"Do you have everything Kaede?" Nagisa asked as he came back with his cart filled with the crystals he had saved up in his secret passage. He hadn't shown it to Kaede yet, not that he didn't trust her, but it was safer that way, she couldn't spill something by accident if she didn't know anything to begin with. Also, it was supposed to be a surprise.

"Yeah..." Kaede nodded as she pushed her cart towards Nagisa. Ever since Kaede agreed to let Nagisa help her with mining, they've decided to spend 2 out of their 6 work hours to help Kaede gather her crystals. The other 4 hours, Nagisa would spend on digging his passage further while Kaede would spend her time getting some crystals on her own, of course now she had the luxury to slack off a bit when she got tired.

"You're sweating a lot." Nagisa noticed as he slightly frowned and looked at her slightly worried, "are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Kaede forced a smile on her face and tried to lift her cart, "hmfp...!" Seeing how hard it was for her to lift her cart only made Nagisa's frown even deeper, Kaede was carrying the same amount of crystals as always. And considering that her physical ability had already recovered and had even improved a little in the last 2 months, it should've been rather easy for her to carry these.

"Put them down Kaede." Nagisa dropped his cart and walked towards Kaede, something was definitely wrong, her face was slightly red as well, he thought that it was because of her exhaustion, but now he had a pretty bad feeling about this.

"I'm fine Nagisa, really." Kaede quickly dropped her cart and tried to dodge Nagisa, but he still managed to grab her arm and pulled her to him. "What are you doing?" Kaede struggled to escape but Nagisa's hand didn't let go.

"Just stay still for a second!" Nagisa said as he wiped her bangs from her forehead and placed his forehead on hers, "... you have a fever." Nagisa confirmed as his face darkened. "Why didn't you tell me!?" Nagisa glared at her with his forehead still on hers.

"I..." Kaede opened her mouth but the stopped and simply avoided Nagisa's eyes, "sorry..." she apologized weakly.

"..." Nagisa glared at her for another few seconds then finally let go of her hand after letting out a long sigh, "we'll talk about it later, think you can make it back?" Nagisa asked as he gently stroked her hair.

"I'm not sure..." Kaede quickly walked away from Nagisa and tried to lift her cart again. "Hrgn... I think... I can manage." Kaede said but her legs and arms were visibly shaking.

"Forget it Kaede." Nagisa shook his head and took her cart from her. "Comon." Nagisa put his cart down on the side and kneeled down in front of Kaede with his back faced towards her.

"Eh?" Kaede was looked at Nagisa with a slightly confused look on her face, "aren't you... mad?" She carefully asked after hesitating for a second.

"Of course I am!" Kaede could see how the veins on Nagisa's forehead were visibly pounding, "but I still have to get you out of here first, don't I?" Nagisa rolled his eyes and said, "comon, don't let me kneel here forever."

"Y-yeah." Kaede quickly hopped onto Nagisa's back and Nagisa stood up again.

"Now let's see..." Nagisa placed his arms under Kaede's legs to make sure that she won't fall off and grabbed one cart with each hand, "uff..." he somehow managed to push both simultaneously. The result of his mind training definitely helped to balance both hands at the same time.

While Nagisa was concentrating on balancing both carts while still moving forward, a mixed feeling was swelling up inside Kaede. Something that she only felt when she was with her parents before getting abandoned, but something was still different. The warm and fuzzy feeling was the same, but when she was with her parents, her heart wouldn't start pounding so weirdly.

-Well... he IS my big brother... right?-

Kaede though while she leaned her head against his back. It felt safe and warm. "I love you, Nagisa," Kaede whispered subconsciously before falling to sleep.

Nagisa stopped for a second and smiled after hearing what Kaede said. But what he didn't know was that the "love" Kaede was talking about was slightly different from the one he felt at this moment. But nobody could blame him, Kaede didn't know herself.

"There you are!" As always, the man with the high-pitched voice was waiting for Nagisa, "you're late today." The man said as he took a glance at Kaede, who was on Nagisa's back, unpleasantly.

"I'm sorry sir, my friend was exhausted and hurt her ankle when she slipped." Nagisa explained, "it took me a while to get her and both our carts back here." He was pretty relieved that Kaede had her face on his back for the man would definitely notice the unusual red blush and sweat on her face.

"Oh, is she ok?" The man asked but obviously didn't care much. Kaede's results did improve quite a bit in the last 2 months, but it was still only average, and nothing compared to Nagisa's. The man was actually a little bit annoyed that Kaede might slow Nagisa down. But since Nagisa was constantly improving his results, he didn't say or do anything about it.

"It's nothing huge, I'll take care of it," Nagisa answered.

"That's good. Just make sure that you don't slow down because of her. Leave the carts here, I'll let someone take care of them." The man nodded and sent them off with a guard to bring them back to their cells.

