Chapter 83.

PART 1.

After learning about telepathy, and how he can communicate with other animals as well, Hatori decides that the best training to gain control over his this newly found ability is to actively use it, aside from all those meditation sessions. He has been attacked so much that sitting still has become a struggle since the slightest change in the wind's direction is enough to spook him into action.

Laughter from the snake and the elephant is not appreciated when that happens.

Currently, he is outside of the Academy, near the ground, where he is observing the nest of the crows. Just a few meters distance, he found the egg of Karasu nearly three months ago. To see whether he can actively communicate using telepathy or not, he sits under a tree with his legs crossed and thinks of the thoughts he wishes to communicate with the crows above him.

‘testing, testing, can you hear me!’

The crows are startled, but none of them leave the nest. One of them comes down, and pecks at Hatori’s cheek, disrupting his focus. ‘We can hear you, alright. No need to be so loud.’

Hatori blushes in embarrassment. ‘Is that the right volume?’ he thought, like he would think usually, without thinking about loudness, or explicitly focusing on one single thought.

‘Good. you’ll learn.’ Said the crow. ‘Usually, the humans who do study us take a long time to learn this way of communicating; sometimes they go their entire lives without realizing that this way of talking with us exists.’

Hatori noted how this crow sounded to his telepathic ears. ‘Are you a female?’ he asked bluntly.

‘Of course, silly.’ She pecks his cheek once more, gently this time.

‘Though it should be added that even if you communicate with the crows outside of this place, you won’t find them as articulate as us.’ She explains further. ‘I suspect that is because they never get the practice.’

‘I suppose leaving this area is also hard since it is an isolated dimension and all.’ Said Hatori.

‘You don’t know half of it. This dimension is huge, with every possible habitat, created by some of the most brilliant humans to do tests and of course, teach other humans.’ Said the female crow.

This conversation is interrupted, as the crows above suddenly go into action. They targeted a Koel which was found nearby. Hatori walks in the same direction to observe what is happening, while the female crow sits on his shoulder, pointing him in the right direction. Telepathy helps with coordination as well.

The Koel was found sneaking into a nest, after which the crows above Hatori’s head immediately started to pursue it, ruthlessly bringing it down. while other crows go into the nest and bring out the eggs carefully. The female on Hatori’s shoulder explains the entire situation to him.

‘Those damnable singers, they hide their eggs among our own, and then they push out our eggs when they hatch. We do keep an eye on them, but it is hard to protect every nest.’ Said the female crow.

‘Maybe I can help?’ asked Hatori.

‘What can you do?’ asked the crow in return.

‘I can create some wards around certain trees; they should protect the nests from the Koels. I won’t be able to do that for every tree, though.’ said Hatori.

‘That is fine. Let me discuss it with the flock.’ she said while flying from his shoulder.

After the whole matter is resolved, and once they go back to their original nests, the discussion of Hatori’s proposal begins, while he sits underneath the tree. The discussion sounded quite formal and sophisticated at first, but it soon devolved into name-cawing, beak fighting, and hurling objects in the nest at each other. Some of them fall outside, and Hatori manages to avoid them barely. Jewels, pieces of rocks, sticks, and broken glass were included in the list of those things which fell outside.

The female crow comes flying down and sits on Hatori’s shoulder once more. ‘The parliament has decided. We accept your proposal.’

‘You call that parliament?’ asked Hatori, going inside the forest to retrieve his tools.

‘Of course. I saw how humans conduct themselves in a similar setting, throwing chairs at each other. At least our things are harmless.’ Said the crow proudly.

Hatori decides not to argue. He brought his notes of basic wards, and designs, an excluding ward to keep the Koels out of the trees selected by the crows. Two hours later, he was done. ‘So, what do you want in the return of this service?’ asked the female crow.

‘Well, not much. I prefer to form a long-lasting friendship.’ He spoke.

‘Yes, that will happen in time. But seriously, what do you want in return?’ she asked again.

Hatori thinks of what he wanted to discuss with James. Wouldn’t it be convenient to send him a message, and call him outside, instead of risking it by sneaking inside of the Academy? ‘I can get your thoughts, you know. The idea is smart. Write the message, I’ll give it to a youngling.’

‘And here I thought I was hiding my thoughts.’ Said Hatori, writing a message on an empty paper of his notebook. He tears the page and gives it to the young crow, whom the female crow called. The crow takes the paper in his claws, and, after getting a rough sense of the magic of James, flies away.

