Lark slowed down the moment he flanked the stagecoach, rolling down the window before politely knocking on that of the Viscount.
"Lark, where did you get that thing?" Envy and surprise made Drath forget the basics of etiquette, but the Count didn't mind.
Seeing one of his most annoying political foes turn green was more than enough compensation. The stagecoach was just painted in gold whereas to DoLorean was made of silver, something that no dissipated noble would miss.
"Just a present from one of my old protégés. Do you remember Archmage Verhen?" Lark casually nodded at the passenger seat. He was keeping the two vehicles at the same height so that the Viscount could see inside.
Seeing the deep blue robe was already a huge blow to Drath's ego, but comparing his cramped stagecoach with the spacious interns of the car almost gave him a stroke.
"It seems that I have the high ground now, dear Viscount!" Lark raised the DoLorean more, forcing his rival to look up to him. Then he took the skies, scaring the horses so much that the stagecoach almost crashed against a patch of trees.
Away from the ground, Lark pulled the speed lever down to five and had his fun performing sudden u-turns, nosediving, and harassing all the flying magical beasts he met by literally running circles around them.
Despite his age, the Count performed more high-speed complicated maneuvers in a few minutes than most Grand Prix drivers in their entire careers.
"Thank you very much, Lith. I never had so much fun in my life, now I can really die happy." Lark said after stopping the DoLorean just below the clouds.
"I've always wanted to watch the sunset from the top of a mountain, but I could never afford the time. You made another of my dreams come true. First one of my proteges enrolled in the White Griffon, then you brought me at the graduation ceremony, and now this."
"I should be the one thanking you." Lith replied.
"Without your help, I'd have been stuck in Lutia until I turned sixteen instead of receiving my family name from the King himself. On top of that, you really put my creation to the test, allowing me to collect priceless data. It performs even better than I predicted."
"I'm always glad to be of assistance." Lark blushed in embarrassment for all those compliments and because now that the speed high was gone, he realized how reckless he had been.
"Not to ruin this moment, but I'm afraid we're lost. I was so engrossed in going as fast as I could that I have no idea where we are." The Count said after a while.
"That makes the two of us." Lith had been too busy keeping his lunch in to mind their flight path. "Luckily, we can just take a shortcut. Do you remember the red button I told you to never press?"
Lark nodded enthusiastically as Lith explained to him what to do.
The Count took a random direction, pushing the DoLorean to its utmost speed until the red button lit up and he could finally push it.
'I'd say our resident nerd miscalculated something. We're way past the 88 miles per hour.' Solus said.
'There's no point in setting a fixed threshold. The required speed just varies with distance.' Lith replied, wondering how far they had gone from the Lark estate.
The DoLorean transformed the world energy from the violet crystals and the acc.u.mulated kinetic energy into a Warp Gate that brought them exactly above the Home Stone.
"That was amazing!" Lark said.
"Yeah, it's another safety measure." Lith said while retrieving the Home Stone and reassuring the guards that he had brought the Lord of the house back and not an invading force.
"This way my parents can return to the safety of the arrays surrounding our home in the blink of an eye, no matter if they are afar and if they can't use dimensional magic. The only issue is that now the crystals need time to recharge."
Lith switched Lark's imprint with his own, to hasten the DoLorean's recovery.
"It's my fault that you are stranded here so you'll be my honored guests for dinner. We have so much catching up to do." Lark patted Lith's shoulder, wishing the young man really was his grandson.
The meal was delicious and the conversation pleasant. Lark knew about Orpal and Trion, yet he never mentioned them to no ruin the mood. He preferred pointing at the colored streaks among Leria's and Aran's hair.
"I don't mean to pry, but at their age, our Lith was already an accomplished magico and a healer. If you delay their magical education further, they will be forced to join the academy from the first year."
Elina and Rena both felt as if those words were a cruel vise that squeezed the blood out of their hearts. The idea of Aran leaving the house brought Elina all kinds of terrible memories.
Whenever one of her boys left, something bad happened.
As for Rena, she had the triplets keeping her busy, but she still had a hard time believing how quickly her little girl was growing, let alone accepting the idea that one day she would have to let her go.
"Lith was really m.a.t.u.r.e for his age whereas Leria almost burned the curtains of her room several times and finds it funny to freeze our neighbors' doorstep to watch them slip and fall." Rena shook her head.
"Because it is funny!" Leria blushed in embarrassment seeing everyone's reproachful gaze. Being scolded by her rules-obsessed parents was one thing, her misdeeds being exposed to the entire family was another.
"It's funny for you, but for those who fall on their butts it's just painful, young lady." Senton said.
"At least she gets to do something. Mom scolds me the moment I try to help her with the house chores." Aran grumbled.
"That's because you flood the floors when you try to wash them and instead of collecting the dust, your air magic cuts the furniture into bits." Elina reminded him solely of the minor accidents since they were in the presence of the Count, yet it was enough to bring Aran on the verge of tears.
"Why did I never hear anything about this?" Lith asked.
"Because you're often away and whenever you are home the kids always behave." Rena replied. "You already do more than enough for the family. Taking care of the children is our job. You have too much on your plate to take care of this as well."
'Solus?' Lith thought.
'Based on my limited experience with kids, the bright yellow mana core is a bottleneck for someone of that age who hasn't undergone body refining like an Awakened.' She replied.
'That's not what I'm worried about. I want to know what the status of their impurities is and what will happen once they get a deep green core.'
'There's no reason to worry about their Awakening. You have kept them away from mana geysers and you never used Invigoration on them for prolonged periods of time to keep what happened to Tista from repeating itself.
'As for the green core, I'm afraid that without proper training they might be a danger for their families. You heard their mothers. The kids already have enough mana to make chore magic dangerous and no control over it.' Solus said.
