Chapter 80.

PART 1.

Hatori wakes up in the cave. A few seconds of panicking later, he realizes why he is in this new place. Judging from the temperature, the sun is out, and the storm has passed. His clothes are dried, and he wears them quickly, even though they need a thorough wash. The fog of sleep slowly disappears as he performs this activity, though he quickly has to react when a vine comes out of nowhere, and wraps around his throat. The Slicer didn’t do a damn thing (and now he is slowly starting to speak like the elephant in his head; he has no doubt he’ll start speaking like that out loud one day as well.)

Producing flames from his mouth, he burns the vine into ashes and falls to the ground, trying to regain his breath. A bruise is forming on his neck. Meanwhile, the snake and the elephant watch the entire incident.

‘What an unfortunate life.’ Said snake.

‘Tell me about it. no peace before sleep, no fucking peace after sleep, and probably no peace during the sleep either.’ Said the elephant.

“I need to get my clothes situation fixed.” He muttered. Wearing his current clothes is not good. Rashes will start appearing soon otherwise.

‘About that, we recovered the bag which contained your clothes.’ Said the snake.

‘Here you go.’ Said the elephant, putting the bag down from his back.

“Thanks.” Said Hatori. “I’ll need a bath. We’ll then move on to the next problem we have, which is how to get you inside the Academy.”

‘Sure.’ Said the elephant.

Coming back from his bath in a river, Hatori watches his yantras work to extract the flowers juices, while also planting new flowers. He is glad that he thought of automating that process. He wouldn’t have been able to collect so much juice for the queens otherwise.

‘Now, if I can automate the process of carving runes…’ he shakes his head. ‘One problem at a time, Hatori.’

‘So, what’s the plan to get us inside?’ asked the snake, while Hatori devours a fish and some vegetables which he found in the wild.

“Honestly? No plan at all.” The snake hits the ground with his head, while the elephant couldn’t believe his ears.

“Although, I’m thinking of teleporting you inside. The only problem is, teleporting can only be done with small things, and not living ones at that,” said Hatori.

‘So what? Do you honestly expect to take this brute and me inside while being invisible?’ asked the snake. ‘We’ll be detected long before we could do anything.’

“But that would be the only plan we have if teleportation doesn’t work out,” said Hatori.

‘And how do you plan to test that?’ asked the elephant.

“I’ll steal a teleporter from the Academy. I’ll dismantle it, and see whether it can be improved to accomplish our purpose or not.” Said Hatori.

After that conversation in the morning, Hatori goes to steal the teleporter from the Academy. This teleporter is used to deliver letters and notes at large distances, but the size and weight of the objects are limited. He comes with his invisibility spell wrapped around himself, expecting the teleporter to be secured, with several people watching over it.

Instead, he finds it sitting on a desk, with no one else in the room. ‘Well, waste not, want not.’ He thought while taking the device with himself. He made sure to put the invisible spell on it as well, it wouldn’t do if someone saw a floating teleporter.

Keeping two invisibility spells is a challenge, especially since he can only drop them once he is inside the forest. But if he has gotten anything out of this whole experience, that is endurance. He managed to not drop the spell; and once he plants it in the cave, which is his temporary camp, the snake and elephant come close to observe the device.

PART 2.

The news is quickly spread in the Academy that the teleporter has disappeared. This is huge news since this means the letters are effectively stuck until a new teleporter is installed in place of the old one.

“But how could it just disappear like that?” asked Josh.

“I don’t think it disappeared.” Said Raven.

“You think it was stolen.” Said James.

“Indeed.” Said Raven. “And I think I know who stole it.”

“Hatori.” Said James.

“What? No way,” said Shin.

“Who has the guts to do that then?” asked Raven. “The portal wasn’t secure. There was no detection of any magic, which is because you won’t detect a basic spell. I do think he stole the portal.”

