"Kids it's time to eat!"
"Coming mom! Let's go Ghost!"
"Yeah!"
They hurry to the main dining hall. Alicia and Ghost enter through the big door that leads to the area. On the table are various dishes with each dish being different and unique in its own little way.
There was a salad for Alicia, a sandwich packed with meats for Arthur, another salad for Alicia's mom but instead of green leaves their purple, and that's it looks like they didn't know what to make for him.
"Sorry Ghost I didn't know what you like, so I didn't prepare a dish for you. If you want something specific you can ask me or Alicia to cook it."
"She isn't as great as me but if it's for you I think it would turn out great." When she mentions Alicia ability to cook Alicia blushes faintly while being confused about why her mom suddenly threw her under the carriage.
"Mom what do you mean if it's for him it would turn out great." She speaks in an irritated and embarrassed voice. "He just gave me pointers on magic that's all that happened."
"Did I say anything else happened? No, I just thought you might think that if you feed him it would be a good way to make up for how you were behaving earlier."
"Well fine Ghost what do you want to eat I will cook it to the best of my abilities." She says while not being too happy that she has to cook.
"Uhh, I can cook for myself. I had to for my sister and for some jobs."
"No, we insist you are the guest of this household, so we should be the ones to cook for you, not yourself." Alicia's mom jumps in while squashing her poor daughters only ray of hope.
"Fine, but I wasn't planning on eating a lot. It's only lunch so I was planning on eating a little bit of fruit and maybe some type of meat. So how about this Alicia, you can make whatever you want and I will eat it for you."
He seems to be able to read into Alicia's unwillingness to cook food for him, so he asks for something she'd be happy to make.
She goes into the kitchen without even touching her own food. She was probably feeling so rushed and confused that she forgot that she was hungry! "So why have you been giggling since she left? Oh and I never got your name."
"How terribly rude of me never mentioning my name to you. My name is Sophia Emantsal. I am sorry if whatever she feeds you turns out to be the worst thing you've ever eaten. She hasn't been learning long." She tries to hide a bright smile while laughing in her hand.
"Then why did you call her a good cook?"
"I was teasing her I never thought you would actually accept my proposal. You were the one that caused her to have no choice, but to admit she was a bad cook or actually cook something."
'I bet she was so nervous she even forgot to eat. The worst case that I thought of was she saying I don't know, but my mom does. But no you had to go and ask her to make you her favorite thing to cook."
She can't hold in her laughter anymore, because of the unexpected situation. "It will be fine! How bad could it possibly be?"
They wait a little bit for Alicia to cook whatever meal she was cooking. Alicia comes through the door holding a platter with a lid.
Hiding under the platter is a portion of pasta with ingredients that I have no clue what they are. He takes a bite of the mystery food without asking what it was.
Trying to not embarrass her for any longer, which seems to backfire since whatever was in the food causes him to faint on the spot.
"Ugh, why am I on the floor? How long have I been here?" He says while he tries to shake off the groggy feeling of forgetting something important.
"Just ten minutes, how did it taste?" Sophia is the only one still in the dining room as Arthur is away consoling his depressed daughter.
"Ten whole minutes! How did what taste! I don't remember eating anything at all and everything that has happened for a while is just a blur!"
"I'm sorry Ghost I should have made something easier." Alicia ends up coming into the room from the large door with red eyes and Arthur in tow.
"Or you could've just told me your mom was exaggerating and you can't cook at all. As punishment, you're going to have to show me every spell you know how to do. Let's go before I remember what I ate."
He unconsciously shivers since his mind may have forgotten the taste, but his stomach and body seem to perfectly remember what happened as he doesn't feel hungry anymore.
"Ok." She looks a little more cheerful after hearing about showing off to Ghost about something that she's actually good at doing.
"Can I go to this time? I mean you already should've given her all the advice she should need, right now, and I know even more magic than her." Sophia stops them and then starts to beg while craving more knowledge.
"Fine, but I'll need to talk to Alicia, alone afterward. I can point out everything you do wrong, so she doesn't copy your bad habits."
They go back to the magic training yard and Sophia immediately forms a water ball. Showing that she's already begun to master writing out the code for the lower level spells.
She puts Alicia's attempt at the spell to shame. Her water ball looks just like a ball and didn't even have any ripples in it as Alicia's did.
