When the city was just coming into sight, I felt a disturbance in the mana of something hurtling towards us and quickly erected a barrier.
Boom!
Something crashed into the barrier and exploded, causing the air to ripple with fire and heat.
---------v---------
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The barrier was hit in succession, causing large explosions each time.
I looked in the direction it came from and saw a figure standing in the distance wearing a black cloak that covered his face.
I used earth magic under his feet, trying to trap him. He attempted to jump out of the way, but I turned the air around him into a barrier, blocking his escape. He countered with a platform of air under his feet, keeping himself from sinking into the ground.
Even though it wasn't the way I had originally tried to trap him, it got the job done and gave me some insights into fights between mages.
I could hear him cursing out his employer as we walked closer.
Lila never got off my back the entire time, just calmly hanging on.
I wanted to find out who the employer was, although I figured I knew.
I put on a board expression, "I don't care about you, who sent you?"
He looked terrified.
"I-I don't know; everything is anonymous. I promise I'll never attack you again, and I'll also try to find out if you spare me!"
I waved my hand, and a blade of air took his head off; both pieces of his body fell to the ground where they were incinerated.
"Well, let's go pay the fools a visit."
After we entered the city, I made a platform of air under my feet, and we levitated to several hundred feet above the city.
Making our way over to the Schmuck's mansion, I set us down in the backyard.
Lila climbed down from my back and stood beside me.
"Why not just crush the place?" She asked.
"I will, but I want to confirm that they sent him for sure so we don't miss anything."
I walked in the door and scanned the house for the locations of people. A few in the kitchen and another 4 in other places around the house.
I went upstairs first, walking through the hallways to the room I thought was Azreel's. After casting a silencing barrier, I opened the door.
When he started shouting about how I was alive, I was able to confirm he was indeed the one who sent the assassin and decided that I wouldn't waste time talking to a fool and killed him, then devoured the body.
We decided to look for any valuables we could use before leaving. We searched the room; I was hoping to find mana stones, but we only found some gold, better than nothing though.
I decided that we could just ask his father if they had any mana stones when we went to the other side of the house to see him.
When we arrived at the study, and I repeated the process of casting a silencing barrier before opening the door, he also started shouting when he saw us, but no one could hear, it was rather annoying so I muted him with a spell.
"Hey, De'ol, since you guys sent an assassin after us, it's only right you pay some compensation, right? What do you think?" I removed the muting spell.
"Help! Help! Murderer! You'll pay if you touch me! Do you think you can get -"
I recast the spell and pulled out a dagger with one hand and a vegetable peeler with the other, after thinking about it i decided to go with the dagger this time.
"No one can hear you; this whole place has a level 6 silencing barrier around it. It seems as though you need some training on cooperation."
I bound him in place with some magic and pulled his left hand onto the desk, splaying out his fingers.
"Let's start your training with the thumb; that's the most important finger, isn't it?"
Another bright idea popped into my head, "Ohhh, let's make it be the right hand first; you probably need it to rub your little thing, don't you."
He was glaring at me hatefully, but I ignored him and switched to the right hand. When the fingers were spread out, I put the blade of the dagger against the joint in his thumb closest to the palm, forcing it down through the joint and into the desk a bit.
Tears were streaming down his face as blood ran onto the desk.
I held up the severed thumb between my fingers and lit a flame in the other hand, "You can reattach it if you have the other piece, but it's so enticing to burn it, right? Hmm, maybe I'll forget about it if you tell me something more interesting like where all your valuables are." I removed the muting spell again while slowly bringing the flame closer to his severed finger.
"There's a key in my top right desk drawer for the safe in the wall behind me."
"Elaria."
"Yes master," she got the key from the drawer and opened the safe.
"There's a few thousand gold, some potions, and other things but no mana crystals," she informed me.
He looked terrified, "W-We don't have any mana crystals."
"Hmm, I don't know whether to believe you."
I re-muted him and severed the other thumb; deciding this was taking too long I directly cut off the rest of the fingers on the right hand as well. He was crying even harder now.
Removing the muting spell, I asked again about crystals and got the same answer.
"So you got anything else manufactured with mana crystals?"
"Only a sword, it's over under my coat on the rack by the door."
Elaria went and got the sword; it was a fancy looking sword with gold inlays and forged with high-grade crystals, probably an heirloom.
"Mhm, I'm done now."
I killed him and devoured the corpse, cleaning up as if he'd just gone for a walk.
After storing the sword and contents of the safe in my inventory, we left with the staff of the mansion none the wiser. I decided not to wreck the mansion and just left it as it was.
We flew to the deck of our apartment and went to the guild. I could have landed in front of the guild, but that would draw too much attention since most mages can't even dream of being high enough level to fly.
We were paid 40 gold, equivalent to 400 silver for 160 Orc ears. I took all the contribution points and only needed 600 more to reach C rank. The dragon quest tomorrow gave 1,000, so I would reach it when we finished.
We returned to our apartment, and Elaria bathed while Lila and I went to extend our apartment contract for 10 years. We probably wouldn't be here for 10 years; hell, this world probably wouldn't exist for 10 years, but it was always nice to know we had another place to go when we went to another city we could come back to a place we were comfortable with.
