Chapter 16.

PART 1.

“You can stop for now, kid, take a rest.” Said Zeko to Hatori, having seen him levitating the stone for the past few hours.

‘Things won’t be interesting until we get to my home.’ He smiled at the thought, but with none of the warm feelings which the thought of home brings.

Hatori decides to heed his advice. “Master Zeko,” he asked. “Why are we traveling so slowly?” Hatori knows that the cars can travel hundreds of kilometers in a day. And yet, despite the traveling of four days, according to Zeko, they haven’t come very far.

“Well, to be honest kid, traveling is a great chance to experience things, from new sights, experiences, feels, and this applies to you as well, given your new radar spell.” The very thought of that spell brought a pained expression to Hatori’s face.

“That, and I like to travel.” He confessed.

“I think that you finally stated the real reason.” Said Hatori drily.

“What? Why would I use your own training as an excuse for travel? Why the very thought.” He harrumphed.

Zeko carefully noted how Hatori is not asking any questions about the incident in the pub a few days ago.

PART 2.

Zeko is teaching Hatori the spell to make the text talk. “So, once you use this spell on, let’s say a book, you’ll hear the text written on the page.”

“Wouldn’t other people hear what I’m reading?” asked Hatori.

“Good question. There’s a way of making the text heard only by you. It comes with control. How you get there, I’ll leave that to you.” He said, ‘For now. I’ll certainly give you enough hints to do that.’ he added in his head.

“How do I use this spell?” asked Hatori. “am I supposed to make some sort of movement?”

“What kind of movements do you have in mind?” Zeko asked in amusement.

“Well,” Hatori gets up, joins his palms, entangles his fingers, points his thumbs upwards, and speaks. “Read the text to me. read the text to me!” he commanded.

“hahahahahahahahaha! I can’t believe you thought of that.” Zeko roared with laughter.

Hatori sits down, feeling his face getting heated up. “Most of the spells like these are pretty simple. You just need good imagination, and focus. Just like your radar spell.”

“Oh.” Hatori nodded.

“For this spell, just focus on your ears, on your head. You can map your own body within your mind. The meditation should help you.” instructed Zeko. “For now, you’ll have to put your fingers on the page to read it. Once you’re good enough, you can join this with your radar, and make the spell read the text from a distance, without touching it.”

Hatori sighed. He really doesn’t like how meditation is proving to be more and more useful. He doesn’t mind the activity. But he just knows that Zeko is smug about it, given how he complained when he began to meditate.

Zeko gives Hatori a simple book to practice. At first, he lost the spell in the middle of the reading, reminding Hatori of his screen reader crash back at his home. But by late afternoon, he has grasped the spell enough that he can consistently read a page. It took some experimenting, but he can now make the spell read out the individual characters of a line. He then started to map out the shape of these characters through his radar spell, since that spell let him know the shape of the ink on the paper.

“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.” Read the spell to Hatori.

Hatori smiles. ‘Looks like both worlds use the same rhymes.’ He thought.

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He then started to track down the characters, and read them out loud, going very slowly. He has no practice in reading and speaking out loud at the same time. During this practice, he falls asleep. He always gets sleepy after lunch.

In his dreams, Hatori is running from a crowd of shapes, which are the characters which he was studying earlier in the day. A and B were leading the crowd, while C hung in the background. Z is screaming at him. “Wake up boy, it is time to get up!”

“Ahhhhh!” He jumped awake, making Zeko dodge a sudden headbutt.

“Why’re you yelling?” he asked, after seeing the terrified face of his apprentice.

“Those characters, they were coming after me. They wanted to turn me into someone just like them.” Said Hatori, shuttering.

‘One hell of a nightmare.’ Thought Zeko. “Anyway, we’ve stopped for now. Go out, practice your radar spell. Dinner will be up in an hour or so.”

After the child runs out, Zeko gets ready to make the dinner, using the kitchen installed in his car. Advantage of modifying the technology of the other world is that the mages can change the things which the other world can’t do easily, such as keeping a moving house in a small compact car.

Various spells keep track of Hatori, while Zeko cooks. He poses in front of the stove. “Cooking is the art of manliness!” He declares, brandishing his knife like a sword. Back in his school days, antics like this always set off his friends. Nowadays, his friends keep their distance from him. The ones who survived that is.

While preparing the vegetables, Zeko thinks about Hatori’s training. ‘Everything is proceeding smoothly, and yet, I feel there is something missing.’ He thought, while putting the potatoes in the oil.

Leaving them to get fried, (he will never understand why Hatori likes those so much), he starts to think again. Observing the oil jumping in the pan, Zeko remembers how he got burned by it while he was learning to cook in his younger days. Apparently, inspiration struck at him with that thought.

‘Danger.’ He smiled at the thought. ‘That’s what's missing. This is exactly why I brought him out of the Castle in the first place. How can I forget? Looks like aging is already taking its toll on me.’

He planned to train Hatori away from the school, which prepares the children to attend the premier academy of their country once they get old. By taking him outside of that system, Zeko wants to train his apprentice with carefully controlled danger; this kind of training cannot be received in a formalized school environment. Normally, Zeko wouldn’t have done something like that. but given how quickly he must ready the child, and how everyone has an edge over him with their experience in magic, he feels this is the right course of action.

‘Hmm. Once we reach home, I’ll start the 24-7 dangerous module. That ought to speed up everything.’ He has disabled the module, since he has surpassed it a long time ago. Not to mention, it made it hard to have guests. ‘Bonus. People won’t bother me for quite some time.’

He goes outside, after getting the dinner ready. “Boy, enough playing outside. Come here. Dinner is ready.” He called.

He looks to the sky. ‘Hmm. there will be rain tonight.’

PART 3.

Yograaj plots to deal with Zeko. He knows that he has taken the child with him. ‘Once he reaches his home, it’ll be impossible to catch the boy.’ He thought. ‘It’ll be for the best if I can retrieve the boy in the middle of the way.’ He smiles.

‘Besides. Even if I did somehow lose this chance, I’ll get another one when he comes back here for the yearly exams.’ He called his men, and dismissed them after giving them their instructions.

(End.)