"Hmm, I take it you are a pure water mage, unlike your daughter." He sees that she has nearly perfect water mana coming out of her body instead of it being diluted with any other type of mana.
It also doesn't take her long to transform her inborn mana into water mana, which usually takes a bit of time if you know any other elemental spells.
"Yep, I can only use water magic. I decided that if I focused on water magic alone I would be able to walk further down the mage path. I don't know if I'm the strongest ever, but I'm confident that as of right now no one is stronger than me with water magic."
"And yet you damage your own daughter's pride by showing how much better you are at it." He shakes his head in frustration at how she's still competitive in front of her own flesh and blood.
"Don't worry about how well you can control water as of right now. Make it your goal to do better than your mom at both water and fire. Also, make it your goal to do just as well as what you just saw with wind and earth."
"Ha, that's impossible to do with both fire and water much less two elements she can't even use."
"Don't you know when you're as young as her you can learn to use the other elements and all of them can grow as high as you want them to?"
He gets angry at her for unknowingly shooting down her own daughter's hopes and dreams. He mutters a vow underneath his breath to make this little girl in front of him stronger than her own mother.
"The reason why I knew you were a pure water mage was that there wasn't any other mana in your spell. There are many benefits to learning different mana at a younger age."
"Your daughter doesn't have any problems using both fire and water spell, because of her young age" As he argues with her mom Alicia's face perks up from being depressed after seeing her mom's magic.
"The only people who are limited to one element are people who are so loved by their element that it doesn't let them use any other element."
"If you are like that you should be using water magic as if you were breathing, but you aren't so I guess you could have learned another element if you really wanted to. On the other hand, it is wise for you to stick with water magic and just perfect your control."
He finishes lecturing her, but Sophia doesn't look like she believes what he said at all. Which is normal seeing how Ghost's age is many times lower than hers and doesn't have any experience in using actual magic.
"So if what you're saying is true then you should be able to use other spells besides breathing fire, but aren't you living proof that the theory of yours is just false hope that you created?"
She tries to counter Ghost's argument even though it isn't his theories but a person who she wanted to take as her masters.
"Nope, my mana isn't of any element! That's what master told me and not something that I created to make myself feel better. It's just not an element but a racial ability! It follows under the category of something that doesn't need any mana to create. It only requires concentration and mental energy.
"These types of abilities tend to need something foreign to use and mine needs some mana that doesn't have an element to breathe fire."
"Ghost do you really think that I can become better than mom?" Alicia asks with a hopeful glint in her eyes.
"Of course you can become better at anything if you work hard at it. Take your cooking for example if you work hard at it I'm sure you can cook something not only edible but delicious."
"But what if I have no talent for it?"
"Talent is like a booster it helps speed up the process, but in the end, if they don't increase their skills through hard work then someone who works extremely hard can catch up and pass them."
"The true people who you should worry about are not people with talent, but the people who have the talent but they still work hard."
"Sophia can you show us your strongest magic or is that too dangerous to use here?"
"Yeah, mom if I'm going to pass you I'll at least need to know your full capacity for water magic." Alicia's eyes brighten up at the thought of surpassing her mom and reaching the apex of magic in her country.
"No my strongest spell is too dangerous to use here. I can, however, show you my third if you want me to."
"Sure any magic that you can show us is fine."
"Ok then let's do this. I call upon the fabled ocean to give me its mass quantities of water." Before she even begins to chant a magic circle appears in front of her with three magic runes on it with one of the runes representing a portion of the magic code already lit up!
"I call upon the great lords of water to give me control over it. Lastly, I call upon the god of water to give me his blessing and let my water destroy whatever is in its path. Water cannon!"
All the runes light up and then the circle transforms into a siege cannon made out of the water. Then all three runes grow around the cannon made of water.
You can see the water flowing throughout the cannon and finally the three original runes form into one grand rune.
"Mow down my enemy's water cannon, burst!" A rune glows on the cannon then three gallons of water gushes out of the cannon at a velocity that ends up curing the magically reinforced wall.
"Whoops, I might have made that a little too strong."
"Wow mom that was amazing and it was only your third strongest spell. I'm scared to see what your other two spells can do."
"Yeah, that was impressive for your third strongest spell." Sophia barely fools her overtrusting daughter into thinking that wasn't her strongest spell.
