The Place Where Everything Begins

Five days later...

At Jeremy\'s house.

*knock* *knock* *knock*

\'Sigh... Finally, the last group of people that I have to baptize huh.\' Jeremy let out a sigh of tiredness and thought inwardly to himself. Currently, he was sitting on a sofa in the living room while watching some animes like always.

"Come in; the door is not locked."

Jeremy said lightly into the air.

Unsurprisingly, the four people in front of the door had heard his voice clearly due to Jeremy\'s mana utilization techniques.

Everyone except for one person got a bit startled by the sudden voice besides their ears.

However, they did not think much about it because there might be a voice intercom doorbell somewhere nearby them.

But they had no time to look around. Right now, the only person who was not startled by the sudden voice was currently opening the door into the house.

*Creaks*

Sounds of the door being pushed open resounding out.

Afterward, Charlotte came into the house after receiving Jeremy\'s permission with her father, mother, and aunt.

Right... the four people were Charlotte and her family members.

Charlotte\'s father, who was walking right behind his daughter, was a man with an average height of around 165 cm, with somewhat broad shoulders. His weight was about 80 kilograms. That made him look a bit stout, almost fleshy. As for his age, he was somewhere around his mid-forties. He also had blonde, grey hair color and blue eyes like Charlotte.

Beside him was his wife, Charlotte\'s mother. Her height was 170 cm, her age was around 40, with a somewhat curvaceous and light body.

Her hair is shiny blonde in color, her eyes were green, together with her dainty and beautiful nose, and glossy pink lips had made her a moderately charming adult.

With everything in the right place, she was considered a perfect mold of a wife material.

Behind them was another woman; she looked somewhat similar to Charlotte\'s mother. But considering that her elegance and beauty were many tiers above that, she must have inherited only the good genes from her parents.

At first sight, she had a shapely figure with a wasp-waist like an hourglass. She looked like someone not older than 35 years of age. Jointly with her glossy bright skin and her hot figure in her prime year of life made her one of the most attractive beauties out there.

If someone looked at her more carefully, on her visage, there were slender eyebrows that seemed so attractive aligning perfectly with her charming and alluring bottle-green eyes, which would be able to drown in the eyes of every onlooker.

Her eyelashes were velvety. She had a dainty nose, glossy full red lips as well as shiny and halo-white teeth that could cause most lustful men to desire to lavishly kiss and taste them.

...

...

Right after coming into the house...

They walked side by side until they reached the living room and spotted Jeremy, who was sitting there.

Meanwhile, the faces of Charlotte\'s father, mother, and aunt were clearly expressing their dissatisfaction to quite a degree.

It was like, they were forced here by Charlotte for some unknown reason.

In fact, there were two batches of people that Charlotte had brought to Jeremy\'s house before them.

The first batch consisted of Charlotte\'s two besties, and the second batch included her grandfather (father\'s father) and grandmother (father\'s mother).

That would make up to only seven people that Charlotte chooses for the future knowledge about tutorials and Ortus.

It was not that she didn\'t want to bring more people, but it was because her father didn\'t have any siblings. Also, her mother only had one younger sister, Suzan. As for her mother\'s parents, they had already passed away several years ago.

For the headcounts, Owen also surprisingly brought in only seven people. Albeit, Jeremy gave them a quota of 10 people.

He had his own reasons, though. Those were enough for him with his one parent, two siblings, two relatives, and two grandparents.

Now, come back to the current situations...

When everyone came into the living room, Jeremy turned to face them and stood up from the sofa.

"Good evening, uncle Frank, aunt Emma, and aunt Suzan. It\'s been more than a year since we last met. How are you guys doing?"

Jeremy nodded to Charlotte and greeted Frank and Emma warmly. Meanwhile, this was the first time he met with Suzan.

After seeing that, Jeremy, aka the one who had invited them into his house, had greeted them warmly.

The three adults decided to go along with the flows with some chit-chats first before diving into the main topic.

"It\'s been quite good for me. A week ago, I had just closed an important deal with a bigshot client. And it seems like everything will be going well for the near future too."

Uncle Frank smiled warmly to Jeremy.

Actually, Jeremy had been to their \'big house\' quite often. He would always be welcome at their house, whether it be to eat dinners, tutor Charlotte, or throw a party. That\'s why they were pretty close with him.

"I\'m good little Jerem. You know, our little sweetie, and we miss you so much. It\'s been a very, very longgggg time since you last visited us. It would be best if you had gone to our home more often. I really want you to taste my new menus from our restaurant. Oh... I almost forget to ask, how are you? Do you feel bett... Oops."

