Fred and the family were on the ships, they were travelling to the mainland, this was Fred’s first visit to the mainland, and he was quite nervous, he was on the top deck looking out into the ocean.

If this was anything like his old world then a vast untapped land awaited him out there, full of riches and possibilities.

At the sound of a crewmember, he turned to look in the direction of the mainland, the crewmember had called out that the cape of Brittany was visible,

“Aren’t you cold?” Delphine asked as she came up behind him, when Fred turned, he saw her standing there in a thick coat while shivering.

“Not really, you seem cold though, how come you came out?” Fred asked with a smile, he too was wearing a coat, a bit lighter than hers,

“I just wanted some fresh air, then I saw you and came over,” Delphine said, her face going a bit red, “We are going to have dinner now, are you coming in?”

“Sure,” Fred said and followed the lass into the dining room,

___

They travelled in the river and arrived at the port city of Nantes, the capital city of de Ansul duchy,

Fred was impressed, it was a vast sprawling city, his perception of the towns on Albion being ‘big’ was completely wrong,

They all got on the carriages and headed for the noble district, he saw a tower in the direction he was heading, it was odd in shape and had a spiral point at the top, similar to gothic architecture, from what Fred understood, this tower shouldn’t be able to stand using conventional methods,

“That’s the wizard’s tower, a bunch of crazy weirdos I say,” Daniel, who spoke, as well as George and Rudy, were in his carriage with him,

“Crazy weirdos?” Fred asked bemused.

“Like you Fred,” George commented, always up to experiments with reckless ambition, Daniel and Rudy chuckled at this,

“I see,” Fred said without amusement, “Where are we staying anyway?”

“Your Grandfathers residence, next to the main house,” George answered, “you better be on your best behaviour, and that goes for you too, Rudy, although you will be staying at your family’s residence on the other side.”

“I will,” Rudy answered,

“You don’t have to worry about us, George, it’s Daniel you should be keeping an eye on,” Fred commented.

“You little twerp,” Daniel gave Fred a slap on the head,

“See, so violent,” Fred rubbed his head, “I bet women hide or flee as soon as they see your face,” he said while looking at Daniel.

“You little…” Daniel was cut off by George,

“Alright enough now we are nearly there,” George was amused by their antics.

They arrived at the manor, Fred looked over to see Isabella standing in front of her carriage looking up at the door, nervously clutching the sides of her skirt, it was her first time coming here since she got pregnant with Fred,

Fred moved over to her side and hugged her, “You ok mom?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” She smiled from the warmth of Fred’s hug, and wrapped her arm around him,

Fred didn’t really understand the nervousness, from what he could tell, her ‘exile’ to Albion was nothing more than a political stunt to appease the king, and that both his grandfather and great grandfather doted on her.

Unless there was something Fred wasn’t privy to,

They entered the house where he finally met his grandfather,

“Hello, hello, everyone, welcome back,” he first came over to Isabella and gave her a huge hug, Fred could see the relief wash over her face as she embraced her father, Isabella also started to shed tears,

“Don’t cry honey, it’s been rough on you, I’m sorry,” Fred’s grandfather continued to comfort her,

“Your back,” a sharp tone came from the doorway behind the grandfather,

“Dear enough,” the grandfather snapped back,

“Mother” Isabella sheepishly greeted.

Her mother just harrumphed in return. Isabella drooped her eyes,

“Now, now, be nice, we have guests,” the grandfather said tiredly. He then turned to the guests and greeted them all before finally meeting Fred, “Ah, you must be Fred, I have heard so much about you.”

“Good morning, Grandfather,” Fred performed the courtesy bow, as expected of high nobles.

“Haha, relax kid,” he patted Fred on the shoulder, “No need to be so formal, save that for those tedious banquettes.” Fred’s grandfather seemed like the easy-going type, in fact, most of his family on the de Ansul side seemed easy going, which was a stark contrast to how he thought nobles would act,

He had only properly interacted with the 3 families and Normandy, and it was only de Anjou and Normandy who acted more to his perception of a noble.

They sat down in the lounge, Isabella, Daniel, and the grandfather chatted for a bit, Fred was quiet for the time, mainly observing the grandmother, who didn’t seem to want to be there. It was just the 5 of them here, with a few maids standing in the background to attend to any needs.

“So, Fred, I keep hearing stories about you,” Grandfather spoke to him.

“Hopefully nothing bad,” Fred asked.

“A bastard like you, claiming the title of prince, tsk.” The grandmother commented.

“Margaret, behave,” Grandfather wasn’t happy with her comment,

“I’m just telling the truth,” she turned her head away and shrugged,

“Enough! I will not have you causing trouble in this house, I am sick of your petty opinions, if you have nothing better to say then shut up.” Grandfather stood up and shouted in anger causing Isabella and Daniel to flinch,

“I am the lady of this house, I will not be talked to like that, how dare you let that bastard and that slut back into our house,” Grandmother went into a tirade, standing up and getting into Grandfather’s face.

