The next day
Marcus brought Cross to a special room and sat him down in a circle as he said "I'm going to adopt you and give you my bloodline. Is that okay?" Grundle translated and Cross was shocked as he looked at Marcus and said hesitantly "But why? You just met me yesterday..."
Grundle translated and Marcus laughed as he said "You helped Grundle and potentially my daughter! You are more than qualified!" Grundle kept translating and Cross smiled slightly as he said "Okay.. Thank you, father..." Grundle translated with a smile and Marcus smiled softly as he started chanting.
Cross felt his blood boiling and Marcus poured a goblet of blood into the circle, lighting the rune circle up. The blood hovered in the air and coagulated into a ball before shooting into Cross' chest and sinking in.
Cross growled in slight pain but before he knew it the pain was gone. He felt the existence of another type of blood in his body, to his surprise his pure Blood Elf blood didn't reject it but instead assimilated it with his own. His blood was still as pure as can be! In addition he felt a certain connection with Marcus.
Marcus let out a breath and said with concern "Are you okay?" Cross nodded, feeling that Marcus was concerned about him. Marcus let out a breath of relief and smiled softly, Cross said to Grundle "Can you get me English language books?" Grundle bowed and told Marcus, who said "As well as the Occlumency books, all of them." Grundle bowed and teleported away.
Cross let out a breath and smiled at Marcus before bowing and leaving, Marcus smiled and sat down in the chair, feeling tired. He looked at the cut on his left hand and smiled softly.
Cross returned to his room and saw a huge stack of books. He scratched his head and mumbled "This language is so hard?" Grundle bowed and said "This is the Occlumency books, you Highness. The English books are over there." Cross turned and saw the small stack of 3 books, he smiled wryly and said "Leave me, Grundle. Thank you."
Grundle smiled and said "It's Grundle's pleasure, your Highness." before teleporting away.
Cross grabbed the English books and started to read them, surprisingly this language was very simple and easy to learn! Honestly, Cross was a bit shocked by how simple the language was. It took him only 5 days to learn the entire language and speak fluently.
This shocked Marcus, who could now communicate with Cross. They were sitting at the dinner table when Astoria said "Hmph! I could learn it in 4!" Cross chuckled and said "Want to learn Elven?" Astoria smacked her lips and said "How hard can it be!?"
Apparently very hard, this was Astoria's professional analysis after 10 seconds. After that she never came back for more lessons. Cross though Astoria was extremely cute, her dumbness made her even cuter. After Cross learnt English, he had also started talking to the family more and more, he found out that Daphne was a cold person, she would only speak occasionally and when she did it would only be a few words.
Marcus and Alyssa were very kind parents. They taught Cross, Daphne, and Astoria very patiently, teaching them about Pure Blood politics and whatever they asked. Even if they had a question about Magic, the duo would try their best to answer.
Cross didn't have many questions, he also didn't really have any magic yet so he couldn't really have any problems to ask about. Recently thought he had been feeling weird, like something was about to burst inside of him.
It had been a month since Cross was taken in and he had bonded with the family quite well. He felt a lot of affection for them, especially feeling the closeness of their bloodline. His favorite was Astoria, since she couldn't control her transformations yet, she couldn't be cured but it was only a matter of time.
What Cross found funny was that sometimes Astoria would pop out a snow white fox tail and ears. She looked like a little doll, Cross would always tease her about her tail and ears. Astoria was used to it by now. Daphne also smiled when she saw Astoria having fun with Cross, her sister had always been afraid when her tail popped out but ever since Cross came around, she lost her fear and even played around with him specifically when her animal parts came out.
Another month later
Cross felt something click inside his body and was suddenly full of energy. His mind was flooded with information and his eyes flashed from confusion to doubt to shock. He raised his hand and circulated his mana, a fine white string shot out of his finger tips.
Cross was amazed and felt his energy being drained as he controlled the strings to move around. He immediately went to find Marcus and Alyssa before showing them, they were shocked and finally asked "Cross, what race are you?" Cross said "Pure Blood Elf, why?"
Marcus thought for a moment before shaking his head, not knowing what a Blood Elf was. He thought it was a particular trait of the species, so did Alyssa. Actually, Cross did too but that wasn't the case. There was a reason why he was the last Blood Elf and not someone else, but obviously Cross didn't know that.
