After failing to cut the boulder again Erica slowed down and carefully considered things. How was she supposed to keep her attack from destroying her weapon? She swung the sword a few times allowing some light mana to flow into it, causing it to smolder and ignite. She then used water mana in the same way to extinguish it. She continued this cycle a few times with three swords until they were unusable.

At this point, she finally realized her mistake. She was running the mana through the blade. She quickly took position again and swung her sword. This time however she covered the blade in light mana and swung. The blade cut straight through the boulder-like butter and the blade was fine.

“Good job learning so fast. You’re really talented.” Owari wasn’t stingy with his praise. “Next is this.” He tossed her a blade which she quickly pulled out. However, the blade was only five centimeters long.

“Um, teacher…” She looked at the short blade and frowned. “How am I supposed to cut with such a short blade?”

“Watch.” Owari jumped down and swung his hand casually. The boulder he had been sitting on fell into two pieces without him having touched it. “You have to turn the air into your blade.”

“Yes teacher.” She looked at him with sparkling eyes.

“Now give it a try.” He walked over to another boulder and jumped up on it to sit down while he watched.

She swung the sword over and over, not even aiming at the boulders. She knew she wasn’t close to ready to split a boulder with just the air. She continued this for a while, slowly trying to get a feel for how to gather wind using just the strength of her body and skill. However it wasn’t as easy as Owari made it seem. He figured it out due to his life being on the line, Erica’s only pressure came from her desire not to let down her teacher.

This continued for about an hour before Noel came out. She walked through the forest casually as if on a stroll, holding the baby as if taking her here was the most natural thing in the world. “So how long do you plan to be out here?” She asked while pouting.

“Don’t pretend to be all upset. I already asked if it was okay if I took the day off today in exchange for giving you a day off tomorrow.” Owari smiled back at her causing her to pout more.

“I didn’t realize how lonely it would be in the house with you gone again after so long. I even walked into the study by habit.” She argued back as she walked over and joined him to watch Erica practice.

“Heh, that’s quite cute of you.” Owari jumped down and kissed her head. “Why don’t you stay here a bit, I’ll hold the baby.” He took over Sophia and held her closely and carefully.

“You look good as a father.” Noel appraised him.

“You say that all the time.” Owari was used to the compliment by this point.

“Because it’s true.” Noel laughed.

“Um, teacher…” Erica interrupted them. “Can you give me a hint?”

“Alright. You need to increase the resistance the blade has. It’s the opposite of trying to cut through something without any resistance.” He gave in and actually gave her some direct instructions.

“Okay!” She said spiritedly and began trying to increase the air resistance on her blade.

“She’s as cute as ever.” Noel noted.

“Indeed. I’m just a bit worried. Even as old as she is she still acts so childlike.” Owari said with some uncertainty.

“Maybe we spoiled her too much…” She considered it for a bit. “Or maybe she does it on purpose because she knows we like it. She is quite sharp after all so it’s unlikely she is so simpleminded.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Owari also considered this point. “Either way she is who she is and how we feel won’t change.”

“Agreed.” Noel replied instantly.

The two watched as Erica tried her best while they chatted about this and that. After another hour the baby started to cry and Noel took her back to the house to feed her. Owari continued to direct Erica for another hour until lunch came and the two made their way back home. When they got there they found lunch was already prepared for them and they arrived just in time to eat with Noel. They all enjoyed a healthy and delicious meal before moving on to new things.

Owari didn’t directly bring Erica back out to train. Instead he took her into his study and began having her read some books he had on martial arts and physical exercises. This would give her some insights in how to improve herself. One of her problems in regard to her learning is a lack of a proper knowledge base. She wasn’t like Owari who built his skills naturally in battle. She was learning through a rigid and systematic approach which required knowledge as a prerequisite.

After a few hours of that Owari allowed her to take a break and gave her some books on magical beasts and affinities that he had obtained and even some he wrote. He mostly compiled the information from more scattered and less professional books and rewrote them in a more standardized format. She happily accepted the books and ended up reading for hours, all the way until it was time to get some sleep. She even read into the night a bit and went to bed late, deciding to stay over so she could read more.

Soon after time seemed to pass quickly once again and a month had almost come and gone. It was around this time that Owari received some news on the party situation. It would take place in another month since that was the earliest people started to become available. Owari sent back a letter saying he was fine with that and finished up some minor work involving his silk company. It was mostly checking the budget to make sure nothing was wrong.

Again time passed by without much happening. Noel and Owari made sure to spend more time together and left Sophia to Morgana more often. Not only did they want Sophia to develop some level of familiarity with Morgana, they also wanted to give her more independence since it would be bad if she grew reliant on them. Especially since she would eventually have to go to school. They didn’t want her to be unwilling to go due to her attachment to them.

