Our destination came into view in the early afternoon of the next day after hours spent exercising capacity and control by condensing or storing fire or water to use as an attack or distraction. The kids were not bad at this form of mana control and after most of the day spent focusing on it they could ignite and store their max capacity at once into three different fireballs. Thanks to a simple trick I called 'playing with fire'.
What I would do as a bored child was make a single flame at any fingertip and then pinch my fingers together to open them with a fire on each finger. Next I would pinch my fingers together again to create a quintupled flame and spread them apart to create five of those stronger flames. The final step was condensing all of that burning mana into a single flame that was still the same size but five times hotter than before.
This would usually make a greenish purple heart the size of a large match flame surrounded by intense yellow fire. The heart of the fire was all of the gathered heat and energy while the surrounding flame was just air passing through the area carrying heat. That one dual quintupled fireball was enough to burn a hole into the thick skinned chest of the average goblin.
The children were only capable of replicating this technique with three fingers once with all of their energy, but even that tripled-up flame alone in the face of the average adult was enough to permanently blind them without magical assistance.
To express my childish nature and humor for the sake of someone who might be watching, I taught them to first cast a flame on their middle finger, raise their neighboring fingers, spread fireballs, condense on their middle finger, and close the rest of their hand before flicking the mini fireballs away with their wrists.
Yes, I taught kids in another world how to literally and figuratively shoot a bird. Was I proud of myself? A little.
When we actually arrived in the city came the arduous task of finding the closest relatives of these kids. At first we just started asking around the guards and local establishments for the name of their aunt's business but had little luck around the gate area. However, while heading toward a nearby marketplace we were told by some guards at a tavern than the business was located closer toward the inner city.
More in the lower middle class areas rather than the tourist-appealing front districts
After an hour of getting random treats and wandering around we found ourselves in an upper middle class neighborhood with large two-story homes despite having only small front yards. Here we met a servant gardening who gave us further directions to what turned out to be a pawn shop. I mean, when he referred to their aunt it was literally translated to 'the pawn broker' who owned the business.
We thanked the older gentleman for his time with a gold blank and carried on our way after some small talk about the family of merchants that he served and the locals area. Was it really worth giving a gardener who called themselves a butler a gold blank for directions? No, but it might be worth it to introduce these kids to potential sponsors besides myself in the future.
Because the final destination was once again in sight, we took our time at a local marketplace resting while taking the kids to browse a magic store. While they did not have the personal magic to support most types of equipment, it was still a good novel experience for showing them the tight of equipment the different magic professions made use of. Naturally, the kids were more inclined to look at scrolls of combat magic and shelves of enchanted equipment more than sets of alchemy tools.
However, I had to rain on their parade by explaining that their knowledge and capacity of mana just could not support such equipment. Instead, I bought them both a charm common charm bracelet with multiple functions. They seemed fairly pleased with these.
A gold bell ornament alerted them to dangerous animals and or intentions, a quartz heart passively doubled their physical recovery speeds, a silver sparrow passively doubled their mana recovery, an empty piece of natural amber for storing mana, and they both got to choose their own charms.
Silt almost chose a charm that converted mana into a short tangible sword but I reminded him such a charm would become obsolete as his wisps developed. Instead of something so combat oriented, I advised him to take an all-purpose route by choosing and elemental mana stone. Because he was good with fire but sloppy with lightning, he chose a piece of lightning struck petrified wood that was carved into a thumbnail sized skull for his personal charm.
Silk was was inclined to an all-purpose conduction charm made of platinum that was only worth a single gold but I told her that this charm, too, would become obsolete. Sticking to the alignments of her wisps more than the alignments she practiced, the little Silk chose a silver icon for the goddess of life set at the top and bottom with small pieces of topaz. Those bits of natural topaz were filled with holy mana generated from holy water and blessings.
Equipped with their brand new jewelry, I took the kids to the front of the shop to check out proper magical accessories. Since they only had so much mana to begin with, I let them each choose a basic magic grown wooden wand sporting a cheap Conduction enchantment that cheapened the cost of their magic by about ten percent.
Allowing them to train for longer at a time was just as important as the training itself as far as stat growth was concerned.
For when they got older and more capable I bought the children short dragonwood staffs with electrum cores with twenty-percent stronger Conduction charms on the cores and a twenty-percent boost to elemental magics from the enchanted wood.
After that I endured more small talk with the elderly couple who owned and lived in the two-story store so that the children could explore and ask questions and develop connections. Half of an hour after entering the store the kids and I left and went right down the street to a decent clothing store.
Here I had the children measured and outfitted with an immediate set of 'nice' clothes such as the first dress Silk looked at and whatever Silt felt comfortable being prodded into asking for. Then I asked for their current clothes to tossed out and asked the tailors to make three sets of casual pant suit style clothes from a comfortable but thick and durable cloth material. My choice instead of theirs was for their training gear to be in black and given basic cleanliness and recovery enchantments.
The enchantments cost a gold blank per suit by themselves, but the tailor cut me a deal on only one gold for the materials and labor overall. I could have done all of this myself with less than a gold for materials, but I wanted the kids to experience the economic values of commodities and magic as much as possible. Therefore, I paid someone else to do something I could do better.
I fucked up overall, though, because once we left the building and started walking away Silt remarked on how pretty Silk's dress was and what their grandparents would think of it. "I know they'll love it because I love it, just like mommy and … pa… would.," was what she initially joyfully said, having completely forgotten the world because of her shiny and silken dress, and then trailed off from as she brought herself to reality.
As soon as I heard the words, 'just like', I knew trouble was coming and pulled out one of several handkerchiefs I had bought at the clothing store.
She started crying almost as soon as she stopped talking. At first, Silt did his best to keep it together and comfort his sister with words like, 'it's okay now everything will be fine' and 'mamma wouldn't want to see you crying in your new dress'.
But, eventually, reality hit him like a ton of bricks and in seconds the two of them were sitting on the roadside holding each other and bawling. I did my best to wipe their faces while summoning some golems and in less than a minute they were more comfortably seated inside of a grass polymer carriage drawn by a pair of similar grass deer. Sadly, the two did not stop crying until we finally arrived at their aunt's pawnshop late in the evening.
Their aunt and grandparents had already closed up the building and were taking stock when my carriage pulled up to their large street corner property. The front of their building had two large windows on either side of the front door but it was clear to see people inside through the drawn curtains because of the lights inside. They were quite surprised by the eccentric vehicle and mounts that parked right in front of the building.
The kids had tired themselves out from crying but were still sniffling, but for the most part I think we all handled their first major breakdown fairly well. What they did with these emotions and memories from hereon out, though, was up to them. I would, though, be coming to visit in a year to check on their progress.
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