That conversation is now behind James, forgotten. But when he is with some older students, collecting some ingredients in the forest, he sees some yantras collecting juice from the flowers. “Looks like someone needs a lot of juice.” Said one older student.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Is that normal?” asked James.

“You mean using yantras for collecting things? Certainly. Though when you need specialized ingredients, then you need people like us. the yantras cannot hunt a dangerous animal for its parts; now can they?” said the fifth-year student.

‘I don’t know. Zeko probably had some yantras who could hunt animals and humans alike.’ Thought James.

But those yantras are not just collecting juice from the flowers, or trees. They are planting seeds for the new trees. This is ignored by older students since they moved further before they could see that. One of them calls out to James.

“You can watch them some other time, you know?” James tosses his bag to the guy who called him.

“Take it. I’ll get back on my own.” He said and then walks away deeper into the forest.

This is the same area where Hatori is living. They did not come here to collect anything, for Professor Dhiraj warned them this was a dangerous area. But things are different, it seems. The animals which were hidden before, now seem free. James has seen more animals now, than he saw when he came to visit Hatori.

He also finds some strange areas, where some yantras were working on the small bees. This fascinated him. They seem to be carving runes directly on the bodies of these bees, which is a precise and delicate operation. The body of a bee is very small; the runes are even smaller. There’s no room for mistake; the right force has to be applied, or else you’ll skewer the bug.

Walking even further, James finds a scene of overwhelming violence, as Hatori is spearing the final spirit with transmuted ground, turning it into a land full of iron spikes. The pieces of the dismantled teleporter are scattered nearby, whereas an elephant and a snake hung from the tree and grazed on the grass, respectively.

A pad is put on a branch of a tree, to which Hatori goes back. He repeatedly looks at the dismantled teleporter and back to his pad, instructing the dictation pen to write something, and sometimes doing some rune designs by hand.

“What’re you trying to do?” asked James.

Hatori is not surprised. He sensed James watching him during the fight. “I’m trying to understand how this thing works, and how can I teleport bigger things, and living ones if need be.” James picks up one piece. “What have you found so far?” he asked, examining the runes himself.

“It seems that the circular design itself is a rune of sorts, whereas the body provides the anchor.” Said Hatori. “The other side gets specific instructions, and it recompiles the object sent from the other side.”

“Have you thought of using a place as an anchor?” asked James. “This will potentially increase the mass of an object you’re trying to send.”

“Hmm. like a ritual circle.” Said Hatori out loud. “But I'd rather not break things down before sending them to the other side. Bigger things can be complicated.”

“Hmm.” Said James. “Why not create a window? You can sort of pass through it, without being broken down, and getting collected on the other side.”

“That could work.” Hatori scratches some runes on the ground with a stick.

“Anyway, you continue what you’re doing. I need to go back. See you later.” said James.

“See you later,” said Hatori distractedly.

PART 3.

Dhiraj caps the potions he was brewing. This concludes the supply for Krodhatma for the next six months, apart from certain complications.

Each time he thinks of how things came to this, he gets sad. Slaughter, he, and Krodhatma attended the Academy together, since they were of the same age. But Krodhatma didn’t come from a powerful or acceptable background like them. Getting rejected by academia didn’t help his friend, since the lifetime of abuse has made him believe that if he could prove his worth, the hire families would stop looking down upon him, and allow him to join the academic circle, letting him perform his research in peace.

But that didn’t happen. What happened twenty years ago fills Dhiraj with so much anger, which he never experienced in his 53 years of life. His friend's entire family was murdered, while the guilty got away easily. They even came to laugh at his face.

Thus, a thoughtful boy who was interested in the language of symbols is turned into this raging machine, getting older before his time.

The fifties are a great time for mages. If you survive this long, your power is exponential at this stage of life from all the struggles, not to mention, you’ve got the next 150 years to look forward to as well. You can even marry and have children at this age. But his friend won’t live to see his hundredth year.

(End.)