The large black Skeleton Champion was already shouldering Angelia as it made its way back to Cecil and the others.

Angelia jumped down from its large clavicle and landed right in front of Cecil. She grinned and gave her brother a victory sign.

Cecil smiled back at her and patted her head before saying, "Good job, Lil sis."

"Ehehehe~"

"Should we continue looking for another one?"

"Uhm...hmm... Nah, let's call it quits today!" Angelia said after thinking for a bit.

"Is that alright?"

"Yup! Besides, I can't even feel any more monsters in the area that I can form a connection with!"

"Alright then, let's head back."

Angelia quickly turned to look at the large skeleton behind her and stuck her hand out. The skeleton began s.h.i.+ning before it transformed into a necklace and landed in her hand. The black bone necklace looked very ominous but Angelia happily put it on her.

Everyone, except for Gabriel, gave her a weird stare but she only replied, "What?"

"Haha, nothing, let's go now. Lucia, take us out please," Cecil chuckled before asking Lucia to teleport them out of the cave.

Lucia nodded and quickly conjured a Misty Gate that led back to the wagon.

******

The next day, Cecil woke up early. He quickly went through his daily training routine with Lucia in their family's dojo.

Kaiser walked into the dojo and noticed his son and daughter-in-law sparring with each other. It wasn't like any normal spar, however. The two fighters were using Mana and Ki to boost their abilities and were attacking each other in an extremely fierce manner.

Kaiser could already tell that Cecil was more skilled, but any of Lucia's moves and maneuvers could easily put to shame the strongest disciple under him. He already knew that Lucia was adept in the family's core martial arts so he wasn't surprised at the techniques she was using.

'Tsk, that brat was holding back on me!' Kaiser thought when he saw his son attacking Lucia so fiercely.

He was wondering why the dojo was rumbling so intensely in the morning. Kaiser thought that his disciples were already out training right now but it wasn't the case. The disciples he was talking about had just arrived behind him right now.

"Don't disturb them. Head in and do your warm-ups on the side. Once you're finished, go ahead and watch if you want."

"Yes sir!" Kaiser's disciples responded in unison before they all uniformly filed into the dojo.

Cecil and Lucia had to focus on each other whenever they sparred so they didn't pay attention to anyone around them and continued to fight. Slowly, Cecil upped the tempo and the speed of the battle rose.

He set the tempo and it continued to rise as time pa.s.sed. It was until the point where Cecil and Lucia were fighting at speeds that everyone else in the dojo could barely keep up with their eyes.

"Hoh, look at this brat! He was holding back so much against his old man!" Kaiser howled in laughter as he witnessed Cecil and Lucia pus.h.i.+ng past the limits and fighting at a level that was unthinkable for a normal human being.

In the end, Cecil won the fight after exhausting Lucia so much that he was able to deliver a clean blow to her stomach and sent her flying across the large dojo. He was a little out of breath so he wasn't prepared for what happened next.

"CECIL SILVARIA!!!"

"!"

He heard someone yell at him. Just as he was about to turn around, a powerful punch landed right onto his head which sent him headfirst into the ground.

"GAHAH!!!"

"Y-you! How could you do that to Lucia?!" The furious voice roared.

"M-Mom?" Cecil said when he looked up and saw his fiery-eyed mother.

"You should NEVER hit your wife! You hear me?!"

"E-eh???"

"M-Mother-in-law?!" Lucia cried out after flipping herself back on her feet and saw the small woman who had just smashed her husband into the ground. Lucia immediately flashed over next to Cecil and was about to speak up before Anastasia beat her to it.

"are you okay, Lulu?! You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

"N-No, mother, I'm not hurt—"

Anastasia worriedly looked Lucia up and down. Lucia, who was being looked over for any injuries, could only smile bashfully. After making sure that she was totally fine, Anastasia turned her attention back to her son who had just picked himself up from the floor.

"What was that for, Mom?" Cecil grumblingly asked.

"You have the nerve to grumble? Don't you know what you've done wrong?"

"...?"

The stupid and innocent expression on Cecil's face that clearly stated that he felt like he had done nothing wrong immediately p.i.s.sed Anastasia off. She jumped up and hammered Cecil on the head again before yelling at him word for word, "Don't. Hit. Your. WIFE! You idiot!!!"

"O-Ouch! B-but Mom! We were sparring!"

"It doesn't matter, it's all the same. I won't tolerate it next time something like this happens!"

"But..."

"No buts! Unless you want me to whoop your b.u.t.t?!"

"..."

Cecil scratched his head not understanding if what he did was wrong or not. This was just a normal thing whenever they sparred. It was unavoidable if either one of them happened to slip in a well-placed blow on each other.

He turned towards Lucia to ask for her help and the girl immediately stepped forward to try and pacify Anastasia.

"M-Mother, I'm fine, really! It was only a punch, it didn't hurt! Normally, Cecil might even follow it up—"

"He'd follow it up?!" Anastasia once again flared up after hearing her words. Anastasia glared at Cecil and began flexing her fingers and arm clearly ready to bash his head again. "So normally, you wouldn't stop with just a punch then?! You'd go for more? It looks like somebody needs to have his head checked!"

Instead of helping her husband quell their mother, Lucia had unintentionally made it a little bit more complicated for Cecil. She apologetically looked up at him with a helpless look on her face and Cecil only flashed her back with a similarly helpless look.

"W-wait, Mom! Please calm down for a bit and let's talk," Cecil said while gesturing for his mother to calm down.

"Nope!"

Just before Cecil's head was bashed another time, he quickly used Blink and disappeared from the dojo. After punching down on the air, Anastasia immediately frowned when she missed.