When we returned, Elaria was finished and had refilled the bath for Lila and me, we bathed while she cooked.
Dinner that night was a nice tender juicy steak that I don't think I will get tired of even if I am immortal. She also made a side of buttery mashed potatoes and a vegetable medley. I was a little surprised Lila behaved herself while eating since she had refused to put clothing on after bathing.
When we were finished, Lila sat on the bed trying to brush her long hair that had a few knots in it. Elaria came over sitting behind her with Lila seated between her legs and took the brush, gently brushing Lila's dark purple hair. I could see Lila's eyes starting to close her eyes, and she leaned her head back against Elaria's chest with a content expression.
I'd thought about it before and I was fine with Elaria seeing Lila but if it was another male they would have to die. Thankfully I don't think Lila would want that either even though she's a pervert who likes it when Elaria sees.
Looking at the 2 so close together, I was really going to have to measure her tomorrow because she looks even shorter next to Elaria who seems slightly taller than average.
After a while, Lila had fallen asleep and so as not to wake her, I motioned for Elaria to just sleep there for the night, and I'd take the other bed. Elaria slowly leaned back until she was lying on her back and fell asleep shortly after.
---
The next morning, I stopped cultivating and went over to Lila who was now sleeping partly on her side still on top of Elaria and hugging one of her arms.
When I saw they were both still sleeping soundly and didn't really want to wake them yet, so I made them some oatmeal for breakfast for when they wake up or I can wake them after I was done.
When I finished, I could see Elaria was awake and had a slightly red face while looking at Lila.
I set the bowls down next to the bed and started rubbing Lila's ears to wake her up. When she woke up, she reached out to hold onto the back of my neck and pulled herself up for a kiss. When we finished, she let go and looked at Elaria's beat red face. Rolling over to face Elaria, she gave her a hug sticking her butt up in the air wiggling it, and started rubbing herself against Elaria like a cat, snuggling up as close as possible with the most movement possible.
She spoke while moving around and making small noises, "Hmm, this is the best pillow..."
My heart almost couldn't take it and my little brother was throbbing. I am so going to be immune to the charms of women by the time she's done. She's almost shameless making all others' attempts at seduction seem like child's play.
I pulled her off Elaria and she stretched out her hands toward Elaria with an unhappy look on her face.
Setting her down I gave them both a bowl, "Eat, we have a dragon to kill today."
I looked at Lila, "Rather than increasing your mana circles with the stones we get you should try to increase your cultivation."
She looked puzzled, "Why?"
"So you can live longer, you don't want to get old do you?"
"Ok, after I get to the 9th layer, I will live forever and do the circles then."
"No, the 9th layer of Qi Refinement only adds about 200 years to your lifespan."
"Didn't you say before that cultivation will make you live forever?"
"Yes, there are several realms after Qi Refinement that increase lifespan before you get to the ones that make you immortal though."
"So how do I go beyond Qi Refinement to become immortal?"
"After reaching Qi Refinement with the beginner cultivation method you selected, you'll pick out one of even higher grade that you will then use. But for now just worry about reaching 9th layer Qi Refinement."
Kitty had told me not to even bother trying the advanced methods at first because we were all too stupid and not even the most genius person in all multiverses could do it before first mastering at the very least a beginner method.
"How many realms are between Qi Refinement and immortality?"
"8, the mortal realms after Qi Refinement are: Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Soul Formation, Soul Transformation, Void Amalgamation, and Transcendence. Then you get to Quasi-Immortal which allows you to live forever though isn't technically an immortal realm. After these realms are the immortal realms, but don't think about it for now."
She looked depressed, "That's going to take forever!"
I shook my head, "When you get to Qi Refinement 9th layer, you can switch to a faster method that isn't for beginners. Also if I feed you mana stones it won't take long to get there. Currently due to the world level, you can only reach Soul Transformation, only once we reach the 3rd world level you'll be able to reach Quasi-Immortal."
Elaria looked confused but I'd explain in a bit; I'd already told Lila about other worlds when we were in that room.
"So how much extra lifespan do I get at each realm?"
I pulled up the cultivation book in the system and read from the screen in front of me, "All at the 9th layer, Qi Refinement 200 years over a mortal, Foundation Establishment 500 years over a mortal, Core Formation 1,000, Nascent Soul 2,000, Soul Formation 3,500, Soul Transformation 5,000, Void Amalgamation 7,000, Transcendence 10,000, Quasi-Immortal is, of course, unlimited."
She looked slightly happier and I turned to Elaria, "Since you have the 2000 year lifespan of an elf, if you want to increase your mana circles first it won't hurt anything, though maybe try to step into Qi Refinement so you can keep up with our speed first though. About the other worlds thing, there are lots of worlds, and we'll go to others that are higher level."
She looked shocked but nodded, "I'll do as you say."
They'd finished eating and I decided to measure them. Lila really is very short at only 4'10" (147cm) and Elaria is taller than average at 5'8" (173cm).
After my curiosity on measurements was sated, we went to the guild and checked in with Ann to see if there was anything else we should know. There wasn't so we left the city for the village.