Morning came and I woke up to the sound of knocking on my room's door. I quickly stood up and put on some clothes before going to check who it was so early in the morning.
I opened the door and saw Anise, carrying only a light baggage. A bit surprised I asked: "What are you doing here so early in the morning?"
A wry smile appeared on her lips as she said: "I didn't really have anywhere else to go. Can I come in?"
"Sure." I answered as I moved to the side and let her inside the room. We both sat down and I asked her what exactly happened.
"I went back to the academy together with my father, hoping that my mother will not react too strongly about it, but I was wrong. After we argued for a while, in a fit of rage, she told me to leave if I want to, but never to come back again. I packed up my bag and left with my father and now here I am."
I could see tears welling up in her eyes. I was about to try to comfort her when she slapped her cheeks and said with a burst of new found confidence: "It doesn't matter, I'll just show her I can become a wizard on my own.". After she pumped herself up, she turned towards me and said: "I also registered as an adventurer last night, wanna go grab a quest together?"
I didn't know if she was trying to find something to distract herself with or just wanted to go on an adventure, but I also had to go back to leveling up so I agreed in an instant. I extended my stay at the inn for another month before we walked to the adventurer guild and started looking through the posted quests.
Since Anise's level was over ten, she was officially a rank D adventurer and we could take D rank quests as well. After browsing the available quests for a while, we settled on an investigation quest in the north. The reason I insisted on this quest is because, according to Ai, one of the ruins of the City of Atar was near the place the quest asked us to investigate.
/Missing villagers
//Investigate the reason people started going missing in the villages at the base of Mount Kally//
//Mission requested and failed twice by adventurers in Cloven City//
//Requirements: a five man party of rank E adventurers or a rank D adventurer//
//Reward based on results//
//Quest issued by the Royal Capital so expect encountering other adventurers//
As we made our way back towards the inn, Anise asked: "Why did you insist on this quest? It will take us an entire week just to reach there."
"In the book I received from old man Cyrus it said that one of the ruins of Atar was in Mount Kally. I wanted to check it out."
"Oh, did you figure out the reason he gave you that book?"
"Maybe. I think that the place I found the teleportation device and got separated from Anna might be one of these ruins."
"I see. Doesn't this mean that his powers are still working?"
"Probably."
After we reached the inn, we picked up our gear and left for the north gate of the city. Anise was wearing the same blue robe as last time, which seemed like the battle uniform of the academy, but she didn't carry any staff. On the way, I asked:
"What happened to your staff?"
"The staff was never mine. It belongs to the academy so I left it there when I left."
"Don't you want to buy a new one?"
"Did you see any staff on sale the other day?"
Now that she mentioned it, I realized I actually didn't. Curious, I asked: "Are staffs that rare? How are they made?"
"Yes, staffs are rare and getting your hands on one is harder than simply having the money for it. Only artificers are able to make magic weapons and devices, and they are really scarce. Most of them already work for some kind of power or academy and will not sell on the market. There is also one of them inside the academy."
"I see. Now I feel kind of bad for breaking the one I got from the city lord's son."
"Haha, Overload?" she asked me with a laugh.
"How did you know?"
"Students who just start practicing magic at the academy always manage to overload a couple of staffs. That's why they always give us defensive spell staffs to practice with, so we don't blow ourselves up."
"That's smart. I overloaded a fireball spell." A shudder ran down my spine as I remembered the huge explosion that resulted from me overloading the staff.
"At least you didn't blow yourself up." She replied with a chuckle.
"By the way, are there any staffs that simply amplify magic? With silent casting I don't really need a staff imbued with a spell."
"There are, but those are even rarer. They will increase the power of all spells of a single affinity. There is one in our academy but was taken by a wizard that went to war."
As we kept chatting, we were soon out of the city. Donning my mask and black cloak, I cast Zephyr and we both rode in the direction of Mount Kally. On the way I decided to make good on my promise of teaching Anise science and started by figuring where her level of knowledge laid. After finding out that her math knowledge was at a level of a fourth grader, I knew that there was a long way to go.
