Right after the caravan entered the capital, Emelyn instructed the coachman to go towards the Palace. The first thing she wanted to do after arriving to Shephiria was to let her husband know they were there. When Anthon finally showed up, Emelyn just told him to ask for a two week leave at the Palace, and meet them at their house, then she turned around, and went back into the carriage after giving the directions of their house in the city to the coachman.

Merlin was really surprised when he saw the house, despite it being half the size their house at Laklostia, it was larger than he had imagined. He explored the whole house, and when his mother assigned the rooms to the children, he interrupted her and asked for the basement to be his room. Emelyn didn’t understand why a four-year-old kid would want to live in the basement of a house he had never been staying at before, but his answer left her dumbfounded and a little worried, because he had said he wanted to start doing basic compounding and he needed a workspace. With this answer, Merlin tried to convince her mother, but it backfired.

Emelyn: “C-compounding? What are you talking about? You are merely four years old! There is no way I’m going to allow that! It’s too dangerous!”

Merlin: “Don’t worry about me, mother. I’m old enough to manage the materials without any assistance. As for the theoretical knowledge, I already know the formulas up to intermediate level…”

Emelyn: “Argh! Look, Merlin. No matter how much theoretical knowledge you have about it, that doesn’t change the fact that you are still a four-year-old child! Working with fire and dangerous materials which can blow up anytime… as your mother, I can’t allow that!”

Merlin: “In that case… If I only use non-dangerous material, and don’t use fire… would you give me your permission to do it?”

Emelyn: “Ok… but I’ll be checking on you from time to time… and if I ever discover you breaking those conditions, I’ll forbid you from doing compounding until you turn 15, understood?”

Merlin: “It’ crystal clear, mother!” *It’s not like I’m going to let you find out if do anyway… *

Emelyn: “It better be!”

After they came to an agreement, Emelyn assigned the rest of the rooms: The two rooms on the north would be used by Arnold (who would sleep alone), Josh and Bly (who would share a room). The room on the south was assigned to Jasmine. Emelyn would use the guest room, while Leyla would sleep with Anthon in the main room. This kind of room arrangements were unexpected because Emelyn wouldn’t share the main room with Anthon and Leyla, but the announcement she made right after, made them forget about the room arrangement. She told them they would stay in the capital for a year and a half, until Merlin’s awakening took place. Afterwards, they would return to Laklostia.

Merlin was quite pleased by his mother’s announcement. Being in Shephiria for a year and a half would allow him to do compounding to his heart’s content. Thanks to their house being close to the Magic Association, he would be able to start practicing magic spells without his mother finding out about his magic awakening, for she wouldn’t be able to distinguish the mana fluctuations of his magic from the ones coming from the Magic Association. And as a bonus, he might would be able to watch his father training the Crown Prince… or the training of the knights… and maybe pick up a few things on the way.

His brothers, on the other hand… They weren’t as enthusiastic as him about remaining in the capital. The primary reason for that was their father. Back in Laklostia their father would come and supervise their training once a month, while the rest of the month they could fool around a little when training. Here, in the capital, their father would supervise their training every day… and they didn’t like his strictness.

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When Anthon arrived, Emelyn took him and Leyla into the master room to explain matters and decide how to proceed from then on. In the room, Emelyn told Anthon about Leyla, the rape and the reason she had ordered him to ask for two-week leave at the Palace. When he found out about what Leyla had gone through, he lost all the color in his face, brought her towards him and embraced her.

He understood Emelyn’s plan and although he didn’t exactly liked it, he didn’t have any choice if he wanted to save some face… but that wasn’t his main reason to accept her plan, the main reason was Leyla. If he slept with Leyla non-stop for two weeks neither of them would know whose child the baby was, and that would give them some peace of mind. Anthon was ovewhelmed by the situation, and regretfully thought *If only I had more money, she wouldn’t have to go through this… *

This world had two kinds of birth-control potions: the “Donna potion” and the “Nadon potion”. The “Donna potion” was a contraceptive potion, its use was widely spread and its price was 2 large-copper coins per vial. The “Nadon potion” was an abortive potion, but as its main ingredient was “Firebreath flower”, an S-Class ingredient only found in fire-dragon dens, its price was 30 gold per vial, which made it available only to the aristocracy or people of similar wealth.

The following two weeks Leyla and Anthon barely went out of the room. Meanwhile, Emelyn took Jasmine and the kids around the city and bought the things necessary for the family to live in that house for a long period of time. Since up to that moment Anthon was alone in the house, furniture and some other basic items were lacking a little.

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Six months later…

Merlin finished his meditation, got up and started his martial arts practice. He had made a surprising discovery a couple of months before and now, after two months of practice, he had finally managed to get the hang of it. He accidentally discovered that if he circulated the mana in his body through his blood vessels, it permeated through them to the cells, and he was able to naturally strengthen his cells, without causing mana lost. This resulted in him having the strength of an adult when using this technique. It was similar to what he had read about ki strengthening in his previous world, so that’s how he called that technique.

