“Concentrate Arthur, don’t let your thoughts distract you. Simply let them float away like clouds and return your focus to the task at hand.” Henry said to Arthur as he walked around his sitting student watching his performance. Arthur on the other hand was struggling with the task he was given, he had both his hands to his sides as he controlled the eight spheres of condensed air that orbited around him. Arthur made the unfortunate mistake of telling his teacher of what he was able to do with the exercise when it was applied to geomancy instead of aeromancy.
Arthur did not answer his teacher as that would only result in his already stressed mind to be stressed further. As such he continued with the task he was given and hated just about every moment of it. Henry felt that he wasn’t pushing Arthur enough and thus decided he should be pushed to his absolute limits for today only to use the meditation technique to recover and do it all again until he started showing progress.
Such intense training required every shred of willpower Arthur had to keep hold of the air he was controlling without slipping in the slightest. The ‘helpful’ words of encouragement from Henry were of no help either, but even when Arthur stopped training he didn’t have the energy to further argue with his teacher over the usefulness of what he was saying.
By the time the second hour of the lesson arrived and ended Arthur was never so happy to leave a place in the near six months of his entire life. “You don’t need to leave right now, I don’t have anything important scheduled for quite some time. So we can continue your training session if you would like.” Arthur nearly scoffed at that statement, that was certainly not going to happen. “I wish I could stay, but I have some personal business to attend to in around fifteen minutes and I would rather be on time for her.” Was what Arthur said instead while he was putting his boots on to leave.
“She? Don’t tell me you already have someone special waiting for you at home.” Henry smirked as he watched Arthur finish putting his boots on. “No no, she is just a friend. She was the one to recommend speaking with you in the first place. She was a former student of yours.”
Henry paused for a minute to think before saying “Could you be a bit more specific, I have had quite a few female students that are around your age now.”
“No, you would just tease me more if you knew who she actually was.” Arthur gave a real smile at this and waved as he opened the door to leave. “I’ll see you around sir.”
“You too Arthur, and good luck.” Henry waved back as Arthur quickly exited the building.
The moment Arthur was outside the old church with the doors closed behind him he let out a deep sigh and wiped the sweat stained hair off to the side as he slowly began walking back to his home. At the moment it was two o’clock in the afternoon yet Arthur was just about ready to go to bed from the exhaustion he was feeling.
‘Note to self, never bring up my own personal results from outside lessons with Henry unless he specifically asks for them because that absolutely was not worth it.’ Arthur thought as he was nearing the street that led to his own home. Thankfully he took care of the gang member problem a while ago which left no predictable threats anywhere near his home or on his walk back. If there was a group of the gang members that was to suddenly ambush or block his way like they had in the past then it likely wouldn’t go very well for Arthur.
Reaching the front door of his house Arthur quickly fetched his key and unlocked it before pushing the door open and walking inside. Arthur’s first destination was his bedroom for a short nap that definitely wouldn’t be all that long and he would most definitely wake up in just an hour or two instead of several.
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Meanwhile in the basement of Henry’s church turned laboratory and home he grumbled to himself as he looked over a set of blueprints for a large circular disk object with many patterns of inscriptions covering its surface. Placing the blueprints down Henry looked up towards the salvage remains of one such magical device he uncovered several years ago and intended to recreate the beautiful thing.
Turning to the nearby clay golem he ordered it to bring the crate it was carrying with it and to follow him. Together Henry and the golem walked up to the remnants of the large disk that was laying on its back. Henry ordered the golem to place the crate down and open it while he got to work attaching new pieces of rock of the same type that was used to create the original parts.
*********
Arthur awoke several hours later as the sun was starting to dip towards the horizon. He could feel the dried sweat on his skin and quickly conjured up some water to remove it and toss it outside the window in his bedroom. Arthur also switched to a clear pair of clothes that didn’t need a good wash to get the smell out of.
‘Uh, what time is it?’ Arthur asked himself as he looked out the window and the diming sunlight. ‘That nap was a bit longer than an hour or two wasn’t it.’ Arthur grumbled to himself as he picked up a bucked and tossed his sweaty clothes in them to wash. He quickly exited out the back door and slowly filled the bucket with water from the surrounding moisture in the air, once the bucket was two thirds full he started scrubbing the clothes.
It took several minutes to properly clean the clothes but when it was done they smelt a lot better than before. Arthur then used the surrounding dirt to create two thin rods just under two meters tall with a third rod connecting the two at the top which he then hung the clothes over to dry.
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With the situation of the clothing out of the way Arthur went back inside and poured himself a bowl of soup to eat, he missed lunch due to his exhaustion and now that it was getting quite close to dinner time he was very hungry. Using his skill in pyromancy Arthur warmed up the soup and ate his fill, a sort of lunch and dinner at the same time.
With a well deserved meal out of the way Arthur was now left with very little to entertain himself with, since he gave up his golem experiments for the time being he had to ditch the corpses he kept around as well as the rat ones. Arthur was forced to push the bodies he buried initially deeper than before into the ground so that he could keep all the new bodies below the six foot deep line. Hopefully no one would find those for quite some time and he would be long gone when that happens.