[With the increase in the intelligence parameter, the memory and calculating ability also increases. At her level, her memory is almost at the photographic level.]
Finding some relief in Ai's words, I asked her to make a teaching plan and decided to start from the first grade for good measure. After the teaching plan was done, I whispered in Anise's ear.
"On earth, learning was done by grades. Your knowledge in math should be at around fourth grade, but I'm sure there are some things that you don't know so I'll start from the first grade just to make sure we don't miss anything. For now, just memorize everything and try to understand it as best as you can. If there's anything you don't understand just ask me."
"Wait, you want to teach me while riding on a horse?"
"Yeah, first four grades knowledge is not that hard and shouldn't be a problem as you already know a few things here and there."
She nodded reluctantly and I started reading from the teaching plan Ai made. For the next six hours, I kept teaching her basic algebra and measurement. Since most of the knowledge was not alien to her, it went on pretty well and she seemed to understand, but after that, I started speaking about simple geometry and probabilities and finally found the first gap in this world's knowledge. This went on until the sky started darkening and we stopped for a small break near a tree on the side of the road.
"Damn, the knowledge on your home world is really something else." She commended as we sat down at the base of the tree. Even if she looked like she was complaining there was also a trace of excitement in her voice.
"This is nothing, it will just get harder and harder." I replied matter-of-factly.
She didn't seem discouraged as she said: "It doesn't matter. I am happy to have the opportunity to learn."
I nodded and asked Ai in my mind.
'How long will it take to cover the first four grades in this manner?'
[Around 15 days of constant reading to cover all the basic math theory for the first four grades.]
'Damn, this may take a while, can't you simplify it or just skip over some of the theories?'
[The first four grades are all foundation and they must be covered.]
I sighed and asked Anise: "It will probably take around 15 days of constant teaching to cover the first four grades."
She nodded and said: "I'm not really tired, do you mind if we continue through the night?"
"That's fine with me." Since we were both high enough level and didn't have to eat or sleep everyday, we decided to continue the teaching throughout the night as well. As soon as the morning came, we continued our journey north.
Around noon, we noticed a caravan stopped by the side of the road. The guards of the caravan also noticed us and readied their weapons. One of the guards, probably the leader, walked towards us, sword at the ready, and said: "Fellow travelers, can I please ask you to keep your distance?"
"Is something wrong with this guy's brain?" I asked Anise, "He's the one walking towards us."
Anise chucked and said: "He means the caravan. He probably saw your mask and thinks you're some thief or bandit."
I sighed and said out loud to the guard in front: "We're just passing through and have no business with your caravan."
The guard seemed undaunted and stood in front of us as he said: "I'm sorry, but I can't let you get closer to the caravan."
"Fuck, is this his road or something?" I mumbled, a bit irritated. I was about to just take a detour since I didn't want to just get into a random conflict when Senna's voice sounded in my mind.
[*Don't even think about it. Are you going be a wimp and go around just because he told you so?*]
I sighed at Senna's worlds and said: 'What do you expect me to do? Kill them all so I can pass? They are probably just doing their jobs.'
[*Do you really think he will dare to attack you if you show him you can silent cast? Give wizards some credit.*]
Sighing again, I looked at the guard for a moment and said in the most threatening tone I could muster: "I have no problem fighting you, but are sure you want to do this?". As soon as I finished my words, I circulated my mana and green lightning appeared in my hand.
A terrified expression appeared on the guards face as he dropped his sword and said: "Sir wizard, I'm sorry for my actions earlier. Please spare us."
His reaction startled me a little, but seeing how effective it was, a smile appeared on my face as I just ignored him and continued riding past the caravan. After we walked for a while, Anise suddenly asked me: "Did you complete the spell? I noticed that the color was green now and not white."
"Not really, but I'm not far. I was just trying to scare them off."
"I know. I was about to if you didn't. But why is it green? I don't think I've ever seen green lightning."
"It's complicated to explain, maybe after we progress further with our lessons."
She nodded quietly and we started our lessons again. When evening came, we were inside a small forest and I went to hunt for something to eat. The forest was unfortunately too small and there were barely any animals so we just settled with some wild fruits. As we were eating, I asked Anise:
"Anise, why aren't there any animals or magic beasts around here?"
