Seeing that the girls had tricked Merlin into doing the “mate marking ritual” without any ill intent, Emelyn thought she should be lenient with them, but she still couldn’t condone the fact that now Merlin was tied to them for life, so she made the two girls promise that they’d explain everything to Merlin during the dinner.

While Emelyn was lecturing the girls, Merlin found something which really made his day. On the wall of the well, next to the entrance of the tunnel he discovered a brick with Avalon Kingdom’s Royal family crest. After he pushed the brick, the entrance of another tunnel appeared in the opposite wall, and as soon as he took a peek inside, he knew he had hit the jackpot. When he was about to enter the new tunnel, he heard his mother calling him because dinner was ready, so he pushed another brick with the crest on the inside wall of the tunnel and, after ten seconds, its entrance closed again, then he climbed up the ladder out of the well and went into the house.

When Merlin entered the dining room, he noticed the strange mood his mother and the girls were in, he didn’t know the reason why, but he was sure something big had happened. After Emelyn served dinner, she asked Merlin:

Emelyn: “Merlin, do you know what the ritual you did with the girls was? Do you understand its real meaning?”

Merlin: “Yes, mother. It was a ritual in which I swore eternal friendship to them. Nothing to worry about.”

Emelyn: “Merlin, that wasn’t a ritual to swear eternal friendship, but the ‘mate marking ritual’. For the beast-people the ‘mate marking ritual’ equals to an engagement ring, which means that, in the future you’ll have to take the two of them as your wives!”

Merlin: “So that’s why I got that feeling!”

Emelyn: “What do you mean?”

Merlin: “Well, their reaction after doing the ritual was a little strange, so I thought that there might be more to that ritual than what they had told me, but I didn’t expect it to have these consequences…”

Emelyn: “So, now that you know everything, what are you going to do about it?”

Merlin: “Right now I won’t do anything, but when the time comes… I’ll marry my two beautiful fiancées.”

When Lupa and Bastet heard him say that, they blushed and couldn’t stop their tears of happiness. Merlin didn’t say anything else, but his mother looked at him with pride and smiled.

After dinner, a new problem arose: The girls wanted to sleep with Merlin, but Merlin and Emelyn were against it. Finally, Merlin compromised, the three of them would sleep in the guestroom with twin beds, but he and the girls would sleep in different beds. The girls still wanted to sleep with him, but they understood that wasn’t going to happen, so they stopped complaining and accepted.

When Merlin woke up the following morning, he felt something oppressing his chest, he tried to see what it was and saw Lupa and Bastet hugging him in their sleep. He replayed in his head the events of the previous night and confirmed he had gone to bed alone, so the girls should have sneaked into his bed after he fell asleep. He carefully slipped out of the bed without waking them up and tried to go investigate the new tunnel in the well, but his mother caught him before he could exit the house and had him have breakfast. While he was having it, his mother expressed her doubts about the situation with the girls:

Emelyn: “Merlin, I didn’t want to ask you this in front of Lupa and Bastet, but… are you sure about what you said about marrying them in the future? What if you fall in love with another girl?”

Merlin: “Mother, regarding Lupa and Bastet, I’ve already made my mind, besides, we’ll grow up together, so I’m going to shape them to my liking and keep them by my side for the rest of my life. Also, I’m sure I’ll fall in love with another girl in the future, like you said, but how to deal with that situation, I’ll decide when the time comes.”

Emelyn: “Ok. If you have already decided, I won’t stop you, but remember that you must always respect those girls, ok? Don’t go making them do strange things just because they’re your fiancées!”

Merlin: “Mother, I understand, I’ll love them and respect them.”

After his mother stopped lecturing him on how to treat Lupa and Bastet, he went to the well. Merlin opened the new tunnel and went inside. On the other side of the tunnel there was a circular room illuminated by the magic crystals in the ceiling. The walls were covered with bookshelves and there were two metal doors which led to two other rooms. In the center of the circular room there was a table with research papers on it. The room on the right served as storage room, as well as, alchemy laboratory. The other room was a wide white space with a gravity regulator, which allowed the user to increase the gravity inside the space as many times as wished, so in Merlin’s opinion it was a training room.

Merlin thought that he could use the training room to practice his magic, as for the gravity function, he decided not to use it yet, otherwise it would hinder his physical growth. He took the book “Party tricks”, by Merlin Pendragon. Although it said “party tricks”, it also contained several useful spells, like eye color or hair color changing spells, which could be cast both on oneself or on others. He learned all of them in less than half an hour and then put the book back to the bookshelf.

