The morning after, Alissa was still at a loss for words from the confession of last night. She had only just sent the report to Cronus regarding everything, including the reveal of an angel disguised as a little girl.

  Personally, she wondered whether Cronus would think she was overworked and was now hallucinating to be writing that. Honestly, she had been overworked lately, which was proved when she put all these details together throughout the night. Her high Endurance thanks to the constant all-nighters helped her through plenty of times over and over again, despite being a magic-focused user.

  A little bit of help from the stamina potions she had stashed away certainly helped with that, but even if she was mentally tired, she still couldn’t find herself a chance to sleep.

  She then sent the report off through a magical console, just a simple rectangular block of blue steel enchanted and runecrafted to send all matters of parchments over long distances through a teleportation circle, much like how Cronus used his own teleportation to get around the country.

  Apparently, Mikella and Zeke told her that this was practically a magical fax machine. They had the same concept in their own world, except it wasn’t done with magic, and instead of teleporting, the recipient’s machine would just copy the contents on their own papers through the other side.

  Just how in the gods’ mercy is that possible in their world without magic? This other world really was fascinating sometimes.

  While that sudden thought ran through her mind, it quickly divulged into the situation she had on hand. She knew this kind of work was unique compared to before, but she didn’t expect to have such incredible personnel under her watch.

  A runist with an incredibly rare and powerful attunement, a warrior with dragon aspects that could beat other adventurers above her own level, a little girl that has a strange familiar that is never seen before, and an angel disguised as the little girl’s twin.

  Even dealing with the Assassin’s guild was nothing compared to this. She lunged herself at her sofa, her head resting on the top part and breathing out everything that had been churning in her all this time. Just as she was about to unwind and figure out what to do next on her list, footsteps echoed in her vicinity, revealing to be the otherworlders in question.

  Mikella, without any prompt, headed into the kitchen to get started on making a meal. Zeke and Clara were both dreary eyed and yawning. The two couldn’t look more identical if they tried. The fact that their hair is the same black color was even more implicating.

  She was formerly a little hesitant about having a man in her house after so long. While her workload often kept her away from making healthy relationships, having a young man around is just asking for trouble in her opinion. Men just can’t keep their hands to themselves.

  But after looking at Zeke for a while, she realized how futile it was to worry about him at all. If anything, his only interests were in his studies and his family. He’s about as feral as a tamed house-broken pet in a family home. This did bring up an uncomfortable thought that perhaps he was not interested in older women–but she once caught him staring at her hard when she bent over to pick something up.

  Needless to say, Zeke is just as much of a man as he showed, just with better tact and manners. Granted, being stared at like that wouldn’t be very tactful… but Ali couldn’t help but think that despite barely working on herself through the years–she still got it.

  As per usual, the Arcan family had their breakfast together along with Ali who so graciously took on the meals Mikella made. She felt that she shouldn't intervene somehow, but this was her house and the meals were made with her ingredients. She had every fucking right to eat here.

  Though it did remind her of the old times spent in the Mon-Treant household, the days spent together with her twin sister before all that mess came about. Despite eating delicious food, her face scowled at the memory of it. She wanted to wipe it away as much as she could.

  Suddenly, through the routine of the morning breakfast, Zeke suddenly spoke up, catching her attention.

  “Ali, do you mind if I ask for a favor?”

  Ali turned to the man, raising a brow. “A favor? What kind is it?”

  “Can you help us find a place for me and Mikella to train and spar?” Zeke asked, no longer nearly falling asleep now that he had some food in his belly.

  “A place to train?” Ali said, already turning over the information for that in her head. While it wasn’t impossible, questions still rose. “Are you sure you have the time? Don’t you have to find the towers soon?”

  The fact that they had to spend so much time healing the adventurers and away from finding the towers was a major concern at first. However, Cronus said that doing such a thing would only be a benefit, especially if they had managed to find a way to clear off those pesky curses without relying on expensive medicine all the time, using the resources for more important matters. Having more working adventurers is certainly better suited than having them writhe around in the guild base doing nothing at all.

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  However, she still had to keep them on track. Zeke’s next words, however, dissuaded her.

  “After getting attacked yesterday, I realized that despite being Journeymen, we can still be targeted and killed, even by Experts. They probably planned a way to get to me without Mikella getting involved, but I still didn’t like that.”

  Ali nodded to that statement. It would do no good to leave Zeke in a position where he could be killed, especially after proving just how useful his abilities can be after learning he created a generator for a blacksmith. While she wasn’t keen on letting these otherworlders create something so groundbreaking that it would leave the Alchemist’s guild wanting his head, getting free gear in return would suit their purposes perfectly.

  Still, Ali tilted her head. “Even if you shore up weaknesses, what can you do? Aren’t you already prepared enough as it is?”

