Chapter 16: Lessons and magic?
"Young master, you need to attend to your lessons," neutrally informed Epine.
Eldric grimaced at that, it seems the time has caught up to him. He could no longer afford that precious freedom he was granted these last couple of days.
The noble children are notoriously educated from an early age. He was only a special case due to his two-year 'absence', but it seems he can no longer avert it.
He sighed. 'I have rather bad experiences with schooling.'
Multiple scenes of bullying crossed his mind at that instant. Being the crippled boy he was in middle school; he had to deal with a lot of it.
Epine paused slightly when she was his reaction, she was not expecting it at all.
Her young master didn't seem to hate studying.
Eldric must have noted her surprise because he said "No need to be surprised, I don't particularly hate studying... I just like to have the freedom to choose what exactly I want to learn." he explained to her.
Epine could somehow understand that sentiment. She made no further comments, however.
"Anyway, what are the lessons going to be about?" he prodded. He had no time to find out about the schedule beforehand.
Epine didn't take long to answer, "The first instructor is going to be teaching you about general topics. Such topics vary depending on the day."
"The second however would be a magic— a prestigious magic instructor from the capital; they would be coming to instruct you as well." she affirmed.
'Magic… I can finally learn about it. And learning from someone ought to be more effective.' he argued in his mind
His eyes literally shone from the possibility of embracing magic.
Yet again, Epine found that reaction very weird.
Not only were boys not naturally drawn to magic, but people also tend to focus on their blessing.
And her young master had one of the better blessings for physical combat. She didn't know why he was so captivated by the concept of magic.
If Eldric heard what she said, he would scream heresy in his mind.
Being able to use magic was every man's romance. As long as it was possible to learn it without the necessity of the blessing, he would never give up on it.
Besides, there was nothing wrong with picking up multiple paths… All he had to do was work hard enough to make sure both of them grew appropriately— something he was very much planning to do.
All forms of protest disappeared when he heard about the magic instructor that would be coming to guide him.
Epine usually doesn't hype anyone without them being worth the trouble; that was what he noticed so far.
"I don't know much about how the general course is supposed to plan out. But I'm excited to finally learn about magic!" he blurted with a happy tone.
Epine couldn't help but be influenced by his enthusiasm; there was a warm smile decorating her face.
—--
It seems Eldric was needlessly worried about the general course, or that's what they called it at least. There were indeed multiple areas the instructor had to teach him about.
Basic arithmetic was the main area where he was tested. As an adult in his past life, Eldric would sooner cry blood than make mistakes in simple addition and subtraction.
The instructor apparently got a bit more frisky and gave him some multiplication and division 'equations'.
Eldric naturally nailed them as well. That somehow evidently made the instructor quite astonished.
However, the language course did not go as smooth. Eldric was not sure if it was supposed to be hard, or if the old man instructing him decided to ramp it up a bit yet again...
Luckily, it seems the Eldric from before wasn't lazy. He at least had the basics of writing and speech tailored.
Politics, however, is where most of his problems came in. There were still many things to uncover despite the reading session he had already done; politics was a world of its own to explore— and Eldric just barely started his journey.
Despite that, the old instructor didn't seem particularly displeased that Eldric couldn't answer most of his questions.
The lessons could have gone slightly better in Eldric's mind. But he was not that disappointed.
All of that wasn't as important, however; Eldric was going to learn about magic. And he is going to do it the proper way.
He didn't allocate much time to its study in these three days because it seemed like something not of immediate concern,
Eldric would have surely spent the latter half of this day studying it, but a chance came to him on a silver platter.
All magic experiments and lessons would be done in a special room for safety. Eldric entered a stone brick structure. It looked ready to tank anything that came its way.
If he were, to be honest with himself, it looked more like a fortified box than a room. He assumed that there were times when even nobles cared primarily about functionality and not just aesthetics.
"Hello, little one." reverberated a smooth voice through the room.
Eldric was confused; extremely so.
He made sure to observe the only other person in this box-like room, ever since their entrance. He was sure that her mouth didn't move at all.
Not even in the slightest.
Eldric kept taking glances at her and the room walls to see if anything was amiss. He smiled when he found nothing
— that must have the work of magic, he thought.
"Fuh Fuh Fuh… Curious one, aren't you?"
That seemed to draw a melodic laugh from the late teen woman in front of him. Her long flowing black hair swayed from left to right as her half-shown cleavage jiggled around; her hands covered her cheery red lips.
She paused for a second and looked straight at him, "That was indeed magic."
She had a long hooded robe on, along with a large wooden staff in her right hand. It was decorated with large magic stones, as far as he could assume...
They were magic stones.
Eldric was sure that you couldn't even more Fantasy than this. This was the classic mage build,
Her amethyst-like eyes shined in amusement, as she saw the little boy in front of her observe her even more intently. Almost wanting to strip away every secret of hers.
"My apologies." She conceded after her laugh ended.
She continued after," I go by Aldora, and I will be your magic instructor— at least for the day."
Eldric was surprised by that; he didn't expect that a commoner would teach him magic.
And what a 'commoner' she was— Eldric would, later on, be immensely surprised when he would learn of her actual position.
But that was a surprise for another time.
Aldora noted his surprise and lightly questioned," Disappointed?"
"Not really. I was just surprised, that's all. As long as you prove to be qualified— I would have no other issues." he truthfully answered.
Aldora hummed," I think you and I will get along quite well," she giggled.
Eldric thought she was being quite casual for a supposed commoner, but just put it in the back of his mind for later.
"So... what do you know about magic?" prompted Aldora, grandly opening her arm.
That question marked the start of Eldric's journey toward the magical realm.
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