After talking for a few more minutes he halts as he notices something in the distance.
He turns towards me with an apologetic expression, "I'm sorry but it seems like its time to go, I'll see you at the academy," He waves at me as he departs.
"Sure," I say.
He met up with his parents, and it wasn't hard to see the resemblance, his father has the same black hair as his along with blood red eyes, while he shared his amber, almost orange, eyes with his mother a woman with auburn hair.
Figuring out its been long enough for Gideon to finish talking with my brother I head towards where I last saw them, which led me to the courtyard where Arthur was leaning against the railing talking with someone very familiar.
"-the little girl who used to hide from her parents and eat with the maids and butlers has all grown up now." Arthur teased.
"You got that right," I make my presence known.
Lilia turns towards the direction of my voice before exclaiming, "Fayden!"
"Hey, its been quite a while, I hear you've been doing well in Xyrus from one of your friends," I say.
"One of my friends?" She replies, confused.
"Yeah, he said his name was Nathan Ambers," I reply,
"N-Nathan?" She said, her cheeks tinged with pink.
"Yeah," I say before noticing her blush,
"Looks like someone has a crush," I add coyly.
"I-Its not like that," She replies, pouting.
"Your stutter says otherwise. Its alright, he seemed like a good person," I add, glancing at Arthur to see his relieved expression.
Both of us knew she had developed an infatuation for Arthur for helping her awaken as a mage, and he was relieved he wouldn't have to break it to her.
(A/N : Before anyone says 'Why not Fay? Why is it always Arthur?', remember Arthur helped them a lot more than Fayden who was trying to master his acquire phase rather than look over their awakening process, mostly because he knew Arthur was more than capable of doing it himself.)
Lilia turns an even darker shade of red and was about to respond when someone interrupted, "AHEM!"
Looking back I see Gideon.
"Sorry, young lady, do you mind if I borrow this boy?" He says, gesturing to Arthur.
Oh for gods sake!
You again?
Sighing I turn towards Lilia, "Lets go,"
"Yeah, I'll see you later then Art," Was her response.
We spent some more time conversing before hearing the ringing of a bell.
Its midnight, now Ellie is officially 8.
After more dancing, eating and present giving, the guests gradually started leaving, and soon it was only us and the maids.
And so Ellie began opening the gifts, which were mostly dresses.
Although one stood out, a rectangular one.
Bringing it to her I say, "Here this one looks different, maybe it has something other than a dress,"
To which Ellie enthusiastically started opening it, while I held it came along with.
"Who's it from?" Mom asked.
"I dunno, maybe this letter will explain," I say holding up the letter.
Opening it I start reading it, as my parents and brother come up behind me,
Reading it didn't really give us any idea on who the sender is, that is until Ellie gasped as she pulled out a bow from the box.
More specifically, an elven bow.
Tessia?
"What a beautiful bow!" Tabitha exclaimed.
"Its elven made," I say.
"I wonder who sent it?" Dad asked.
Putting the bow down Ellie extended her hand to us, "Present please dear brothers,"
Seeing this mother started pulling her cheeks saying she was being impolite.
I chuckled at the scene while Arthur started laughing, before pulling out the pendants from his dimension ring.
"Woah! What is this?" Ellie had stars on her eyes as Arthur presented her and Mother the two boxes.
Opening it she smiled even wider, "A necklace!"
"These will protect you when Dad or us aren't there," He replied.
"Where did you even get this?" Dad asked.
"I'm sure met Mr. Gideon? I'm going to start working for him while he teaches me various things about magic. He gave me this as a token of my apprenticeship," Arthur explained.
As Arthur finishes tying the necklace on Ellie I bring out the rings from my shadow storage, catching the attention of everyone in the room.
The obsidian black box heavily mimicked the phoenix wyrm cases, with galactic blue indentations in a geometric pattern.
Opening the box I reveal the two rings, still emitting black wisps.
"Did you enchant them?" Arthur asks.
"Yep, they're one of a kind," I say.
"Each ring is similar to the necklaces, albeit lot less potent, with the added function of making the wearer hard to notice and create any shadow construct when required," I say.
"Shadow construct? How did you do that?" Mother asked.
"Zeke helped in that part, so its really a gift from the both of us," I explain, hoping they'll accept the lie.
"I've never heard of a shadow wolf having that ability," Father comments,
"Maybe he's just special," I shrug in response.