"That kid! He's rebellious now that he's grown up!"

"H-honey, let's save it for later, okay? The other disciples need to finish their morning training and prepare for the army's mobilization..."

"Hmph! We need to have a serious talk about our son's upbringing! He might not have much common sense but this is too absurd!" Anastasia quipped up angrily. She then turned towards Lucia and continued, "Are you okay, sweetie? I know that my son is a little bit of an idiot, but he should know when to stop in a sparring match!"

"I'm okay Mother, and please don't be too concerned about it. It was only a spar and I'm really not hurt! Cecil would never seriously try to hit me," Lucia said while showing that she was perfectly fine.

Since the two were sparring while using their mana, Cecil and Lucia both had applied a layer of mana on their bodies to mitigate each other's blows. So although the attack from earlier looked like it had hurt, Lucia didn't feel any ounce of pain and was only sent flying backward due to the impact of Cecil's punch. It would have been a different story if Cecil had punched Lucia with a force that broke past this barrier, but evidently, he didn't, and most importantly, he never would.

Cecil couldn't stand others hurting his wives so it was only common sense for him to never hurt them himself. However, their fight was a bit too...visual. It wasn't only Anastasia who was worried when they saw Lucia getting blown back by Cecil, even Kaiser and the other spectating disciples were worried for the young matriarch.

"Do you two normally spar like this?" Anastasia asked.

"Yeah!"

"..."

Anastasia silently narrowed her eyes when she heard Lucia's affirmation. Seeing the look of menace her mother-in-law was directing most likely at her husband, who was not present within the dojo, Lucia immediately spoke up in his defense.

"Don't worry Mother! Like I explained earlier, we have our mana protecting us so we hardly feel any pain! Only a small little shock caused by the impact of our blows but it's still within tolerable range!"

Anastasia still looked a little skeptical so Lucia continued trying to convince her that Cecil wasn't in the wrong.

"Cecil would never hurt me! He developed this form of sparring solely because Seri and I asked him to! Before, whenever we sparred, he'd never seriously try to hurt me so it was hindering me and Seri's progress!"

"...So he developed this mana...barrier to tank the blows that you give each other in a fight..."

"Yup!"

"Because you wanted to fight unrestrainedly with each other...?" Anastasia gave her daughter-in-law a peculiar look as she said this.

"Y-yes?"

"Hmmm..." Anastasia gave Kaiser a look and already saw his eyes brightening.

'This fool...he's going to ask Cecil to teach the disciples about this...'

Anastasia scrunched her brows and pouted her lips.

"You both are protected which is good but it's not very pleasant for us to see a husband send his wife flying across the room with a punch...think about what those d.a.m.ned elders would say if they saw this! They'd immediately start saying many unpleasant things about Cecil!"

Lucia frowned when the elders were mentioned. Those old fogies rubbed her in the wrong way right from the get-go so she didn't have a good impression of them. She didn't want those old coots badmouthing her husband.

"...sorry Mother, I understand now. I'll make sure to have a word with him," Lucia said with a bow.

"Alright, you go in and bathe now. You're going to accompany Cecil later, right?"

"Yes."

Anastasia saw Lucia off and walked over to her husband who was now supervising the disciples' training.

"How was it?" She asked. "I didn't get to see all of it, only the final part where little Cel blew Lucia across the room..."

"Hmm, both Cecil and Lucia are in a league way above mine or anyone else. It's the first time I saw such a superhuman battle..." Kaiser said after thinking for a bit.

"Well, my son should be strong! He's the next heir after all! Also, I'm glad that Lucia is just as powerful. That'll give those stupid geezers something to think about!"

"Mhm, but why did you have to punch Cecil like that? You do understand that with how protective he is of those two, there's just no way he'd actually hurt them, right?" Kaiser skeptically said to his wife.

"I know, but still. He should learn that it isn't right to punch your wife across the room! If those d.a.m.ned elders saw Cecil doing this to his wife, they'd only think the worst!"

"...It's not like he'll actually do it. Besides, this was a spar. I already noticed from the start that those two were landing blow after blow on each other, yet neither of them took any damage nor feel any sort of pain. It was obvious that they were using some kind of technique to s.h.i.+eld their bodies from the impact of their blows."

"Just hurry up and finish the morning routine. You have to head to the city's office and get everything into order before mobilizing the army and marching out," Anastasia said before turning around and walking out of the dojo.

"Also, make sure no one says anything about Cecil and Lucia's spar today! I don't want those stupid elders to find out!" She called out one last time before heading out.

******

In the main mansion's bathroom, Cecil was currently having his back scrubbed by Lucia.

"Phew... Mom was really mad..."

"She sure was! She's more protective of us than you are, Cel!"

"...Did I do something wrong though?"

"Didn't you hear? It's not right to hurt your wife!" Lucia said.

"...I know that. It's not like I hurt you with that punch! You had a mana barrier around you!"

"I already explained it to mother-in-law, but she said that if others saw us fighting like that, they'd only see it as a husband abusing his wife!"

"W-what?! Really?!"

"Mmhmm! Think about what those elders would say!"

"...You met with the family elders?"

"Y-yeah?" Lucia inwardly scolded herself. Now she would have to tell Cecil all about the encounter.

Seeing that she was reluctant to talk about it, Cecil didn't press her for an answer.

"...I won't ask about what happened, but know this. I won't let those old fools interfere with our lives."

"I know Cel~" Lucia said with a smile, "Now, let's finish our bath and get ready! We have a score to settle with Merkruz, after this!"

Cecil nodded and picked Lucia up before heading over to the large bathtub.