than before... And I can feel the nearby elements a lot easier."
As an open flame instantly appeared on Alex's fingertip, he could feel his elemental affinity had improved just slightly.
It was no longer blank. Still, there was a long way to go for him actually to gain a real affinity.
"Huh. That's interesting... I don't remember any of the ingredients that have any effect on affinity."
After Amelia finished taking her notes, she turned back to Alex, who was still sitting in bed.
"Okay, I think the potion's effect had mostly worn off. You can go back to eating breakfast now."
"Thank you..."
Alex bowed in gratitude as he could feel his mage talent improve slightly, which was almost impossible according to the textbook.
"Don't worry about it. I'm only doing this so I can make a higher-tier version for myself."
With everything done, Amelia led Alex to the door before suddenly turning him around as she squatted down.
As she stared right into Alex's eye, he started to feel a little uncomfortable as she remained silent.
"W-What's wrong?"
"You like Katherine, don't you?"
Alex froze for a millisecond before regaining his composure back as he nodded.
"Of course I love Mom. She's taken care of me for my entire life. If I don't love her, then I have no one to love."
"You know what I mean."
As he tilted his head slightly out of curiosity, Amelia quickly stood back up before facepalming herself.
"Why am I asking this? Sorry, Alex, I'm just overthinking something... Why am I asking a kid about this?"
Amelia murmured to herself as she quickly shoved Alex out of the room, closing the door before locking it.
---
As she lay the three tickets on the table, the room suddenly started changing color.
They could feel mana being sucked up below them, making the entire room nullify until it stopped.
"Mom, what was that?" Mary curiously asked.
"A teleportation spell. Anyway, we better get moving. I don't want to be teleported back and pay again."
The three quickly followed Katherine out of the room before walking out, only to see the room outside was now completely different.
Unlike the previous one, the lobby they stood in was a lot simpler, with only a few rooms lying up compared to the hundreds in Regina.
As soon as they exited the building, they found themselves in the middle of a small city.
More importantly, they could feel a piercing coldness through their clothes despite the coats they had on.
It was even colder than Regina despite barely any snow on the ground, with the sky fully clear.
"M-Mom, t-this place is s-so cold," Sophia complained, with the other two kids agreeing to it as well.
"Oh my, I forgot this place is colder in the winter... Let's buy some clothes at that shop."
The four of them quickly walked over to a nearby shop, feeling much warmer inside as they began checking out the clothes.
To the kid's surprise, the clothes were much thinner than the ones they were wearing.
"Mom, are these really that warm?" Mary curiously asked as she picked up one of them.
"These clothes are not warm themselves... But inside, it is where the magic happens."
As a store worker walked by, he took three seemingly super thin cloaks and handed them to them.
"Is this your kids' first time coming to Thalorim?" the store worker asked as he looked over to Katherine.
"Yeah. They had only been in Regina..." Katherine answered before grabbing one for herself.
"Come on, try them on. I promise you three won't regret it, " the store worker suggested with a smile.
After taking off their coats and putting the clothes on, all three of the kids felt even colder.
"Put some mana into the clothes."
As soon as the three of them released some of their mana to the cloths, it instantly started becoming warm.
"Wow, it feels so much warmer than before."
Mary murmured as she decided to put a little more mana in, making it start to feel a little hot.
"Of course, it's warmer. It's the new technology we recently developed for Thalorim specifically.
Do you all want to buy one? You won't regret it. I'm even using one myself here."
Seeing the three kids seemingly enjoying playing with their new clothes without needing to wear a giant coat, Katherine took out her wallet.
"Just tell me, how much is it?"
"Twenty silver coins each."
Katherine reluctantly took out her card, scanning it through a detector before walking out with their new clothes.
"Have a safe journey!"
As the four of them walked down the street, the coldness was barely affecting them any longer.
All three of the kids immediately handed their coats back to Katherine, letting her store them in her pocket dimensions.