Chapter 8: Empire.
Bearlington was several times larger than Maryport and could be properly called a city. From what Lee understood the religious rebels would never dare to attack it, at least not openly.
After arrival the family directly went to the governor's place, and while the guards were reluctant to let them in, the governor received the trio with open arms and wide smile on his cunning face. Of course, the guy was alright, and only his eyes darting all over the place made Lee uneasy.
He had seen people like that and knew they would sell their soul for gold, but fortunately the only gain Governor Manford could hope for was the favor of the two big shots from the capital.
Despite Manford's suggestion to have a meal first, Tess took a lengthy bath, and afterwards went for a good sleep. Lee, of course, had to join her during these procedures, but he had seen worse and didn't care. He was happy to finally be able to properly learn how to crawl, and could actually start to show off himself as a child-genius.
During the next days he slowly began to say few words, trying to make it sound as clumsy as possible, but even then Tess was more than thrilled. The only problem was that her cheeky son refused to say anything in the presence of others, even Alan, but she quickly took it for a special connection between the two of them.
There was a brief period of several days when not knowing how to hide her pride she carried Lee all over the city, trying to show him off to every passerby, but he managed to put stop to it, albeit the solution involved him using more words than a simple no. As the result his brilliance in Tess's eyes only grew, but in general it was according to Lee's initial plan, so he wasn't worried.
The main issue was to not become too amazing like he did in the previous life, when he was elected to lead the fight against the Cloud Kingdom's royal cavalry.
Of course, back then this world seemed rather savage, and becoming a local genius was the only entertainment he could think of. But after learning about the presence of the superhumans, he was not going to throw another chance away.
If only the most talented people, like the elite soldiers in the cavalry could wield fire, it would be one thing, but since a random drunkard like Captain Freewon had a similar ability – Lee definitely had to learn it.