Chapter 174: Boarding
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
The candle light s.h.i.+ning through the magic silver lampshade brightly lit the whole room, and the three apprentices were still working on their exercises regarding the apprentice spell, Acid Splash.
By enhancing the understanding of this apprentice spell, the three apprentices would gain a better knowledge of the symbols of some elements and practice the basic application of geometry.
The three teenagers, although looking a bit tired, were still working dedicatedly.
At this time, there was a knock on the door.
Annick suddenly stood up straight and started to look around confusedly.
"Is that Mr. Evans?" asked Layria, a bit worried. Both Layria and Heidi dropped their quills.
Within those seven days, Lucien had been pus.h.i.+ng them to do exercises and to practice casting every single day. All of the three teenagers felt so exhausted that simply hearing Lucien’s footstep made them feel nervous.
However, at the same time, they also saw the great progress they had made. The joy of seeing themselves successively casting a challenging spell was definitely exciting and encouraging.
"No, Mr. Evans would just directly come in." Annick shook his head, "Let me see."
When he stood up, Annick felt a bit dizzy, and he saw that it was already dark outside.
When he opened the door, he surprisedly found that it was Sprint who was knocking the door, and beside him stood Katrina.
"Hi…" Annick was not sure why both of them were there, so he greeted with a bit hesitance, "Anything that I can help you with?"
Despite the fact that Annick did not want to admit, when he saw Sprint and Katrina fluently casting spells, he admired them. Also, Annick also had to acknowledge that Sprint and Katrina were indeed smarter than him, since their fluency and mastery did not require much of their effort.
"Ha? What are you talking about, Annick?" Sprint was very surprised but also amused, "Did these exercises mess your brain up? We’re leaving for the congress tonight!"
"What… Wait… Is it today that we’re leaving?" Annick looked completely shocked.
"The first exercise… the second…" Heidi hurriedly counted the worksheets piling in front of her, and then she suddenly raised her head and said out loud, "Oh my… Yes, we’re leaving today! I can’t believe that I just totally forgot it!"
"Neither can I…" agreed Layria, who looked a bit pale from being buried by the great amount of exercises.
"Annick, Heidi, Layria… Look at yourselves right now," said Katrina out of both pride and sympathy, "Arcana is a brand new thing for Mr. Evans. If he’s not on the correct path, you have to tell him. Don’t let him torture you like this."
"Are you guys making any progress? Sorry, I really cannot see," said Sprint arrogantly.
"I don’t agree with you, Sprint." Layria shook her head, "If I would say, seven days ago, that I had absolutely no idea what arcana was, now I feel like I’m actually taking the right path."
"That’s right. Mr. Evans is a real sorcerer, and he knows what he’s doing. We’ve progressed a lot." Annick nodded.
"Oh really?" Sprint quickly gave them a snort of contempt.
"Really? Don’t tell me that you cannot see, Sprint," said Heidi seriously. "The other day, in the practice room, you saw how we cast the spells. Our progress is all because of Mr. Evans!"
Inside of the three teenagers’ mind, they all agreed that, despite their great respect toward Mr. Evans, it would be perfect if their workload could be a bit less.
"Stubborn…" Sprint turned around, "Keep suffering then, guys."
"Ten o’clock sharp, in the study, we’ll be meeting there and leaving together." Katrina still remembered why Sprint and she came here, "It’s okay that you three are falling behind a bit. When we arrive at the congress, we’ll be sent to schools for systematic arcana and magic study."
Then both Katrina and Sprint left the room.
"They just won’t believe us!" complained Heidi.
"It’s okay… One day they’ll see." Annick encouraged his friends, "Now, no time for feeling angry or frustrated. We have to finish the rest of the exercises before we go."
Both Layria and Heidi quickly sat up straight and said at the same time, "Let’s do it!"
...
When Annick was fully dedicated to his exercises, someone gently patted on his shoulder.
Before Lucien came to check the apprentices, he could not help practicing Brook Meditation in his room a bit first.
