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Mid Afternoon - Early Spring : Asimi's Estate

After discussing my request to leave the nest, we continued to talk for a bit.

We eventually moved from the living room to the dining room and had a good family dinner as well.

I was completely prepared to talk about and discuss some of my future plans but to my surprise, not even my plans on leaving were mentioned after that small talk.

Over the next month, I continued to spend as much time as I could with family.

During my combat training, I managed to reach the limit of what both Orion and Father could teach me in terms of combat for both my dragon and humanoid form. (They've been training together since the incident)

I was able to easily pick up on their martial arts and even tweak them to fit my style a bit better after a while.

Even after that though, I continued to train with Father, just instead of him giving me pointers, it was the other way around.

It turned into an oddly fun bonding experience.

At first he denied my advice and said, 'how could I be taught by someone who I taught a week ago?' while holding his pride high as a kite but after a while of losing to me in spars, he started actually taking some of my tips.

He managed to improve quite a lot once he started taking my advice though, it turned out that Father had a pretty impressive talent for martial arts.

Outside of training, I spent quite a lot of bonding time with Krystallo as well.

We would spend most of our time playing something like tag where I would try to slowly teach her some footwork or technique.

Although she was far from catching Ilios or I, towards the end of the month, she had surpassed Mother. Her growth was truly mind blowing.

She herself didn't realize just how fast she was moving when playing with Ilios or I though. It wasn't until Mother came by to play one day that it came to light.

Krystallo was disappointed to lose to her at first but once Mother explained how ridiculous her speed was, she became incredibly confident and tried to rub it in my face by challenging me again. She got destroyed.

She never actually managed to win against me before it was time to leave but she never got discouraged. Her competitive spirit and constant improvement kept her looking forward to the next game instead of dwelling on the losses.

It was a good experience for her but I couldn't help but be a bit worried with how competitive she got at times. I felt genuinely bad for her future classmates.

On the opposite side of things, every evening turned into a teaching session for science and magic.

Both Mother and Krystallo had finally learned enough of science to where they could implement it in their magic so the sessions became far more hands-on.

After a while, I was able to finally teach them the way my railgun breath worked and taught them how to do it.

As it turned out, the way I did it didn't quite work for them. Not only could they not casually create a steel dart, but they couldn't fire it straight from their breath gland or mouth because their mouth would get cut by the shockwave.

With a bit of trial and error though, we managed to perfect a system that worked for them!

To fix them being unable to make the darts, I ended up creating a massive steel cube in the back yard that they could use to create ammo for themselves.

It also helped Mother experiment with magnetism since she could use earth magic to create any shape she wished and experiment with it.

As for Krystallo, I was personally working with her to try and teach her how she could use a small scale version of it in her humanoid form to give her a self defense weapon for when she left for the academy.

It was a bit of an excessive precaution but I wanted her to have an actual weapon that wasn't as obvious as a sword or knife.

Towards the end of our time together, both of them got extremely proficient with it, they each got new trump cards.

I felt a special sense of accomplishment seeing them both succeed with it, especially since it was their first shot at implementing science into magic.

I had truly become the teacher of the family with the only person I hadn't taught being Asimi.

Although a bit saddening at the time, Asimi was constantly busy dealing with family and political matters so we weren't able to spend much time together until the last couple weeks.

We spent a fair amount of time together but we didn't talk about much besides a bit of magic theory or history.

Most of the things she discussed were things I already knew but it was fun to spend time with her nonetheless.

I had a truly incredible time with everyone for that matter, but the day of my departure arrived faster than any of us expected.

"Brother.. I'm gonna miss you.." Krystallo walked up to me, holding back tears.

"Hey, don't be all sad." I reached down and rubbed her head. "Instead of being sad that I'm leaving for a while, you should look forward to when we can play again. Who knows.. maybe you'll surpass me while I'm gone!"

Krystallo lightly shook her head and looked up at me with a competitive smile. "You better not slack off of your training either then!"

"Haha, I won't." I lightly rubbed her head for a bit longer before she backed away.

Walking up to Mother, she gave me a tight hug. "I know you're a strong boy but please.. be careful.."

"I will Mother.." I wore a grateful smile as I enjoyed the warmth of Mothers hug.

Father and Asimi were the next two to give me hugs but Father didn't tell me anything. He simply gave me his confident and proud smile.

As I gave Asimi her hug though, she gave a friendly reminder. "I know you know already but be sure to at least send us a letter every couple years. You know your Mother would get worried if went quiet for too long."

"Right.. I'll be sure to keep in touch."

"You know where we will be moving right?" Mother quickly voiced her worry.

"Yes, of course Mother." For Krystallos schooling, they planned to move to their estate in western Bahamut near the academy.

Although I didn't have a marker there or know exactly where it was, I was sure I could find it by asking for directions.

"Well, I think it's time.." I looked up at everyone with a warm smile.

"Be safe!" Mother was holding back tears.

"I will!" I motioned to let Ilios come hop up on my head. "Well, we're off!"

I quickly stood up and with a strong flap of my wings, I threw myself into the air.

Looking towards the horizon, I bathed in the memories of the past 11 years for a moment before gripping my resolve.

"Haah.." -Its time to get some answers..-