After sitting down next to the Elder, Matthew expectedly started getting nervous. After all sitting in front of him was one of the strongest mage's he's ever seen.
"So, sir can we start signing the magical oath?" asked Matthew tentatively, "I'm also in need of shelter as well so I was hoping that I could be provided some shelter after signing the oath."
"Not so fast young man," said the Elder with a chuckle, "You look harmless and all but I'm still going to have to run a few checks on you before you can go and if you turn out to be
harmless then sure you can see shelter here."
"Alright" replied Matthew, "Then let's start."
After receiving confirmation from Matthew, the elder quickly started drawing magical energy into his body before suddenly looking at Matthew. His eyes shined with a bright purple color and as he spoke Matthew suddenly felt a strange compulsion to obey and speak the truth to anything the elder asked of him.
However just after the elder asked his first question regarding how Matthew found the secret village, Matthew suddenly felt a surge of energy inside his body, then the strange compulsion suddenly stopped.
Realizing that something inside of him had just stopped the elder's magic from working, Matthew quickly pretended to still be under the influence of the spell and started answering the elder's questions in order to avoid any suspicioun.
After an hour long grueling interrogation session, the elder then suddenly snapped his finger and Matthew suddenly felt a rush of energy escape from his body.
"Well, hopefully that didn't make you too uncomfortable," said the Elder, "In seems to me that you are a good and honest person, so just promise that you won't expose our location, and I'll arrange some shelter for you inside the village, after all you must be very tired after being lost in the rainforest for so long."
Internally rolling his eyes at the Elder's supposedly claims on how he believed Matthew to be a "good" person(he'd just asked him questions about himself for 1 hour with his interrogation magic long of course he'd know about what kind of person he is), Matthew quickly promised to the Elder.
"Alright, then" said the Elder, before snapping his fingers yet again, suddenly Matthew felt himself being swallowed up by energy and before he knew it he was back at the entrance of the cottage again.
Shortly after he was escorted by the guards to comfy looking cottage and was told that tomorrow the first elder would like to see him.
Not thinking too much about it, sleepiness quickly overtook Matthew and he quickly fell sleep,