While heading home, Shin, Murielle, and Haniel started to talk amongst each other. Well, the little ball of energy was the one who is mostly asking questions as her young and innocent mind took in all the information that she learned from her Mama and Onii-tama.
"Mama, why is the usagi-chan's colows diffewent?" Haniel asked with a troubled expression, all the while tilting her head to the side.
"Hmm? Usagi-chan? Oh, you mean the Pastel Rabbits?" Murielle asked with a puzzled look in her face.
"Yes! Usagi-chans awe usagi-chans, you know?" Haniel replied in a not so sure manner.
She even rested her index finger on her cheeks, probably trying to look even more troubled. Well, she definitely succeeded in doing that. Although, it can't be denied that she looks adorable with a cute pout on her face.
"Mmm, so it's usagi-chans to Han-chan. Alright, mother will tell you how usagi-chans are different in color. You see, Han-chan, the genetic make up of usagi-chans, or what we generally call as Pastel Rabbits, are heavily derived from their ancestors. This ancestor of theirs is a rabbit that can change into a myriad of colors and is extremely illusive. They only show their appearances to good people who they are sure will not harm them," Murielle said as she sported an expression that is akin to a strict teacher teaching her student.
"Heee~. Han didn't undewstand but Han will wemembew what Mama said!" Haniel said.
Upon hearing her words, Murielle smiled warmly at her daughter and said,
"That's good. Han-chan is really so smart!"
"Hehehehe. Mama praised Han!" Haniel said as she started to giggle cutely.
Aside from that question, Haniel continued to ask Murielle and Shin some questions that just need some common sense in order to answer it, but it was quite an intriguing question nonetheless. Haniel is an extremely bright little girl so she was really curious about her surroundings. Why do birds fly? Why are the leaves of the trees green? Why is the fruit orange called orange?
By the time they returned home, Haniel had already asked anything and everything that she can think of. From the question about the rocks to the land, the trees, the flowers, and everything that she can see, Haniel had asked every question that her young mind can think of. If Shin and Murielle weren't good at handling children, they wouldn't be here, talking to Haniel happily.
After a few more minutes of walk, the trio finally arrived at their home. Outside their house, they saw the workers and the one who they talked to earlier this morning. It seems like they were waiting for someone. Presumably, they were waiting for Murielle, Shin, and Haniel to arrive.
When the one who talked to them earlier saw the trio arriving, he immediately stood up and waited for them to arrive. When they were already near him, he began to talk.
"Mrs. Tenma, we already finished the laboratory that we talked about earlier. As for the equipments that you told us to install, we already installed it. If you'd like, you can check it," the man said.
"Hmm? No need for that. I trust that the person Michael-sama recommended to me are good at doing their job," Murielle said with an amiable smile on her face.
"Then, if that's all, we will be leaving now," the man said.
"Mm, that would be all. Thank you for your service," Murielle replied.
After saying their goodbyes, the workers departed. Then, after the workers left, Shin, Murielle, and Haniel happily went inside their house and readied the ingredients they will need to cook dinner. While he's at it, Shin also asked his mother where the ingredients they bought will be placed.
"Mom, where should I place the ingredients we bought at the market?" Shin asked with a troubled look on his face.
He can't possibly take these ingredients with him everyday, right?
"Oh, that? Just go ahead and put all of them in the fridge," Murielle said in a very nonchalant manner.
Shin was left speechless upon hearing her words. Thus, he couldn't help but ask once again to confirm if what he heard was correct.
"Mom, did you just say, 'put ALL of them inside the fridge?'" Shin asked with a skeptical look on his face.
"Mm, that's right! Just go ahead and put them there," Murielle replied.
Upon hearing her words, Shin just shrugged and decided to just do what she said. When he did, he was extremely surprised at what he witnessed. The fridge easily contained all of the ingredients they bought!
"What's with this freezer? Is it some kind of appliance that was made by MagiTechnitians?" Shin murmured in disbelief.
As if to answer his query, Murielle suddenly appeared beside him and said,
"Yep~. That's why I thought it was a pity that I can't buy that much items to place in this fridge. Good thing you helped me out on that, my dear."