He looks skeptical but nods anyways.
Sorry Dad, but I can't tell you the truth just yet.
Moving to Ellie I slide the ring up her finger before hugging her and wishing her a happy birthday.
As I release the hug I go to Dad and hand him the ring, "So that you don't feel left out," I tease eliciting chuckles from the rest.
"Cheeky brat!" He grumbles, but takes the ring anyways.
Glancing at Arthur, I nod.
This should keep them safe, at least until we're strong enough to protect them ourselves.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Days passed as we fell back into a repetitive routine, our birthday passed in that time. While the Twin horns still couldn't make it, our party was a small one, only a few people other than the Helstea's came.
Gideon made an appearance as well, gifting us a present, one which was exactly what we needed.
Seals, while Arthur sealed his fire and water attributes, I sealed my wind and fire only keeping my water and earth affinities.
Gideon was quite surprised on learning we were quadra-elemental mages.
If only he knew what else we were hiding.
I took some Lessons from Elijah on the use of Earth magic, considering my abysmal skill with it.
What use is being a quadra-elemental when you can't use one of your elements.
Anyways, I made progress other than in my earth magic.
My dark yellow core had cracks in it.
Looks like I'm about to break through soon.
I had initially wondered why I was progressing so fast, but a memory surfaced that answered my question.
During the fight against the Elderwood Guardian the attack I used 'Tomb of the damned', it consumed the entire body of the beast.
So where did all its mana go?
It was consumed by me and stored in my shadow storage.
And when I opened it after my breakthrough it started leaking in, almost like what happens when I absorb atmospheric mana.
At this rate I'll enter silver core soon.
Maybe once I do attain white core, I will finally be able to kill Lucas.
Meanwhile the black shell around my core had darkened a bit more, now a bit more visible than before.
Elijah was excited by the prospect of making 'Hot' female friends in the academy. Arthur kept telling him that girls our ages aren't exactly 'Hot' but he filtered them out, instead telling us he's gonna go for older girls as well.
Stop thinking with your dick for once will you?
While Arthur did hide two of his elements he had no plans to lay back, I on the other side plan to keep a Low profile.
I never was one for fame.
I'd much rather keep doing my work from the shadows...pun unintended.
The day soon approached when the Dicatheous would sail, and the day we'll start our first day at the academy.
A day before it our uniforms arrive.
A blue box with white designs and the words 'Welcome to Xyrus Academy' written in golden letters.
Went from a refugee to the kings right hand and assassin to being reborn as a baby then to being an adventurer, and now a student.
What else am I going to become, I wonder.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile in the royal palace of Sapin a certain black haired princess straightens her hair as her package containing the uniform lays behind her.
Far away in the land of the elves a silver haired individual looks down at a framed picture of an Old man standing behind 3 kids, one with ashen brown hair, one with bright auburn and in the middle a younger version of the silver haired girl stood, her arms around the shoulder of the two boys.
She smiles.
Back in the Helstea manor the two aforementioned boys stood, one with a smile on his face the other with a smirk.
After all, this is only the beginning.
_______________________________________________________________________________
And that's book 3 covered.
Man that took a while.
Sigh.
Its only going to get longer isn't it?
Hey at least we're closer to a certain event in this arc.
Should I shorten it?
I have decided he won't take part in the mock battle in which Arthur gets injured.
Neither will he 'join' the disciplinary committee per se.
He'll take part in Widows Crypt though, so keep your tissues ready, or not really, I don't know if I'm gonna get him there during or after Aleas Death.
Also should I follow the novel or comic for the Xyrus academy arc?
Although I won't make any interactions with Alea either way so don't let that affect the choice.
If you guys do end up choosing the comic way, well the updates will get slower since its an ongoing arc, which I reckon will take at least two more months to finish.
On the other hand if I follow the novel, by the time the comic reaches the end of Xyrus arc, this story will probably be in Convergence, or not since Xyrus arc takes more than 2 books.
So which one will it be?
Novel way, or
Comic way.
The mysteries about Noctis and the reason why his beast wills abilities keep integrating to his body will be answered in the training arc, so you can look forward to that, even though its months away.
On that thought, should I make a different book after the training arc?
One covering the war, and one covering the parts after it.
Let me know in the comments.
But then again I'll need to find more names for them.
I suck at them btw.
I'll have to figure out something if you guys do end up suggesting a trilogy.