Not long after, a crisp and loud scream suddenly resonated from inside the mansion, "KYAAAAAAA!"
"W-What? What happened?" Baiyi immediately dropped his work and ran towards the source of the scream. It came from the kitchen. The instance he pushed the door open, he was greeted by the sight of crushed ice that was scattered all over the floor. Mia and Attie's bodies were both covered in ice shards as well, and like two kittens that had fallen into cold water, the two of them were shivering in cold looking at him pitifully with big kitty eyes.
Quickly, Baiyi took out two blankets from his pouch and covered the two of them. Clutching the corner of one of the blankets, he wiped the water off Mia's face and asked, "What's going on?"
"Huuu..." Mia sobbed like a small animal and obediently told him the idea that came to her mind earlier.
It turned out that she was too bored in the house and since she missed the taste of the shaved ice that she had yesterday (and since the market was too far away from their house), she decided to buy some fruits and make the shaved ice by herself using Ice-type magic.
Without a doubt, she would definitely need Attie's help in operating the kitchen appliances so the two of them began to work their 'magic' in the kitchen. But, since Mia was already in the Advanced Level, she could not control the sudden increase in her power output. In the end, she lost control of her magic and accidentally cast the Freeze spell on both of them.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, you little girl..." Baiyi shook his head as he pulled the two of them into his embrace and released some heat to warm their bodies using his magic. At first, he planned to lecture Mia on her recklessness but looking at how she was shivering and trembling with cold, he did not have the heart to do that anymore.
But, oh, lord, did this girl only realize the increment in her strength now? How can she be so slow? Baiyi lamented before shaking his head again. He could not blame Mia at all for not realizing it. Usually, when a sorcerer managed to breakthrough to the Advanced Level from the Intermediate Level, the most significant sign would be the sudden increase in magic--- as if the body was always overflowing with power. When that feeling appeared all of a sudden, it would mean that the sorcerer had successfully made a breakthrough in his ranking level.
However, because Mia had him as her Soul Armature, she was always in a state where her energy was overflowing until she had even forgotten how it felt like having her energy fully depleted. For that reason, when she managed to make the breakthrough to the Advanced Level, she did not even notice the increase in her magic output and Psychic Energy which had less obvious signs and symptoms.
Looks like I have to constantly remind her next time, Baiyi noted mentally to himself. At first, he intended to let Mia discover her own breakthrough herself so that she could have more insight on her own power but due to Mia's unique circumstance, it would be better for him to keep a closer eye on her to prevent accidents from happening again.
"I-I'm sorry, Attie. I really didn't mean it!" Mia apologized to Attie. Because of such a sudden cold attack, Attie's pink lips had now turned to purple but still, she replied cheerfully, "I-It doesn't matter, Mia. I-I know you didn't!"
Having said that, she quickly broke free from Baiyi's arms and murmured, "It's fine, Master. I'm okay."
"Why don't you just take a break for today?" Baiyi asked. Being hit by an Ice-type spell all of a sudden was not something that could be cured that easily by lighting a fire to warm the body up. After all, the cold had already invaded the body and it could not be rid off that easily by magic.
"I-It's alright. This is my first official day of working so I can't just simply take a break because of such a small matter," Attie shook her head stubbornly as she quickly cleared the ice in the kitchen.
Not wanting to deny her good intentions, Baiyi turned to Mia instead and reached out his hands to pinch both of Mia's soft cheeks, pulling at them hard as he began to lecture her, "Next time, remember to tell me first before you do anything, okay? Magic is very dangerous! Especially if you're not very skilled in it! You must wait for me to be beside you before you do any magic, okay?"
"Ahhh... I- it hurts..." Mia's tears almost flowed out from his pinching. Quickly, she nodded her head, "I-I promise I will not be so reckless anymore!" Hearing that, Baiyi let go of his hands and helped her rub the soreness on her face.
"Go help Attie with the cleaning," Patting her head, Baiyi softly said before storing the blankets back into his pouch and walked towards the stove. Looking at the fruits that had been frozen into lumps of ice, he shook his head and cast a spell to crush the fruits directly, squeezing the juice out of all the frozen fruits. Then, he continued to crush the pot of water that Mia had frozen into ice and arranged them neatly on a wooden bowl before pouring the juice onto it. Just like that, in just a few simple steps, he had managed to make shaved ice for the girls with his own hands.
"Oh, it has never crossed my mind that you'd excel in preparing kid's desserts, too, y'know! Looks like you're quite skilled, aren't you?" The Archmage did not let thr opportunity to ridicule his disciple go to waste.
"I'm more curious about the storage pouches that you keep bringing everywhere with you. You seem to have like 6 or 7 pouches with you all the time. What exactly do you store inside all of those pouches? I thought you don't have much treasure of your own? You've used up all of the ingredients that you received on Mia and that cute plushie of hers, no?" The Thane asked curiously.