Marcus tried to guide him using his knowledge of magic, but he had never encountered something like this before. He quickly realized something and frowned deeply, Cross looked up confused and Marcus said seriously "Cross, hide your identity for now. If other's find out you're a true Elf you might be in trouble."
Cross nodded seriously and Marcus smiled as he pat his head and said "Go practice, don't forget your Occlumency magic!" Cross nodded and left happily, returning to his room.
Cross started practicing with his strings and reading Occlumency at the same time. Time slowly moved forward.
Around 9 months later
Cross was already a secure part of the family and loved by everyone, he truly did feel happy with them. He never had anyone before and he now had 4 more people who truly cared for him, and Grundle.
Cross' magic exceeded expectations and he was able to control the string to an extremely fine degree. It was very strange however, he was unable to use Occlumency with just his hands. When he asked Marcus about this, Marcus laughed and told him that a wand was required for magic and if he could use magic without a wand he would already be a grandmaster wizard!
Cross was embarrassed, he had no idea. Marcus taught him about Wizards but it seemed his knowledge was also limited. In the end Cross had no choice but to accept this, he had already read all the books about Occlumency and even memorized them, but until he got a wand he wouldn't be able to use any spells.
A secret Cross had was that he trained, not just his string control but also various different uses for the strings in his room. His control became so fine tuned to the point where he could make the strings extremely thin and invisible, what shocked him the most was that his strings could attach to anything.
He even tried to 'fly' on his strings, he managed to succeed but barely. He would basically balance on a thin piece of string and look like he was standing in the air, he practiced this frequently while reading books and he was at the point where he could jump from string to string without too much effort.
Even this was extremely exciting for Cross. He also awakened his innate talents of the Elf race, he got Grundle to teach him how to teleport and practiced everyday, teleporting around his room before teleporting outside. This didn't have very much utility as of right now, except for moving around quickly and easily.
What surprised him was the main talent of his race was impenetrable mind. Which meant Cross was unable to be affected by mental attacks or brainwashing techniques. Anything having to do with foreign entities entering his mind was negated and destroyed, he only found this out recently but still decided to study in his Occlumency just to keep it a secret.
After all, he started to realize the danger he was in. A race nobody has ever heard of, who wouldn't be curious? Maybe someone who want to open him up and see how he worked one day, then Cross wouldn't even have time to cry. Also if he never studied Occlumency and his mind was impenetrable who would believe him if he said he studied a little a few months back?
Only the ghosts maybe.
Cross had come to understand that keeping secrets was the key to survival. He learned a term from Astoria 'You surprise them, and then kill them while they're sick!' Cross didn't understand at first, why would they be fighting if they were ill? But he understood quickly that the little fox-girl meant when they're injured.
Since then, Cross has been keeping a secret trump card and it was his invisible strings. Actually, Cross was only able to touch them since he made them, if not he was sure that they would slice right through his body. They were just that sharp!
He had been training outside at night, cutting falling leaves with his string, controlling the string to bend to his will and cut the falling leaves cleanly without any tears. It was extremely hard at first but as his control got better so did his cutting.
Cross estimated he could probably slice a normal person's neck clean off in a second with a single hand motion. The most astonishing part was they wouldn't even know! The string was so fine it was almost impossible to see, unless someone had amazing perception or could feel changes in a certain area around their body.
Nevertheless, Cross didn't think he was going up against monsters who had the keenest perception in the entire world. He was just a happy little Elf, who would want to fight against him?
Cross was working on his control when the door was opened. Cross quickly dispelled his strings and Marcus said "Come with me today. I'm taking you and Daphne somewhere fun." Cross tilted his head and said "Somewhere fun?" Marcus smiled and nodded as he said "You'll be going to school soon, you have to have the necessary materials, no?"
Cross said "A wand?" Marcus smirked and said "You got me, let's go. Daphne's already waiting." Cross cleaned himself up and followed after Marcus. He got downstairs and saw Daphne standing there with a giant backpack. His mouth twitched and he said "Sis... Are you going on vacation?"
Daphne said simply "Shopping." Cross poked her bag and said "Did you just come back?! Aren't you supposed to buy things there? Do you think you can trade goods?" Daphne blushed and snapped "Shut up, you! I'm excited, okay!?" Cross chuckled and said "Of course! Of course! BIG sis is always right!"
Marcus gave him a thumbs up and Cross snickered before they all left the house.