The core idea of Brook Meditation was seeking a specific frequency of vibration of spiritual power, which did not have much to do with a specific mediation environment, and thus it could be applied to other ways of meditation as well, including Lucien’s Astrology Meditation and Element Meditation.
After the short period of time of practicing, Lucien found that Brook Meditation was indeed way more helpful than the ancient ways of doing meditation, at least ten times. Lucien believed that, as long as he stuck to it, he would be able to meet the requirement of spiritual power level and soul strength to become a second circle sorcerer.
"Mr… Mr. Evans." Although Lucien looked quite kind and gentle, Annick often felt very nervous in front of him, "It’s… almost done."
"I still have a couple of pages…" said Layria nervously as well.
Lucien was right now in a pretty good mood since he just got Brook Meditation, so he gently waved his hand and said, "No worries. I know that you three were working hard. Since we’re leaving tonight, you can hand the exercises in tomorrow night."
"Awesome!" Heidi grinned.
Both Annick and Layria also looked quite delighted.
"There’s still half an hour to ten. Let’s have a conversation." Lucien sat down in the couch, "Honestly speaking, do you three feel that the exercises are too demanding?"
"Although all of us feel tired, I think that’s worthwhile!" Annick answered immediately. He could obviously see his own progress within the seven days.
"It’s not too bad… I know that we gotta work hard to gain a solid foundation for learning arcana." Layria face blushed, "But if the workload could be reduced a little bit…"
"But if the workload could be reduced a little bit, we’d be more than happy!" continued Heidi.
"The beginning stage is the hardest. In the future, there’ll be more practice and relatively less exercises." Lucien smiled, "And when you three become real sorcerers, you’ll find out that the knowledge that you’re learning right now is not complicated at all."
"Really?" asked Heidi worriedly. "I’m already trying my best…"
"I believe so, and knowledge is always advancing. I think that, maybe a hundred or two hundred years later, the knowledge that high-rank mages will need to grip is going to be very abstract and difficult, say… something on both micro and macro levels."
"Is… is it still possible for me to become a knight?" murmured Annick subconsciously.
And both Layria and Heidi almost felt the same way.
Lucien jokingly took a glance at Annick’s slim figure and shook his head, "Not very likely to happen, I’m afraid."
The three teenagers all giggled, including Annick.
"We’d better just stick to our own magic path," said Heidi to her peers. "You know that the real sorcerers are often very wealthy and powerful in Holm?"
"All right, all right…" Lucien cut in, smiling, "It’s almost ten. Let’s go to the study."
...
In the darkness, two pointy boats were moving along the ca.n.a.l, heading for the wharf.
After arriving at the wharf, the two boats continued to go out to the ocean.
Soon, a three-mast sailboat showed itself in the darkness.
Tom turned around and said to Lucien seriously, "This trip’s probably gonna be tough. Because of the traitor we had, several of our secret routes have already been found by the Church. We need to rely on the back-up plan."
"What the Church is doing now? What’s our back-up plan?" asked Lucien. He needed to have a throughout understanding of what they were facing there.
"Divine airs.h.i.+ps… In the air, the Church’s using precious airs.h.i.+ps to patrol above," explained Tom, quickly. "On the sea, there is a regular fleet belonging to Saint Helmet Knights. At the bottom of the sea, there are Kuo-toans who changed their belief and chose to serve the Church. We indeed bought off some Kuo-toans, but they should be on the fire gallows now."
"Basically all blocked then… Luckily, there’s no radar in this world yet." Lucien murmured to himself, "What shall we do right now?"
Tom pointed at the three-mast sailboat not far away from them, "That vessel belongs to Viscount Wright, and we have a quite solid business relation with him. Thus, we are going into the cabin on that boat."
"Is that boat safe?" asked Lucien.
"No knight and pastor would really go down into the filthy cabin and carefully check all the smelly sailors and slaves gathering together there. If we’re lucky and careful enough, we should be fine. And I’ll be providing water and food to you all," said Tom.