"We're near the road and all the animals have been hunted down for food. As for magic beasts, they are usually found in places with a high mana concentration."
"Oh, that means we'll just have to eat fruits the entire way?"
"If we don't find any village soon, that will probably be the case until we reach closer to the mountains."
As soon I heard her words, I asked AI to show me the map and saw a village by the road we were taking, two days away. I kept teaching her math through the night, but today we also slept for around four hours or so.
In the morning we continued our journey, but just as we were about to leave the forest, a group of people, dressed in black clothes were blocking the road. I stopped Zephyr and carefully looked at the group. There were around 20 or so people on the ground and I could see others hiding in the nearby trees.
One of them walked up a bit and said in a loud and imposing tone: "Give us all your money if you want to live."
I almost fell from the horse when I heard his words. It sounded like a cliche line from an old movie. Seeing that Anise already started chanting quietly, I asked the bandit:
"What if we don't have any money?"
"Haha" all the other bandits started laughing out loud. The one from before, which I assumed was the leader, just smiled widely and said: "Your woman will do then. The boys didn't have that much action since the war started.".
I was about to answer when Anise finished her incantation and shouted "Water Blade" before moving her hand forward in a horizontal arc. A thin blade of water formed at the top of her fingers before it expanded and flew right at the group of bandits.
The leader ducked quickly under the blade, managing to escape, but the other bandits were not so lucky and were all cut in half by the water blade. The leader was obviously terrified as he looked back and saw all the other bandits splitting in two straight at the middle. He turned to flee in an instant, but a spear pierced his chest from the back before he could even take two steps.
Removing my spear from his back, I looks at the trees around, but all the bandits there already fled. Sighing, I swung my spear to clear all the blood before placing it on my back again and said:
"You could have left some of them for me too, you know?"
"Sorry, they pissed me off." She shrugged and continued: "If we find more bandits you can have the next ones."
"Deal." I said and picked up two gold coins from the leader's body. We didn't even bother checking the other bandits and continued on our way.
Two days later, we finally arrived at the small village I saw on the map. During this two days, we sadly didn't meet any other group of bandits. We also finished going through all of the lessons covering first grade math and started on second grade. After checking in at an inn, we came down in the dinning room and ordered something to eat.
The waitress placed two plates full of simple grilled meat on out table.
"Finally some meat, I was getting tired of eating fruits." I said as I started wolfing down of the food.
After we were done with the food, we ordered some Ale and I took a sip of it before saying: "Anise, do you mind if we skip tonight's lesson? I want to try finishing the lightning spell since I don't have an offensive one yet."
"No problem. I'm also curious how it will look. What I don't understand is why you don't want to simply learn a fire spell? It should not take you too long."
"It probably would have been better, but since I always end up fighting in some kind of forest I'm afraid I will end up setting up fires everywhere. Anyway, I should be able to create a simple fireball if I really need it."
"Haha, That is the silliest reason I've ever heard, but I suppose it makes sense."
We kept laughing and drinking until we finished two more jugs of ale. As we started feeling a bit tipsy, we made our way back to our room. We shared a room, but it had two beds. We both laid down on our respective beds and I asked Ai to pull me inside my soul space so I could practice the spell.
A bit after midnight, inside my soul space, I finally managed to shoot a green lightning arc from my hand into the distance.
"I finally did it, I managed to stabilize it." I said as I manifested a new arc and started playing with it. As I moved the lightning from my hand around my body I asked Senna who was sitting nearby: "Do you know why I don't get hurt by my lightning?"
"Because it's made our of your own mana. The lightning is basically an extension of your body."
"An extension of my body…" I mumbled as I formed the lightning into a ball and made it float slowly away from me. After it reached around six meters away, I lost control of it and it fell down, creating an explosion of lightning.
"It really feels like controlling a part of my body, but why do I lose control after six meters?"
"The range will increase as you level up. This is determined by your spirit."
"Oh, I see." After experimenting a couple of times more, I asked Ai to send me back to the real world.