I look at Lucinda panting as she eats the spaghetti.

"Rottenbone! These are spicy!"

Not as spicy as you, girl. But I don't say that out loud, obviously. I have been scoring enough points not to risk it all here.

"That's criminal spaghetti for you," I laugh, getting a forkful into my mouth.

"Wasn't it criminal noodles?"

"Nah. I like criminal spaghetti better. Do you like the small crust that formed on them? The recipe revolves around slightly burning them for added taste."

"Yeah, aahhh, hssss," she makes several inarticulate noises before taking a waterskin from her little dimensional bag and drinking half of it in one go. "It's so good! But it's so spicy!"

"Yeah. Don't touch your eyes with your hands. You have some tomato on them."

I can barely finish talking before she resumes stuffing her mouth. If she weren't so pretty, I'd genuinely be scared by the ravenousness Lucinda is displaying.

"Do you actually feed yourself enough?"

"Magic takes a lot of energy," she says, unapologetically stuffing her face and talking with a full mouth. "I eat, but I also practice a lot. That consumes energy. Food makes energy."

Even in her Ooga-Booga-Food moment, Lucinda's purple eyes sparkle like twin stars in the firmament.

"And this is so good!"

Thank God I cooked enough spaghetti for six people.

"This was a very simple dish," I snort. "I had planned on cooking it for myself. If I had known you were coming here, I would have actually put in some effort."

"Are you sure you don't have the [Cook] class?" Lucinda widens her eyes at me, incredulous.

"Nah. Just the [Light Mage]—"

"[Light Mage]?! You accepted it?!" Lucinda's fork clatters on the plate.

Damn, that's dramatic.

"Yeah," I scratch my head. "I know that some say you shouldn't. But I'm just having fun with magic."

"But—wait. How do you even have the [Mage] class? Didn't you just start practicing?!" Lucinda wipes her mouth with a handkerchief and looks confused. "You said you were working on [Light], but most people barely get the [Mage] class after they finish the spell. What's going on here?"

Uh-oh.

"Well, huh. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation... which is... the book... er..." I try to think of something on the spot.

"Did you actually lie to me during the first interview? I'm pretty sure you said you had no class!"

Lucinda looks extremely distrustful now.

Goddammit.

"The book had a super good explanation of how [Light] worked. I put in some effort and got [Light] and the class. That's all. Really. I give you my permission to check your ring if you want."

Lucinda looks at one of her rings and then back at me.

"How long did it actually take you to learn the [Light] spell?"

Oof.

"Well... it really depends on what you consider as me starting to learn. If you mean checking out the book... that's... three days? Two days? Something like that."

But Lucinda doesn't look convinced by my explanation at all.

"Joey. How long did it take since you started studying the actual spell?" There's a fire in her eyes now, the same fire she had when she was talking about magic before.

"A little more than three hours," I sigh. "But really, I think I was just lucky I had the book and—"

Lucinda slams her palm on the wooden table.

"JOEY!" She grabs my sleeve with a crazed look in her eyes.

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"Do you have any idea what that means?! If that will be your speed for the Cantrips as well, you might have a tremendous natural disposition for magic! You could even apply to the academy! Rottenbone, I want to see you go through the Cantrips with my own eyes! Your talent might be incredible!"

Click.

Not the actual sound. Just an imaginary click.

"I was actually thinking of dropping magic."

My words hit Lucinda like a bucket of cold water.

"What?! Why?! Even with that stupid class, if your talent is so great, you could still—"

"Lucinda."

She stops talking and notices my distress.

"I am not interested in competing with other people and being at someone's throat just because of magic. I'm also never getting an apprenticeship."

"But Joey! An [Archmage] could give you a chance, even if you only proved what you just told me under a truth-stone!"

"I don't care," I say. "Yeah. You know what? I am dropping magic. It’s too much grief for me. Sorry, but it was only meant to be a little hobby of mine. I'm a baker. Not a [Mage]."

Lucinda just stares at me for a moment before slamming her palm on the table again.

“Are you kidding me?! You want to waste your talent just because you don’t want to practice?! At least go through the Cantrips!”

I wince at all the shouting, but it’s not like this is the first time in my life that a scene like this plays out.

“Just because I could be good at something doesn’t mean it would give me a quality-driven life. I see no trouble in someone being driven by the hunger for success; it’s just that I’m different.”

Lucinda trembles, completely forgetting about the food. She looks at me as if I’m crazy.