‘I hope his grip won’t slip.’ Thinks Hatori.

‘Don’t worry. The distance is not long; it won’t happen.’ Said the female crow. ‘If the distance were to be long, I would have taken the message, my self-tied around my leg. As for your thoughts, don’t worry. Spend some time around other animals, and you’ll get good at keeping your actual thoughts to yourself.’

PART 2.

James and Shin do not spend much time in their room lately, ever since the brawl between Raven and Josh. The hostility is too much to bear all the time, so James got lost in his world, much like how he did in his own home. ‘What a miserable life. Can’t I get any peace? The moment I got good friends, they started to fight.’

The cawing of a crow disrupted James s thoughts. A crow inside the school is very unusual. It presents him with a page, (more like dropping the page on his head), and flies away. Reading the message, James smiles and walks outside. ‘This should be promising.’

He finds Hatori waiting for him, sitting on a rock with his arms crossed. “I see you’ve got a new way of delivering messages.” He said, by way of greeting. “Could use some politeness.”

“I think the excitement got to him. After all, he was a young one.” Said Hatori. “This is why I’ve called you here.” Hatori gives a set of pages to James.

“You do realize that it’ll require a ritual, right?” asked James.

“Yeah.” Said Hatori. “What do you think about a modification to the yantra?”

“Hmm. That is fine, I don’t see any problems with it. Say, why don’t you let me work on the Yantra modification, and you focus on the ritual and the runes for it?” asked James. “Also, do consult Professor Mantar, and Krodhatma before you do anything else.”

“Sure.” Said Hatori. “Come with me. I’ll give you the Yantra immediately.”

“Fine.” Said James, walking into the forest with Hatori.

Leaving the yantra and the schematics to James, Hatori leaves to sneak inside the Academy to talk with the professors. This will take a while.

PART 3.

After the classes are over, Hatori finds Dhiraj and Krodhatma together. When he explains his idea to them, Krodhatma asked to check his runes. “These seem fine boy, though clearly, you can reduce this curve, and get more energy out of it.”

Hatori nods at the change and implements the suggestion of Krodhatma. “You won’t need potions anymore, since it is already there, even diluted. Once you perform the ritual, the potency of water should remain constant, it won’t add any extra effects if you use more potions.” Explained Dhiraj, when Hatori asked whether he should brew more potions for his task or not.

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“You should go to Mantar now, he’ll refine your ritual process.” Said Krodhatma. “I’m sure you can still find him in his classroom. He always takes time to clean the room every day.”

Hatori does exactly that, feeling like a video game character, running around to accomplish a side quest. “Professor Mantar?” he asked hesitatingly.

“Ah Hatori, come in, come in,” said the professor. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t report you.”

Hatori breathed easier after hearing that. “I planned a project. I got the potions and rune part done, but I need your help with rituals.”

“What kind of help?” asked Mantar, interested despite himself. After all, what else could a twelve-year-old cook up? but he has learned that he should not underestimate children.

“Here, you can look at this.” Said Hatori, handing him his notes.

“Oh, my.” Said Mantar, genuinely surprised to see everything laid out so cleanly in front of him. “You’ve got the runes right; the ritual would go like this. Once the evening hits, you must get in the circle right in the center of it, then cast these spells.” The professor teaches him the five spells. “You must cast each of these fifty times. and do not stop in the middle; your effort will fizzle out otherwise.”

Hatori smiled. The professor told him exactly what he thought of himself, confirming his theory of the ritual. “If you successfully manage to complete this ritual, and show me the water, I’ll give you an automatic pass in my class, no strings attached.”

Hatori is even more happy to hear that. This means no more droll exams to sit through. No matter how interesting is the subject. But the exams are still boring as hell.

‘And now I’m thinking like that damned elephant.’ He winced. ‘I have such bad company. I used to be a calm and well-mannered child.’ He lamented.

PART 4.

Every year since he started at the Academy, Shin has partaken in the musical acts during the festival, a month-long event held in the Academy. But this year, he is not feeling the motivation, evident from the strings of notes he is playing on his violin. Aimless notes, musical gibberish, which doesn’t mean anything at all, and most important of all, does not sound good to the ear.

He realizes how great the festival has been to him. He wouldn’t have learned the violin, otherwise, a wonderful instrument that he could not afford to purchase. ‘I wonder, what would Hatori do in this situation?’ he thinks.

“Don’t give up so easily. Try harder!” said the imaginary Hatori.

