The three of them were inseparable within an hour.
Kana had introduced herself to Miri by grabbing both her hands and announcing "we're friends now" — which, at six years old, was apparently all the social negotiation required. Miri had blinked, looked at her mother, looked back at Kana, and nodded. By the time Hana wandered over and sat down next to them, the alliance was formed.
They were currently chasing each other through the courtyard, weaving between the garden beds and the pond, Kana in the lead shouting battle cries while Miri giggled behind her and Hana brought up the rear with her usual quiet intensity.
Miri was sweet. Genuinely, disarmingly sweet. Seven years old, dark-haired, with a round face and wide eyes that took in everything. She wore her scaled-down maid uniform like it was a costume at a festival — proud, careful, smoothing the apron every few minutes. She called Yuki "Lord Yuki" and did a little bow every time he entered a room, which hit him with emotional damage he wasn't prepared for.
He found Elena in the kitchen, already organising the pantry with military precision.
"Elena."
"Yes, sir?"
"Miri doesn't have to work as a maid. She can just live here. Be a kid. Play with Kana and Hana."
Elena turned from the pantry. Her expression was polite, warm, and absolutely immovable.
"With respect, sir — Miri has been training in domestic service since she could hold a broom. It's our family tradition. I served Lady Harmond's household, and my mother served before me. Miri will serve the next generation of this household."
"She's seven."
"I started at six."
"But she doesn't have to—"
"Sir." Elena's voice was gentle but final. "This is her purpose and her pride. She takes joy in it. Please allow her that."
Yuki recognised a losing battle when he saw one. He'd faced dragons, monster hordes, and sixty bandits — but a polite maid with conviction was apparently his hard counter.
"Fine. But she plays with Kana and Hana. Every day. That's non-negotiable."
Elena smiled. It was the first genuine smile he'd seen from her — warm, relieved, the expression of a mother who'd been hoping he'd say exactly that.
"Of course, sir. I wouldn't have it any other way."
The basement.
Yuki descended the stairs and surveyed the space. It was already large — running the full footprint of the house — but the ceilings were low, the walls were rough, and the layout was a single open room. Fine for storage. Not fine for what he had in mind.
He rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
Earth magic first. He drove his mana into the ground and pushed down — excavating the floor by three metres, doubling the ceiling height. The displaced earth compacted into the existing walls, thickening them. Then he expanded laterally — pushing the walls outward, carving new space beneath the courtyard and garden. The basement grew to nearly twice its original footprint.
He segmented it. Training area — a large open space with reinforced floors and high ceilings, big enough for full-speed combat drills. Laboratory — a smaller room with stone workbenches, shelving, and ventilation channels he'd route to the surface. Storage — deep shelves carved into the walls, racks for weapons, hooks for materials.
The walls got the full treatment. He condensed the stone using high-pressure mana until the rough granite transformed into something approaching marble — dense, smooth, gleaming faintly. Then enchantments. Layer after layer. Sound dampening — he could detonate a fireball down here and the house above wouldn't hear a whisper. Structural reinforcement — the walls would hold against anything short of a siege spell. Environmental sealing — temperature, humidity, and air quality all maintained by passive mana circuits.
Thundering footsteps on the stairs.
Kana burst into the basement first, followed by Hana, followed by Miri — who froze three steps from the bottom and stared.
The floor was reshaping itself. Cobblestones formed from raw earth, clicking into place in neat rows. Massive chunks of displaced soil floated in the air, rotating slowly as Yuki compressed and redirected them. The walls were smoothing in real-time — rough stone flowing like water into polished marble surfaces.
Kana and Hana had seen Yuki's magic before. They watched with the casual interest of children who'd been riding on flying mages for weeks.
Miri had not seen Yuki's magic before.
Her eyes went so wide they took up half her face. Her mouth formed a perfect O. Her hands gripped the stair railing and didn't let go.
"Mama," she whispered.
Elena and Lira appeared behind her. Elena looked at the floating earth, the self-forming cobblestones, the marble walls materialising from raw stone — and gasped.
She turned to Lira. "I had no idea Yuki was an archmage."
"He isn't one - officially," Lira said, leaning against the stair railing. "But he's likely the most powerful man in the country. Just never tell him that to his face or he'll let it get to his head."
Yuki was five feet away. His eyebrow twitched.
"I can hear you, Lira."
"Good. Then you heard the part about your head."
He bit back a response and finished the flooring.
The basement took three hours. When it was done, Yuki stood in the centre of a space that would have made the Duke of Millhaven jealous. Polished marble walls. High ceilings. Clean lines. The training area was large enough for full-range spellcasting. The laboratory had workbenches ready for enchantment projects. The storage room could hold everything in his dimensional pocket with room to spare.
He cast a test spell — a mid-power fireball, detonated against the far wall of the training area. The explosion bloomed, crashed against the marble, and dissipated. No heat reached the stairs. No sound escaped. Upstairs, not a single plate rattled.
Perfect.
Then he went upstairs and kept going.
The house got the full treatment. Room by room, floor by floor, he installed everything he'd learned to build over months of homestead engineering.
Plumbing first. The existing pipes were basic — cold water from the city supply, gravity-fed. He enchanted every faucet with a purifying thermal regulation spell. Clean hot water on demand, adjustable by touch. The kitchen sink, the washroom basins, the bathtubs — all of them now produced water at whatever temperature the user wanted.
Elena, testing the kitchen faucet for the first time, held her hand under perfectly heated water and went very still.
"Sir. Is this... permanent?"
"Permanent. You'll never have to boil water again."
She stared at the faucet. Then at her hand. Then at Yuki. Her eyes were bright.
Heating and cooling next. He'd been thinking about this since the homestead — a system of enchanted stones set into the walls at regular intervals, each one maintaining a specific temperature. Warm in winter. Cool in summer. Adjustable by a control stone mounted on the wall of each room, which acted as a magical thermostat.
He installed them throughout the house, then gathered everyone in the main room for a demonstration.
"This is the thermostat," he said, pointing at the control stone beside the fireplace. "Turn this dial for warmer or cooler. The room adjusts."
Kana turned it right. The room temperature rose noticeably.
"WHOA."
Hana touched it. Thought cooler. The temperature dropped.
Kana touched it again. Warmer. Hana touched it. Cooler. Warmer. Cooler. Warmer.
"Okay — one at a time," Yuki said, separating two sets of small hands from the control stone.
He taught Elena and Miri how to use them. Elena absorbed the instructions with the focus of a woman who understood that her daily labour had just been cut in half. Miri pressed the stone and squealed when the room cooled down.