"Miss Amelia! Welcome!"
Mary excitedly opened the door, with Sophia standing right behind her, still recovering from having someone jump down from their back.
"Hey, kids. Do you know where Katherine is?" Amelia asked as she gently patted both of their heads.
"She's in the bedroom right now," Mary excitedly replied, already knowing what Amelia was here for.
"The two of you play here, okay? Katherine and I will be back to test your magical capability later."
The two of them watched Amelia enter the bedroom before closing the door, making them curious about what was happening inside.
"Man, where is Alex when we needed him?" Sophia complained as she hadn't seen him all morning.
"I don't know..." Mary murmured as she looked down at the doll in her hand, her eyes seeming to have seen something.
"Whatever, let's just go back to reading that stupid book..."
---
Meanwhile, inside Katherine's bedroom.
Alex was peacefully sleeping on the bed, with Amelia and Katherine both standing at the bedside.
"You said you found a way to give my son mana?" Katherine asked calmly, trying to hide her excitement.
"Do I look like someone who gives out false hope?"
Amelia started digging inside her bag. After a while, she finally took out a vial containing a mysterious purple liquid and several blank scrolls.
"When are you going back to the capital?" Amelia suddenly asked as lights in the shape of words began appearing on the scroll.
Seeing Katherine's reluctance, Amelia put the scroll back down on the table, causing the light to disappear.
"Come on, Kate, just give me an answer." Amelia pleaded, showing no sign of continuing any further.
"Don't call me Kate. I'll head back when it's time."
"You say that every time I come here... Mom and Dad miss you. They don't blame you for what happened."
"Shut up."
Amelia finally gave up trying to pressure her sister, turning her attention back to the task at hand as words started to appear on the scroll.
Soon, the scroll began flying into the air, causing everything else in the room to elevate as the brightness started to turn into blindness for both of them.
With a snap of a finger, the room was quickly covered by a black void, turning everything dark beside the bed Alex rested on.
"Just as a warning, this procedure is very expensive," Amelia warned as the words on the scroll began to fade away.
"I can always go back to being an adventurer. Just tell me how much I need it," Katherine impatiently asked.
"Being an adventurer is nowhere near enough... He needs some sort of edible mana source to sustain any potential for magical capability."
As soon as Amelia finished talking, Katherine fell into silence. She knew exactly what Amelia was talking about.
There was only one edible mana source in this world. Something that Katherine couldn't possibly ever afford.
"Is there no other way? Does he really need to have holy water?"
"What do you think? Anyway, can you leave the room for a second? I need to perform the ritual to rebuild his mana connection."
With Katherine out of the room, Amelia quickly turned her attention to Alex, who had been asleep on the bed the whole time.
After chanting a few words with the rest of the scroll in hand, the room suddenly started having hurricane-level winds surrounding them.
However, it quickly died down as soon as she opened the vial, seemingly to have absorbed all of the wind energy.
"May the goddess of water cleanse you..."
As Amelia murmured the sentence, Alex's eyes began to move rapidly underneath his eyelids until he finally opened his eyes.
"How was the dream?" Amelia asked as she examined the vials.
"I... I just dreamt I was back home." Alex replied, his watery eyes still a little sleepy from what he went through.
"Home? It must have been a good dream, then," Amelia murmured as she spun the vial around.
"N-No... I don't want to have that dream again."
As Alex thought back to the dream, a shiver traveled down his spine. It was a bunch of memory fragments of him walking around.
He was talking to other people back on Earth.
Everyone's faces and voices were blurred, allowing him only to understand the purpose and content of the conversation.
It was practically torture, as some of the memories were reliving regrets about things that he couldn't change in the past with a bunch of blurred people.
"Huh, really... Ahem, anyway, can you drink this down? This will finally give you the ability to cast magic."
Alex didn't hesitate at all as he drank the whole thing in one swoop before handing the empty vial back to her.
"Do you feel anything?" Amelia asked as she carelessly threw the empty vial back into her bag.
Alex shook his head, looking down at his hand as he couldn't feel anything different about his body at all.
But after waiting for a whole minute, he finally started to feel something. A weird feeling that was starting to cause his body to itch.
"Why does my body feel so hot?"
Alex murmured to himself, resisting the urge to take his clothes off in front of Amelia as sweat began to appear on his forehead.
"Your body feels a little hot right now, right?" Amelia asked.
