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It went without a doubt that Wukong\'s build was also the easiest to mimic.

\'Elizabeth\'s bear climbing is so amusing. She\'s hugging the tree with all her fours, but somehow, she climbs up steadily and fast… it\'s not the first time she\'s done that,\' Jake thought as he looked to the side. He had to look a little up because Elizabeth was better than him in this field.

She wasn\'t just adorable but also efficient! Her friend, Sio, was also beside her, ensuring her safety.

It wasn\'t needed because of Jake\'s safety measures.

In fact, Elizabeth had come to love them.

"Wild!"

She purposely let the tree go to dangle on her safety rope. She swung left and right and even kicked the tree\'s bark to get a different angle and wind in her long hair.

It was so much fun that she didn\'t want to climb up the tree as fast as she usually would.

There were limits to her playfulness.

Jake grew irritated with that but couldn\'t bring himself to scold Elizabeth. It wasn\'t because he was aiming to receive a subclass from her, but something within him refused to stop her from having so much fun.

\'Do I have a weak spot against her like Mrs. Minerva?\' Jake thought.

Just like Minerva would, he allowed her a few minutes of fun before pulling the rope up and forcing Elizabeth back onto the track.

She smiled at him brightly.

"You should try this too, Archer!" Elizabeth shouted.

Jake shook his head, "I\'ll keep tabs on your safety like Mrs. Minerva would."

"You can\'t favor grandma more than me!" Elizabeth pouted as she replied.

Jake grinned, "This attitude comes with age… but I have doubts if you will be the same as me or Mrs. Minerva once older. There\'s so much wilderness in you!"

Elizabeth loved to hear that. She sped up and went past Jake in the blink of an eye.

Wukong and Jake smiled and picked up the pace.

At last, Jake and Elizabeth were on the top of the turtle forest. The shell up here was smooth and covered in a wooden floor, making it an unusual sight. Jake didn\'t know how nature could survive without sunlight.

It was something he\'d ask Minerva later, but deep inside, he knew what kind of an answer he\'d receive.

Magic.

It was all magic.

On top of the shell was also a small wooden house. It was only one floor and looked simple and minimalistic. It stood out in the vista of the blue sky and wooden floor, but there was a natural charm to it that made it seem like a required piece of the turtle forest\'s puzzle.

Minerva and Alice were having royal tea inside that mansion, recalling good old times.

Jake and Elizabeth\'s appearance brought them back from this voyage. The old grandmas waved at them and invited them inside for snacks and drinks.

Jake asked for water only for a drink because he was worried about his bloodline and didn\'t want to get drunk in Elizabeth\'s presence. He didn\'t mind eating as much as the little beast beside him, though.

Eating like a squirrel with a broad smile on her face, Elizabeth was the center of the attention.

Her and Jake\'s companions had found a spot just outside the mansion, enjoying snacks unique to their species.

Jake pondered over Ender\'s question.

"Mrs. Minerva… what is the pride?" Jake asked.

He asked aloud so Ender wouldn\'t hear about it yet through their mental link. It might have seemed like Jake wanted to hoard all points in Ender\'s heart by leveraging Minerva\'s knowledge, and that was the truth. He didn\'t want the old grandma to take his spot in Ender\'s heart.

Jake also would be careful with his words, as he remembered the image of the past he saw during his assimilation with Ender.

"I\'ve seen many prideful individuals and their view of the pride. There are so many that I no longer can\'t speak about pride without associating it with other sins. For pride is a sin, indeed," Mrs. Minerva said as she lifted a cup of royal tea to her lips, sipping on it.

While Elizabeth wasn\'t interested in that conversation at all, Jake leaned forward on the table and asked for more.

Minerva smiled at him, "A man with a wife and children will take pride in providing his family with essential funds to comfortably live every month. A different kind of husband will take pride in doing anything necessary to provide for his family, including stooping so low to commit a crime.

"Those are common examples of the pride that a man like you should understand. My pride is my strength and the effort I put into reaching this level. Though I may have been born with a talent seen once in a thousand years, I worked harder than anyone else to become the strongest mage. So long as I live, The Warmonger Empire shall not fall.

So long as I live, Asta Orb will remain supreme in The Warmonger Empire."

Smiling, Minerva glanced at Alice.

Alice warmly smiled at her, too.

It seemed those words weren\'t only directed at Jake.

Jake didn\'t pay any attention to that short exchange.

He wondered about his pride, his thoughts reaching Ender\'s heart.