He discovered that use of mana when he tried to circulate it through his body in an attempt to purify it, but it didn’t work. Instead, he discovered a way to use mana to momentarily boost up his physical abilities, and it had an unexpected side effect: after its use a 5% of the total boost up remained, at a cellular level. Which meant that after using this technique, Merlin would become a little stronger, and that was a side effect which would make the most out of his training.

He then checked his own status:

*Ding*

Status WindowNameMerlin PendragonAge5Race**** HumanLevel5GenderMaleHealth800/800Health Regen.0.009 / SecMana145 671Mana Regen.0.017 / SecMagic

“Imagination Creation Magic (lv. 2)”

"Status Window Spell (lv. 2)"

"Analytic Observation Spell (lv. 9)"

“Elemental Magic (lv. 2)”

Attribute affinityFire (extraordinary), Water (extraordinary), Wind (extraordinary), Earth (extraordinary), Space-time (extraordinary), Light (extraordinary), Darkness (extraordinary), Non-attribute (extraordinary)Skills

“Otherworldly Martial Art: Aikido (lv. 5)”

“Otherworldly Martial Art: Karate (lv. 5)”

“Otherworldly Martial Art: Taekwondo (lv. 6)”

“Lotus Crescendus” (lv. 6)

“Ki Strengthening Technique (lv. 7)”

"Marked mate tracking (lv. 10)"

“Intermediate Compounding Av.In (lv. 9)”

What he read on the window showed to him that his harsh training schedule really had paid off. He had levelled up in every way, and his mana pool had almost tripled, he didn’t actually expect that 8 - 10 hours of meditation per day would have this effect on his mana pool, he expected a significant increase, but not this significant! Besides, he had checked his mother’s status the previous week and her mana pool was 12349 MP, which confirmed to him, he had a mana pool which could probably rival a High Elf’s. His mana pool clearly exceeded the limits of a human, and it was still growing… this led him to think of the problem called “Magic Awakening Ritual” which he would have to attend the following year. He still hadn’t thought of any countermeasures for it, so it was about time to start doing some thinking…

Two weeks after mastering his ki strengthening technique, Merlin went to the Alchemist Association to buy some materials (he had achieved mastery of Avalon’s intermediate level in compounding) because he had started making antidotes the previous month and run out of many materials. He was especially proud of one antidote called “Amariena”. He had tried out the formula and was successful, but he had been extremely lucky in this case, not only in getting it right at the first try, but also finding the main ingredient, “Amara flower”, in their garden.

The “Amara flower” was thought to have become extinct 500 years earlier, so seeing one was no short of a miracle. Merlin, after finding the flower, he collected its seeds to plant it in the future and have his own personal share of “Amara flowers”. The “Amariena” was an antidote said to be able to eliminate any toxin and damage caused by it to the body, and it lasted for hundreds of years, hence despite the flower’s alleged extinction, there were some vials of “Amariena” still in existence.

The people at the Alchemist Association thought he was running an errand for his parents, who would have dared to imagine this five-year-old boy was actually so proficient in compounding that he was able to produce even A-Rank antidotes? Obviously Merlin wasn’t going to correct them, he wanted to keep a low profile, so their misunderstanding of the situation suited him just fine. When he was done, he passed by the library memorized a couple of spell books and then decided to go home because it was getting dark.

On his way home, he heard sounds of a fight and the suffocated cry of a girl. Anyone else would have probably been unable to hear them, but his enhanced senses allowed him to do so. The sounds came from a side-alley in front of him and when he got there, the scene he saw made him lose it. He couldn’t care less about the six dead guards on the ground or the man in butler clothes who was receiving a beating, but he saw three men with black knives attacking a little girl. To make matters worse, the girl had a black stab wound on her left arm and the blackness was spreading, which convinced him of two facts: first, the knives should have poison, be enchanted, or maybe both; second, they wanted to kill the girl and unless he interfered they would be successful.

Merlin immediately used his strengthening technique and attacked the men, he started with the ones attacking the butler and finished them off by breaking the neck of the one who was crouching down, and crushing the skull of the other one with a downward kick. Then, he took their knives and threw them at two of the men attacking the little girl, two hits, two deaths, one of the knives pierced the heart of the man on the right, the other knife severed the carotid artery of the man on the left. As for the one left standing, Merlin broke one of his legs with a low kick, forced him to kneel and killed him with a heavy punch to the temple.

He then turned around and talked to the little girl:

Merlin: “Hello, what’s your name, little miss?”

???: “Ad-Adelle”

Merlin: “Ok, Adelle. I want you to drink this. Don’t worry it’ll make you feel better.”

After saying that he brought out a vial of “Amariena” and tried to make her drink it. To his surprise, the girl was so scared because of the fight she had just witnessed, that she spilled and wasted the vial, but didn’t drink it. Seeing this and that the poison in her was quickly spreading, he resorted to the ultimate method. He took out a second vial of “Amariena”, kept the contents of the vial in his mouth, approached Adelle, kept her down against the ground, kissed her and gave her the “Amariena” mouth-to-mouth.

Then, after making sure the poison was gone, he used a basic healing spell of water attribute to heal her stab wound. Once he made sure she was completely recovered, he checked the butler and saw he had been rough up, but overall he was ok. Merlin heard a group of knights coming in his direction, so he quickly left the alley, just before the knights arrived at the scene.

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