The Destin household didn’t just look like a castle from the outside, it was built like one on the inside. Years of earth magician occupation had led to a stone building filled with corridors and passageways to different rooms.

Most had been created out of laziness.

Earth magicians didn’t have to use the corridors when they could create their own exits and passageways that were more convenient to them.

“We’re only allowed to use four floors of the mansion today.” Ouros spoke. “The first floor is pretty simple, there’s the earth garden and the dining room, but you can see those anywhere. The second and third floor are better.”

We walked towards our right and up the first staircase.

“You’ve been staring like a wide-eyed buck since we walked in here.” Amanda tip toed beside me.

“What am I missing?” She glanced around the room curiously.

“It’s like the fire mana spell in your house, but a hundred times stronger and with earth mana.”

The mana in the air clung to me as I walked alongside my friends. Amanda could only see fire mana, and I pointed out the spots where earth mana gathered in the largest quantities.

Most of the mana gripped the walls in a vice, like moths to a flame.

“Yeah, the main family has been working on this place for generations. Their mana is ingrained into the building and each family member helps improve it for the future Destins.” Ouros spoke. “This is the lounge. It’s basically for family gatherings, big parties or just relaxing.”

We reached the top of the stairs and I found myself standing in a wide room filled with furniture. It looked like the guild hall except all the furniture was made out of earth materials.

The familiar colour scheme of muted green, brown, and grey greeted my eyes.

“Is this dirt?” William walked towards the nearest piece of furniture

It was a long sofa. He ran a finger across the surface, and I saw it press down into the furniture like it was a balloon. He pulled away in surprise and Ouros’ laughter filled the air.

“That’s the bouncing furniture.” Ouros smacked his hand against the sofa, and it jiggled. “Finely crafted for the entertainment of guests.”

The dirt wobbled like a waterbed. William looked at it in a mix of fascination and horror. It was the opposite of the lavish furniture I’d seen on his island.

Amanda didn’t hesitate to fall into it back-first. It reacted to her like she had fallen into a beanbag chair. There was no resistance as she sunk into it.

I could see earth mana feeding into the spell when it activated. Each individual ripple was a new spell being cast, but there was a limit to how much it would react.

It looked incredibly expensive. The amount of earth mana being used to make a fun piece of furniture was more than I used when casting earth creation.

“Is someone casting this?” I watched the earth mana around me.

I sat next to Amanda and pressed my hand down on the armrest of the sofa. My eyes wandered across the furniture as the bouncing spell activated. I couldn’t see any magic regents in the area.

“Family secret.” Ouros winked. “I knew you’d appreciate it.”

“This is… Rather comfortable.” William’s voice floated out towards us.

I saw him on the other end of the sofa, pressing his hands lightly against it as he stood in front of it.

“The dirt won’t bite you.” I chuckled.

“It might.” Ouros corrected me. “But only if you’re mean to it.”

William hesitated and Ouros winked at me.

I heard Amanda giggle beside me.

“How long has the Destin household lived here?” We sat on the sofa for a little longer.

William joined us after a few seconds of hesitation.

“Since Koshima was founded.” Ouros’ eyes glimmered. “Our family was the first earth magician household to arrive when it was just a fledgling frontier town. Obviously, it grew from there, and we grew with it.”

My history was a little rusty when it came to this area of the continent, but that had to have been at least a few hundred years.

“You guys can’t get too comfortable just yet.” Ouros clapped his hands together. “We’re only on the second floor! And the other floors aren’t one giant room like this one is.”

I could see he was having fun with this. It wouldn’t be often that he was allowed to give the tour of the main house.

As a branch family member his family lived in a separate estate.

I stood up and I heard Amanda groan beside me as she refused to leave the comfort of the sofa.

“Come on, maybe they’ll have a whole room that bounces.”

I held my hand out and helped her up. She stood beside me and looked back thoughtfully at the sofa.

“Are these available for sale? I could use one in my study.” She asked Ouros.

“You can get some comfortable ones, but the bounce is only available here.” Ouros shrugged. “I think they have non-dirt ones that are similar.”

“That’s a shame.” She gave the sofa one last poke.

The stairway to the third floor was next to the entrance we had walked in through. It took the form of a spiral that was just wide enough for us to walk through two at a time.

“This next floor is the entertainment section.” Ouros narrated. “I wanted to show it to you before Unice got the chance.”

He smirked and waved us through the door, and I found myself in a corridor.

My eyes wandered around the floor, and I saw criss-crossing corridors that linked to the one I was in. There were at least five rooms along the corridor, and at the junction I could see another five lined up towards the other end.

“Feel free to pick whichever room you’d like, they’re pretty self-explanatory.” Ouros looked at me. “The cultivation room is on this floor too. Want to check it out?”

William and Amanda were already moving towards different rooms to explore. I nodded at Ouros and we walked through the corridor and then turned left where the other corridor connected.

He opened the door to his left. There was a rush of hot air and my skin tingled as I walked towards Ouros.

The earth mana didn’t thicken, but I could sense something different within the room. I took a step inside and my shoes crunched against dirt. It was rich and brown.

Unlike Koshima academy, this area had numerous plants. Each one resonated with me.

“All of them feel like earth magicians.” I stared at the plants.

There were four different species, each residing in a different corner of the room.

