New Faces in Tardide
Jayde spent the next couple of days with the dragons, spoiling the wyrmlings. While Yinxin was worried over Jayde's mood, she didn't push her, as she believed that when Jayde was ready she would reveal what was bothering her.
It was during this time that Jayde also broke through to Knight of the 3rd Class, and with the purity of her Qi, she advanced immediately to advanced sub-rank, with no weakness or instability to her foundation. Yinxin again absorbed some of the vast amounts of Qi energy drawn to Jayde advancement, and after she had finished mediating she had recovered nearly seventy percent of her previous strength.
Now that her strength had recovered she was able to nurse all three of her children, but Shenxin and Huaxin still insisted on Jayde feeding them in the evenings, they loved the attention that they received from her as well as the taste of her 'baby dragon formulae'.
With Shenxin and Hauxin now being able to nurse properly they quickly started to gain weight and increase in size, and were catching up to their older sister, much to Tianxin disgust, she had enjoyed being the biggest and strongest out of the three, but already Shenxin was nearly on par with her when it came to strength.
After feeling the effects of having purified her Qi, Jayde spent most of her time playing with the wyrmlings by weaving multiple small fireballs that she controlled for them to chase around the cavern. Rewarding them with hugs and kisses each time they 'caught' one.
This play activity not only helped Jayde drain her Qi energy, but with her manipulating the Qi around her she also increased her mental strength, and as an added benefit the wyrmlings physical strength, agility, and endurance increased with their physical activity.
Five days later Jayde returned to Tardide to visit the villagers. Reiko having heard of Jayde adventure to the Blackpool mountains and hearing Jayde excitement when she described riding the Ovis Canis insisted on carrying Jayde to Tardide, he was quite jealous that Jayde had spoken so highly of some mangy beast, he was her battle pet, only he should be allowed to carry Jayde, he grumbled to himself.
Jayde was worried that she might be too heavy for Reiko, even though he was huge — at the end of the day, he was still a young cub.
Reiko laughed when he heard Jayde concern, and insisted that he could even fly with Jayde on his back and he wouldn't feel her weight. At the mention of flying Jayde's eye's lit up with excitement, and she immediately started to think of ways to secure herself to Reiko. She was dying to try flying with Reiko but knew that she would have to wait until they returned to Doha to try that out.
Leaping onto Reiko's back, the two of them took off through the forest. Reiko's speed was amazing, the world whizzed past Jayde in a blur of colors, and with the two of them in tune with each other, Jayde very quickly learned to lie low to avoid branches or to lean to the side as Reiko turned, leaped and raced through the forest.
In less than twenty minutes the two of them were outside of Tardide, Jayde laughed from pure joy at the exhilarating ride.
Reiko puffed out his chest with pride, happy that he had cheered up Jayde. Hah! Take that you mangy beasts, he thought, as he proudly strutted beside Jayde as she entered the village.
As Jayde entered the village she saw many new faces and more than forty children running around, looks like Elder Ryunzo had already returned to Oldstrand to bring back some of the war orphans and veterans from Oldstrand, she thought.
The war orphans were still very wary and seeing Jayde enter most of them quickly ran to their foster parents. Soothing the scared children all the foster parents gathered their children and brought them over to Jayde to introduce her to the orphans.
Telling the children that not only was Jayde the savior of their village, but it was her idea to bring the children back to Oldstrand. They went on to describe how Jayde had saved their village from the Direwolves.
Their eyes widen with each story of Jayde accomplishments. Looking over to the young girl they were amazed — she wasn't that much older than them and she was a real live hero. Seeing Jayde smiling at them gently they quickly lost their fear and started to ask her a ton of questions. Jayde patiently answered each and every one of their questions, often give a child a small pat on their head or rubbing their hair gently.
Even when they begged her to show them some magic, Jayde was patient and weaved a couple of fireballs to show them, awed by this amazing Mage, most of them fell in love with her there and then — swearing that when they grew up they would be just as strong and brave as she was.
Jayde had become their ideal heroine someone that they all took as the role model and they would use her as a measure for the rest of their lives striving to live up to her example.
All the villagers smiled fondly at Jayde and the children, even the war veterans were shocked at how patient and kind this Mage was. Unlike most of the villagers they had been exposed to Mages during the wars and most of them harbored deep resentment to Mages due to their cruelty and arrogance, so seeing such a powerful Mage patiently and gently handling these war orphans surprised them greatly.
Everything about Tardide shocked the war veterans, from the generosity of the villagers to the pure co-operation they showed. None of the villagers had treated them cruelly or had even shown them the slightest disrespect. From the moment they had arrived they had been warmly welcomed, each of the families had given them gifts of clothing, furniture, and food. They had been wholly accepted as part of the Tardide.
The hard shell surrounding these war veterans heart cracked and shattered under the influx of such warmth and acceptance, and they each swore that they would protect this village and these people with their lives.
Jayde could see the wariness in the war veterans eyes, so once the children had been called away by their parents, she just waved and smiled hello to them and walked over to Elder Ryunzo and Rainer.
After greeting the two, she turned to Rainer.
"Well Master Rainer seems like your school is going to be really busy when you finally open," Jayde said smiling.
"Jayde it really great that you have come, we were getting worried about you" Elder Ryunzo said, his voice showing his concern for the young girl.
Smiling Jayde turned and pointed to Reiko "We were both practicing in the forest."
Master Rainer smiled understanding that the bond between a Mage and their battle pet needed to be strengthened through interaction. Turing to Elder Ryunzo he explained this small detail to him
"Ah, so that it," Elder Ryunzo said nodding his head.
"Well with that big fellow at your side, you have more than enough protection," he said patting Reiko's head.
Elder Ryunzo thought, that if anyone had told him a month ago that he would be patting an Ebonywolf's head, he would have asked the person what they had been drinking.
"Jayde could you spare me and Master Reiko some time, we have something we would like to discuss with you," Elder Ryunzo asked seriously.
Nodding Jayde followed the two men back to Elder Ryunzo's house. After entering the study Jayde took a seat and waited for the two men to tell her what was up.
Rubbing his hands a bit nervously Elder Ryunzo said: "Jayde, while Master Rainer may have lost his magic abilities, he hasn't lost his magic senses."
Jayde looked at Master Rainer surprised that he could still sense magic, she was curious where these two old men were going with this conversation.
"The thing is ... Master Rainer has sensed that a couple of the children we have adopted seem to have magic, and we are not quite sure what to do about it."
Jayde was astonished that some of those children outside were Mages, it seemed like an incredible windfall for the village as far as she was concerned.
"I am not quite sure what the problem is?" Jayde asked confused why they were asking her for advice.
"Well, the thing is, once a child is found to have magical abilities they are sent to the Mages' Guild to foster and raise" Master Rainer clarified the situation for Jayde.
He had found out about Jayde unusual background from Elder Ryunzo, after hearing about how she was raised alone with only her master in the mountains, he now understood why she was so different from other Mages.
"Those children have just arrived and only started to settle in, and we are worried that if we sent them off to the Mages' Guild that it would only cause them more damage" Elder Ryunzo hurriedly explained seeing that Jayde still didn't get the situation.
"But to delay their training as a Mage would be doing them an injustice" Master Rainer injected.
"Oh," Jayde said finally understanding the crux of the problem.
Rubbing her nose with her forefinger, Jayde thought about the problem.
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