The guard reattached the iron balls while Nagisa kept Kaede's face hidden in his arms which made the guard eye him with a weird look, they were only 10 after all.

To Nagisa's relieve the guard left without suspecting anything. "Kaede?" Nagisa shook her slightly to wake her up but she didn't react at all. In fact, her forehead was even hotter than it was before. "This is bad..." Nagisa frowned as he laid Kaede down.

"Hmmm..." but the second Nagisa tried to let go of her, Kaede started to moan and tightened her grip on his sleeve while frowning.

Nagisa sighed when he saw this and sat down next to her again while caressing her hair and wiping the sweat from her forehead. "It's already been four months huh..." Nagisa said to himself while checking his mana level. Stage 0 level 9! And he only needed a tiny bit to completely fill his pool to break through to the first stage.

He wasn't as fast as Kaede when she just started, but he was close. Kaede had gone from 0-9 in 3 months and he would probably go from 3-10 in the same amount of time. Considering how impressed Kaede's tribe had been with her, Nagisa was improving incredibly fast and do mind that his time to meditate was also limited because of the daily minework he had to do.

The tunnel was nearly done as well, so Nagisa was planning to make his move pretty soon. Because there was going to be a guard shift again the next week, and if Nagisa was correct, it was going to be the one guard who had always slacked off a bit before and after the dinner break.

Usually, guards would pass their cell every 15-20 minutes, but this guard would just skip his first rotation before dinner break and then disappear for another 40 minutes after the break before bringing their dinner and starting to work again. It would be the perfect chance for Nagisa to make his move… but with Kaede in this state.

Nagisa was struggling, ditching Kaede? This thought was killed the second it passed his mind, there was no way he would do that, she was already betrayed by her family and friends once… and he could feel how reliant she had become on him.

On the other hand, the guard rotation is done every month, since there were 3 guards taking shifts in this area, Nagisa would have to wait another 3 months for the next chance. That would make 7 months in total… more than half a year, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't be sold till then.

- Hmm, wait! Does that mean we might spend the rest of our lives together!?" -

- That's great! Thank goodness! At least I'll have someone I know by my side all the time." -

- "I've decided! From now on I'll be your big sister, so if we do see my parents again, they'll be your parents as well!" -

A gentle smile appeared on Nagisa's face as he remembered how Kaede reacted when he told her that they might spend the rest of their life together, "Well whatever, if it really comes down to it I guess I don't mind either." Nagisa mumbled to himself.

"Huh?!" That's when Nagisa was suddenly knocked out of his thought process, his mana pool was acting strangely. The mana in his pool slowly started rotating on its own and there was no way for him to stop it.

- What is this?! -

The spinning was getting faster and faster and his mana was starting to spread even further. But there was no space! Nagisa had just completely filled his mana pool! All the pressure was starting to force his pool to expand! "AHHHHH!" Nagisa screamed out of pain but quickly forced himself to quiet down.

"Hmm? Nagisa?" Nagisa barely managed to hear Kaede's faint and weak voice in his own screaming, "what's wrong?!"

"M-my mana pool is… spinning!" Nagisa forced the words out of his mouth while his face is twisting like crazy.

"Mana pool spinning?" Kaede's brain was still dizzy and not working as fast as she wished for, "You're having your breakthrough? Now?" Kaede started to panic. Usually, there was always another more experienced mage to guide someone on their first breakthrough, but Kaede was in no condition to provide that for Nagisa! She could barely sit straight!

Kaede forced herself on her knees and crawled towards Nagisa, "Endure the pain Nagisa, it will stop when it finishes expanding your pool! Whatever you do, don't try to stop the spinning!" Kaede forced her voice to sound loud and clear. Cancelling or failing a breakthrough will end up with permanent damage to one's pool and make the difficulty of the next breakthrough grow exponentially!

"How… long?" Nagisa hissed while suppressing his urge to scream out of pain, the last thing he needed is the attention of the guards right now.

Kaede tried to call out some of her mana but decided not to try to help Nagisa. Her control was shaky and assisting someone's breakthrough was an extremely delicate matter. She would have to envelop Nagisa's pool and ease out the expansion speed by carefully suppressing it and reduce the pain, but as she was right now she might just straight up squash Nagisa's pool due to her lack of control. She had a way bigger mana reserves after all.

"It's only your first breakthrough so it won't take long," Kaede assured him while holding his hand as tightly as she could. There was so much she could've done for him if it wasn't for this blasted fever!

Kaede was seriously frustrated, all she could was to sit there was Nagisa tremble in all his pain. Her hand was hurting from Nagisa clenching his fist with her hand in his palm, but she didn't try to tell him or to free it. She could see that Nagisa was at the chokepoint of his breakthrough and she wasn't going to distract him right now.

