(3rd person PoV)
(At 6 years old)
"I will defeat you one day! Sun!" Nephelont announced as soon as he woke up. He kept the habit ever since the sun offended him by waking him up for no apparent reason. He wanted to sleep some more but could not because of the sun's irresponsible actions. That was his opinion, at least.
"Golden bunny- Waah~" Eucleia yawned as she greeted Nephelont. "Good morning" She started rubbing sleep away from her eyes. Having gone through a long argument with her parents, Eucleia kept getting taken out of Nephelont's bed only to teleport back in with total disregard for their concerns.
"You too, red bunny!" Nephelont hugged Eucleia closely before jumping out of bed.
He did not think much of it, but some others did. Nephelont always woke up energetic, as if he was already awake for some time. To add to that, he never felt tired before it was bedtime, really late into the night for him.
Moments later, red bun- Eucleia finally found the energy to resist the pull of the pillow and got out of bed.
During breakfast, Nephelont wanted to ask something. "Dad, can I go to the dungeon now?" Nephelont said with the spoon in his mouth. Nobody figured out how he talks perfectly with things in his mouth yet. He took another bite of his boiled potato salad. (AN: This salad is just a normal salad with more boiled potato than anything else; the main ingredient is boiled potato)
"Ais, do we allow him to go after testing him?" Bell pretended to ask Ais. In fact, they already prepared for when Nephelont wanted to go to the dungeon. It was inevitable.
"Alright" She said while helping Nephelont to some meat. It was blue rare, just how he liked it. Henryk expressed his concerns once and observed Nephelont's health for over a year to make sure. Nephelont's body seemed to be able to process meat raw or half cooked just fine. He never got parasites, nor did he get indigestion.
Eucleia did, though. She once got curious and took a bite. Her body did not like that, absolutely not.
Seeing Nephelont getting tested to decide if he was going to the dungeon or not, Eucleia looked hopefully at her parents. Hephaestus, who got into the habit of coming to spend the morning and the evening with her daughter daily, looked worriedly towards Welf. She was a lot more scared of sending her child to the dungeon than Bell and Ais were, even more than Welf. Welf himself was troubled over the thought.
"We'll do the same. Is that alright with you, Hephaestus?" Welf asked her. He really wanted Eucleia to avoid going to the dungeon thins early, but he knew how a parent's decisions could affect a child's spirits. He did not want to be like the other adults of the Crozzo family back in Rakia. He will just test her more harshly to delay it. He would be more willing to let her go when she becomes 12 at least.
"Let's finish breakfast first, kids" A person who appeared to be a platinum-blond cat person was sitting beside Henryk and feeding him. Henryk was openly disgruntled at her feeding him when he could feed himself.
'What is aunty Shira's race? Cat people look more human that she does' Nephelont thought while munching away at his salad. He left the meat for later. He loved to savor its taste.
"Right, how are your parents, Shira?" Bell asked. He visited the village of Preblica a few times to see the village Henryk and Shira called their home. He got well with Arnold and Sharon, an old man and the chief of the village and his wife. Bell talked with them about the village's traditions and its culture. He liked the myth about the spring festival when he visited during it that one time. Taken by the atmosphere, Bell proposed to Ais then and there. They got married that spring.
"They are doing fine. For pure-blood humans, they are doing too well for their age. I'm glad that is the case" Shira said with a soft smile. "Though, our two children refuse to come here to meet new friends. They are too attached to my parents to move out of the village" Her soft smile wrinkled as she sweat-dropped.
"Nephelont wants to be friends with Uncle and Aunty's children!" Nephelont said between bites. "Can Nephelont go to Preblica?"
"You can. We are planning to visit them ourselves" Bell said while dipping his bread into vegetable soup.
"Well! Isn't that wonderful?" Shira clapped. She was excited to have her children be friends with Nephelont and Eucleia.
(After breakfast)
They chatted some more during breakfast before gathering at the meadows outside of Orario. Nephelont told them that this needed some space.
"Son, give it your all. What I want you to do is either hit me or make me move from my spot" Bell got ready. He had his Hestia Knife in one hand and a shield in the other. He also had a sword at his hip to use if he wanted to switch up his fighting style.
"Should I go all out?!" Nephelont asked for confirmation, but the one he asked was Riveria, a very amused Riveria. That scared Bell a bit.
"This is going to be amusing. Go for it, little one" Riveria said with a grin. She finally understood what Nephelont meant when he said he wanted to surprise them.
"Why are you amused, lady Riveria?" Bell was getting really scared because of this.
Before anyone could explain anything, Nephelont's arm morphed into a gravel-grey color with a slight cover made of crystal scales green in color. He jumped in the air and raised his arm, and out of the blue sky, a bolt of lightning crackled towards him.
"Carillon, that isn't what I think it is, right?" Henryk asked Carillon, who was trying to sneak behind him.
'I hate how he can hear my supposedly silent steps' "You aren't seeing things wrong, Henryk. That's Ancient Dragons' Lightning Spear" Carillon said as he came out of his stealth.
"Help?" Bell weakly pleaded for no-one to hear. His panic was caused by the trauma Henryk caused him by electrocuting him during spars.
The sound of the lightning bolt was getting louder as it came closer, and when it reached Nephelont, he held it in his hand.
'No, this should be weaker and slower than Henryk's. I should be able to evade it, even if only barely' Bell gathered his thoughts and made up his resolve.
'I think I know what he's thinking, and I know that thought would get him hit' Henryk gloated. 'He's become complacent with who he thinks is weaker than himself, it seems. That calls for some sparring' Bell got the chills and knew that something bad was coming. However, that was not his priority. By now, Nephelont threw the lightning spear at him. Just as planned, Bell avoided the projectile, and by a generous margin no less. What he did not account for was the secondary effect of what he evaded. Bell was very late in hearing the wave of red electricity coming his way.
"Augh!" Bell was zapped, causing him to flinch slightly. Nephelont was fired up and was already throwing the second lightning spear at Bell.
"Oh no..." Bell rolled out of the way this time.
"I made dad move away!" Nephelont celebrated his well-earned victory.
'I want to do even better, Golden bunny' Eucleia thought while observing every detail of this.
"What about my test, dad?" She then asked Welf.
"Since you like slings, what about precision testing? Let's see from how far and how quickly can you hit a target" Welf said. Good thing is, they had a range in the practice grounds of the familia.
(In the range)
Eucleia was standing with her sling in hand. She put a rock in its pouch and started spinning it. She spun it really fast before releasing the rock at the target. The rock hit the target on the 5th ring from the center.
"Well, should we see if you could hit me while I'm moving?" Welf glimpsed the uncertain yet unyielding eye of his daughter and smiled. "I will be moving at the speed a 1st floor monster does for this"
After some tries, Eucleia hit Welf. Another test they did was how well she would hit him when he approached her. Eucleia simply slammed the loaded sling into Welf's side, saying something about the certainty of it that way. Welf laughed at how creative that was to use against a monster of the same speed.
After making sure that Eucleia knew that this might not always work if the monster was larger or was armored, the familia told her and Nephelont that they could only go when an adult was with them the entire dive, preferably more than one person as well.