In cases like this, the biggest problem is projection.

Have you ever met a guy involved with start-ups or simply obsessed with productivity books? They start seeing everything in terms of productivity. And what I don’t like about that is the fact that you are trying to impose on others what you wish for yourself.

Whenever someone gets obsessed with productivity, you see them get really uncomfortable with those who are not working as hard as them. But that’s because some people simply don’t understand that other people have different priorities.

Some might want to work fifteen hours a day and build a career, while others might just want a regular job and a family to come back to.

But there seems to be more in her. She looks at me with her mouth opening and closing incredibly fast. And as soon as she finds some words, she asks.

“Don’t you have any ambition in you?”

“Lucy,” I sigh. “I don’t think you understand.”

There’s softness in her gaze, but something much deeper in her soul has her in its grip. She looks like she wants to nod and understand, but the words seem to come out of her mouth against her own will.

“Do you even understand what you could do? At least go through the Cantrips! That way, you could see if there’s truly all this talent in your veins. If not, you can go and be a baker with your ears warm!”

“Ok, first of all, I don’t know what ‘warm ears’ means. I suppose you are saying that if I didn’t have much talent, I could put my heart at rest and be ‘just’ a baker. To that, I want to say that, one, I do have ambitions. I want a family. And a beautiful wife. Those are big achievements. Two, who says that a baker amounts to anything less than a [Mage]?”

Lucinda looks at me with a frown.

“Who would even think otherwise?” She mutters.

“I do. Baking rocks. I can make food. Mages can do what? Sparks?”

“Joey, without a [Green Mage], Amorium wouldn’t be nearly as productive as it is in terms of food production!”

“And without chefs, bakers, and so on, you would just be chewing on some hard grain or half-baked bread. You are taking all this society’s bottlenecks for granted, Lucy. From those who pick up trash to those who cook your meals, everyone should get as much respect as a [Mage] does.”

I see her mouth opening and closing several times in a short amount of time. She doesn’t like what I said at all. But I can see in her beautiful eyes that she doesn’t disagree. Not completely, at least.

“Let’s talk hypotheticals and hyperboles, ok?” Lucinda tries to calm herself with a deep breath, finally starting to eat her spaghetti again and speaking between forkfuls. “What if you could become the greatest [Mage] in the world? Would you pick magic over baking, then?”

I briefly consider her words, even though this is quite literally a conversation I have had with my parents, teachers, and others a million times.

“I would still become a baker. It’s not about what you are good at. It’s about who you are. I’m a baker. Not a mage.”

“But what if you were special? What if you could become the greatest at something? Wouldn’t that convince you to go down that path?”

“Once you have superpowers, you need to use them for good,” I cringe. “If I were that special... sure, I might consider it. But I am not special, Lucy. I just happened to figure out a [Light] spell. It was just a matter of chance. I’m sure it happened before, right?”

She seems unsure now, and it takes her a few moments to come up with an answer.

“There are talks about people stumbling upon the right visualizations... it’s rare, but it can happen.”

“There you go. You have your answer, then. Luck. Not being special. There are so few special people in the world that we might as well say that no one is special, with a margin of error so small that it would make it true.”

“What about [Heroes]?” She shoots back.

“Are there any [Heroes] currently alive?”

“No, but...”

“Well, if there aren’t, how do we know how special they were? The past magnifies the shadows of our ancestors. As long as you look really close at someone, even the greatest artist or fighter looks like nothing more than a person who worked hard at something.”

Magic doesn’t exist.

I catch myself as soon as I think that. Well, magic does exist. Maybe I should reformulate this.

“Being special doesn’t exist.”

“You are wrong,” Lucinda says coldly. “People have obliterated mountains with one word, Joey. Some have gotten enough levels to change landscapes. Special people exist. They might not be close to us—but that’s why I want to get close to them.”

But what about me getting close to those mountains? I think as gravity pulls my eyes to the massive mounds on Lucinda’s chest.

However, it’s only a bittersweet smile that colors my face at that thought.

“I understand and respect it,” I tell Lucinda. “But it’s just not for me.”

“I—” Lucinda exhales loudly. “I am sorry about the baking thing. I just love magic; that’s all. If you want to be a [Baker], I hope you will have a wonderful time as one. This spaghetti is certainly delicious enough.”

The clumsy attempt at changing topics doesn’t go unnoticed, but I happily let it slide.

“It is, isn’t it?”