Kara felt a bit nervous as she stood beside Rainer, waiting for Francis to return with her mother-in-law. She hadn’t been nervous before, but after talking to Sarah she learned that apparently meeting parents was a very major thing in their culture. She knew Rainer would just call her ‘silly’ for worrying so she didn’t even bother asking him about it. Only so much embarrassment in front of him was acceptable to her.

The only thing that kept her palms from sweating was that she technically couldn’t talk to them, but she heard from Francis they had pretty powerful translation magic. Rainer’s mother just had to find someone expendable enough to go through their minds, where as his grandfather could do it more harmlessly.

Wasn’t Rainer planning on killing that Fireborne diplomat? That should fit. Diplomats were supposed to know a lot of languages weren't they?

Of course, Luna looked completely relaxed, draping herself over Rainer as she yawned sleepily.

Amer and Furtak were with them; both of the old men had been deeply interested in Rainer’s offer of free enchanting materials and had officially joined the guild. Having access to [Sleep Learning] caused them to lose motivation to practice magic in reality, so enchanting offered an interesting alternative. Apparently, Mages as a whole were more likely to die from wrongly casting spells than actual old age. Having seen Rainer practice magic she was liable to agree.

They were also just as interested at meeting powerful Mages from a systemless world.

Though… she had a strange feeling during the auction that many of the Mage Guildmasters hated Furtak for some reason. But despite being overshadowed by both Rainer and Yulia, to almost anyone else he was basically invincible, so she supposed it’d be fine. Kara herself had sparred with him and simply gave up. While he couldn’t kill her due to Void-step, she couldn’t harm him enough to even tax his Mana regeneration. How had the Demon Princes of old fought against the fallen Northern Empire?

She glanced over to Rainer’s face. He had been a bit… changed since coming back. He had originally been nervous himself about how to deal with all the Guildmasters visiting along with the various interests but now he dumped it all to Elelaria, refusing to even bother with it.

When the Moon Elf questioned him, he just explained that if the Guildmasters had a problem with it, he’d just kill them and be done with it. Francis had just laughed and agreed. Ele seemed to have accepted the task with vigor, though she asked for a guard close to his level of strength. They promised her one better.

According to Francis, years of running solo gave their Grandfather a love for running organizations. If it wasn’t for the system, it’d be hard to get him off that mana-filled world. He’d likely happily play an authoritative role in managing the Enchanter’s Guild and would be a perfect ‘guard’ in that case.

The Demon in her liked Rainer’s attitude, but she wondered just what fighting the Divine Avatar with Francis had showed him that made him view the powers of this world as inconsequential. Most of them anyways.

Or was it the presence of his family? With the eventual addition of Rainer’s extended family, he may as well come from a ‘Far North’ at this point. His fake background to protect him had become reality. Even Kara felt the pressure of the Demon Princes after her lift quite a bit after Francis talked about their Grandfather. Not that having Gods replace her list of enemies made her anymore lax in her training.

Further thoughts were interrupted by Francis’ return. A tall 40 year old man - if it wasn’t for the Charisma and the slight sharp changes from Void Will she imagined Rainer would have looked like him, almost a twin - and a beautiful short red-head in her early twenties stood by his side. Of course, they only looked those ages.

Everyone but Rainer, Sarah, and Luna looked at the pair, stunned. Only the Devil’s beard and hair mixed with tentacles wiggling expressed their shock at the two new visitors. How were they so strong without ever leveling?

Both of them were distracted, looking at empty space in front of them. Just like Rainer, it seemed they had been given a class the moment they came here. But their attention quickly went to their two lost children.

[Protector of Life: One whose ability transcends the fatality of life. Their magic can stop even the most fatal of injuries and piece together a life no matter how broken. 100% General Improvement to all Healing and Support related Spells and Skills. Can cast sacrificial healing spells equaling the sacrifice of one’s own life without negative effect once a day. +1 Affinity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Willpower per level past 1.]

Sophia gave a weird glance to her class - she may be skilled in Life and Medical-related Magic, but she was hardly a protector of life given her talents leant towards combat and mind magic as well - and shook her head as she decided to later change to something more combat oriented. Her healing magic was powerful enough without outside help and apparently her son and daughter-in-law exceeded reason when it came to healing.