Right after Uncle Frank finished his greetings, aunt Emma hurriedly grasped this chance to talk with Jeremy.

But she had to stop in mid-speech abruptly because \'her mouth\' had almost spilled out the words to remind Jeremy about his sorrowful past of losing his parents to the plane crash.

"I\'m sorry... I didn\'t mean to hurt your feelings..." Said apologetically, aunt Emma.

Hearing that Charlotte, Frank, and Suzan shook their heads from side to side at Emma, who had almost slipped her own tongue.

"It\'s okay. I\'m doing fine now. All of my wounds have already been healed thanks to your \'lovely\' daughter completely."

Nevertheless, Jeremy answered back with his usual easygoing smile to alleviate the sudden mood change within the room.

Anyhow, the \'past\' Jeremy had already gotten used to Emma, whom she was just like Charlotte whenever she got a chance to talk; she would talk nonstop.

They were a pair of a chatterbox and also a heaven-sent duo made especially to annoy Jeremy.

Well, that didn\'t mean the \'present\' Jeremy would not feel annoyed by her talkative personality. He was a former sage, after all. Nobody had talked to him like a machine gun for a long time.

Even though he felt quite a bit annoyed by their incessant speech, still, it was not a big deal after all, and they didn\'t harbor any ill intention towards him. So, he chose to endure it and played along with the flows.

But in contrary to the annoyed Jeremy. After hearing those words from him, Charlotte, who had kept quiet all this time, suddenly felt a jolt on her entire body like electricity was running through her body.

Then her face and ears were getting redder and redder.

\'Did Jeremy just compliment me? OMG!!\'

Never in her wildest dream would she think that Jeremy would compliment her.

However, unbeknownst to her, Jeremy\'s purpose of saying those words was to alleviate the moods, not flirt with her.

Not caring about Charlotte, who was fiddling her hair with a reddened face, Jeremy turned his head to aunt Suzan, and then he nodded his head with a warm smile towards her as a sign of greeting.

"Hello, aunt Suzan. I believe that this is our first time meeting with one another. It\'s nice to meet you."

"Yes, it is, but I\'ve heard about you from my niece more than a hundred times already. Anyway, it\'s nice to meet you too."

Hearing Jeremy\'s greetings, Suzan greeted him back with a warm and beautiful smile plastered on her lips. If any Average Joe saw her smile right now, they would be captivated immediately by her charming behaviors.

\'Wow, she is as beautiful as a Hollywood star. According to Charlotte\'s words, she is also a businesswoman like Charlotte\'s father and mother, if I do not remember wrong. She lives in a different state and is currently managing many businesses there. She is also sin...\'

"Ahem..."

"Jeremy, may I know the purpose of our visit here? I think something important or urgent might be going on right now, for our lovely daughter to be very hell-bent on bringing us here."

When Jeremy was thinking to himself, he was suddenly interrupted by Charlotte\'s father, Frank.

Currently, Frank was having a curious look written on his face. That\'s why he decided to cut to the main topic right after they had finished greeting one another.

The other two adults were also the same; they were waiting for Jeremy\'s reasons for inviting them here.

After all, they were a businessman and businesswomen. They had plenty of things to do and manage. Every passing second and minute meant that they were losing many opportunities to make money.

If it was not for their beloved and doted daughter, who persisted them to come no matter what, they wouldn\'t care to waste their precious money-making time at all.

Their time meant money and gold...

*Sigh*

Jeremy could only sigh after he saw the behaviors of the three people like that.

To tell the truth, there was nothing wrong with them being impatient because they didn\'t know that everything was going to change soon.

Furthermore, he knew well that they also had many things to do.

Even right now, Suzan was typing her phone messages nonstop, and it must be about business that she had suddenly left behind at the other state.

Concurrently, Emma was smiling bitterly when she heard her husband\'s earlier words. Meanwhile, Charlotte was still fiddling with her beautiful blonde, grey hair with blushing cheeks.

It seemed like she really felt shy...

So, instead of answering them, he decided to say the words that he had been saying a total of 6 times already within the past five days.

Those words were miraculous and mystical words that could convince even a crying baby into stopping its crying, or they could convince even an insecure girl to feel that she was pretty like an angel.

Those words were that good, and Jeremy had already tested them firsthand so many times.

In addition, this time would be the 7th time that he would say those words.

And they were...

"Do you believe in magic?"

Jeremy lightly smiled and said with a hint of professionalism.

...

[A/N: For enumeration, Jeremy had said it two times when the trio visited him five days ago. Then two more times for Owen\'s two batches of family members. Lastly, two more times for Charlotte\'s previous two batches. This time is the 7th.]