-

"Courtesy of Alice, our lessons have been postponed until now. No more slacking around," Minerva said as she stared at her youngest descendant.

Elizabeth licked the leftovers of her cookies off her lips and nodded.

Jake nodded, too.

Their companions were around them.

The Strongest Mage took them to the middle of the shell, where a significant hole had opened to them. It was an entrance to the turtle forest.

It was so bright inside that Jake didn\'t even want to ask Minerva his previous question. Her magic had somehow made a light here similar to sunlight, or perhaps it was a magical item similar to the furnace in Master Aaron\'s basement.

Items with written mana inscriptions were on a totally different level!

"Are there beasts inside?!" Elizabeth asked.

Alice shook her head, "Sorry to disappoint you, Little Elizabeth."

"Ehhhh…" Elizabeth\'s shoulders drooped. "No one?"

"No one."

"Eh…."

Jake leaned forward to peek inside. The trees were light brown and tall. Their appearances came off as sturdy, but their branches surely were flexible, as countless green clouds were teeming on the ceiling. It was a miracle that the artificial sun could puncture through those branches.

The ground at the other end of the entrance was shaved and clean. It was a circle similar to the arena where various forest beasts and monsters would fight for goods.

Alice, however, denied that image in her exchange with Elizabeth.

Minerva snatched everyone\'s attention, "That\'s the place where Alice and I had trained for years… by virtue of her royal philosophy, the turtle forest stores an army of different kinds of soldiers."

As she said that, the forest rumbled.

The trees must have reacted to her mana. Years of inactivity made the spectacle of the rusty trees more dramatic. Suspense filled the forest below Jake and Elizabeth.

These two stared at the changes with widened eyes.

The smallest trees had somehow shaped into humanoid monsters. Each wielded a different weapon, including a staff and an orb! Their skin was as light as the brown trees towering above them, but their armors were as dark as possible, as though painted with dried blood.

The soldiers circled around the clearing like an organized legion and crumbled into rigid forms.

Minerva and Alice recalled their first meeting when they saw the weakest soldiers.

[You must be Asta Bow Alice, right? The old geezer said to take a look at you and see what hard work really is! I don\'t know how a descendant of the bow branch as young as me even knows him, but I want to see the hard work he mentioned and praised!]

[Ah! You must be Asta Orb Minerva! The prodigy! I\'m so happy to meet you! Can we exchange pointers?]

[Exchange pointers? You training magic?]

[I don\'t! But I\'d like to talk about your magic! I\'ll share my experience of archery with you!]

[I don\'t need any of that! Magic is the best and most self-sufficient! It\'s so much better than archery!]

[Please, don\'t be like that! As an archer, I know a lot about wind! An archer\'s anchor point, his strength, the mass of an arrow, its build and mana inside it, and the wind and even gravity! A lot of it can impact the force and trajectory behind arrows! If you can apply those principles to your wind magic, don\'t you think you can make them much stronger and more effective?

The wind is lighter than a feather, but as you conjure wind magic, your mana unconsciously gives your wind magic weight. The more weight, the more damage! It\'s the simplest method to increase the force behind wind magic! If you were to learn archery and its secrets, wouldn\'t you be able to use more advanced wind magic? Don\'t you want to give it a go?]

[No, thanks! That sounds so stupid and useless! It\'s a rattling of a loser, isn\'t it? Asta Bow has been on a decline for a few generations, so you just want your house to be significant and get some contribution! You\'re so weak that you might as well be gone, and no one will notice that! I can\'t believe I had made my way here only to hear such pointless stuff!

I\'m going home! I will punch the old geezer in the stomach for making me come here!]

[You can\'t! Mr. Weston is the kindest scholar I\'ve met!]

[I don\'t care about you!]

[Ah, don\'t be so cruel!]

Alice\'s philosophy as a royal and an archer was that each house should help each other become stronger by sharing their practices and secrets. The exchange she dreamed of had never happened in her life.

That said, through the consequences of events, Alice and Minerva became best friends. They both studied each weapon and tried to apply what they learned to her magic.

[The Asta Bow has no future as of now… so you have to make the magic the strongest!]

[I will be the strongest! I promise you that, Alice!]

[Thank you, Minerva… I couldn\'t have been blessed with a better friend…]

[Why are you crying?]

[You\'re crying, too.]

[I\'m not.]

[You are! Haha!]

The old grandmas faintly beamed at each other.