Nagisa had no idea how much time had passed when the expansion had finally stopped. His pool had expanded considerably compared to before. For Nagisa, the entire process was just plain painful. The mana in his pool started rotating faster with every second and basically stretched his pool by force.

- It's way more than just twice as big! About… two and a half times bigger than before I guess? –

Nagisa noticed while checking on his pool after his breakthrough. It made sense why Kaede had told him that filling the pool would get considerably harder with each stage. Now that the rotating had stopped, and his mana went back to the center, his pool seemed surprisingly empty. It seemed like his mana reserve became slightly less? No, that wasn't it, it was just that his mana became denser than before… that only made the task to fill his pool even harder.

- So my mana increased in both quality and quantity… that's gonna take a while. –

Nagisa sighed before opening his eyes again. It was only then that he realized that his entire body was soaking wet from all the sweat, he was too concentrated on his pool that he hadn't noticed. He quickly drained the moisture out of his clothes and hair and absorbed them before he would catch a cold.

"Kaede?" Was his second thought as he quickly looked around him and found her laying on his lap while breathing heavily and shaking. Her hand was slightly swollen and red from Nagisa holding it so tightly. In short, she was in a horrible state, the panic attack Nagisa had caused her definitely didn't help with her situation.

"… Are you feeling alright?" Kaede asked weakly trying to get back up but the pain coming from her hand made her fall back again.

"I'm the one who's supposed to ask that!" Nagisa frowned while letting her head rest on his lap while putting his hand on her forehead. "You're burning up! Don't bother to get up, just stay still and rest, no talking!" Nagisa started to panic, he had no idea how to help her and calling the guards was definitely a no go! If they found out that Kaede had a fever, she would get taken away in an isolated cell to prevent the virus from spreading until she had recovered.

Nagisa had no doubt that they would treat her, dragons were too valuable to be discarded just because of a simple fever, but the idea of her being in a cold cell while having a fever all alone just didn't sit well with him.

"But…", Kaede clearly wanted to say something else but the extreme exhaustion and Nagisa's rather straightforward order made her decide otherwise, she fell asleep the second she closed her eyes.

- If only I had something to cool her down… -

Nagisa thought desperately and didn't even notice how water started to gather in the palm he had placed on Kaede's forehead and it quickly turned into ice. "H-huh?" Nagisa was startled when a sudden piece of information just ingrained itself into his brain.

Status control: Able to manipulate the temperature and status of any kind of liquid in a short

amount of time (differs from the kind of liquid)

"W-what was that?!" Nagisa's eyes shot wide open as he quickly pulled his hand away from Kaede's forehead and stared at it. Tiny ice shards were still visible on his palm.

- Increase temperature! –

The tiny ice shards instantly melted and then turned into steam and evaporated. Nagisa stared at his hand in disbelieve but quickly caught his thoughts again, no matter what this was, it could help Kaede right now! Nagisa quickly closed his eyes after grabbing his blanket. To save time, Nagisa simply used his mana to create some water instead of slowly gathering it from his surroundings and let his blanket soak up the liquid.

- Colder! –

The liquid in his blanket quickly started to decrease in temperature, but unlike last time, it didn't freeze this time. A small glimpse of excitement flashed in Nagisa's eyes before he continued to adjust the temperature of his blanket until he was satisfied and placed it on Kaede's forehead.

He then leaned to the side to grab Kaede's blanket as well and wrapped it around her. The cell was way too cold after all. Nagisa grunted while a shiver ran down his spine.

- Wait maybe I could… -

The idea became more and more plausible the more Nagisa thought about it, so he tried to put it to a test. He closed his eyes, concentrated all his mind and tried to create a connection with the majority of the water elements in this cell with his mana. When he had most of them covered he ordered them to heat up a bit.

To his delight, the temperature of the cell started to increase at an immense speed until it was warm and rather cozy in there. Nagisa was just about to cheer for his success before a sudden wave of dizziness had hit him.

- What's going on? -

He quickly went ahead and checked his mana pool only to find it almost empty, his head felt extremely heavy and his mind was cloudy. This was his first time connecting to this many water elements with his own mana, so he had no idea! Realizing that there was no way he could stay awake in this state, Nagisa decided to just give in to his mental exhaustion and closed his eyes.

By the time the guard came to deliver their dinner, both of them were dozing off peacefully with Nagisa leaning against the wall and Kaede laying on his lap.

Alright, :D Nagisa's become an official mage! My concept of magic in this story will be explained further in the next chapters. For now, you'll just have to let your imagination run wild :D I mean, it's magic!

Tell me what you think about this chapter! I'd really appreciate it!

As always, thank you all so much and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)!