  “We still got some kinks to clear out from our styles,” Mikella stated, waving her fork left and right as she spoke. “Plus, there’s nothing wrong with getting some extra stat points from training.”

  “Considering how high your stats are by this point, wouldn’t it be worthless? Training your stats would be nigh impossible at this rate.”

  Zeke shook his head. “I have a plan, which is why I need a big place to train in. Particularly out in the open and… if possible, really sturdy.”

  “Sturdy?”

  “Very sturdy,” Zeke reinstated with clarity.

  …..

  This would normally be a difficult request, but Zeke should’ve realized not to underestimate the amount of connections Ali had. As Cronus’ confidant in everything in between politics, she pretty much had her hands on everything she could get info on. She was basically the internet for Cronus, capable of attaining all forms of information from around the city and the country as a whole, and her build is mostly suited for that as well.

  Which made her a very busy woman, so it honestly surprised Zeke how she managed to still spend time playing with Clara and Zoan, before she found out of her true origins of course.

  Still, Ali managed to find a place for Zeke and Mikella to do some extra training in a location not too far away from her house. Still, it was a fairly large distance, so they had to leave Clara behind. Considering how tough their training is, it was better for Clara to stick with her own training and studies with Zoan, so Clara understandably settled after making Zeke promise not to get hurt while he was away

  Unfortunately, that’s a promise that he had to break, considering the plans he had. After carefully thinking about a way to improve in a short time, he managed to dig up this sort of idea and hoped that it would work out. Mikella, of course, was in on this as she was needed to make it possible.

  The location they were heading was actually a training ground for soldiers and mages to practice their skills. Normally, one had to pay a hefty fee for the varied hours there, including using the equipment within to keep a fit lifestyle.

  It was literally a gym for people with magical super powers, capable of handling skills and spells for practice. When they approached the building and noticed the amount of ads written across to offer deals to save up on gold for a long-term plan, the two shared a giggle at the resemblance.

  But when they entered inside, they were astounded by the sheer size of the place. It was the size of an entire stadium, and that was discounting the outside field for large area types of skills. The equipment here was also incredible, each weapon or arsenal in here enchanted with the kind of power to refrain from fatally wounding a sparring partner, which was an incredible feat for an enchanter despite its uselessness in actual battle.

  So when they heard that the normal fee for using the place was a whopping one hundred gold per month, equivalent to ten grand in the other world, it was mildly acceptable. Of course, they intend to thank Ali later when she covered the fee by saying that the otherworlders were important folks for Cronus, to which the gym would accept since the entire facility was governmentally funded.

  So eventually, after much hustle and bustle of registering and obtaining permission to use one of the rooms, Zeke and Mikella found themselves in a warded steel room filled with equipment and weapons on shelves and racks, with a large field made of compact dirt to fit two lead trains side to side. It was a rather large room, normally for premium users with probably more money than sense.

  Though Zeke made sure to ask for the most defensive oriented room to handle large attacks, and to keep it private. The gym, which Zeke heard the official name but decided to just call it that, had plenty of people who prefer to have privacy to ensure nobody else could see them train their skills for whatever reason.

  Zeke was thankful for that as he figured what he was about to do would tend to have plenty of eyes on him. Though now he can’t seem to take his own eyes off of Mikella who adorned herself in loose clothes, sporting a sleeveless white shirt and shorts.

  He shook his head to dissuade the stupid thoughts. It was already bad enough that he sometimes can’t stop staring at the gorgeous Journeyman women living with him, and Mikella was even more gorgeous if he was honest with himself.

  They wanted to invite the Tempest Winds over as well, but they were still busy with their own thing even after a day passed. Though they were at least notified about the assassin that tried to take Zeke’s life, making sure to keep a lookout for any similar assassins waiting to go after them.

  “Alright, so are we doing this?” Mikella said, finishing her stretches and facing Zeke. Her stance was straight and steady, a capable fighter ready to handle anything and barely leaving any openings.

  “Yeah, just give me a minute.”

  Zeke said as he instead sat down on the floor, crossing his legs and closing his eyes. He breathed tentatively, in and out, feeling the Mana within surging like an ocean tide.

  “Does this have something to do with your plan to increase our stats?” Mikella asked, her voice echoing with Zeke’s eyes closed.

  “We already know that increasing stats manually gets harder the higher they go. Doing all the pushups in the world won’t increase our Strength by a single digit nearing 100. But I think it’s because we haven’t pushed ourselves hard enough.”

  “I think we pushed ourselves hard enough as it is,” Mikella pointed out, but she didn’t refute as she asked “But what do you have in mind?”

  Zeke opened his eyes, facing Mikella with a steady gaze, “...I’m planning on using my attunement to go even farther.”