"If we were going to have more kids, don"t you think we would have had them by now?" asked William quickly, holding up his hands in defense."So, this is a topic that you"re okay discussing with our son, but not me?" she asked, icily.
"I made one comment to him, right after I left with him on his seventh birthday, about the fact I would never cheat on you!" exclaimed his father, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Really?" she asked, glancing at Joseph for confirmation.
Joseph quickly nodded. "Dad had just bought some babies from a s.e.x slave dealer, and the women were really happy to see him. I was concerned, and he explained to me afterwards that he had never touched another woman, other than you. The women were happy with him, because he took their babies away from those conditions, and they didn"t have to worry about them being killed."
His mother gasped in horror and covered her mouth. "That"s horrible! This world is just the worst!"
Joseph thought about responding to that, as he thought over all of the worlds he had lived in, and decided that this one was probably one of the worst. The fact that he had been so happy, with loving parents, made it incredibly ironic.
"What else have you learned?" asked William, obviously trying to distract his mother away from this line of thought.
"Um, I probably shouldn"t use GATE until I finish dealing with all of the demon factions. They are trying to weaken the barrier between realms and portals do more damage than teleport. I don"t want to help them any."
"That"s probably smart. Since we don"t need to move a large group of people anywhere, I don"t think that"s a big thing to have to worry about."
"Could you find out if I have a previous life?" asked his mother, after a few moments of thought.
Joseph didn"t want to explain to her that he was restricted from certain spells for a hundred years, and he wasn"t sure how to tell her no, without mentioning the system.
"System, does mom have a previous life?"
(NO, THIS IS HER FIRST LIFE. AND PLEASE DON"T ASK ME SUCH THINGS ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE. I"M NOT REALLY SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU SUCH THINGS, BUT I KNEW THAT IF I DIDN"T TELL YOU, YOU WOULD PROBABLY LOOK INTO IT MORE.)
Joseph shook his head, and said, "Sorry, mom. You don"t have a previous life."
She looked a little disappointed, then nodded in understanding. "I suppose that"s to be expected. Well, Stella, I still want to look at dresses in the next couple of days, so we are prepared for whenever the wedding will be."
Stella dropped her fork, "What!? We never even kissed! Why in the world would we be getting married!? I thought we talked about this!"
"We did! Mom, I told you that we were not getting married! Stella and I discussed this in great detail over the past nine years. We will get married when we are ready."
"I want to live to see you get married!" she said.
"Dear, I think a couple more years would be fine." William tried to smooth things over, but Stella stood up.
"Lady Nadette, I refuse to discuss this further. You may have your son and husband terrified of you, but I refuse to be intimidated by you, any longer. I respect your warrior spirit, and believe you have a long road ahead of you, because of your husband and son. I will protect you with my life, because you are incredibly important to Joseph, and I decided a long time ago that I would remain by his side until the day I die. You can choose to be angry with me, and I can live with that, but I am not interested in marriage at this point in my life, to anyone."
She then grabbed up a plate and turned to leave, pausing at the door. "Joseph, Selena was here, to see you."
"Oh! I was hoping to see her soon! I need her help with something," said Joseph, jumping up and rushing out of the room after Stella. If either of his parents called out his name, he didn"t hear them.
"Little Joseph! You truly are not very little anymore!" said Selena, stepping back to see him better. "Nope, sorry, you were much cuter before. Besides, my lover FIRE would want to hurt you if I thought you were cute now."
Joseph laughed.
"I wish to cast a spell on you, BORROW SKILL, in order to acquire your mastery of FIRE. I"m hoping it will provide me insights I am lacking in order to get a feel for how close I am to mastery myself, as well as possibly trigger my own ascent to mastery. Unfortunately, I can"t directly grant spells, but pure knowledge from FIRE, I hope, will be transferred."
"Well, I suppose it"s alright."
"Is there any skill I have, that you would like? I can also lend any of my own skills."
She thought about that for a moment and then smiled.
"I think it would be somewhat disgraceful for a big sister to borrow skills from her little brother. I am content learning at my own rate. I enjoy the discovery and I do not have so many people who depend upon me as you do."
BORROW SKILL.
"AH!" Joe cried in his head.
Selena had advanced past even grand master. Joseph had underestimated her, even though he should have known better. Apparently nine years wasn"t enough to catch up.
They started processing a ridiculous amount of the information. By keeping Joe separate from himself, as the target of the spell, they were able to compare everything they would normally know, with what they currently knew. This was ridiculously faster than struggling through everything on his own. At least eight times as fast, if not sixteen times faster, then normal, but the strain was a bit much.
Clarification: Joe was given her mastery of Fire, and they studied it together by comparing what Joseph didn"t know versus what Joe then knew.
He could advance towards mastery much more quickly, taking advantage of this, but it would still be a long road. Mastery really couldn"t be achieved with just repet.i.tion. It made him a bit more impressed with the master level he took accounting to in his previous life.
Joseph could only keep it up for around half an hour. Though it gave him a lot of ideas for his other students, each level of skill was like a wall. Going from basic to advanced, where he was at, was like a high jump and then a pole-vault. Going from advanced to wherever Selena was at, was like trying to use an orbital cannon.
He was panting when he finally released the spell and Selena and Stella were looking at him worried. With a laugh he a.s.sured them he was fine.
"Selena is just that much better than me. I didn"t advance a level, but I"m definitely closer. Oh, and I figured out how to cage a sun."
"Really? That would be very interesting to see!"
"It sounded cool and I didn"t want to disappoint my big sister. Let"s go somewhere clear though. I"m sure a lot of people are going to want to see this!"