Supreme Magus novel Chapter 10

The following years weren’t easy on Lith.

He was finally allowed to do a lot of questions, filling most of the holes in his vocabulary and starting to finally learn about his family and the new world.

He learnt that they were living in the village of Lutia, that was part of the county of Lustria, which in turn was part of the Griffon Kingdom.

His parents knew about the neighbouring countries by name, but that was it. They knew nothing about the life outside the village, nor they cared about it.

In their eyes the king was some sort of mythical beast, they put all their faith and worries in Count Lutia. Not only he administered justice and taxes in the county, he would also always take part in Lutia’s spring festival as the guest of honour.

His parents never mentioned to their children anything about magic, wars or history. They only told them tales that could be easily dismissed as bedtime stories even in this new world.

All of their stories were filled with beautiful princesses, valiant heroes and villainous tyrants.

Lith was truly dissatisfied by such little information. He wanted to know what was the planet’s name, what was the stage of scientific development it had developed.

He wanted to learn about the history of magic, the lore, the legends, anything that could give him at least a clue about what to expect from life.

But it was clear they knew little more than gossip, so he could not make questions he was not even supposed to think about.

At least his family tree was much easier to fully understand. Elina and Raaz had married very early, even by village standards, barely sixteen.

Raaz, being an only child, had inherited his father’s farm, where they were currently living. Elina got pregnant shortly after the marriage, giving birth to the twins Eliza and Orpal.

Then she got pregnant again every two years. Thant meant that Raaz and Elina were currently 25 years old, Eliza and Orpal 8 years old, Trion 6 years old, Tista 4 years old and finally Lith 2 years old.

In fact, most of the information were leeched from his siblings’ questions, Lith was mostly limited to a "What’s this? Why is that?" kind of question.

Spending more and more time with the rest of the family, he also discovered why despite his father owned such a nice farm, with its own barn and henhouse, had so much problems putting food on the table.

Tista was born with a congenital condition that prevented her from doing any physical exertion and made her also prone to illness.

Fast pacing was enough to leave her out of breath. She would chough from time to time, and when things were about to turn for the worse, the cough would become violent.

At that point one of her parents would have to run to the village to let Nana visit and heal her. But she could not really cure her, only alleviate the symptoms and return her to her natural state.

And while a check-up wasn’t expensive, the treatment was. Also, even if Raaz did go picking her up and then brought Nana back home, it would still cost an extra.

Doing a round trip meant her losing business, so she required compensation.

It was the constant need for the healer to put such a strain on their budget.

Lith felt very sorry for her. Despite not having spent much time with Tista, she was precious for both Elina and Eliza, and that was more than enough to make her precious for him too.

He felt helpless, cursing his inability to ever practice light and darkness magic. Light magic required a patient, and until he had gained a solid grasp of how it worked and what was this world’s human anatomy, he would not dare putting anyone’s health at risk.

Darkness magic was another story. Lith had only seen it once, no one in his family used it. And even in that one occasion, he had clearly felt the destructive power it held.

He was also biased against it, since on Earth dark magic would always be associated with evil practices and undeads, so he had no desire to dabble with something potentially horrifying.

Lith could only live on, hoping to eventually get some training in magic, while enduring the madness that he was getting used to call family life.

He had to be lively, but not too much. He had to be curious, but not too much. He had to run around but never get out of the door.

His parents were never satisfied. If he tried to sit in corner meditating, they would worry because he was too quiet or too lazy. If he tried to move around or help them, he would be scolded for getting in the way.

They refused to teach him chore magic (that was the name of the lesser spells they used on their daily life), and prohibited him to learn them.

Lith could not go outside without being accompanied by someone, could not get near to the fireplace, could not make too many questions.