Iracuz, Artiel, Rebecca, Isaac, and Zachary were seated around a small fire with a bubbling pot on top of it.
Each person was sitting on a stone holding a wooden bowl and a spoon. Inside was some sort of soup with a few potatoes and what looked like roasted wild boar.
Just at the smell, Zachary was stunned. How did a commoner manage to make such an appetizing meal with so few ingredients?
- "Bon appétit! Thank you for this meal, Artiel" suddenly said Isaac before starting to eat.
Artiel watched Isaac tackle his plate and smiled before he started eating. Zachary watched his food for a few moments and decided to eat before stopping.
- "Curry! It's curry!" he said suddenly before turning to Isaac.
Isaac smiled then nodded before eating again.
It wasn't really "curry", but a spice whose taste had been slightly altered by Isaac by manipulating the proteins and enzymes produced by a plant.
The plant in question being the flower of fire that decorated his clothes. The process was fairly rudimentary but gave satisfactory results.
The taste of the resulting spice was quite different from the original, it was sweeter but powerful enough to be able to flavor soups and stews. The wild boar was lightly smoked and then roasted before being marinated in flavored sauce. The result was surprising and high in flavor.
A recipe that Iracuz and Artiel had concocted after their culinary battle at the sanctuary. Their competition seemed to have produced a dish that Isaac did not expect. The mix between the sweet sauce and curry was perfect and made an extremely pleasing savor.
Zachary couldn't believe his taste buds, he would never have believed he could smell such a flavor. Curry was a spice that he had searched for years without finding any that could closely resemble what he was hoping for.
- "I told you, you won't regret it" Isaac announced.
He had just finished his meal and got up to take more from the pan when his eyes met the envious gazes of the royal guards around.
"Oh… we'll never have enough for all of them," he thought.
As soon as his gaze met the others, the soldiers turned away and resumed what they were doing. Tents had been pitched all over the place in a circle formed by the coaches. In the center was a red tent in which Zachary was supposed to sleep with the two Master Mages.
After a frugal meal, the apprentices prepared their tents around their small fire. The two Archmages remained silent and watched them seated.
- "Do you plan to bring them into the Royal Academy?" Zachary suddenly asked.
- "Rebecca at least, not Artiel" Isaac answered with a slight smile. "Iracuz is a tricky one."
- "I think Artiel could join the Royal Academy," Zachary continued.
Isaac turned to Zachary with an arched eyebrow.
- "He doesn't have the abilities of a Promising one, why the hell would he enter a magical academy?" he asked sincerely.
Zachary chuckled slightly before answering.
- "The Royal Academy is not just a magical academy, it trains future generations. Magi, soldiers, knights, great merchants, high officials. All these positions are filled by graduates of the Academy. Although he doesn't have the disposition to become a mage, his body seems very well developed. He will surely be able to become an outstanding soldier. As for Iracuz, he will not be able to join the Academy in his state... "
- "Why is that ?"
- "His mana circuit has been damaged, forced into a form that is unnatural. Those kinds of forced changes are a knockout criterion. Unless he has unparalleled talent, the Academy won't accept someone like him. For them, Iracuz is like a cripple whose leg has been amputated and replaced by a prosthesis." Zachary replied with a somewhat sad tone.
Isaac pondered Zachary's suggestions for a moment before looking at his apprentices. Isaac waited a long time for the three teenagers to finish their preparations before approaching.
Very quickly, he summarized what Zachary had told him and asked their opinion. After all, it was about their lives.
- "I do not intend to leave your training incomplete either" he finally said to Artiel and Rebecca. "But the theoretical and practical foundations provided by the Academy should not be taken lightly. Expect me to test you after each semester," he added.
- "If you think it's the right thing to do" "I don't see a problem" replied Rebecca and Artiel immediately.
Isaac nodded and turned to Iracuz.
- "As for you ..."
- "I wish to become a butler" suddenly announced Iracuz, taking Isaac by surprise. "I am your personal assistant. I need to be trained to take on this position," he announced.
Isaac came out of his trance and turned to Zachary who nodded.
- "I'm sure you can learn a lot from the housekeepers of the Palace," Zachary announced.
Iracuz was relieved to hear that he could undergo training and sighed in relief. With this, their near future had been established. They would all undergo training that seemed to come as close as to what they could and wanted to do as possible.
There was only one last detail left. What was Isaac going to do? He was not going to sit idly by.
After several minutes of discussion, everyone went to their tent. Zachary joined his fellow mages and the apprentices fell asleep peacefully while Isaac began to fly away and stood a few hundred yards above the encampment.
From where he stood he could observe the entire encampment and its surroundings. It was like he was on guard duty, he was also thinking. He could do a lot of things once he got to the capital.
He could join the Magic Academy, spend his days in the Royal Library, experiment with Zachary, or do research.
"Why not do it all at once?" he thought with a smile.
He had plenty of time, he could study the books in the library at night and attend academy classes by day. And in his spare time, he could participate in experiments with Zachary.
But that was not all. After all, there was something else waiting for him in the capital. Isaac pulled a compass out of his sleeve and looked at the needle pointing at Agartha. He still didn't know what it was pointing at, but he was determined to find out.
