Chapter 17 - 16: Growing Up (first Time Skip)

A few months passed by and Arya steadily learned more magic by watching Luca practice and converting the spells he had witnessed into ones that he could use without inhaling mana. It could be said that although Luca was more of a genius at magic than Arya, Arya had the advantage of his past knowledge on magic from Earth TV shows.

Arya also began to slowly feel like he was a real part of the family. Lillian and Neel showed him the utmost care and reminded him of happier times back on Earth when both his parent were alive. Ava and Luca loved him so much and would play with him everyday, they were the sibling Arya never had. And although Luna was a bit weird she reminded Arya of the grandmother that he had left back on Earth.

Over the months Ava also became a skilled swordsman. Her unwillingness to be left behind by her twin brother drove her to try and master every technique she was taught. To the extent that she even began to create her very own techniques.

Luca showed to be more of a genius than anyone expected especially at ice magic. Once he was able to cast tier 0 spells he quickly rose to the level of tier 4 spells. Something that his mother only learned when she had already began silent casting. Luca's genius scared Lillian to no end and she had a bad feeling that all the peace she had worked for would soon come to an end.

The twins sixth birthday came and went. They had a small party where all the neighbourhood kids were invited for cake. (AN: keep in mind that this area is home to poor people and cake is a delicacy that some would never get to taste otherwise.)

Arya's birthday was coming up and although early he became fed up with not being able to communicate with his family. So he slowly began forming his "first" words. Lillian and Neel were too happy to realise that it was quite queer for a baby who isn't even a year to be forming his first words but no one else seemed to care either.

"Mama where LuLu?" asked Arya in a babyish way inwardly cringing. "LuLu is practicing with aunt Luna baby. Do you want to go see him?" said Lillian smiling at her baby's cute way of referring to his older brother. "Yes mama." said Arya giving his best baby smile.

Lillian placed Arya outside on the ground where Luca was practicing and Arya tried crawling a bit closer to Luca. "Don't get too close Arya you could get hurt." said Lillian as she pulled Arya back.

Luca was practicing tier 4 ice magic. Ice magic seemed to have become Luca's favourite type of magic a he hardly ever did water magic anymore. Basic magic such as Dark, Light, Water, Fire, Earth and Air only went till tier 4 where as the variant types such as Ice could go till tier 10. Past tier 4, magic began to take the shape of known structures such as animals, weapons or anything else that the caster was able to envision and produce.

Luca was currently forming a tier 4 Ice spell he personally created 'Dragon's rage'. He had recently discovered that although he didn't show an affinity for fire magic he could still borrow some of its properties by mixing in small amounts of fire magic into his spells. "Iram draconis" chanted Luca, a blue dragon quickly charged out of his palm explosively and charged at a nearby tree at the speed of sound. The tree was frozen and exploded into a million shards forming a rainbow as light was refracted off the ice shards that were sprinkled into the air.

From Arya's point of view Luca didn't seem like a 6 year old boy but like a great mage from one of the story books he had read as a child. Lillian however seemed saddened by the sight, she knew that the greater a person's talent the more suffering they would have to go through to achieve happiness.

"Luca come inside it's nearly supper." said Lillian as she picked up Arya and walked into the house. Arya was now big enough to eat porridge prepared for him which delighted him to no end as he was becoming mentally strained from being breastfed. The family enjoyed a nice dinner, Neel asked the twins what they had done the whole day and like always Luca would tell them about how his magic was progressing and Ava would have to lie that she was playing with the neighbourhood kids which always managed to make Neel give Lillian a sad look.

After dinner Neel spoke to Lillian while she washed the dishes. "Lilly its nearly Arya's first birthday I think we need to tell him the story of his ancestors. You never know when our last day of peace might be. With Luca's talent in magic it won't be long before he wants to start finding others who can use magic like himself.".

"I know dear but can't it wait, Arya is still young and he hasn't shown to be special in anyway apart from his interest in Luca's magic, but that's normal for a kid." Lillian tried pleading.

"Lillian I know that you're family never gave you any respite but don't you think you're protecting the kids a little too much? We are not you're parents Lilly, we can do things differently. And this isn't a matter of talent or not. Arya has white hair which is a sign of inheritance and the only reason he hasn't shown anything special is because we sealed his powers remember? Arya has to know about his forefathers." said Neel as he caressed Lillian's cheek.

"Look Lilly if it hurts you so much I won't tell it to him directly. I'll act as if it's a bedtime story and when he is older I'll reveal the whole truth, like I did for the others. But one day he has to know the truth because unlike the others he might have dragon blood flowing through his veins.

"Okay Dear." Lillian said giving up to Neel's logic.

Neel walked into the room where Arya lay and picked him from his crib. "How are you son?" Neel asked the baby as if he was any older. "Oki papa." said Arya. Arya was quite fond of Neel as Neel reminded him of his late father. Both of them where good men who seemed to be able to do anything for their families.

"Do you want to hear a story?" Neel asked and he sat down on a chair and sat Arya on his lap. Arya nodded and Neel continued. "A long time ago before the major races were at peace....