The rest of the training went by quickly, as Elder Xing went over the basics pros and cons of each weapon that Bai Qi asked about. Most of it was instinctive to Bai Qi, though there were some weapons that caused him to raise his eyebrows.
After the hours had gone by, Bai Qi was engrossed in the lesson, a low chime reached their ears.
"Ah," Elder Xing said. "Lunchtime."
He turned around, putting all the weapons away, and opened up a doorway leading back to the cafeteria. "Go ahead," Xing motioned. "I have matters to take care of, so eat without me, and wait at the dining hall. Elder Mu will pick you up for your lessons after."
Bai Qi walked through the doorway into the dining hall, taking a seat at the curved table. The elder from breakfast, the one that was reading at the end of the table was surprisingly still there, giving the impression he had been sitting there the entire time. He was nonchalantly munching on the bread. He looked up at Bai Qi as he walked in, then went back to his parchments.
The room was already filling up, as the chime from before signaled the gates opening. As Bai Qi sat there, Elder Fang came bumbling in, with what looked like a cat on his shoulders.
"Bai Qi," Elder Fang said, nodding at him. The cat on his shoulders hissed at Bai Qi, and unfolded wings from its back, taking off from Elder Fang's shoulder.
"Oh no you don't," Elder Fang said, swiping and grabbing the cat by its hind leg. 'Don't mind it, she's moody most of the time."
Elder Fang plopped the cat back on his shoulder, and the cat hissed again, swiping at Elder Fang's face with its pudgy arm, claws out, Elder Fang tilting his head back to dodge. "Harmless," he said, not reassuring Bai Qi at all.
"I'm sure she is," Bai Qi said.
"Well, I would have loved to come by and chat about how your days been," Elder Fang said, "but I need to get the monthly rations and head back to my animals."
The elder at the end of the table looked up, and then tossed a ring towards Elder Fang, then looked back down. Elder Fang briefly looked at the ring, then put it on. "Well, that's it for me," he said, as he waved goodbye, walking through the gateway.
The dining room was considerably emptier compared to the breakfast crowd. The afterglow from the gateways slowly faded away one by one as food started to appear on the tables.
Bai Qi slowly grabbed food, and ate, ignoring the momentary glances from the other people. He felt really out of place, though this was more of him feeling like someone on display, as he couldn't really eat faster to finish early and leave since Elder Mu would be meeting him here. For that reason, he tried to slow down, but the lessons from Elder Xing had left him hungry, so he couldn't help but finish eating quickly.
As time went by, more and more people finished eating. The dining hall slowly started emptying, one table at a time, until there were only about a handful of people left, mainly situated around a single table. They were engrossed in a discussion.
Some more time had gone by, the elder at the end of the table looked up, then cleared his throat, the sound being amplified through the hall, The people at the table looked up, and waved at the elder, before collecting their items, and bowing before leaving. As they left, the glowing orbs and the candles on each table dimmed, before going out completely.
The hall was basked in shadows, with sunlight coming in windows, illuminating patches at a time. The elder table was still illuminated.
Slowly the minutes trickled by, as Bai Qi sat there, wondering if Elder Mu had completely forgotten him. The elder on the other end of the table even looked at Bai Qi curiously, wondering why Bai qi was still there, but not bothering to say anything.
After a while, Bai qi lost hope, and as things seemed bleak, where Bai Qi considered asking the Elder for help, the gate glowed, and Elder Mu stepped out. "Miss me?" he asked, as he walked through.
"Late much," Bai Qi replied.
"I got caught up in some matters."
Bai Qi gestured at the hall behind him.
"It was a series of important matters."
Bai Qi gestured again.
"Cheeky huh," Elder Mu said, sitting down, and bringing up some food in front of him.
Bai Qi just stared at him.
"I didn't eat."
Elder Mu did scarf down the food quickly, and washed everything down with a single drink, before standing up and motioning Bai Qi to get up as well. He raised his hand towards the elder at the other end of the table, and the Elder nodded back, focusing on his parchments once again.