A little over half a month passed before they made their way to the dragon territory to attend the party. As usual they rode first class on an express train. Noel casually watched the scenery go by as she recalled what seemed like a distant memory. When she and Owari had rode in that car so long ago she had been so surprised and in awe of how much space there was out of the city. She had been quite naive and sheltered back then. However those few days with Owari were a very pleasant memory so she couldn’t help but be in a good mood for the remainder of the trip.

When they arrived they casually made their way into the Silverblood estate. The guards at the gate didn’t even bother to stop them. At this point everyone in the family knew their description, especially Noel who was very eye-catching. After entering the estate they made their way to the main building to visit Francis. He immediately let them in as soon as he was notified they were there. They obviously deserved some level of respect just based on their achievements let alone them being family.

“It’s good to see you again.” He laughed refreshingly. “I must thank you for letting me use your names. We caught a lot of big fish.”

“That was the point.” Owari also laughed.

“Who’d have thought we’d make such good bait one day?” Noel asked rhetorically. Both she and Owari had been aware they’d either make it to this point or die along the way with how they trained.

“Either way it’s a big help. Is there any reason you came to see me or is it just for a friendly chat?” He was curious.

“I just wanted to see you.” Noel admitted shamelessly. It was a bit selfish, but she knew with her status and importance she could easily meet her grandfather now if she wanted unlike in the past when it was only under special circumstances.

“I see.” He certainly didn’t expect her to be so honest.

“In an effort not to entirely waste your time I wanted to give you this as well.” He handed over a letter to Francis.

“What is it?” He asked as he opened it.

“An opportunity.” He said mysteriously.

After reading it he was somewhat shocked. “This is quite the opportunity.” Inside the letter was the details of a new medicine that was developed. It has the ability to raise the physical fitness of someone rapidly over short periods with few side effects. “Where did you get this information?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“I have some people in various places who owe me a favor or two. This time it was someone from the Orion Tradecenter. He happened to be related to one of the researchers working on the project. He said he could get them a backer and came to me right away.” Owari explained. He had helped a few people over the years, mostly minor things. But just being in contact with him and owing him a favor was enough for their value to skyrocket in their organizations due to the connection they had with him.

“So why hand over this information to me?” Francis was surprised.

“We can both invest. That way we'll jointly own the company. It will show others that I won’t be swayed away from the Silverblood family. I get a surprising amount of offers asking me to switch sides.” Owari was somewhat exasperated by it.

“I think I get it. Your status is too tantalizing to ignore. Even I would try the same had you joined another family.” Francis admitted.

“I wonder who I would have joined had I not met Noel.” Owari wasn’t sure if he would have. He had always planned to be independent. However he married into the Silverblood family so he felt a certain level of attachment to them and took up some responsibility when it came to them.

“Probably nobody.” Noel said from the side. “Though I often wonder what it would have been like to meet you under such circumstances where we didn’t meet during the train crash. With your method of growth it was inevitable you would grow to a point where I would be required to meet you as a representative of my family.”

“I think about that sometimes too. Honestly I’m glad things turned out the way they did. Though the casualties required are a bit of a shame.” He shook his head. He felt things would have been less favorably had things not gone the way they did. He had a feeling Noel would have never fallen for him, and with how he was he would have never given her a chance if not for that three-day long car ride they had where he listened to her go on and on and got to know her.

“As fun as it is to watch you reminisce. How should we divide the investment?” Francis got them back on point.

“I plan to invest somewhere around 300,000 credits.” He didn’t have that much on hand, but a few hundred thousand credit loan was no problem for him to get.

“That is more than I can afford to invest.” Francis only had so much liquid income for the family to use on such things. He also had to be more careful with how he invested in case things went poorly.

“That’s fine. You just need around 100,000 to get a good chunk of ownership.” Owari recommended.

“I can do that if I add in my own personal wealth to the mix.” Francis was always willing to sacrifice for the sake of the family.

Seeing him like that Owari was quite moved. He was willing to put so much effort to help the family even when nobody would probably even notice. “You’re a good man.” Owari spoke his mind.

This surprised Francis. “Thank you for the compliment.” He gave a wide refreshing smile. It was rare to get a compliment from someone like Owari so it didn’t feel all that bad.

“Well we should let you get back to work. Show up at the party. We’ll let you hold the baby for a bit.” Noel gave him incentive to come. She had purposely left the baby behind today so he would have no choice but to come and see her at the party.