The only thing Arthur had left to read aside from the journal was the few books he had checked out from the library and hadn't taken the time to return yet as he could keep them as long as he wished per the library's policy. Those two beaks were just tier two spell books that Arthur already looked through and found nothing else of interest or of use.
So Arthur just sat in one of his chairs at his table and looked outside as it slowly turned dark while he thought to himself. ‘I need to find some friends or a hobby or something to spend my time on. Otherwise I will drive myself insane when I don’t have anything to do.’
The only real subject that Arthur had any real interest in was magic and each of its sub categories, other than that he had very little else that he found interesting. Sure the music that he would occasionally hear in a tavern was nice, but it wasn’t exactly the highest quality or very interesting. At best it was simple background noise for food and conversation.
‘I wonder if there are any more of those warehouses still full of that dried grass stuff that the one gang member I interrogated called swamp weed. I could kill a few people and some time with it before I go to sleep.’ Arthur perked up with that thrall of thought and was already putting on his overcoat and packing his dimensional bag with several healing potions he kept in his spare room with all his alchemy supplies. The last thing he grabbed was his sword which he strapped to his hip and slowly exited through the backdoor.
Arthur slowly retraced his steps to some of the other warehouses he found on the day he burned the first one down. The first one he passed by looked to be entirely abandoned with the front doors wide open for just about anyone to freely walk in and out of, the second on the other hand was a bit more promising. Four guards were standing outside with their weapons drawn, two with spears and the other two with one handed axes. Loud sounds could be heard from the inside as if someone was shuffling something around, the anxious looks they had on their face gave away just how stressful the situation was for them and gave Arthur a clue of how much was inside.
‘Must be a large stash compared to the others, and based on the sounds coming from inside they are either preparing to move it somewhere else or are bringing it in. Though I might be completely wrong and they are doing something else instead, it would have to be something that requires a lot of moving around.’ Arthur walked by the warehouse on the far side of the road avoiding eye contact with the four guards as he did so. It gave him a good idea of how large the warehouse was and how well guarded it is.
Arthur estimated the size of the warehouse to be around one and a half times the size of the previous one, assuming it was filled roughly the same amount as the previous warehouse Arthur would be destroying fifty percent more of this swamp weed stuff than he did last time. But with this increased value came increased security, with double the guards as the previous warehouse killing them silently would prove to be more difficult this time around. ‘I could try luring them to the side one at a time where no one can see them, but I assume that wouldn’t work past the second attempt and after a minute or two of no response or being gone would make those remaining suspicious.’
Sneaking around the side of another nearby building Arthur looked for a possible secondary set of doors or an open window that he might be able to crawl through and get inside without detection. Instead he found two other guards walking around the other three sides as sentries, if he wished to enact his original plan to draw the four at the front one at a time he would need to eliminate these two first. Unluckily or perhaps luckily the two were patrolling quite close to each other giving Arthur a good window of opportunity to quickly eliminate the two in rapid succession. The most opportune time for that would be when they were at the back end of the warehouse.
Arthur slowly got into a position where he had a good line of sight with where he wanted to kill the two patrolling gang members and waited while hiding behind a corner of a nearby building. Slowly Arthur watched the two approach from the far side of the building which was the left side, they two slowly walked down the back side and turned the corner and walked around halfway down the right side before turning around and going back. Arthur had the spell Tri Earth Bolt prepared within his mind and two castings worth of earth bolts at the ready by the time the two gang members were at the halfway point of the back end. Arthur quickly gave the mental command to the bolts and just as quickly shot forwards striking the second gang member in the head and neck knocking him down and soon killing him, the first gang member who was leading his friend felt his friend bump into him as he was dying before he too was struck by three of his own earth bolts leading him to a similar fate.
The two fresh corpses quickly fell to the ground creating some noise that Arthur worried would attract attention from the other gang members standing guard, but thankfully after several minutes of waiting and watching none of them showed up. With that Arthur quickly walked over and searched through the pockets of the two and found a few copper coins and took the old short swords they both carried.
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+ 50 Exp
+ 50 Exp
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‘These corpses can stay here for the time being, for now I need to deal with the remaining gang members outside keeping watch.’ Arthur had several plans of how he could deal with the four gang members out front, the first was to simply go in with as many spells as he could concentrate on at a time and strike them all down where they stood. The biggest problem with this plan was that they might shout something that could give away to someone inside that they are under attack, and if they had the numbers Arthur suspected then based on the previous warehouse there were around nine gang members inside either standing guard or doing something else.
The second plan involved drawing one or two of the gang members out front away with sounds and then killing them while they were isolated. The problem with this plan was it left very little room for Arthur to act and take out more than one before moving onto the second. It could work, but Arthur would need to be very fast and possibly lead two at a time away to avoid suspicion, and if he were he could only do it once without giving away something happening.