Alfred pov
I used teleportation magic to bring wendelin and his older brother erich with me to breitburg, we arrived in the lounge of the duke's manaion, the servants after being shocked at our sudden arrival went to inform one of the retainers of duke breithild who would than inform the duke of our arrival.
I along with berkhart, than sit on the sofas present in the lounge, I also gesture the sons of the baumeister household to be seated as well. The servants started to serve refreshments such as sweets, cakes and tea, but wendelin and erich had been hesitant.
Alfred "please, there's no need to hesitate you two, you should be more like berkhart over there"
I than gestured towards berkhart who had ordered a bottle of wine from one of the servants and was drinking it without a care in the world. Looking at berkharts care free attitude they started eating.
After a while a butler came and started to adress me.
Butler" master alfred, duke breithild is awaiting your arrival in his study"
Alfred "alright, now you two stay here for now, I need to go report on our task to duke breithild"
They nodded at my words. Me and berkart than get up from the sofa and follow the butler to duke breithilds study. Arriving at the study we opened the door and entered,after entering the sight of a luxuriously decorated room with red carpets, beautiful ornate furniture and as well as a large intricately carved desk at the end of the room enter our field of view and behind the desk sat Amadeus Freitag von breithild the current head of the duke breithild household. He had an average height and build with a handsome aristocratic face with blue eyes and silver shoulder length hair combed in a slick back manner.
Amadeus "its good to see the two of you back so soon, please sit I'm eager to hear how your tasks went"
Me and berkhart than seat ourselves on the chairs in front of the desk and started to give our report.
Alfred "the belongings of the dead troops were safely recovered, although purifying all those undead was hassle, but in the end didn't take more than a few hours "
Amadeus "I see that's a relief now we will be able to at least sooth the hearts of those who lost their loved ones due to my father's foolishness, what was the tax rate discussed with the baumeister household"
Alfred "we agreed on a twenty percent tax rate"
Amadeus "well that's acceptable, I shall call the relatives of the deceased so they could identify the belongings of the dead soldiers, it will take a few days so until then, I want you to hold on them for me"
I just nodded in reply after which the duke continued to speak.
Amadeus "now what was the condition of the baumeister territory and what can you tell me about the heir of the household"
Before I could answer, burkhart cut in and started speaking.
Burkhart "Its pretty bad, even though their population is barely able to keep up with the land they have already developed, they are still insisting on developing more land. As for the heir don't even get me started he is mediocre at best"
Although our main objective of visiting the baumeister household territory was to recover the belongings of the dead soldiers, we had also been tasked with finding out the current conditions of the baumeister territory, so we had conversed with the locals on our way back after having completed the mission to get a general idea of what was going on.
Amadeus "If things are as bad as you say"
Duke brethild then made a grim face and after a moment of silence continued to speak.
Amadeus " on a different note who are those two kids that you brought with you"
Alfred " the younger one is wendelin the 8th son of the baumeister household, his magic capacity is greater than anyone I have ever met, I plan on taking him on as my student"
Hearing my words duke brethild face gains a shocked expression.
Amadeus " are you saying that child possesses more mana than you, one of the greatest mages on the continent"
Alfred "yes but not only that, the amount of mana he possesses is about three times my own and is still growing, with proper training he can become an excellent magician, he may even surpass me one day with proper guidance"
Amadeus "I see, you were able to find a remarkable talent, I presume you will be taking some time off now that you have such a promising new student, also what about the other one"
Alfred "yes I would like a few months off to teach wendelin the basics after that I can just guide him and he would need to learn on his own, the other one is the seventh son of the baumeister household, he apparently plans to give the civil official exams in the capital and asked us if he could accompany us to breitburg"
Amadeus "well I don't mind if its just a few months, about the other one do you think he has the ability to pass those exams"
Alfred "hmm..., I can't say for sure but from what I've seen, he seems to be a smart lad"
Amadeus "I see than maybe I could offer him a place here in domestic affairs, well we shall see, for now you are dismissed"
We than take our leave from duke brethild's office.
Wendelin pov
It took alfred and berkart thirty minutes to return, we than took our leave from the duke's mansion. Exiting the duke's mansion we say goodbye to berkhart and then alfred leads us to his home, well it was more like a mansion in the aristocratic neighborhood of breitburg, on our way he also gave us a basic tour of the city, I say basic because we only got to see the sights which were on the way to Alfred's mansion.
Speaking of alfred, from his appearance you would think of him as a man in his early 60's but in this world those with magic power appear younger than their true age, so I wonder what his age is.
Soon we arrived at the mansion after which I along with erich was dragged by him on a mansion tour. The mansion was surrounded by high walls, the gate was a magic tool of alfreds own creation, it basically had a magic gem that could recognize alfreds unique magic signature. If someone other than him tried to get in than the golem at the door would immediately attack them.