*snap* “Get out of my sight,” he turned to the door, “Guards!” two guards rushed in through the door, “Take her to her room, do not let her out unless I say so.”

“I will not be treated as a prisoner in my own home, Guards stand down,” she shouted back, only the guards were the grandfather’s men and dragged her away, fighting and screaming,

Grandfather just slumped back into his chair, resting his head in his hand, with a dark face, the room went into an awkward silence,

“Father, we can stay in a hotel not far from here,” Isabella said,

“Nonsense! I will not have my daughter stay in some hotel when her home is right here.” Grandfather refuted immediately, “Let’s call it a day for now,” he sighed, “I’ll have the butler show you to your rooms,”

They were escorted to their rooms for a few weeks, Isabella’s was still her old room, but the butler still brought her to it, Fred’s was next to hers, it had a dressing table a chest, wardrobe, and a four-poster bed,

the servants must have brought all of his luggage here earlier, he decided to spend his time studying, he had been learning enhancements and was working on designs for his first custom made suit of armour, although, this would only be a temporary suit as he was still growing,

___

The next day Fred, George and Daniel went to the shopping district to look have a look, Fred was interested in the metals section, he found a few different types of ingots available on the market that he hadn’t seen in this world before, he even found some magic metals, including quite a few elemental irons, these were pieces of Iron subjected to high doses of elemental mana.

These metals weren’t something Albion had the means to produce currently, while Fred had excelled in the mass procurement of materials, the mainland had the capabilities to produce exotic materials, furthermore, Bristol’s production capacity was half that of Nantes.

The reason why Bristol was still viewed so favourably by the mainland was that Bristol wasn’t even a quarter of the size or had access to as many skilled workers or resources as Nantes, and they managed to get there with fewer exotic materials than Nantes.

If Fred could introduce exotic materials over, he could have reached Nantes by now,

Fred decided to pick up a crate of lightning Iron, and Fire Iron, however when he viewed the metal iron, he noticed that it had traits similar to tungsten, so he picked up a crate of them as well, the weird thing with the ‘tungsten’ was that it was heavier than iron when he picked it up normally but using his metal Esper ability it felt much lighter.

When he got back to the manor, Fred took some samples to his room while the rest were put into storage,

He made some tests with the metals, the fire Iron would heat up extremely fast on the surface area when mana was poured into it, but this didn’t make the metal malleable, it kept its properties at the highest temperature,

The lightning iron worked like a magnet, but when mana was poured into it, lightning currents ran across the surface area, furthermore, he could feel an electro-magnetic field around it,

However, with the metal iron, there weren’t any noticeable effects, so he kept pumping mana into it until he heard creaking noises, only it wasn’t coming from the metal, he couldn’t confirm where the sound was, so continued to pump mana into it to see if there was a correlation,

Then he heard a snap, and when his eyesight followed the noise, he noticed a crack on the table leg, he stepped back from the table only to notice it starting to deform, with the middle, where the metal iron was located, being bent down,

He tried lifting the metal iron with his hands, but it was extremely heavy, even with his superior strength he could barely lift it and the floorboards started to creak, when he switched to holding it with his Esper powers it was as light as a feather,

He withdrew all of his mana from the metal and placed it back on the table, he tried manipulating the other two metals with his Esper powers and noticed he could control the effects of the metals, with the fire iron he was able to focus all of the heat to an edge of the ingot,

While with the lightning iron, he was able to create a proto-force field.

___

He spent most of his free time researching the metals, however, he didn’t get much of that as Isabella or George were dragging him around to shop or prepare for the celebration. 4 days before the party, Edward and co arrived in the city, As well as the Maine family, Fred would not get to meet his fiancé candidate until the party,

It was already getting crowded in the noble district as well as the shopping district. The merchants had caught wind of the event and were pulling out all the stocks to try and profit from this ordeal, not to mention the profit they would receive just from the tourism alone,

But there was an even more shocking piece of news, the king had shown up for the event, not only had he come, but the crown prince and his kids had come,

“Have you heard anything?” Edward asked Isabella, it was Edward, Isabella, and Janet, as well as the 5 kids.

“No, both the dukes and the king are currently in discussions at the moment, I haven’t seen him yet, nor his family” Isabella responded, both of them seemed nervous, this was way out of expectation and would mean something big is happening.

It was now 2 days away from the event, both the dukes and the king had been in talks all afternoon,

It wasn’t until late that evening that the three came out of the room, the king was escorted to his chambers for the event while the two dukes called a family meeting, all of the direct descendants came hat was age 13 and over,

In a meeting like this, kids under the age of 15 were not supposed to participate in the actual meetings but stay in the back to learn and observe,