"I'm home."
Avia returned to the place she was currently living with her younger brother in the Night Clan compound. The house was rather silent, possibly Aspen is sleeping, thought Avia as she closed the door.
But, just as she exited the foyer and entered the living room, her footsteps halted and her eyes widened in shock.
There was a young man lying on the floor with his body dyed in blood.
"Aspen!"
Avia rushed forward immediately and grabbed him. She immediately took out a 7-star healing card and applied it to Aspen's body. However, strangely, it did nothing to the injuries. The fresh blood stayed and she could smell it from up close.
"Why isn't just working?" Avia panicked and she put her ear to his chest. As she feared, there was no heartbeat. Tears formed in her cold-looking eyes and just as they were about to stream down her cheek, a voice was heard, "fooled you, sister."
"Eh?" Avia looked at the body with her fat tears blurring her vision. Aspen suddenly opened his eyes and then sat on the floor, looking at the corner of the room, "And as you can see, my prediction is correct. My sister first would use a healing card and only then check my heartbeat. This is how I successfully pranked my…"
He suddenly stopped talking and became as stiff as a wall, feeling a powerful aura behind him. The pressure was quite high. If not for his 6-star realm, he would have been suffocated but for now, he couldn't get up on his feet.
Aspen turned his head to look at Avia, who appeared to be very angry. "Umm… sis?"
"How about you die for real?" Avia raised her hand to summon a dagger in her left hand and a whip in her right hand. "Choose your execution. Would you like to be stabbed or would you like to get whipped?"
"Ummm… how about fists?" Aspen played along and said in an unsure manner.
Avia quickly dismissed her Arcana and cracked her knuckles, "good choice."
The devilish smile on her face made Aspen gulp in fear.
"Ahhh…." "That's just a harmless prank for Vispen (A popular video-sharing website)" "I don't do it again, ahhh. That hurts" "I'm sorry"
For the next five minutes, his screams could be heard all across the street and no one bothered to take a look, knowing that this 27-year-old surely have angered his sister with another prank.
After a thorough beating, Aspen had bruises and handprints all over his body, which were healed right away as she used a healing card.
Forcing him to kneel on the floor, Avia let out a deep sigh and said in a soft tone, "Don't do such acts, okay? All I have is you. If something happens to you, what would I answer to mom?"
As Aspen apologized to her once again, Avia asked him about the dinner. To which, he spoke with a smile, "today's special is the Kuru clan's indigenous dishes. Tandoori chicken, Garlic naan, butter chicken, palak paneer, and frozen yogurt."
"Okay, that's cool but did you order from outside?" Avia's mood became a little bit better as she liked these exotic dishes that aren't usually available in the outside world.
Aspen shrugged his shoulders, "naturally. Do you think I can make those things?"
"Well, thank god that you haven't attempted it." Avia sighed in relief and further added a harmless insult, "the last you tried to make those things called potato parathas, ugh… you burnt them completely and the potato had some strange spices that made it so bitter…"
"Ugh… you don't need to remind me, sis." Aspen doesn't want to remember the day after his last year's birthday, which turned into his nightmare. He had a crush on this girl from the Kuru clan, one of the nine hidden clans. She looks very beautiful, although not blessed with talent.
Being friends with her friend, who belongs to the main branch of the Kuru clan, Aspen invited her for his birthday and tried to impress her with his cooking on the following day only to make her and other clan members feel like he was mocking their food culture and blew out his chance.
Anyways, back to the present, the brother and sister were having dinner while talking about how their day went along with other things. Avia was just about to go to the main course but a sudden message from Ethar Night gave her another shock of the day, even bigger than the one she experienced earlier.
"Aspen, something came up. I need to leave right now and might return late. You enjoy the dinner."
Not intending to take the matter as a joke, she left the house alone in hurry, leaving behind the clueless Aspen to wonder, "Was she summoned for an emergency mission or something?"
He then looked at the dishes on the table and groaned, "Ugh… I cannot eat all of this food. What should I do with this?" After brief thinking, an idea popped up in his head and he let out a grin, "Hmm… that's right. If she doesn't return, it means that I will be alone for the night. Should I put these dishes in a storage card and call for the gang to have a party until dawn? Not a bad idea…"
***
The town of Sliya, Southern Qudour;
"Here, you do like this… See… how convenient the world has become?" The 64-year-old Oakley was teaching a young Azzy how to operate a touch screen smartphone and tablet.
Azzy was familiar with those devices but he never operated as whatever cartoons he wanted when he was a child, he would have been able to watch on television. Not to mention, 2021's smartphones were quite advanced compared to the 2015 models that he was familiar with. Adding on top of that, there are various devices that he never even touched in his life.
Azzy could only be amazed by the rate technology was developing. Neal's flying car was supposed to be a technological wonder in 1993, but now, there were even flying taxis in top-tier cities. "The population boom really has changed the world. It's not even 30 years…" He concluded by letting out a deep sigh, not knowing whether it is a good thing or a bad thing.
Oakley agreed with his statement, "Yeah, back in the 90s, we thought 3 billion was too many people, but now, it is 5.28 billion and still growing. In the new generation, 24 out of every 1000 kids are awakened when it used to be 0.98 out of 1000. The quality, on the other hand, dropped.
Do you remember the guy who tested you? After we returned home, he called me and told me that you were a genius, awakening a purple grade Arcana. Had he known that it is a platinum grade, he might have fainted." He let out a grin, imagining the situation.
Azzy silently shook his head with a smile. He knows that his grandpa wasn't aware of the real truth of his Arcana and he thought it is better to keep it that way. Some things should be revealed to the family but some are better to keep a secret.
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