"Are you looking for me, Dad?" Arthur asked as he entered the study. He saw his father sitting on a wooden chair and studying the documents scattered in front of him, laid on the study table.
Arthur walked over to his father and looked down at the documents. He saw the villagers' names and random numbers written straight beside their names.
He recognized them at first glance and understood why his father called him. These were the details about the number of fruits each farmer harvested.
Alvar Ashtide was the village head, and it had never been easy to be one.
He had two responsibilities as the village head—the first one was to save the villagers from the beast attacks, reducing the mortality rate, and the second was to sell the ash fruits in the merchant guild.
The nearest merchant guild was in the Last grove town.
"How long can you control the lightning?" Alvar asked without raising his head.
The lightning, Alvar mentioned, was the power that Arthur used against those wooden dummies, just a while ago.
When he was 11 years old, he found that he could generate lightning from his body. He was both panicked and happy. He showed his newfound power to his father, hoping he would be proud of his only son. Alvar didn't disappoint him.
Although they were no longer the nobles, the fact they were once was undisputable. As nobles, they had the meta-element, ash.
Every generation of the main family inherited the same element, Alvar was not an exception. He also had the ash elemental symbol, and Emilia had the Ice elemental symbol.
Not to mention the prodigal child, Ava, had inherited the two meta-element symbols from her parents.
However, Arthur was the only anomaly in the family who couldn't awaken any elemental symbol.
Arthur grew up listening to the legends of his ancestor, Ash emperor William Ashtide. He was a great hero who inspired Arthur and his role model. He wanted to become as admirable as William. But fate had unique plans for him.
For one who dreamt of becoming a manipulator, finding his dreams was nothing but an illusion. It was quite sad and disappointing. Helpless.
Arthur, under the constant encouragement of his parents, recovered his spirit and was determined to be a great enhancer. For that reason, he would need to work hard.
The enhancer's path was not a walk in the park. Becoming an enhancer meant he would need a strong and well-developed body.
While enhancers were strong, they could never catch up to the manipulators in terms of power.
Manipulators would awaken the elemental symbols at 5. While some prodigies were born with the elemental symbols. They were called elemental bodies, which means, unlike the normal elemental symbols, their body itself was a symbol.
After awakening the symbol, they could practice manipulating mana and nurture the magic circles. At fourteen, they would at least form one magic circle, maybe more.
In history, the youngest one awakened the aura was a fourteen-year-old boy. But 14-year-old Manipulator could easily defeat and kill the Enhancer.
That was another reason Arthur would need to work hard to catch up to them. Until now, he didn't awaken the aura yet, and the lightning, he couldn't control at his will.
When he showed his power to his father, Alvar went through many books and consulted many people before deciding he had the rainbow-lightning physiology.
According to the information Alvar told, rainbow-lightning physiology was rare. There was no detailed information explaining it or how to control the power.
Therefore, he would need to find out himself. After a few years of continuous training, he could control the lightning for ten minutes. Ten minutes was too little time to have. He only hoped to awaken the aura to try controlling the lightning.
"Ten minutes, dad," said Arthur, "More Than that, It will harm me."
Alvar, hearing his answer, stopped the work he was doing and said, "That's great. It's eight minutes, three months back."
"I think it's time to give you some work," Alvar added.
"What kind of work?" Arthur asked in surprise.
"You should sell the ash fruits in my stead, tomorrow, and…" Before Alvar could finish his words, Arthur interrupted him, "I told you I'm determined to become an adventurer. I don't like this business."
"Wait until I finish my words, Art," Alvar said helplessly, "Your work is to guard the fruits from the bandits. You know how valuable they are, right?"
"Am I going alone?" Arthur asked in an unconvinced tone.
"No! Uncle Layman will come with you," Alvar said, closing the accounts book.
Arthur was surprised when he heard the answer because Uncle Layman was the strongest fighter among the village guards, and under normal conditions, he would never leave the village. He asked in concern, "Is everything alright, dad?"
Alvar turned silent, hearing his question, thinking whether it was good, to tell the truth. However, after realizing Arthur would experience the problem face-to-face tomorrow, he opted to not hide the matter, "Not really. We got an Intel that Windville bandit's subordinates, the West-skull bandits, are going to pillage the goods."
"They might not attack the village because they fear the noble hall. But they knew noble hall would only care about our family, and goods are not their concern. So I need you to assist Layman tomorrow."
Arthur silently contemplated the situation. The rural districts were eco-friendly and filled with forests. The criminals and bandits found the forests to be an ideal place to hide.
The Windville bandits, that his father was talking about, were the bandit organization that unified all the bandits in the Windville forest and sat on the highest position of the bandits' society.
He heard the rumors that Windville bandits had many level-three enhancers and one level-three manipulator to supervise. Under the Windville bandits were four bandits groups, East-skull, west-skull, north-skull, and the south-skull.
Although the west-skull was the weakest among the four, they had a second-transformation enhancer and few first-transformation enhancers. They were extremely dangerous since even the strongest village guard; the Layman was only the early second-transformation enhancer.
"Maybe it's a trap?" Arthur suddenly said.
"I thought about that too. That's why I prepared a strategy. Look at the map, we have three routes to reach the Lastgrove from Ashton. The first way is going through the forest, the second route is through the mountain ranges, and the final one is by crossing the river. From the information I received, level-two enhancer should be at the mountain ranges, since it's the common route that Merchant uses."
"I will send the two fake carriages on the mountain range and the river route, while you and the Layman will sneak out before the dawn through the forest route. Although there will be a level one enhancer waiting for you guys, Layman can deal with him," Alvar explained.
"Why don't we just hire the adventures?" Arthur asked in displeasure. He felt uneasy for an unknown reason.
Alvar denied shaking his head, "No! We are merchants. Merchants always look for a way to make a fortune. While hiring adventurers will solve the problem, it will cost us a fortune. We need at least a silver badge adventure to solve the problem. That makes us lose money."
"But the danger, Aren't we taking too much risk?" Arthur frowned.
"Haha...you think because it's the first time you are dealing with this situation. I've seen and took part in more dangerous situations. Man up a little, will you?" Alvar said as he nudged him.
"Alright then, I will get ready for the journey," Arthur replied helplessly.
"Hmm…. do that. I already prepared a sword for you, come and take it later," Alvar said.
"Wooden sword?" Arthur asked suspiciously.
"No, Art. Wooden swords cannot spill the blood." Alvar laughed, "I prepared a unique sword for you."
"Treat it as your birthday present," Alvar added.
Arthur nodded excitedly. He was thirteen years old now and never touched a real sword before. For this reason, they were overprotective of him and thought he was too young to wield the actual sword; they restricted him from touching the actual sword.
But now just thinking about getting a real sword excites him. Arthur grinned widely and hugged his dad from the back, "Thank you, dad."
Arthur then without waiting for the reply he ran back to his room. He was busy training and forgot to check on Claire.
When Arthur entered the room, he saw Claire was sitting on the bed. She was no longer pale, her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes were cheerful. For a fleeting moment, Arthur saw a smile on her face.
Sitting beside her was Emilia. She donned in her usual white formal dress, looking graceful. When she was sitting, the loose icy-blue hair dangled on the bed. She was also smiling now.
When Arthur entered the room, Emilia glared at Arthur and said, "Where are your manners? Don't you know you should knock on the door before entering the room?"
Emilia's words confused Arthur as his eyes darted over the room and thought, 'It's my room!'