"Mr. Lake," Miguel walks up to me and attempts to grab my tattered goblin cloth but promptly retracts his hand after sniffing the stench that the cloth releases. I can see the disgust written on his face as he tries to eliminate the odour wafting through his nostrils.
"I need your help in my magic incantations," He said with his eyes glimmering wide, yet his face was looking far back, still nauseous from the scent.
"Sure. And are you alright?" I added, worried about the expression he's making near me.
"I can smell you,"
"Yes, I do."
Miguel shakes his head, dissentious from what I have said.
"You stink like rotten tomatoes,"
Confirming his statement, I turn to my axilla and inhale the scent, thinking that he is only exaggerating things. However, there was some truth about what Miguel averred, as I recognised an unpleasant odour coming out from my body, especially from the goblin clothing wrapping my waist.
I observe that my fabric is full of dirt and bloodstains, resulting from that hum circling in the air. The rag is too unclean for any human-like to handle, which differs from my unique nose as a goblin.
"I will clean this later. Anyhow, what should I teach you?"
"Sometimes the spells that I want to send out don't appear," His gloomy eyes say it all as Miguel shows his situation to me.
He places both of his feet apart and raises his hand whilst closing his eyes to concentrate on what magic he wishes to conjure. Everything he does is the typical procedure of a beginner's guide to materialise a spell if one has an aptitude. Miguel has a predilection for firebolts. It is an element described to be rare in the Book of Legends. Around one percent of a thousand mages would have this power next to holy light darkness magic.
The first time he had entirely cast an electric spell was when he unconsciously looked at the clouds and saw the very thunder zapping the nearby mountains, creating an extraneous wildfire. After that, he has trouble imagining things for the voltaic power to materialise.
"Do you know what lightning is?" I quizzed.
"No,"
"A straightforward answer," I could only accept that there is nothing much that they can learn from books about science and the meaning behind their natural occurrences. Their generation focuses more on making urgent money by doing dangerous adventures rather than exploring the mysterious universe.
'It seems that Magic lagged the pace of progress for Science,' I mumble to myself while joggling my head, knowing that everyone needs to learn a thing or two about the body of knowledge.
"Lightning is an electric current. It comes from the sky down, but the part you see comes from the ground up. Objects on the ground generally have a positive charge under a typical thunderstorm. Within a thundercloud, many small bits of ice-frozen raindrops-bump into each other as they move around in the air. All of those collisions create an electric charge. After a while, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges, which produces the visible flash."
"What's an electric charge?" Miguel ponders and looks at the sky, visualising the explanation I mentioned.
"Electric discharge refers to the flow of electricity through a medium. The medium may be solid, a liquid or a gas. When two points of different electrical potential make contact in the medium placed, it causes an electric discharge."
Miguel dwells upon my words once again, this time with his eyes rioting inside his sockets. The topic that I interpreted should be fine to a six-year-old like him.
'Then how come he is having trouble understanding it?'. The question leads me back to the lack of education that this world has.
"In short, they are electric particles that the dark clouds summon. Get it?"
"I'm trying my best, but-,"
"For now, try rubbing both of your hands against each other," I interrupted, remembering what I have learned from my previous classes.
Miguel clasps his hands and makes friction, creating a static charge that I brought up earlier. After a while, he felt 'different' from the continuous stroke, and I allowed him to stop his movements and hastily place his two hands in the air.
I generated a magic circle and took a form of salt-water out from my palm while asking Miguel for him to touch it. He unhesitantly agrees and reaches for the stream, only to find out that he got zapped by the conductor.
"Ouch!" A vile scream escapes from his mouth as he experiences a slight static charge after coming into contact with the conductor.
"That's the gist of it," I exclaimed proudly and expected the results of his actions. It was the quickest way I could think of, especially that we do not have any doorknobs, carpets or cumulonimbus clouds in the sky.
"So, this is what I get if I rub things together?"
"In general, you are correct." I gave him a firm nod.
"Now, you try it,"
He looks me in the eye, intimidated if he could ever imitate and apply the lesson I have taught to him. Miguel slowly creeps into the middle and lifts his hands, aiming up ahead at the atmosphere. His eyes closed with his lungs, breathing carefully, and allowed himself to focus on the task.
"Electric charge...static charge....by rubbing two objects together, I can produce a static charge," after chanting to himself, blue-coloured lighting takes its form from his fingers and discharges in a linear direction.
After seeing the bolt, a deafening blast follows right after. It made sense because thunder travels faster than sound, and that is why we heard it secondly before the picture of the azure electricity.
"I did it!"
"Congratulations," I approach the little boy's body and rub my hand on his ruffled hair, creating a static charge myself. My hands then reached out for his cheeks and electrocuted his face, causing him to jolt back from his post in a frightened manner.
"Hey, quit it!" Miguel retorts jokingly and bursts into laughter, celebrating his success of casting a complete lightning spell.
The nearby villagers who have seen the phenomenon hastily packed their things and wanted to spur out from their house. They have thought that the thunder shock came from the sky, which instilled fear in their hearts. Natalia and I hurriedly approached them and explained that everything was under control. It took us long enough to communicate with the other townspeople, but, eventually, everything turned out well.
"Good job, Miguel! We're both powerful mages right now!" Natalia carries his body and twirls around with him, making the poor boy dizzy in a few seconds. Upon realising her mistake, the Elven princess returns him on the ground and assists him in standing back on his feet.
It was a perfect time to end the training session as the sun had already set from the west. So, we head back to the inn with our proud gleams carved beneath our faces.
As we swivel to the tavern, the lonely faces of the people welcome our eyes. It was contrary to the achievement that we had received moments ago.
The royal members of the Elven Kingdom are all present before us. Each of them scrutinises the layouts of the map laid flat on the board. They gather even the elite knights around the table, adding their comments, hoping they could be useful for the situation.
"What's happening here?" I reacted, unsure of what to make of after witnessing such a buzzing scene.
All their faces turned to us three, not even surprised that we arrived home early for dinner.
"Sit down, Lake." Elanor was the first person to start the talk and invited us to take a seat on the nearby chairs, already prepared by Bill and Douglas.
"You are about to hear the greatest news of your life, kid." Bill grunts while chugging his beer down to his throat.
"What he said, lad. Be prepared for anything." Douglas-the driver that escorted us here-is also a part of the internal affairs to solve this problem that I do not know.
"What is exactly happening?!" I raised my voice and awaited someone to elaborate on what was going on around us.
The King of Elves motions his finger for me to come beside him and inspect what he is presently seeing. I followed his finger and gaze upon the image projected before my eyes.
I saw a cleaved human body part resting on the table with ravaging bite marks and toxin injected inside. There are also signs of saliva wafting through my nose, an unfamiliar scent that I have smelled upon coming inside the house.
"This severed hand came from a villager who defended his life to protect his family," Elanor uttered with his eyes filled with regret and anger.
"How was the family doing?"
"They are okay for now. Luckily, two of these knights were patrolling the fray and saw dire wolves and insects paired together, munching over this poor guy's soul."
Elanor shifts his body to me and grabs my stiffened shoulder while staring intently into my eyes.
"The monster horde is approaching as we speak. We underestimated the monsters, and they are now charging their way onto our town."