The next thing he did was to examine the items in the storage room, to do so, he used his “Analytical Observation” to know what each material was for, when looking at a strange colored round crystal…

*Ding*

[table]Object Status WindowItemTeleportation StoneRankLegendaryRarity8Item descriptionThis teleportation stone is a rare artifact manufactured in the Avalon Kingdom thousands of years ago. It allows the user to teleport anywhere he/she wants, as long as the user has a clear image of the place in the mind, and the destination place doesn’t have an anti-teleportation barrier.[table]

Merlin: “What the…!?”

For Merlin this was actually quite the good finding, because he was a little disheartened that after discovering the lab, the library and the training room, he’d have to go back to Sephiria instead of enjoying the profits of using them. But the teleportation stone changed that, he could go back to Sephiria and still come to the well to train whenever he wanted to. The only problem was that the teleportation stone was a rare artifact only available to royalties and high nobility of the different nations due to its scarcity. This meant he’d have to keep its existence a secret if he didn’t want any trouble.

Merlin continued to use his “Analytical Observation” on the rest of the items and he found two identical stones, no bigger than his pinky, which would help him in developing Lupa’s and Bastet’s abilities, so he took one of them.

*Ding*

[table]

Object Status WindowItemMagic Awakening StoneRankHighRarity2Item descriptionThis Magic Awakening stone is an artifact manufactured in the Avalon Kingdom thousands of years ago. It allows the user to give the Magic Awakening to anyone he/she wants, independently of the target’s age, gender or race.[table]

Merlin saw a few other interesting items, but he didn’t take his time inspecting them because it was noon and they were going to call him for lunch at any time, so he closed the tunnel climbed up the ladder out of the well and went into the house. When he stepped into the house Lupa and Bastet tried to hug him at the same time and ended up pushing him to the ground. The girls had been crying because when they woke up he wasn’t in the room, and when they went down to have breakfast, he was nowhere to be found, so they were afraid of having been abandoned. Merlin waited until they calmed down and then he got up and went to the dining room accompanied by the girls.

A week later, Emelyn told them they would depart for Sephiria the following morning. Right after being told so, Merlin hurried to the well and used magic of earth attribute to completely seal the tunnel that led out of the village and to dissolve the ladder he had previously made.

Three days after departing from Laklostia, they arrived to the caravan camping site where the massacre had taken place but, with the exception of some strange magic fluctuations, every trace of it had been erased. Luckily for the girls, their parent’s unmarked burial site had been left untouched. While the girls were paying their respects to their parents, Emelyn and Merlin thought that baronet Linus probably had made clean up to erase any possible proof of his involvement, so they decided that, this time, they wouldn’t enter the commercial town of Katra, they would go around it. This would only add a few hours to their trip, and it would be significantly safer for the girls.

Four days later, they arrived to Shephiria and entered during a shift change. Besides, after three weeks looking for a redheaded boy with golden eyes, the guards didn’t even bother with the children anymore, so it didn’t take much time.

**************************************************************************

Shephiria’s Palace. Conference room.

Laurenz had just finished reporting to the king the results of the 3-week search for the boy.

Laurenz: “Your Majesty, I think that the boy was just passing by and didn’t actually live in the city, otherwise the city guards would have seen him at least once in the last three weeks, yet that didn’t happen.”

King Dollan Shephiran: “You might be right, Laurenz, although it’s a pity, I really wanted him to be around Adelle… Were you able to at least find out something about hat boy’s background?”

Laurenz: “No, your Majesty, I was unable to do so. But if you would allow me to make an educated guess based on what we know about him…”

K. Dollan: “Please, be my guest.”

Laurenz: “Thank you, your Majesty. Well, a commoner who had in his possession two vials of ‘Amariena’ and didn’t hesitate to use them to help a stranger, a good fighter, and possibly a magus prodigy… If we add the fact that he went to the Alchemist Association to buy materials for his father and that such prodigal use of ‘Amariena’ could lead us to think that his family has enough in stock to make the use of two vials in a row “negligible”, I can only think of one conclusion…”

K. Dollan: “Which is…?”

Laurenz: “That the boy must belong to an ancient family of alchemists who have passed down a significant amount of vials of ‘Amariena’ through its generations.”

K. Dollan: “Well, that certainly would explain how a commoner had in his possession two vials of ‘Amariena’ and didn’t hesitate to use them… Have you checked if any alchemist has entered or exited the city in the last month?”

Laurenz: “Yes, your Majesty. But no one among them had a child who fitted the description.”

K. Dollan: “It really is a pity, but I think we’ll have to give up on that boy…”

Laurenz: “I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you better results, your Majesty.”

K. Dollan: “Well, nothing can be done about it. What happened, happened. Anyway, return to your duties guarding Adelle.”

Laurenz: “Yes, your Majesty.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: The items ranking is: Lesser > Medium > High > Extraordinary > Legendary > Mythical > Godly.

_________________________________________________________________________

You can always read a chapter ahead, or support the story, at http://merlinpendragon.blogspot.com/ !