"Oh, right. You and Dad are rich. I almost forgot," Shin said absent mindedly.
After a few more minutes of conversing with each other, Shin and Murielle proceeded to finish preparing their dinner. Then, that evening, everyone talked about the research lab that Daniel and Murielle asked to be built in their basement.
Just like that, the Tenma Family continued to live their lives. They treasured these peaceful times when they would eat together, laughing and chatting over the table.
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Year 20xx, 2nd of March.
Ever since the day the research lab was created, Shin started to spend most of his time inside it. He would occasionally come out to get some fresh air and hang out with his friends every week so his social life never deteriorated.
Shin didn't want to end up like the man inside the memories he received when he was four. A man who holed himself inside his room for who knows how long and never associated himself with other people. And, that same man died alone because of that. That was a life that he didn't want to have.
In these 8 months that passed, Shin didn't miss a single gathering. Events such as Halloween and Christmas was celebrated with his family and friends. Aside from that, he also just recently received the greenlight from Ichika's grandmother. Thus, as promised, Shin began to visit the girls once a week.
Aside from playing games, Shin also started to teach them some efficient training methods. He already have the experience of training with a girl around his age so he knew some training methods that they can do to achieve maximum efficiency.
Shin also taught them the basics of the things that he learned such as; Swordsmanship, Close Quarters Combat, Boxing, and Hidden Weapon Techniques. He taught them only the basics because he wanted them to experiment themselves and find where they excel at the most. He is yet to teach them magic as they didn't know about the supernatural world and because Shin didn't really want to reveal too much.
Even though they're his childhood friends, it is still safer for them to not know it for now. It's not about trust issues but more about their safety. Them knowing the supernatural world without having enough strength to protect themselves would just bring them to some dangerous situations and he doesn't want that.
Maybe, in the near future, when he have enough strength to protect those people around him, he'll tell them about it. However, right now, it will not be right to involve someone who is currently an ordinary human to the chaotic world of the supernaturals. Even if that ordinary human is supposed to be housing one of the Heavenly Dragons, in the end, that said human is still a normal human right now.
While Shin was busy doing his research and learning things at a slow and steady pace, he also never slacked off when it comes to his training and mana gathering. Around three months back, Shin managed to create his second Neutral Elemental Bead.
This attempt on creating the bead was extremely grueling and hard. It was so hard that Shin had to use every ounce of his concentration in order not to fail. Because of his hours of effort, Shin managed to pull through and condense the high amount of mana into one bead.
Due to his efforts, he was greatly rewarded as his [Mana Control] skill evolved into a new skill called [Mana Manipulation]. And, he noticed that the description changed from 'The user's control over mana is increased slightly to substantially'. He had noticed this ever since but it seems that there are stages to those increase descriptions. From slightly-> significantly-> substantially-> drastically. He doesn't know if there's still another stage after that bit these are the only stages that he knew right now.
Also, it should be mentioned that his mana gathering speed has increased from 100,000 strands of fur filled up per day to 150,000 strands of fur filled up per day. It was a so-so increase considering the numbers that he needed to gather to fill up a single tail, but it's still an increase nonetheless. In fact, he now have more leeway to research and train inside the Elemental Fox Reality Realm due to this increase.
It should also be mentioned that his third element was water. Well, he have no water element spell in his arsenal right now but that doesn't mean that he wouldn't need it in the future. Thus, he still proceeded in creating Elemental Beads for it, succeeding in creating its first bead during the past 8 months.
Shin is having some slow and gradual improvements, opting to have a stronger foundation than rushing to get his 9th tail without having a Perfect Elemental Bead. What's the use of having that slight increase in elemental attacks when he only have 2 Perfect Elemental Beads in his arsenal? There is enough variation in his attacks and the extra bit of boost in his elemental attacks is what he needs.
As years continue to pass, he'll eventually get those tails so what's the use of rushing? So that he can choose which element to specialize on? Isn't it his gift that he can use all of these elements? Why would he try and waste his talent just because he's afraid of being a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none? He have the realm to compensate with the time he needed to get stronger so Shin isn't worried that he is taking more than what he can chew.