“I suppose I have no choice.” He said helplessly, fully aware of her scheme.

Noel and Owari made their way to their usual guest house where Morgana and Sophia were waiting. The night passed swiftly as did the next day and soon it was time for the party. Seeing how it was early June they decided to consider it a joint party for the three of them. Considering Noel, Owari, and Sophia all had birthdays in June. It at least made it easy to remember when everyone’s birthday was. As for Sophia’s development, she was right on track. She was neither fast nor slow. She could already call out for Noel and Owari and knew how to say eat when she was hungry. It wasn’t unexpected that her first word would be eat with how glutinous her parents were.

They swiftly arrived at the party venue, as early as always they were some of the first people there. The only ones to beat them were the servants setting up the place. After about a dozen minutes though other people started to flood in. Mostly it started with people from the Silverblood family. They happily chatted with Noel and Owari, praising them to no end and going nuts over the baby. For Sophia’s part she was quite shy and was a bit nervous, but having her parents nearby settled her down and she was able to properly behave.

Soon enough the other guests started to arrive with the first being those who had been staying in the Silverblood estate. The first one to show up was Max who immediately walked over to them to greet them. “Hello there. It’s been a while. Last time I saw you the two of you weren’t infamous across the whole continent.” He joked.

“Yet people still want to talk to us for some reason.” Noel sighed. So many people would be coming today in the hopes of gaining connections with them. What a bother it would be.

“It’s because your names mean something.” Max smiled a bit forcefully. He would kill to have the sway they did.

“Why don’t you get stronger if you want to be like us?” Owari reprimanded him. “You do know how to get stronger. Don’t tell me you’re afraid?”

“Well I was afraid. But now I have a different reason.” He smiled happily.

“Octavia is pregnant right?” Noel chuckled.

“You should have trained before that.” Owari lamented. He was in a similar position himself. He no longer had the drive to go out and risk his life because of his daughter.

“I know. I only managed to reach mid platinum. Hopefully my talent lets me reach high platinum with just training. When our child gets a bit older I can go back to fighting to train, though I’ll never do anything as dangerous as before.” He admitted.

“Luckily you have good talent.” Owari reassured him. As they spoke they were approached by another person. This time it was Gregory.

“Hello there. It’s nice to see you again.” He wasn’t alone. Next to him was Kent.

“Where’s Maribelle?” Noel asked.

“She’s been feeling sick lately so she couldn’t make the trip.” Kent explained.

“Hopefully it’s nothing major. She does have a weak constitution.” Owari really did hope for her to be alright. One of the reasons he was planning on sponsoring the new drug that was being developed was in the hopes it could help her out. After all she was the wife of his student.

“Right. It shouldn’t be too bad.” Kent had no idea what Owari was thinking so he took what he said at face value.

“That’s good.” Noel interjected. “We seem to have more guests arriving.”

Soon enough the rest of the group made their way over. Ignatius, Lee and Lin, and even Luke, Noel’s cousin. For some reason he was late despite the fact that he lived here. “What was the hold up Luke?” Owari couldn’t help but ask.

“I was training late last night and overdid it. I ended up sleeping in late.” He chuckled in embarrassment.

“Makes sense.” Owari nodded. It would take a lot to make a high platinum rank like him tired so it must have been intense training.

“Speaking of training, Kent, you seem to have improved.” Noel interrupted to save her cousin the embarrassment.

“I did. Just recently I reached low electrum rank.” He smiled faintly. It was a massive accomplishment for his age, only overshadowed by Noel and Owari who were monsters.

“Impressive.” Owari really was impressed. If not for him and Noel it would be Kent everyone here would be trying to get in the good books of. It would be easy for him to impress the various people here and make connections.

“Thanks.” Kent was elated to have received praise, but he was much more calm than he had been in the past so he didn’t show it much. He had matured rather well, compared to a certain girl Owari and Noel knew.

“It really is quite the accomplishment. Unlike us you stuck to the training.” Max respected Kent for his dedication.

“I just felt like if I couldn’t do at least this much I wouldn’t live up to their expectations.” He still felt he could have done better.

“You shouldn’t compare yourself to people like them.” Gregory said openly.

“But they’re my teachers. Who else would I compare myself to?” Kent rebuffed him. When he said it that way it certainly did make sense.

“Don’t push yourself too hard. The last thing we want is for you to get killed chasing after us.” Owari patted his shoulder. “Do things at your pace.”

“Right.” Kent nodded.

“So I see you’re all gathered here.” At this moment Lance and Rebecca arrived.

“What took you so long?” Noel asked.

