Time continued to pass. The brother duo were the first ones to "level up". Felix was the first one. He was the older of the two brothers and was a little higher on his progress as an apprentice knight of the 9 level. He got to the peak level of progress of the apprentice stage a month after the year of the family working on boosting their level. When he understood that he could no longer absorb life energy that was typical for knights he informed the family at the evening meal. He got congratulated by every member of the family and Elen gave him the pill that increases the chance to level up to the knight rank. He sullenly instructed his son to have a good night of rest and after the morning meal to try to breakthrough. The next morning Felix did exactly what the family head instructed, and he was successful. He had a very good foundation like his younger brother and both of them had the potential to get to the level of their father and ever higher. Felix was very certain in himself, and he overcame the threshold with no problems. The next one to get a similar result was the younger brother Greg. It took him another two months of effort to get the same success as his older brother. In those two months nothing really changed for the rest of the family members. Leo was the main wealth generator. The discount for the first 100 commoners long expired and because of that he got twice the amount of money for the same amount of work. Now the Shmidt's were making 6 gold coins of profit per month for almost a year. With around 30 costumers per month for the 20 silver per house build expired after 3 months. The family generated a great amount of wealth. It was still not time for them to use it. Thy were still low key. The other families started to be suspicions because the Shmidt younger generation just were not seen anywhere. Also, there was a new member of the family that did building for commoners. Not much was known about him. There was a rumour that he was a mage but not many really believed it. There was nothing the Smidt's could offer to a mage from an outsider perspective. It was all pretty strange. Because the Shmidt's were so low key they did not attract attention for some time. Still, everything had its own limit. After another month Elly finally got to the level of mage apprentice. Because of the guidance of Leo, she was a 14 years old first circle apprentice mage. It was not something often seen. In the same time she got the hang of the healing spell because Leo gave her this spell for a few months already and they talked about how it should get performed. now after a year and four months the family as a whole were on the level of one of the top families of the city but no one really knew about it. Now it was time to put their new power to the test and strike at the other noble young masters that tried to plot against them. Power struggles between the younger generation were something normal because in the end of the day they were the future of the family. Some of them even died in those struggles. Generally, it was fine to eliminate the servants but not the young masters themselves. It would generally cause a dispute between families that can be to the death so most of the families avoided it. At the dinner meeting of the family Leo said: "We need to announce a dungeon run and lure all those bastards to us. It will be a great feat to eliminate a lot of our competition their and weaken the other noble families. We have the surprise factor now, but we won't have it for long. We need to start use Elly's healing powers to train her healing spell and it will be a great way to earn money. People will just come in waves. It is certain. There will always be someone injured. A good healer will cost a fortune and in the case of our family we need the money. After we get exposed, we will need to continue to work on ourselves. Our goal in the end of the day is to go to the capital and enrol to the magic academy. From the information I got the best ages to enrol is between 14 and 16. Elly is in that age, and I will come along. I think we could cover each other's back and be able to grow steadily. The academy lasts for four years, and it will be sufficient for Elly to reach the third level of mage apprentice and it will also help me to grow as well." "Will we migrate to the capital as a family or only me and Elly will go?" Leo asked. He was not sure how better to make the next step. They had to go to the academy. It will allow them to be protected by the empire. It will happen because they were a potential military asset for the country. They were the potential future of the country. An apprentice mage of any type was on the level of an official knight. It was the main force of any empire. It was clear that Elly would go. They had enough resources for the duo to live in the capital for some time. The next steps were up to them. The family head and the brother's duo were silent for some time. After some deliberation Elen was the first one to speak: "I won't go. I lived here all my life, and I don't want to change anything. It will be great if you live in the accommodation for students in the capital. It will give you far more protection than we can. Leo is even stronger than me now. If he cannot handle the dangers, then I will be powerless as well."
After a short time, the brother's duo also declined. They loved this city. They had reputation and prestige here. In the capital they would be ordinary at best.
"I checked and the examinations will be in around 7 months. We all have time to prepare and finish up things here." Elen said.
Leo nodded and said: "It is decided than".