With the extra leeway that he got from having his second Neutral Elemental Bead, Shin can now train his magic and body simultaneously, among other things.
"Slow and steady wins the race. Hiyaahh, phew," Shin murmured while doing some curl ups.
He's currently hanging on a tree, with his legs tightly gripping on a branch of the tree while he curls his body. He is training inside his realm. At the Training Room, to be more precise.
Right now, he's trying to do some physical exercise to boost his stamina. He has been following the training regime of both Vasco Strada and Hinagiku combined so he managed to increase his overall capabilities.
'My training progress is definitely much slower compared to when I try to actually specialize on one thing. However, that isn't really an option for me since my skill [Hero's Aura] distributes the parameters I gained quite evenly,' Shin thought.
『Isn't that fine? You have all the time you needed to grow your parameters to a much higher rank than normal so it's not really a bad deal,』 Yuki said.
『Yeah, I totally get you. However, without this precious time, I wouldn't be anywhere as strong as what I'd like to be in a few years,』 Shin said.
『Mm, that's certainly the case. However, even if you didn't have the time, you can always just train on using the sacred gear, no?』 Yuki said.
It seems like she wanted to persuade him to train in using the sacred gear more. However, Shin just couldn't do that right now. There are just some problems that he needs to solve before he can earnestly begin his training with his sacred gear.
『As much as I'd love to train on using the sacred gear, I still can't handle using it in a long period of time. As you've said before, I need to increase my stamina,』 Shin said.
Yuki never said anything else after saying her previous statement. It seems that she no longer wanted to talk. Well, Shin is already used to her not responding at times so it didn't really bother him.
A few minutes after doing some more curl ups while hanging on a tree upside down, Shin straightened his legs and somersaulted midair to land on his own two feet.
After dusting himself off, Shin said,
"Well, I guess my time is almost up in this realm. Today, I gotta go and finish the plans about my collaboration project with Tap-chan. After that site is created, I no longer have to go around like a headless fly, trying to understand what this and that meant."
Yes, Shin is now trying to get his hands on another field after trying to learn MagiTech for a few months. Even though he can be considered as someone knowledgeable about the subject, he still felt like he's doing something wrong all this time.
Ever since he got that feeling, he tried to figure out what it was. However, this endeavor didn't bear any fruit as he really have no idea whether what he's doing is correct or not. He did what the books were saying so he can't be wrong, right?
However, he only realized a few months back just how wrong it was. In the end, books are published by some individuals, compiling their experiences and knowledge about the subject at hand. Even though some of what they write in it are facts, majority of what's written are just some theories that are backed up by some contextual evidences. However, this doesn't mean that everything inside the book are facts.
Shin learned this truth the hard way when he tried to create a magical device that is quite similar to a beeper. While he was in the process of carving the magical circuits that would be needed to make the device function on a circuit board, the circuit board suddenly emitted a slight spark of light before exploding. Good thing he was quick on the uptake as he quickly erected a [Holy Barrier] to protect himself.
At first, Shin thought that it was just due to him not following the instructions that was written on the book so he tried it out again. However, it still exploded into millions of pieces. This is when Shin started to doubt what was written on the book.
When he tried to ask an expert that his mother and father knows, Shin's circuit board would not be completed as it would continue to explode every time he gives it a try. According to the expert, it was due to the materials that he used being wrong. There's also the fact that not all of the procedures was written in the book so Shin missed out on a lot of information.
Remembering that day, Shin couldn't help but smile wryly.
"When this site is created, I'll be able to get more opinions from the experts," Shin whispered.
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A/N:
• It's a pretty huge time skip so I hope you guys weren't confused. A few more chapters will be like this as I know you guys wanted to skip on the boring parts like reading about Shin reading this book and that book, no? That's why I pretty much summarized everything that is worth mentioning.
• MagiTech is something like a branch of Technology where magic is involved. It's something that he needs to learn since - in this fanfic - the God of the Bible used some technique used by MagiTechnitians to build the Heaven's system. And, Evil Piece System involves magic in it too so some MagiTech stuffs is also involved on its creation process.
• Next chapter will be about how he will build a site in order to achieve his goals. Well, that's the hidden agenda, anyway.