A leafy brown plant with wide petals, a series of small flowers that were bunched together in a bush, a single hedge of green that looked like a drum, and five straight stalks of bamboo that shot into the air.

“Technically, they are.” Ouros grinned. “Each of these plants is attuned to earth, just like we are.”

“Really?” I walked towards the nearest one, the leafy brown plant. “How does that happen?”

I closed my eyes and felt my connection with the plants grow. It felt like I was meditating with four other people, each of whom were emitting a constant stream of earth mana.

Plants could become monsters, unique symbols appearing in their flesh and transforming them, but I'd never heard of a plant that was a magician.

I added the information in my head for later. Magical animals existed and now I knew that magical plants existed too.

“I don’t know.” Ouros admitted. “Sometimes it happens randomly, and when it does people fight over them furiously. A couple of these were acquired during the frontier years, when there weren’t any rival earth families around. The others we won at auctions.”

I could understand why. Having these plants here was the equivalent of always having a person showing you how it felt to attune to earth.

It was a free teacher for anyone to practice under.

The Destin family didn’t have to worry about their children attuning to earth when they had four eternal teachers in a single room.

“This is amazing.” My heartbeat quickened. “Are there metal attuned plants?”

“Not here.” Ouros shook his head vehemently. “We’re a noble family, but that’s the territory of the leviathans of the world. We wouldn’t have a chance of buying one.”

He gestured towards the ground and the dirt swirled around us. It was rich and brown, and I could feel it’s purity. There was dirt, and only dirt.

“They're going to try and build a proper metal cultivation room. Or at least I think they will.” Ouros smiled. “The first two metal attuned for generations. Man, I am going to get so many gifts for my birthday this year.”

I chuckled and we left the room.

I’d love to have this kind of setup in my own house. As much as I wanted to make my bedroom into a cultivation room, my dad couldn’t handle being around that much mana.

I also needed to know how to make one.

My issue wasn’t the materials. I had plenty of those.

“Is it difficult to make a cultivation room?” We walked through the corridor towards the other rooms. “I'm guessing it’s more than just dirt.”

“You know it.” Ouros raised his hand and I saw earth mana coming out of it. “If you try to put ordinary dirt and stones into a room the mana will leak out of them just as quickly as it comes in. You need to have them specially treated to be able to store and contain earth mana. That costs money, and the method to do it is a highly guarded secret.”

I figured it would be something like that. No company would want to give away the method to its product creation so easily. Not unless you were paying money for it.

“It’s cheaper if you provide the materials.” Ouros gestured at the room we’d just left. “The family had the plants, but a cultivation company did the groundwork and installation.”

“I wouldn’t mind having one-”

A crash to my side interrupted my words. I turned my head towards the sound and spotted Amanda in the hallway, her blue dress sprawled in dirt and her hair flaming.

In front of her was a puppy.

I ran towards her and paused as I saw the dog wasn’t moving towards her. It was light brown and had shaggy hair all across its body.

No. Not hair. I paused as I got a closer look at it.

“Is that a stone dog?” I skidded next to Amanda.

The animal looked at me and I got a close view of its face. It’s hair was animated, and its tongue lolled in front of it in its excitement.

Each part of it was made out of brown stone. I couldn’t sense any of its mana unless I concentrated carefully, similar to when I was near professor Tago.

“Fu! Down boy!” Ouros called out.

The puppy whined and pulled back as Ouros reached us.

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Amanda laughed. “We just got a bit rough with our playing.”

She raised her hand and I saw a rope in it.

“Were the two of you playing tug-of-war?” I smiled.

“More like a one-sided battle.” Amanda held the rope up triumphantly. “I was pulling so hard that I slammed into the wall when he let go of it.”

“If you couldn’t guess.” Ouros slapped his hand on his forehead. “That’s our pet golem’s room.”

I picked through the door and saw a room bathed in dirt and obstacles. Different shapes and various bars were placed inside the room alongside a few toys.

Each one was made out of a different colour material, and some even looked similar to the blue crystals that William’s weapons were made out of.

To the side there was a large stone that rose up and down. Then I took a second look at it and realised it was another animal.

“Woah.” I took a step back. “That’s a big dog.”

The other dog took up almost a quarter of the room. It was sleeping, it’s chest moving up and down rhythmically.

“That’s momma Fu. We just call her big momma.” Ouros grinned and bent down to pat the puppy. “And no, they don’t actually breathe. Not the way we do. If you’ll excuse me, I need to calm this guy down or he’ll run downstairs and knock over all the guests.”

“Of course.” I nodded. “We’ll get William.”

He picked up the stone golem and closed the door behind him. I could hear it barking inside accompanied by his shushing.

“I beat the smaller dog, now I need to try and beat the big one.” Amanda’s eyes glimmered.

She’d covered the corridor floor in dirt from inside the room when she’d slid across the ground and into the wall. Her blue dress was ruffled, and it looked like she had just gotten out of a fight with a pig.

“I’ll bet on big momma winning.” I replied.

Amanda poked her tongue out at me, and I waved my hand, the dirt flying off her dress. She gave me a grateful smile and straightened out her clothes.

I stepped forward to look through the other rooms for William when a cheer resounded from the floor below us.

It sounded like there were a lot more people than I had seen when I’d entered the castle.

I sensed a spell being cast. Earth mana glided across the corridor, gathering at the caster’s call. Then there was another cheer.

“Sounds like Unice is here.”