There are quilts, blankets, mattress, some marinated foods, potions... Baiyi continued to list out all of the items inside his pouch, they were basically all the daily necessities of the little girls, before adding the last item, and my own old armor as well.
"Err... have you watched too many apocalypse movies recently?" The Demon chimed in.
Who knows? Just in case right? Baiyi answered casually.
"Although it's pretty much impossible, but somehow I feel that if a zombie apocalypse suddenly happened, the three girls by your side would still be able to live very freely and comfortably," The Demon chuckled.
Oh, it appears that you're into zombie stuffs, huh? No wonder you get along so well with them, Lich! Baiyi secretly thought before switching his consciousness into reality to listen to Mia's comment about him.
"Wahh, Mr. Hope is the best ever!" She was secretly observing him when he was preparing the shaved ice and quickly flattered him when he was done. Then, with a pair of shining, anticipatory eyes, she stared at the shaved ice that Baiyi had prepared on the countertop.
Is this girl a greedy cat? Why didn't she learn her lesson yet?
"You're only allowed to eat this tomorrow! " Baiyi decided to be stern and instantly, he cast a Level 5 Immobilizing Frost on the shaved ice. The wooden bowl was immediately encased in a block of ice. Then, he cast a magic rope and hung it on the roof where Mia would never be able to reach.
"Huuu..." Reluctantly, Mia stared at the delicious treat hanging on top before she continued to help Attie with the cleaning.
Looking at the two girls busy cleaning up, Baiyi decided to go outside and continued to polish the glider components.
The rest of the morning went by quietly. When noon came, Baiyi entered the house and accompanied the three girls for lunch. Tisdale proceeded to talk to him about the profits of her workshop that did not see much improvements. Even though the sales of those magical gems were still pretty good, the production capacity still remained pretty much the same. Despite the fact that she had already recruited a numbers of new alchemist disciples who were currently in their training period, they seemed to be not helping much with the production.
"This is weird. There are no wealthy aristocrats who came forward to talk to you about partnership or whatsoever?" Baiyi asked curiously," I'm sure there must be somebody who noticed the great profits that you're making right?"
"There are some!" Tisdale quickly answered before she took out a stack of fancy invitations to show Baiyi," These are sent to me along with the account books. Some are old invitations and some I just received this morning."
Baiyi casually opened the invitations and after reading them, he shook his head in disappointment. They were all average aristocrats and some were invitations for afternoon tea while others were invitations for balls, or even salons. All of them were good-for-nothing family that was not even comparable to Undine's family. Of course, Baiyi would not bother himself with such average people.
Still, there was one invitation that caught his eyes. It was an invitation that invited Tisdale to join an out-of-the-world French salon. After mentally making a note of the family's name, Baiyi lit up a fire and burned all of the invitations at once. Dissatisfied, he nagged, "Urghh... These are all good-for-nothing people. Some of them merely sent the invitations because they are interested in you. Ignore all these people, okay? We must find an aristocratic family with high power and rank to partner with!"
"I think so, too!" Tisdale swallowed a piece of chicken before she continued to answer, "In truth, I don't mind it even if we don't partner up with anybody else. The workshop is currently doing quite well actually, so much better than last time. I'd be more than happy if it maintains this condition right now."
What low ambition you have! Baiyi lamented inwardly before saying out loud," If it's possible, ask the farmers around here to send some fresh ingredients to our house everyday. We don't have anytime to go out and buy them now. As for the money..." Baiyi reached out and rummaged through his storage pouch. After a while, a startled look appeared on his face as he realized that there was no money left on him at all.
Er... What an embarrassing situation it was…
Fortunately, Tisdale was a very sensible girl. Quickly, she reassured, "Don't worry about the money, Sir! The profit that is generated by the workshop so far is more than enough to cover the expenses of the four of us!"
"Okay. Let's just do it this way first," Baiyi agreed while thinking secretly to himself, Why isn't Undine sending some money over yet?
At that moment, without a doubt, Undine actually wanted to come over to talk about the aerial commercial route as soon as possible. However, as she had just returned, there were a large number of things that were waiting to be handled by her. Explanations for her family, compensations for the deceased, appeasements towards her business partners and so on. Both of her hands were so full that there was no time for her to do anything else. Not only her, the entire family was running around in circles doing errands, too. The young sorcerer and the defense fighter were all sent out to help send the compensations to the families of the deceased. Nobody was free to attend to Undine's uncle, the black Soul Armature. Until now, he was still paralyzed, lying on the bed staring at the ceiling all the time, making him the most idle person in the family.
For that reason, Baiyi would have to budget his expenses for now.
Just as he was deep in his thoughts on how he was going to cut down on his expenses, a loud 'boom' suddenly resonated loudly from behind. In a flash, he turned to have a look and was surprised to find Attie lying on the table. All tablewares were knocked onto the ground and pieces of tablewares were scattered all over the floor. Her face was red with hot flashes and she was breathing heavily gulping for air.
Shocked, Baiyi quickly reached out to touch her forehead!
It's burning hot!