Lead on by alfred we enter through the gate after which we encountered another five other golems, they were two meter tall with bodies made of rock which was similar in shape to a gorilla, the golem in the middle started to speak.
Golem "master alfred, who are these unknown people "
Alfred "they are my guests"
Hearing alfreds response the golems went back to their place and started to act like statues. Alfred than looked towards us as he started to speak.
Alfred "I discovered these golems in a ruin of the ancient magic civilization, apparently they had been quite popular in those times. I decided to take them and reprogram their magic crystals to serve as guards for my house"
We than entered the house, the ground floor had a study,dining room, kitchen living room, lounge and bathroom. The basement had a cellar filled to the brim with vintage wine but I couldn't see any other kind of drinks like scotch or vodka. First floor of the mansion had four normal rooms, and one master bedroom. Everything in the mansion was neetly organized and there wasn't even a speck of dust anywhere apparently master simply used cleaning magic on his house reducing the need for maids, in addition all the cookware, water a and sewage appliances were based on magic tools.
'finally civilization', these thoughts occupied my mind as we received the mansion tour by alfred. Apparently even brother erich was surprised at the amount of luxury in the mansion.
In our home we had to get water from the well for going to the toilet or taking a bath, and heating the water was difficult all the time so we had often had to take cold baths. The magic tools would allow the people of the house to have a bath whenever they liked.
After the mansion tour was over alfred showed us to our rooms, compared to our old rooms these new rooms seemed like they were fit for a king. There was a large bed, a closet for our clothes, luxurious furniture and a large window which gave a beautiful view of the entire neighborhood.
...
We were now currently seated at a tea table where master had served mate tea and cake along with different kinds of sweets. Although served might not be the right word since he had simply taken them out of his magic bag.
Alfred "so wendelin what do you think about my home"
Wendelin "It's absolutely amazing, master alfred"
Alfred "I'm happy you like it, its going to be your home as well while your learning under me as my student, and just call me master, master alfred is quite a mouthful"
He than looks at erich and starts speaking.
Alfred "hmm the civil official exams are in two months correct, feel free to stay here until than, when the time of the exam comes around I'll simply teleport you to the capital, plus the public library in breitburg is a great place to study for the civil official exams, if your interested"
Erich "you have already done more than enough for me, I can't possibly...."
Before erich could say anything alfred cuts off erich from saying anymore.
Alfred "there's no need to be humble, rather you are a promising young man it will be good to have a connection with someone, who has a promising future in the royal capital like yourself"
Erich "well if you say it that way"
Alfreds explanation was clearly made up, he just wanted to help erich but still it would have been considered rude of erich to argue any further so he could do nothing but accept. He than switches his attention back to me.
Alfred "wendelin I've taken a few months off from my duties as the retainer of duke breithild, so I can focus on training you"
Wendelin "thank you master, I shall do my best to learn from you"
Alfred "haha don't be so uptight, I'm sure that you would do well, I'm going to start your training from tomorrow, but if you have any free time try reading the books on magic tool construction and mana crystal programming, you will find them in the study. Once your done with those I can recommend you some more"
Then suddenly alfred lets out a yawn and looks up at the sky to see that its already gone dark.
Alfred "well, I have a had a long day so I'm going to sleep, if you lads get hungry just take something from the kitchen"
Saying this master (AN: wendelin is going to call alfred, master from now on) gets up and goes towards his room to sleep apparently erich was tired as well so he also went to bed. I still wasn't sleepy though so I went to the study, master's study was at least six times the size of father's study, I then look around and see all the interesting books, 'I want to read all of them as quickly as possible', those were my thoughts when I suddenly got an idea.
I used my skill creation ability and created the skill 'god speed', this skill would basically increase my speed as well as my perception, right now I think my limits are 20 times my normal speed but the instinctual knowledge that I have about this skill tells me that it is possible to go higher but that would take time and practice. I then activate the skill and the world around me, comes to a stanstill the way I noticed this was simple the clock placed on the desk of the study had slowed down, I than grab the books that master had recommended and start reading them.
I ended up finishing the books in under three hours, the skill genius which increased my abilities in all aspects especially learning along with the idetic memory skill had made it extremely easy to finish and understand the books in a short amount of time. I than created the skills 'magic craftsman', a skill which increases my ability to craft magic tools and 'magic scanner', a skill which allows me to scan any magic tool or device, thus giving me full information about its inner working, well it may not be as useful as you might think I would still have to make sense of the information.
I than start to feel sleepy so I went to my room, took of my shoes, jumped on the comfy bed which was a hundred times better than the one I had at home and went to sleep.