“Unlike the rest of you we stayed at a place outside of the estate.” Rebecca chuckled.

“Why?” Owari wondered.

“We haven’t really traveled much together so we wanted to see what it was like.” Lance explained. “We figured after this whole event that we would go on a trip and visit a few places.”

“I have a few recommendations.” Noel spoke up. After that she listed off a few destinations which were known for their natural beauty as well as a few man-made structures such as the large marble building located in the Nix territory.

“We’ll keep that in mind.” Rebecca was elated to have a few destinations in mind.

“Hopefully we’ll have the time to visit all those places.” Lance smiled a bit forcefully.

“If you take the express trains it’ll be a few months worth of trips if you take an optimal route. Do you have the money?” Owari asked with a smile.

“It’ll bite into our savings but yes.” Lance immediately answered.

“Alright. But if you want to borrow some money I’m always willing to lend it. Even if it’s just a momentary loan. Unlike those banks I won’t charge interest.” Owari chuckled.

“I almost forgot you were rich too.” Lin said.

“Yeah, I have a bit of money.” Owari said humbly.

“If that’s a bit I’m terrified to see what you think a lot is.” Noel laughed.

“Who knows?” Owari shrugged helplessly. He didn’t value money in the first place so any amount would be the same to him as long as he could survive.

“You’re thinking something ridiculous again.” Noel said sharply.

“Nothing in particular. I’m just glad I have the money to support my family.” Owari laughed.

“That’s what you call supporting your family?” Lance smiled wryly.

“Plus some extra.” Owari waved it off. “Enough about money. How have you all been?”

Everyone then proceeded to answer with relatively vague answers like ‘good’ or ‘well enough’ and so on. Owari just laughed lightly at this. Noel couldn’t help but smile seeing everyone be so awkward. It was hard to talk while in a big group like this. After all there were a lot of people who could potentially interrupt the flow of the conversation.

“Why don’t we all split up? The other ‘important’ guests are arriving. Now that we’ve been seen talking so friendly with one another it’s the perfect chance to jump on the opportunity.” Owari suggested.

Everyone seemed to agree and began splitting up, tactically agreeing to go different ways to talk to different people. “You know now that we’re alone, people are going to come bother us right?” Noel asked rhetorically.

“Yeah, this is going to be a bother, but it’s for the sake of our friends.” Owari just smiled as he saw someone already starting to approach them. It was going to be a long day. He just hoped the conversations he got in with his friends would make up for the annoyances.

Soon enough Owari and Noel were sick of having people introduce themselves to them. They always had the same lines. ‘My name is X’ followed by ‘I work at/for X’ followed by ‘Are you interested in X at all’ and so on. Eventually Kent made his way over and forced his way past the crowds of people. They all showed dissatisfaction for him skipping the line and prepared to voice their complaints.

“Kent, it’s good to see you. How did things go?” Seeing Owari’s friendly reaction to Kent, everyone immediately shut their mouths. All it took was one sentence from him to make a whole group of the most influential people on the continent to bite their tongues.

“They’ve been well. I’ve met quite a few people. Though they aren’t always nice, it helps me find the people worth talking to.” Kent said calmly, despite being fully aware some of those ‘not nice’ people were among the crowd here.

“As long as you made even a few connections today you’ve profited.” Noel had high hopes for Kent making connections, however it seemed most of the businessmen here didn’t have the ability to determine one’s strength. Those ‘nice’ ones were likely the ones who could.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I came over here to see how things have been for you. You look exhausted.” Really he came over to help give them some room to breathe.

“Thanks for worrying about us. It is a bit tiring meeting so many people. However it’s necessary to make proper connections.” Owari answered seriously.

“You’re right.” Kent ruffled his hair a bit. “But it is a bit difficult to figure out who the sincere ones are.”

“Is it?” Both Noel and Owari responded. Noel had grown used to reading people having worked as the Silverblood representative, while Owari could flat out read a person’s aura. His ability had evolved to the degree of sensing when someone had an ulterior motive.

“For normal people like me, yes. I was just a country boy a few years ago.” He smiled forcefully.

“So was I.” Owari chuckled.

“But unlike you I didn’t prepare at all for the life I would end up living. I simply thought it would be fine to rely on my family’s mystic art to make a decent living. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d join the Aquila family and inherit one of their greatest mystic arts.” He sighed.

“Well I’m glad you were able to have such a good life. You deserve it.” Noel felt he was a good kid. Because of this she felt he deserved all of the success he obtained, especially since he never let it get to his head.

“It wouldn’t have been possible without you two.” He smiled. Like this the group of three talked a little more before separating again. It was time to get back to the tedious work.