"Let's go," Elder Mu said, taking the stairs down from the platform. Bai Qi followed suit, as Elder Mu walked the length of the dining hall until they reached the end, where Elder Mu pushed open a door and motioned Bai Qi to go through.
"Back to the garden?"
"Yep," Elder Mu said nonchalantly. They walked briskly, following the twisting cobblestone road, until they circled the mage tower, coming into sight with Elder Mu's garden.
"Have you looked into the books I gave you yesterday," Elder Mu asked suddenly.
"Just a bit," Bai Qi replied. " I flipped through some of the pages, though I couldn't make understand most of what I saw."
Elder Mu nodded. "So the boy wonder doesn't know everything."
Bai Qi chuckled. "Is that what they're calling me?"
-------------------------------------------------
Finals are over, as I mentioned before. This chapter is unfinished and a bit rushed, mostly because I have been working on some other things in the last few weeks. Some of which have been rewriting the entire outline for this story.
To start, I need to make some drastic changes, things I'm going to be doing over the week. I have been a bit distant from this novel, which I am going to admit, mostly because I had a hard time fleshing out what each chapter was going to be, and I think the biggest problem is because I'm forcing myself to adhere to rules in a fantasy novel, which if you ask me, is probably the stupidest thing I can do.
So I started an entire overhaul. I know I mentioned the last chapter that I was going to westernize the novel sometime in the future, but the problem is that I can't keep with the eastern influences and the rules they have because it's going to force me to rewrite my novel sometime in the future. One example of this is the metal element in Chinese cultures, being part of the 5 main elements. While I like the idea of 5 elements, I think to have wind as a core element is much more important. If I keep at what I'm doing right now, metal is going to end up being a useless element, or an overlooked one, or wind is going to end up being a useless element, forcing me to choose between them. Honestly, wind is much more versatile, and fits more with the idea of a paragon, with metal falling under Earth, no shade intended at the Chinese elements.
Second is the problem with time. When creating a calendar to follow the event's I realized that I didn't really like 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, or 365 days time standard that we have. I mean, just looking at the numbers, to someone else, those might seem random, though I do understand where they come from. And then it hit me. This is a fantasy world. Why do I need to follow rules set for Earth? Base 10 is so much nicer, and just makes sense, so I made a 25 hours a day, 10 days a week, 4 weeks a month, for 10 months, giving us a total of 400 days a year. A much nicer and rounded number, and it's decently close to Earth's rotations, so I can keep the same physics, as well as add a few changes of my own. Also, why be limited to one moon? Two moons are dope. Say hello to Yvnamior, and Yvnamaus, the two moons of this world. Yep. You guys can access the beta calendar here, I made a draft:
https://fantasy-calendar.com/calendar.php?action=view&id=b356c2b9a5eb99205180963fe084c76e
Link's gonna be posted on discord, as well as a full list of the changes I'm making. I'm just going to mention the important points. I also realized I've been ignoring the discord, so I'm going to try and interact with the discord a bit more.
Names as well. For now, I'm going to keep the names. Over the summer, I'm going to try and create a phonetic language, so that I can generate names that have meanings, that actually interact with the world. Why have a fantasy world be limited to Chinese culture?
Another small change that I'm making is creating a runic system to stand alongside the system of magic circles. This is going to be a small detail for now, as I had already had the idea, tying the runic system to a group that is already part of the story. For now, the runic symbols will be used to replace the Chinese element characters that some of you guys noticed on the cover of this novel.
In this week and next, I'm going to go back, and slowly edit out the discrepancies in my story. Those that have your notifs on, you'll see the story being updated, you can ignore them for now. When I release the next chapter, I should be finished with the changes I'm making.
Some of you guys on the discord already know that I used calculus to keep numbers realistic, so that should just prove that I want this novel to be something special. I want it to be up there, writing so vivid that you could close your eyes and be there. I know my writing dropped a bit in quality, something that I want to bring up, so that's what this week is going to be as well.
As for what happens after this week. I'm going to try and write a chapter or two a week after this.
Discord is https://discord.gg/B7xQSKS
If the link doesn't work, hit me up at Paradoxicality#1088
Godspeeds