"Miss Ophelia! Miss Ophelia! Wake up!"
"Aghh, hm? Fael? What is it?"
"It's already noon! I can't have you already skipping out on two meals when you're still so young!"
It was already noon? I let out a yawn, my eyes were heavy and I felt as though I was going to fall right back to sleep.
"Yes.. I'll be right there."
Fael tidied my hair with the hairbrush that was placed on my nightstand. And with Fael's support, I was able to walk into the dining room without any major trouble.
"Lia, when you finish your lunch, we're going to do some sword training."
"Ueagh.. Okay Dad." my voice stretched as I whined.
"No complaints, and don't whinge, especially not to me." Dad lectured, however I whined once more. My mother covered her mouth and looked away from us, before facing us again.
"Dada, what training?" Zed asked, though his pronunciations were still off, I could infer what he was saying. Zed's head turned on an angle while he continued to try and poke the peas that bounced away from his fork.
"Just a little bit of play fighting!" Dad exclaimed, he threw a few punches over the table, fork and spoon still clutched in his hands.
"Flynn. Don't play around while you're eating lunch, and don't speak with food in your mouth, the kids are going to learn a bad habit if you keep doing that."
"Yes honey.." Dad's face drooped, his voice crumpled, visibly expressing his own complaint, everyone gave a small chuckle, excluding Zed, he was more preoccupied on the peas.
Minutes later and, my father and I were outside in the front yard while Fael was in a small shade-shelter, drinking tea as she watched us from a far. The yard had a total area of 100 meters.
My bow that was gifted to me by my Mom was strapped to my back and I held my wooden sword in my left hand. My Dad on the other hand held his wooden sword in his right hand that was double the size of my own sword.
I hadn't had any real experience with the sword or the bow that I could remember from my past life, and the only real training I had were some basic sword swinging exercises and for my bow it was merely just attempting to shoot at the target that was stuck to the large tree nearby.
"The weather's nice today isn't Lia." His arms opened out, the wind brushing through his hair like water. "Whenever you're ready Lia!"
I quickly ran forwards, having no real knowledge of how to position my body. Getting closer and closer to my Dad was a real challenge with him easily evading my sword that flailed around, instead of trying to land a successful attack right off the bat, I studied his footwork, adapting to which leg he prioritized when evading my reckless sword swings. Left. Right. Back. Right. Right.
Even after a minute, I wasn't able to hit him, but I was slowly recognizing a pattern. Whenever I swung my sword to the left, he always followed the swing, evading left as well. As I stabbed, he moved backwards, and swinging right merely made him move right as well. He never tried to block, and his movements were sluggish.
With my small body, it was that much harder to land a swing as well as the fact that my body wasn't developed enough to use my muscles to its fullest. Making my dashes and swinging attempts all the more difficult to do.
Several minutes passed and I was still at a loss, with my Dad looking unfazed and not the least bit tired, which was understandable. I was frustrated, but slowly I was able to understand every little thing about my Dad's manoeuvres, from his body's positioning, legs, feet, movement, patterns. I don't know if this was because I was merely a small child and was reckless with each passing swing, but his movement became even more sloppy, simple, and basic.
I had visualized our entire front yard, noticing every speck and every rock that laid around the flat yard, I quickly devised a plan. My arms were getting tired to even hold the wooden sword, to which I dragged the sword on the ground. My strikes were all futile, and we went in circles multiple times.
Eventually, as I stabbed forward, he moved a little backwards which I predicted, making me throw my sword before he had even moved backwards.
"Woah!"
His face widened with shock and, for the first time in the battle, he had finally used his sword. He swung his sword, hitting mine away from him. But as he did so, his foot had landed in an unusual way as his heel tripped, making him lose his balance before plummeting to the ground.
Although I didn't hit him directly, my plan had worked, my sword was deflected far enough to where I couldn't grab it. Nevertheless, I still had one weapon, with my bow that was on my body, I quickly moved my body in a way that it made me unlatch my bow that much more faster.
"Wait wait wait! We can talk-" before he could say another word, I swung it directly into his shin.
A clean hit! It made him clasp his shin with his hands, while I moved around to where his head was. Faint claps from the shade-shelter could be heard and even without looking at my own face I could tell, that I had the made the most devious grin of my life.
"I win."
Though my sword swings were reckless, horrible, and would probably be ridiculed by even swordsmen who just started training, I was able to use it to my advantage in leading my prey (Dad) into my trap, which worked like a charm! He sat up, placing his hand onto my head, ferociously ruffling my hair.
"HAHAH, you got me this time Lia. I won't be going easy on you the next time!"
"Sure, sure Dad, I'll just beat you again." I laughed along with Dad as we went back in while Fael followed behind.
A few days passed and my daily routine had changed, I slept much earlier but woke up much earlier, which led me to have much more time in meditation in the morning. It allowed me to understand 'Aether', as well as further understand what my Aether soul was and what I was capable of doing.
I had also learned that my Dad was at the fourth Prism, being a stage above me. I found it quite hard to believe that, as my Dad was an A-rank adventurer, was it really easy to get that high? Or was evolving that much harder to do?
With each passing day, I was able to learn about the functions of Aether, as well as some of its capabilities. Aether was capable of enveloping the user in a protective layer of 'skin'.
This effectively allows the user to fend off environmental effects such as heat or the cold, as well as reduce the damage from incoming attacks and, stronger environment effects obviously mean the more the user needs to envelop themselves with Aether.
With my meditation ongoing, I slowly started to enhance these two things as well as stabilize my Aether soul so that in the future I was capable of doing either task. I also meditated in order to store more Aether so that I could use it more efficiently in the future.
The other things that I did in my daily routine was doing light exercises and training with my Dad, he helped me learn some basic techniques that he used when he was taught, and my Mom would also help me with the bow, though she had more priorities with my younger brother and work.
I didn't have any more dreams or memories about my 'past life', and even though I was thankful that I had escaped the 7 year death loop, I was quite sad that I couldn't see anymore of my 'old memories'.
But I hoped that in my later years that they'd come back, I was curious. I wanted to learn more about my 'past life', though my present life was just as important of course. The other things that I had done in my daily routine was eating, sleeping, showering, and playing with Zed whenever I got the chance. If I had to be honest, I was way cuter than he was when I was a baby.
5 whole years quickly passed in an instant, with my 12th birthday having already passed a few months ago and my younger brother already being 8.
"Lia dear."
"Yes Mom?"
"Your Dad and I have been thinking, I think it's time you set off to the Kingdom Of Myura. I know you probably like it here, and you said you wanted to wait a little longer and we think it's time."
"Okay, let's go then."
"We can't be waiting a li- wait what?" Their eyes widened but Mom continued, "We thought you were going to be sad and complain and-"
"It's alright guys, I do like it here. But I think it's time as well."
Zed snuck up behind Mom, seemingly trying to scare her as he asked a question. From his question, it appeared he heard the conversation us three had.
"Where are we going Mom?"
"Sorry dear, it'll be just your father and Lia." She gently tapped Zed's hair. "You'll still have me though!"
"Awe.."
"Your big sister needs the education Zed, once you're of age, you can come see me!"
"Okay.."
It was a little disheartening that we all couldn't set off together, however my Mom had to keep watch of her property and had continuous amounts of work piled that she needed to complete.