Shin picks up the violin once more. Maybe if not the violin, then trying another instrument will give him his motivation back. He hasn’t tried his hand at piano for a while.

PART 5.

It is night by the time Hatori returns. He arranges things for the ritual tomorrow. He must wait until the evening of tomorrow to complete it. the snake and elephant help him in preparation, after planting trees as they promised him after they destroyed a portion of the forest in their fight with other animals.

Hatori’s plan is simple. He wants to turn that pond into a permanent fixture of this forest, where animals can come. get modified with runes, submerge in the water imbued by the properties of strengthening potions, which help in the ritual of modification. Currently, the water is depleted, both in volume and potency. But once this ritual is complete, the volume will remain constant, and the properties will remain for a long time without Hatori having to do anything explicitly.

However, this is a huge project for a third-year mage. And despite the knowledge he has amassed, these two tasks of modifying animals, and turning the pond into a permanent oasis have strained all the knowledge he has so far. Once everything on place, Hatori draws a new circle and puts the runes in order. He did not use the standard script which he showed to Krodhatma. Instead, he is using the runic script taught to him by Zeko, since things are easier with it.

‘What now?’ asked the elephant.

‘Nothing but to wait.’ He replied telepathically.

Ever since he learned of telepathy and started to communicate with the crows, his conversation skills are improving fast. He was screaming in the morning today, and now he can put his thoughts succinctly. Though he still has trouble hiding his feelings.

After having a nice sleep in the night, and resting all day long, Hatori is ready for the ritual. He gives final instructions to the elephant and the snake, who are outside of the circle, keeping eyes (and other senses) on everything.

‘Keep everything out, including the spirits. I won’t be able to defend myself while I’m casting these spells.’ Explaining that, Hatori removes his clothes, as they can interfere with the casting of magic he is about to do since they are filled with enchantments. He also removes the neckless which he got in his first year from healer slaughter. He doesn’t even notice its presence anymore, soon, he won’t need to wear it.

Feeling light after removing the weight of increasing neckless, Hatori meditates while the time to cast the five spells shown to him by Professor Mantar comes closer and closer. He practiced these spells in the morning, and he went through the motions an hour before he started the ritual. ‘I can’t make a mistake here.’

The time is right, and his instincts are screaming at him to begin casting. He starts with the fire spell. All five spells are elemental, and there’s no particular order. He chose fire because Hatori learned it first, and he is most familiar with it as a result. As he is casting the fire spell for the fiftieth time, there’s some commotion outside of the circle.

The spirits had come in droves, trying to get into the circle. Instead of a group of five or ten, there are hundreds of them gathered outside, trying to get passed the snakes, elephants, and bees. But the animals outnumber them, and they are unable to reach Hatori.

But Hatori is only aware of this conflict superficially since he is busy casting his spells. He moved from fire to water, then earth and lightning. Then comes the turn of the wind, a spell that causes a small breeze. It might not be very powerful, but it is sufficient for this ritual. But he casts the spell slowly, as he is not familiar with the wind element at all, having gotten no chance to learn or practice it before, unlike the four elements of earth, fire, water, and lightning.

After he casts the fiftieth spell, the power is suddenly drained out of him, and the pond starts to ripple. The water gets cleaner and starts to rise, while the earth moves, and Hatori senses the pond turning into a lake, as it gains in depth, width, and volume of water. The spirits breach the protection of creatures, but Hatori is too weak to defend himself. The spells were not very energy intensive, but the ritual sapped his energy.

But this amount of energy is not enough. The ritual searches for more power, and finds it in a deep basement underground, where the module of the forest is located. While the spirits are about to get their non-existing hands-on Hatori’s neck and strangle him. the ritual takes all the power of the module located below the forest, which gets destroyed in the process. But no one is there in the basement, so the destruction is missed entirely. After this, the ritual has enough power to further expand the lake, deepen it further, and increase its width. The water rises in waves, and with one final wave, which splashes Hatori, the ritual is done, and the magic dissipates, leaving silence in the forest.

The elephant picks up an exhausted Hatori with his trunk. ‘Let’s take you to your camp; you deserve some rest.’ He did not curse in the slightest. Other animals disperse, while the snake goes with the elephant.

The spirits disappeared out of nowhere; they suspect they might come back to attack Hatori in the night. This wasn’t the usual assault; they seemed angry this time. But they won’t find Hatori defenseless. These two creatures will be there to defend him.

The ritual has done something to them as well. They can sense greater magic within themselves as well, ready to be unleashed whenever they want.

(End.)