This room was obviously made for her to practice magic in, so it should be strong enough to handle all of her spells besides maybe her strongest.
"Question whenever you or someone else uses magic can you see the magic runes on a circle written in the magic code?" He asks a question that's been bothering all of us for a while!
"No, do you know how boring that would be if ever mage could eventually know what spell you're using? Why can you see them?
She looks at him and then looks like she realized why a non-mage was asking about seeing a magic circle.
"Yea, I can and during that last spell runes lit up as you were activating them, I guess."
"I don't know a lot about dragons, but that's probably from your mana or another weird ability you have."
"Yeah well, can you leave so I can point out your problems to your daughter? You have a lot of them you know." She leaves while looking depressed.
"Now Alicia do not show off as she did. Also, she has the same problem about excess mana, so be extra careful about the amount of mana you use
"Lastly when you use your spells make sure you're one hundred percent focused, unlike her who was paying more attention to us then the spell she was trying to use."
"Ok, thanks for the advice and for telling me to keep trying."
"No problem I'm glad I could help you."
A horse-drawn carriage takes him back without Arthur this time. The sun starts to set as Ghost finally gets home and gets to take a good look at the new and improved hut!
"I'm back granny!" He yells as he opens the freshly repainted and fixed door. You can't even tell that it would nearly fall off its hinges just half a day before.
"So did you make a new friend?" She asks me while sipping on some type of tea. There is a refreshing smell coming from it that's living up the room.
"I hope I did we actually had a lot in common. She wasn't that nice at first, but she got a lot nicer as the day went by."
"That's good your friends are a very important existence. It's no good being locked up in your room all day. I understand that you need to get stronger for your sister, but sometimes you should put your needs first."
"Yes, Master. I found out that I could see magic circles while the mage was casting the spell. Misses Emantsal told me it probably just in my nature to see them and it wasn't a natural thing."
"Interesting and I told you not to call me master but granny instead. Now go take a bath, but not for long then go to bed. Wait did you eat dinner at Sophia's house?" Liz was going to force him to go to bed early but then hears his stomach yell at her.
"No, it wasn't that late when I left and it still isn't that late, right?"
So, she makes a quick simple meal and metaphorically forces it down his throat, then throws him into a bath. After the much-needed bath he heads to his new bed early after realizing how tired he actually is.
Time flies by again as he tries to find something useful about himself to help his sister with. He eventually makes the decision to harm himself even if it goes against some of his natural instincts to see if he has healing magic!
Sadly the healing magic attempt doesn't work at all and he slowly realizes how much of an idiot he was for trying to do this on himself.
While he was contemplating how to explain this to Liz he feels like he can control the blood that's dripping out of his tiny cut.
He thinks of the blood forming a tiny needle and it compiles as if it was natural for his blood to follow his will. Then the needle of blood shoots out and pierces the wall in front of him.
There isn't even any need to use any mana to make it shoot out like that! All it takes is some concentration on his part and some mental energy.
"Ghost are you ok? You look like you're out of breath."
He takes a moment to catch his breath and then ease her of her newfound worries.
"I'm ok that just took a lot out of me. I feel like it should get easier with more practice. Do you have any bottles or tubes like for alchemy?"
"Yes I have a couple, but you have to tell me what happened before I give them to you."
"I discovered something special about me." He tries to tell her about his shocking discovery!
But Liz interrupts him while already guessing what type of magic he found inside of him. "More draconic magic?"
"No, It's something completely different. It feels weird, but it feels like blood just naturally just follows my commands. It feels like as long as I have a clear image it will turn into it."
He uses the blood that was dripping from his cut that he completely forgot about and turn it into very tiny blood rose. "See?"
"That is amazing. Is this why you were summoned? Ghost!" She can't help but wonder if he was the actual hero that was summoned instead of his sister.
When she was about to tell Ghost that he might be more of a hero than his sister is Ghost starts to fall to the ground to try from making the rose.
He eventually wakes up on the floor again and can't help but hope that this won't become a common occurrence for him "Ghost are you ok?"
"Yeah, I wasn't in a stable condition when I made a needle then I made a delicate rose it was just me being stupid."
"You should get some rest and don't push yourself to this point again, ok?" She says while wiping the tears off her wrinkly face.