She then rushed over to give her a daughter a hug, barely managing to not roll her eyes as Frederick complimented Rainer with an arm over his shoulder.

“Looks like Francis wasn’t exaggerating. You did well. Much better than what I did growing up. Bah. I had wondered if you were really a Nvos.”

You could interpret it as Frederick complimenting Rainer’s magical progress, but it was really aimed at his two ladies. She couldn’t even argue it as the Nvos family line had a long history of impressive women - and good-looking ones too - being added to it.

[Skill Gained: Aura Detection lvl 1/10]

And Kara was certainly an impressive woman. Was there anyone on Earth that had that much Aura? And something about hers felt impressively powerful compared to the normal kind she felt before. Beating Earth’s Qi, or she supposed Aura, users in both quantity and quality of Aura was a surprise.

[Skill Gained: Mana Detection lvl 4/10]

The amount of Mana Luna had was certainly impressive as well, though she got the distinct sense there was something far stronger inside her. These messages... they oddly felt natural. She'd be interested to see what other skills she'd be gaining in the future.

And that older girlfriend of her son’s was impossibly good-looking, especially considering she wasn't artificially enhanced like he was; she had raw features that would look photoshopped or rendered if someone took a picture of her in even the worst situation. And the Wolf-eared girl smiling nervously at her was no slouch in that department either. But why did they have to both be taller than her… she didn’t look like a mother in this situation when added to her youth.

“Where’s my hug?” Rainer asked, smiling at her.

It was a bit unfair she rushed only to her daughter first. Then again, she had technically already met her son months ago.

“Humph, after you left your mother behind on another planet?”

“I didn’t even know you were a Mage to leave behind,” Rainer said accusingly.

Ouch. Maybe that wasn’t such a good joke, Sophia thought. Performing Mind Magic on someone unwillingly was a pretty high offense, even if it was with good intentions. Not that it stopped them from indiscriminately using it on their enemies.

Thankfully, her son didn’t seem bothered by it as he went up to hug her.

It felt a bit surreal to meet this version of Rainer. She could almost feel a sense of guilt radiating off of him, among other things. Worry, responsibility, and other emotions weighed down on him, though a sense of magical power overpowered it all. He was strong. Far stronger than she felt Francis was even if that wasn't the truth of the matter in pure combat. That blade of his defied everything her people understood about Space-time.

It wasn’t hard for an expert of the mind like her to notice. No doubt Frederick, who far surpassed her in the category, felt it as well.

Francis lacked conflicting emotions for the most part. Just a weird singular purpose covered him. In fact to a worrying degree. She never brought it up because she supposed it didn’t matter, no matter how much she was opposed to Francis simply giving up on life.

Rainer almost seemed foreign to her after all the time spent with Francis. After all, this son of hers was already so different from the original and was now different from the other version she got to know.

But he was still hers, she thought with a smile.

Now… it was time to have some fun teasing his two likely soon to be wives if Francis’ stories were true. And to see just what were the motives of the woman who was older than her romancing her son.

At least before Francis retrieved her side of the family tree and she had to explain how her family was a true Magi family, seeking progress in magic above all else. That would be far less fun than this reunion.

She wouldn’t have had an aunt-mother if that wasn’t the case, or her skill in magic despite a relatively young age for a Mage - nor could she have had both Sarah and Rainer so quickly without their expertise in nature magic and countless resources spent to ensure she would have a talented child with a Nvos after she coincidentally fell in love with one.

At least she hoped it was a coincidence...

Ah, I hope they don’t do anything to make Frederick or Rainer kill one of them… that would be awkward. At least they’ll probably get along with my younger sister.

Deciding to postpone the rest of their reunion for later tonight at a dinner, Frederick - having already grasped a decent amount of the language from Ele with her permission - went off with her to meet with the Fireborne, the first of many, while Sarah and Sophia went off to walk around the city and have some private time to catch up.

