"It took you a while to give up."
At the same moment, as Fen finally emerged from within the trees, Mark stopped rolling a stick over a fire with a sausage nailed on top. Turning his head to face his student, the middle-aged man looked at the young arcanist's apprentice with a mixture of astonishment and disappointment.
"Give up?"
Fen's mind was still immersed in the words and images that the monster's queen showed to him. Raising his head at his master, he could only look the middle-aged man in the eyes, unable to understand the meaning of his words.
"Listen well, young one. This lesson wasn't about trying to get the stone. The path of arcanist is long and riddled with obstacles. What I hoped you could learn from it, is the perseverance at…"
Finally understanding what was going on through Mark's mind, Fen simply shook his head before reaching with his hands to one of the pockets in his robes. Pulling out the red pebble that he somehow managed to keep, the young man threw it at his master, stopping his lecture in its tracks.
"Wha…"
Dropping the stick that he was using to roast his sausage, Mark instinctively raised his hand, catching the red pebble mid-air. Yet, as his eyes wandered down, his face froze in the expression of shock.
"Isn't that what you sent me for? I could only bring it in this kind of state, as if I were to fully absorb the entire aura, it would shatter."
Shrugging his arms at the unpleasant memory of his several failed attempts, Fen returned with his thoughts to the images he saw just a few moments ago.
'To be the flow itself… Sounds easy, but just how the heck should I achieve it?'
On the other hand, instead of just starting at the pebble in shock, Mark quickly gathered his wits and actually analyzed the item.
"Impossible…"
Unable to tear his sight apart from the pebble as if it was some kind of treasure, it took a while before Mark was capable of uttering anything more than just a single word. After the middle-aged man finally regained his composure, his eyes wandered over to Fen, currently standing idly by the side of the road, still immersed in his thoughts.
"Fen, listen…"
It wasn't Mark's words that drew the young man's attention. It was the extremely serious tone of them with a lingering hint of a threat hidden underneath that managed to strike the arcanist's apprentice awake.
"I can bet you are already getting sick of this phrase, but you should never tell anyone about this. You are without any exception that I would know about, the very first arcanist that managed to not only master the absorption to a level required to actually assimilate a natural monster in such a short time, but also to come up with a way to keep the core stable!"
Shaking his head in the wonder of what his young apprentice did, Mark took a moment before picking up his sentence.
"If the church learns about this… No, even if the royal legate were to learn of your exploits… Nevermind, let's just go back. You will see what I mean yourself."
Once again shaking his head, as if his ears were full of water that somehow didn't want to flow out as it would normally do, Mark instantly extinguished the fire over which he used to roast his sausage. Grabbing Fen's hand, the middle-aged man didn't even care about how his disciple was once again immersed in his own thoughts, paying little to no attention to his own actions.
Going back to the city took them only a moment. Without the dense crowd seemingly storming every single bit of free-space, the two of them could quickly travel even relatively long distances. Yet, as soon as they moved past the gate, the usual business of the city streets was replaced by something that could only be called madness.
Despite how only a few hours passed since they left the place, it already looked completely different. Everyone was rushing to a different place, the buildings were now decorated with flowers, delicate cloth and everything that the citizens could come up with the little creativity they had. If not for a huge increase in the guards' personnel on the scene, even the main street would quickly dwindle into mayhem.
"What's going on?"
Continuously pushed aside by the people passing by them, Fen finally woke up from his thoughts, quickly scanning his surroundings. Even though he didn't spend a lot of time in the city, the young man already managed to get used to the respect that everyone graced him with due to the arcanist crest sewn to his clothes. Yet now, it seemed as if carrying about this kind of appearances was at the very end of the priorities list of all the people in the city!
"One of the reasons why I decided to take you to the forest so quickly. In just a few days, an imperial legate will arrive. Along with him, a huge detachment of the officials, merchants and most likely some inquisitors. That fucking bunch will never let go of the chance to flex their position…"
Spitting on the road as he said that, Mark continued to pull the young man along, quickly forcing his way through the dense crowd. Despite how hard it would be for anyone else to move through this thick mass of people, this middle-aged arcanist was somehow capable of pushing everyone aside, as if they were nothing but inanimate objects!
"But that doesn't have anything to do with me, right?"
Just hearing the word "inquisition" was enough to temporarily strike Fen back into his original character. Sweat appeared on his forehead, thankfully unnoticed by his master who wouldn't dare to look anywhere else but in the direction he was going. Apparently, even he had to take care while moving through the crowd!
"Sadly, no. It's a common custom to have arcanist's apprentices showcase what they learned ever since the last legate visit. Imperials like to keep tabs on the promising talents, often using any means necessary to coax them into the service for the throne once they graduate from being the apprentices."
Suddenly stopping in the middle of the road, Mark turned into a boulder that split the current of this human river, creating a pocket of free space for Fen to comfortably fit in.
"And that means, you will have to take part in it. Now you should understand why we are all constantly asking you to tone your achievements down, for your sake!"