A week goes by of Ghost experimenting on what he can and can't do with his new ability. What he learned is that it gets easier to use the more you use it especially after you hit your limit, but Liz always managed to keep a watchful eye over him and always stops him from going too far.
Slowly it gets easier and easier to control, but the amount of blood that he has to carry around is a bit abnormal.
"Ghost are you ready to leave for Alicia's house? I'm sure Sophia will be excited to see what you can do now. "
"I'm going now the carriage has arrived. Bye!" He enters into the same carriage that he hasn't entered in while thanks to his new research subject.
He opens the entrance door and for some strange reason, no ones there. "Anyone home!?" He can't help but yell out loud as his voice starts to echo throughout the empty house!
A faint voice can be heard replying back. "We are in the magic courtyard." The rest to faint to hear, so he decides to go towards the magic courtyard
He probably would of went to show them his new power anyways."Why are you all over here?"
"Alicia wanted to try out an original spell, so I had to supervise her and Arthur couldn't help but watch." As Ghost enters the courtyard. Sophia explains why they weren't waiting for him at the entrance.
This also shows that Ghost wasn't the only one advancing in his studies while he was studying.
One he fully enters the Magic courtyard the first thing he notices is that the damage Miss Emantsal did last time has already been fixed. "So how did the spell turn out?"
He questions Sophia even though he's pretty sure that it failed to judge by the depressed face of his friend.
"Failed and if I wasn't here it would probably have killed her. On the bright side, it only failed because of her control. If she had enough control she might just be able to cast the spell as it is.,
"But, the amount of control it should take to actually use it is huge and there's no telling how long it might take." Sophia excitedly replies.
"It sounds amazing I wonder if there will be a day that I can see it." He carefully looks around, but still don't notice anything that could tell him about the new spell she was trying to use.
"Who knows there might be a day that you get to see it, but more importantly you said you have something to show us as well?" Alicia looks up from the ground a little less depressed with a glint of anticipation.
He nods and then without saying word blood starts to surround the yard and dye it crimson red. *I want to test the power of my ability. Do you mind if I accidentally destroy this formation?"
"Sure," Sophia says without thinking because she was too shocked to really understand what Ghost just said and would probably not let him try to destroy their expensive formation.
The blood starts to slam against the walls, but the magic formation stops it. With each slam, the formation gains more and more crack a few more hits and the whole thing would break, but he stop their seeing that if he could destroy if he wanted to.
The blood starts to gather around him and enters the various tubes that he hides around his body. *Phew, that takes way more concentration than I thought it would."
Sophia breaks out of her daze while the others still look starstruck. "Is that what you meant by being loved by an element?"
"I guess it's sorta the same, but unlike when I breathe fire this feels limitless. I don't feel any loss when I use it beside the concentration it takes me to use it. I was wondering if you had any idea about this?"
"I have no idea. I never saw anything like this in my life. I'm sorry Ghost none of us can help you with this and I thank you for not destroying this barrier."
"It's the first time I've seen it this damaged. Even if you send my water cannon against it the whole barrier wouldn't collapse and is easy to fix.."
"I think I should go back home. I mean after what happened to Alicia and now this, I think everyone deserves a time to rest."
"I also think you should go." Sophia agrees with him and he decides to leave as he realizes that he ended up making Alicia even more depressed compared to earlier.
He heads back to the carriage, while Alicia is too depressed to say anything as he leaves and Arthur is too scared to return with him.
A couple of days after he showed Sophia his ability *Knock Knock!* "Who's there?" He walks to the door and opens it.
"I'm the king's messenger." A small man that you could call a dwarf or a midget in Ghost's world answers.
"The king threw both of this houses residents out of his castle, so what would he want to say to either of us."
Ghost is visibly angry at seeing the kings messenger after thinking about how he hasn't seen his sister in a very long time.
"The message is for a man named Ghost does he or does he not live here?" The messenger ignores Ghosts angry tone and continues with his job.
"I'm Ghost, speak what is this message?" He slowly gets curious about what the king wants of some trash he threw out.
"The message says that he is sorry for not realizing that you are the true hero. Furthermore, the unknown tried to assassinate the king yesterday. They failed but Jana's was sadly burned to ashes by a fire spell. We are dreadfully sorry for your loss, but please end this war as our hero."