The Elf was downright excited at having a powerful member of Rainer’s family with her in the meeting, whereas Frederick seemed just as interested in his Guild. He would be a mostly silent participant, but unlike Rainer, the sheer amount of Mana in him was threatening on its own. Plus the obvious relation to ‘Archon Nvos’ would support a theory of a powerful backing.

[Human, Male, Mentalist lvl 1]

[Title: Patchwork]

He thought back to his grandfather’s class, not surprised his class wasn’t related to Arcane. After all, he did mention how his talent was lower than Rainer’s in that regard. And for all his grandfather knew, he could have talents in other areas of magic. Which meant his strongest class would unlikely be Arcane-related, even if it would technically be a better choice for making him stronger. And that title… he knew his grandfather had been barely staying alive… but still… he was glad he hadn’t used [Arcane Revelation] on him.

Rainer played with his hair as he thought over his mother’s reaction to his girlfriends. She hadn’t seemed bothered that he had two of them, and with Sarah translating, Kara made a good impression. Luna… his mother gave Luna some weird looks after some basic greetings between the two. He wondered what was going on there. Luna seemed nonplussed so he supposed there was no rush. There would definitely be awkwardness at first no matter what he did.

Rainer decided to jump into [Sleep Learning] in the meantime, given last night’s interruption.

Rainer watched as Arcane and Void leaked from his Soul and into his Avatar’s body. He switched focus, and felt the process himself. Before they could collide and tear his body apart he tried using [Arcane Awakening] this time, but the flowing Arcane Energy seemed to ignore the particles coming from his Soul. Something about leaking from his Soul made these particles of Arcane Power and Void Will far far different than the ones in his energy pools.

Moments later a violent collision in his body signaled the end of this attempt, and a flash of [Void Call] removed him temporarily from existence before the chaos could spread to his Avatar’s Soul and cause something far more harmful.

Rainer tried again, this time when the energy started flowing into his Avatar’s body, he tried to use that as a base for [Arcane Awakening], mimicking the process with raw manipulation abilities. Even though this seemed to only accelerate the resulting failure and then Talvara killing him, he saw how effective it was in the moment before failure. [Time Manipulation] was certainly showing it’s helpfulness.

Hours went by as he attempted the process over and over, his ability in mimicking [Arcane Awakening] with manipulation and the skill together improving and improving. Soon, he could see faint runic lines glowing on his arms when he used it, separating the two damaging energies, while still allowing them to affect and settle into his body.

He tried to manipulate Void Will away from the Arcane directly, but without a concrete model like [Arcane Awakening], it was a haphazard and ultimately pointless attempt when it soon entered his whole body.

But now he could survive for minutes before the incoming Void Will eventually collided with it’s more stable partner.

Did he need an opposite Void Skill?

Rainer took a moment to explain [Arcane Rage] and [Arcane Awakening] to Talvara.

“For my sanity, I won’t comment on the absurdity of a skill like that coming from a Tier 1 Class, or existing at all, but no, I am unaware if there exists such a thing with Void Will.” Talvara paused as she was about to say such a thing was absolutely impossible. Void Will wouldn’t function in such a manner. But she had just been proven wrong by Francis not too long ago and didn’t want a repeat.

Rainer frowned. He didn’t doubt his own abilities, but who knew how long creating an opposite skill could take? He had the base [Arcane Rage] to start off with, something no Void Lord could possibly have, so it didn’t matter too much that it hadn’t been done before. In fact the effects of the skill don’t even need to be positive, it need only make his physical body a buffer between the energies, the same as in his Soul.

Asking for Francis’ help was a far better alternative. So instead he continued practicing with the Arcane half, repeating the painful process over and over again until someone woke him up. With his [Arcane Energy Manipulation] subtly improving, Rainer wondered when he’d finally get that vaunted level 10.

With his Soul getting stronger and more resistant to both energies with every attempt, he knew he wasn’t far from his goal.

Getting Arcane Power and Void Will balanced in his Avatar’s Soul proved easier and easier, so all that was left was to make sure there wasn’t a chain reaction in his body… and figure out just what those two strange energies that were produced when Arcane and Void collided with either his Soul or body involved.

He imagined it wouldn’t even be a race to recombine with Francis before the Dungeon Meet. And Francis seemed more willing then ever.