Aria sat on her bedroom floor and dumped the velvet pouch out. She counted exactly twenty glowing mana crystals.

A massive grin spread across her face. She thought Adrian might give her two or three for her experiments. So getting twenty of them felt like hitting the jackpot, but there was one issue.

’How did he get so many to the point where he casually handed out twenty to me? I might need to look into this further but he’s my papa so maybe I should just wait for him to tell me about it instead...’

She then grabbed a single crystal and put the rest away before pulling out a blank sheet of paper.

She didn’t use ink for this. She channeled her mana and pushed the pure, invisible mana out of her fingertips. She drew a complex magic circle right onto the paper. A normal person would just look down and see a blank page. Even she couldn’t see it but if she tried to sense mana, she could feel the magic circle.

The second she placed the crystal directly in the center, bright blue lines appeared and began to glow.

Aria crossed her legs and started meditating with the paper sitting right in front of her.

She sucked the ambient mana out of the room first and once the room was completely empty inside, her mana strands hooked into the crystal and pulled. This created a violent vacuum cycle. The crystal pulled fresh mana from the outside, Aria absorbed the mana from the crystal and the circle funneled the mana from outside into the crystal.

The speed was completely absurd.

Two hours later, the crystal crumbled into useless dust.

’So I’m at the peak of the first circle.’ Aria thought as she checked her mana veins and her mana core.

She grabbed another crystal and started the cycle all over again.

A physical barrier snapped inside her chest and a second mana circle materialized around the first one, but she kept going.

By the time the sun went down, she had burned through four crystals and hit the absolute limit of a second circle mage too.

Aria wanted to push for more bur her body couldn’t handle it. Her mana circle was a bit unstable, so she had no choice but to spend the rest of the night just stabilizing the unstable mana inside her mana veins. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

She woke up the next morning and did the exact same thing she did the previous day but this time, she burned through ten mana crystals. Her rank shot up to the peak of the third circle.

On the third day, she used five more crystals and finally broke into the fourth circle.

She stopped right there since she only had one crystal left and she planned on using it to make something like she promised. On top of that, the mana inside her body was dangerously unstable.

’I can actually help Papa now.’ Aria thought as she walked down the hall for dinner. ’I can stop anyone who tries to attack us.’

But she knew she had to keep her mouth shut. Talented mages were massive targets for assassins in this messed up world if they weren’t neutral. She had already made up her mind to only let Adrian know the truth unless she was forced to show it in the future.

She sat at the dining table and pouted as she looked at her plate. It was just hard bread and heavily salted, overcooked meat. People here cooked meat completely because they were terrified of getting parasites.

Adrian was the only person who cooked a proper, juicy medium rare steak.

She missed those days a lot already as she poked her fork through the meat in front of her.

’Papa... when will you come back...’

Four months passed by quickly.

Aria was staring out the window when she finally saw them. Adrian was walking down the main road with his army, and from just a single glance, she could tell that there were a lot more people with him compared to when he left.

Though, she didn’t care about the extra troops.

Instead, she bolted out of her room without even thinking for a moment. She ran down the stairs and out the front doors as fast as she could physically run.

Adrian wasn’t even at the gate yet. But he saw her sprinting toward him and a massive, goofy smile broke across his face.

This right here was exactly why he risked offending a Count to rush back home.

He scooped her off the ground and hugged her tight.

"Aww, my cute little angel! Were you a good girl?" Adrian asked.

"I was the best girl." Aria giggled. "I practiced my spells and exercised every single day! And I made something for you too!"

"Let’s go see it." Adrian said.

He looked over his shoulder.

"You guys go check up on the soldiers." he said as he looked at Claire and the knights before turning to the five kids, "You guys follow me to the mansion and head to your rooms. You’ve earned some rest."

Then he followed Aria inside.

She grabbed his index finger and dragged him all the way to her bedroom. Once inside, she dropped to her knees, crawled under the bed, and pulled out a heavy cast iron pan.

"It heats up by itself if you push mana into it." Aria said proudly as she handed it over.

Adrian laughed. He pulled her in and ruffled her silver hair.

"This is the best gift ever." Adrian said. "I love you."

Aria buried her face into his shirt. "I love you too Papa. Please cook me something nice.... I don’t like the food that others cook here."

"Sure, I’ll cook something for you." Adrian said and chuckled.

He sat down on the floor and pushed a tiny bit of mana into the pan, turning it extremely hot in just a few seconds.

"The bottom and the handle stay cold!" Aria explained quickly.

Adrian flipped the pan over. He checked the crude engravings scratched into the raw iron. As a mana engineer, he recognized the basic drawn runes immediately. She used a standard heating rune paired with an insulation rune to stop the thermal transfer.

The mana pathways connecting them were super inefficient, but Adrian didn’t care. He was just insanely proud that his five year old daughter built a working magical appliance.

"Wait." Adrian said. "Where is the mana stone? Didn’t you need one to power this?"