Alex immediately nodded. He could feel his blood seemingly boiling through his skin as it turned red.
"It's okay. Your body is just making space to contain mana later. Just hold on... You can take off your clothes if you want."
Despite his best attempts to hold back, he just couldn't endure it any longer. Alex quickly took his clothes off right in front of Amelia's eyes.
"It's so hot! I-I'm going to die!"
As Alex suddenly groaned in pain, his body began to shake uncontrollably, followed by a headache hitting him in the head.
Everything was spinning like crazy... Until suddenly, Amelia leaned forward, kissing him on the lips.
A cool sensation ran down his body.
His face was full of gratitude as the burning sensation began to die down, but before he could say thanks, he was pinned down onto the bed.
With barely any strength to fight back, Amelia easily pried open Alex's defenses as she started sticking her tongue inside him.
The burning sensation had vanished, only lingering in his body to the point of becoming irrelevant.
Soon, the thing on Alex's mind was the beautiful woman right in front of her, who looked awfully familiar to his mother.
Soon, Amelia was caught by surprise as Alex started going on the offensive, using his much smaller tongue to chase after hers instead.
"Hm!——Stop! Ahem, you should be able to cast your spell now... Try to think about a little flame on your finger."
Amelia quickly wiped her lips as she got up from his body. Her face flushed red as she couldn't believe a little kid had almost bullied her.
Meanwhile, Alex had long since thrown everything out the window. His attention was solely on his index finger.
After almost waiting for five whole seconds, a small flame finally appeared on his fingertip, no scrolls needed.
"I did it! I can cast magic!"
Seeing Alex's face filled with joy, Amelia gently brushed his hair with her hand. Her anger subsided as if nothing had happened.
"Good job. Now you can finally be a mage... But remember, don't overuse it, okay? Your mana is still severely limited."
Alex quickly nodded in agreement before the flame disappeared on its own from his fingertip.
"Now, Alex, what happened earlier is a secret. Only between you and me. Don't you ever tell your mom about this, okay?"
Alex nodded several times in a row again, as if his brain was starting to reflect on what they had just done earlier.
"Okay, you can leave the room now. Go call your mom and tell Mary to come in."
As Alex happily headed out the door, Amelia took out the crystal ball that he and Sophia had once tested with.
---
After Mary's test, Amelia stayed all the way until the evening. She whispered a few things to Katherine, which made her face blush red.
"You sure that is the right substitute for holy water?" Katherine quietly questioned, shyly looking down in embarrassment.
"Trust me, it should work in theory. You're the only person I know who has produced that kind of stuff before."
Amelia paused for a second, then continued.
"Don't even think about asking someone else to do it. They need to be a mage... You know the spell for how to resume it again, right?
I don't need to go back to ask Mom personally to teach me about it and tell you step by step—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know..."
As the two of them finished talking, the three kids quickly surrounded Amelia in the middle with excitement.
"Miss Amelia! Can you at least stay for dinner?" Sophia and Mary both pleaded as they had just recently learned how to cook.
"Sorry, kids. But we'll meet again very soon."
After hugging both girls, Amelia looked over to Alex, who was standing there silently, his mind zoning off to some wonderland.
"Hey Alex, you aren't going to say goodbye to Miss Amelia?" Sophia curiously asked, waving her hand in front of his face.
Alex quickly snapped back to the moment as he nervously ran over to Amelia before hugging her.
"Remember our secrets, okay?" Amelia's voice suddenly appeared in his head despite her mouth remaining shut.
"I-I will..." Alex whispered.
"Good boy."
After Amelia finally let go of Alex and turned her attention to Katherine, Sophia, and Mary, they all wondered why he was talking to himself.
"Katherine, remember your promise, okay? I'd better see you in the capital next year." Amelia warned as she grabbed her bag.
"Fine."
All three of the kids waved as Amelia walked off into the darkness before Katherine pushed them back inside and closed the door.
"Mom! Are we really moving to the capital?" Sophia asked curiously.
"Yes, sweetie. We're going to visit your grandparents. You all are excited, right?" Katherine asked, her face looking a little exhausted.
"Yay!"
All three of the kids jumped into the air in excitement. They were tired of wandering around the town in the morning with nothing much to do.
They had already heard countless stories of thrills and crazy events in the capital, especially from several of the neighborhood kids they played with.
"But if you three can't learn proper manners within this year, then I'm canceling the trip," Katherine warned.
"Yes, ma'am!"