The night passed relatively calmly and quickly. Isaac was "sitting" cross-legged in the air when the sun rose. He had decided to continue his meditation and work on his mana circuit to try to extend it outside of his body and do magic like everyone else.
He hadn't quite succeeded yet, but he was progressing little by little. Lower down, the soldiers had already started to get up and get their things ready to hit the road.
Zachary stood up and stretched before yawning then looked up where Isaac was. Without waiting, the Archmage flew away and approached Isaac.
- "Good morning," he said.
Isaac opened his eyes, turned to Zachary before smiling, then came over to look at the rising sun.
- "Already?"
- "Your apprentices have already started to warm up the meal..."
Isaac immediately rushed to the ground without waiting for the rest of the sentence and walked towards a small lighted fire next to the tents of his apprentices.
- "Hello Isaac!" Rebecca said, stirring the contents of the pot.
By the time Zachary arrived, Iracuz and Artiel finished packing their tents and huddled around the fire before eating.
After breakfast, they cleaned their bowls in the nearby water stream and got ready to hit the road. Everything went as planned and about thirty minutes later the royal escort was once again on their way to the capital.
Isaac and Zachary resumed their heated discussion on the foundations of magic, how it works, their experiments, and their results.
Their journey continued in this way and alternated between road and rest for three days and three nights.
Tonight was their fourth night, they had just stopped and the camp was being established. Isaac and Zachary were chatting when the soldiers around began to move quickly.
It was the first time Isaac had seen them so agitated. Immediately, he got up and prepared to take flight when the two Master-Mages arrived at Zachary's side.
- "What's going on?" he asked.
- "The patrol has discovered fresh traces of wolves' footsteps. They think their nest is not far away and recommend leaving so as not to take any risks."
Zachary came over to shake his head.
- "Our food reserves are almost empty, we have to hunt or find an inn or a town to get supplies. The horses are not in a condition to travel either, they need to rest," said Zachary.
- "We can participate in hunting groups just in case," said one of the Master Mages.
- "It won't be necessary, the guards can handle a wolf pack without any problem" Zachary replied. "The problem is with hunting. The soldiers are not trained to hunt and with predators around, I doubt there is a lot of prey..."
- "I can handle this part if you wish," said Artiel while getting up.
Immediately, everyone's attention turned to Artiel who shivered slightly when he saw all the eyes on him.
- "We are taught very early how to hunt, I'm sure I can be of great help," he said.
Without thinking it any longer, Zachary nodded and motioned for the Master Mages to lead him with the soldiers on the expedition.
They nodded then motioned to Artiel to follow them then together, they left in the direction of a small group of soldiers on the edge of the camp. Zachary sighed lightly as he watched them leave and then turned to Isaac.
- "A young man full of resources," he said quite simply.
- "Lucky for him. The peasants don't have it easy, let alone a small village like Cram," Isaac replied with a smile.
- "Not wrong, don't you want to go on the hunt? It must be exciting, right?"
- "Yes, if you want to eat squashed steak" answered Isaac, laughing slightly. "I have a little training session planned with Rebecca today," he said looking at the woman standing.
Rebecca was already ready and had a new wand in hand.
Her wands didn't really have a special property. Of course, some could be enchanted just like a sword or contain a rare magic boosting ingredient.
But in Rebecca's case, her wands were just plain sticks of carved wood. Their real use lied in the fact that they can be used to more easily direct mana vessels.
This made it easier for Rebecca to orient her circuit in the wood that was once alive rather than directly in the air. This gave her more room to manipulate her mana and focus it faster.
- "Can I see?" Zachary asked immediately with sparkling eyes.
The two Master Mages just returned and were also curious what kind of training session it was. Isaac nodded before turning and walked towards an empty spot not far from the camp.
He didn't want stray shots causing unnecessary casualties, but with a well-placed barrier, it could easily be avoided.
- "Our training for the day will be aiming at moving targets. Ready?" Isaac said, looking at Rebecca.
Rebecca began to nod. It was true that she had had enough trouble aiming at fast-moving targets. She wasn't used to it, after all the golems she fought were slow and relatively close.
If she were to attack a target in the air, in the distance, and in motion, she would probably never be able to hit.
She had noticed it during her fight against the Knights of Erivia during their chase. She wanted to make up for this lack quickly.
Immediately, the young woman prepared and injected her circuit into her wand and charged mana inside. Then Isaac's spellbook slipped out of his sleeve and opened.
Zachary and the two Master-Mages observed the grimoire with interest and widened their eyes when they saw the object. The energy it emitted was out of the ordinary, almost as out of the ordinary as the aura emitted by Isaac.
- "Lockdown."
A rune began to trace itself on the ground forming an arena about fifteen meters in diameter around them. Then the barrier activated and closed the area off from the rest of the world.
Zachary and the Master Mages were again stunned. The principle seemed to resemble what Zachary had seen at the shrine, but he hadn't had a chance to analyze it more closely. The barrier seemed perfectly formed and gave a feeling of impenetrability.
The three mages were all focused on the runic patterns drawn on the ground when the pages of the grimoire began to turn again before stopping on one of the last pages.
Isaac then raised his hand and opened it before his eyes took on a slightly white tint.
- "Summon 5 wisps. Primary objective: Flee"