Back in his room, Aleister grabbed the book on his table and hopped into his chair, picking up from where he left of last night. Just because he couldn’t participate in physical exercises, didn’t prevent him from his book studies. And in accordance with Syn, the main topic of focus for him would be alchemy. However, that wasn’t the book he held was about.

Right now, he was focusing on learning the basics of Gnymish. It was a good language to begin with, as it used the same alphabet as Common. The main differences were how most words were gendered as male, female, or neutral. This in turn changed the natural word structure and order which created another challenge.

“There you are,” Syn said, flying through his open window.

After he heard her voice, Aleister pushed down his reading glasses and looked through the window. He hadn’t even realized it, but the sun had set long ago. Turning his head, he said, “That’s what I should say!”

Syn ignored him and glanced at the book in his hands. “Glad to see you decided to be somewhat proactive.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Aleister said while waving his hand. “Just tell me why you’re back and where have you been.”

“That makes it sound like you didn’t want me to come back,” she said. “Anyway, the reason I was gone was because I collected a handful of materials for you to use.”

Aleister leaned forward. “Oh, you’re finally going to teach me alchemy?”

“I wasn’t not going to teach it to you, but I’m not teaching it to you now,” she said.

“Why not?”

Syn rolled her eyes. “You can’t even read the title of the book I gave you—”

“Actually,” Aleister cocked his head forward after pushing his reading glasses back up. He pulled a book out from the stack on his table and continued, “The title of this book actually translates to: The Alchemist Volume One.”

“Oh,” Syn took a short pause as she said, “consider me impressed.”

“Unfortunately, it isn’t that impressive because I found the word in the back of this Gynmish textbook.”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Syn shrugged. “Don’t discount yourself. Progress is progress, no matter how small it is.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Aleister said. “But, seriously, when do I start?”

“Not today,” Syn answered. “Not tomorrow either, nor for the following week. Or even the week after that.”

Aleister clicked his tongue as he folded his hands open. “What? Why not?”

“Because starting tomorrow you’re travelling to Osetia.”

“So soon?”

Syn put her hand on her forehead. “Do you want that few weeks to become months instead?”

“No,” Aleister said. “I just thought that mom and dad were still busy with their recovery.”

“Mhm,” she nodded. “They still are, its just that they will continue to recover on the road and fully recover back at Osetia where more resource are available to them.”

“Is it safe to travel back?”

“Why even ask such a stupid question.”

Aleister stammered upon hearing Syn’s response. “It’s a valid question. What if we get attacked by bandits, or some mythical creature.”

“This isn’t a valid question,” Syn dismissed. “Regular bandits wouldn’t even bother attacking such a large group, in what realm would your so called mythical creature even bother attacking travelers Mythical creatures don’t grow on trees. Well, some might, but they also wouldn’t bother because they have nothing to gain. Besides, we’re going to travel on the High Road, and like most important paths, there are patrols, sentries, watchtowers, and everything in between. Antagonistic groups wouldn’t risk the retaliation of them, which is why they would only camp lesser traveled and more obscure routes.”

“So if we took the fastest route and not the High Road—”

Syn cut into his words in an instant. “The fastest route is the High Road.”

“Really?”

“Of course it is,” she answered. “Why would they waste their time paving and maintain a slower route?”

“Uh, I don’t exactly know,” Aleister said. “I just assumed because it was the main route, it wasn’t the fastest way.”

“Well, the actual fastest way would be by flight, but you can’t fly nor are there any large enough tamed creatures here that would allow you to travel by flight.”

“That does make sense.”

“Obviously.”

With a sigh, Aleister said, “If you could tone down the passive aggressiveness just a tone bit, that would be great, thanks.”

“Sorry,” Syn said, which actually caught Aleister off-guard. “I’m just...waiting.”

“No, it's ok,” he said with no idea of how else to respond. “I meant that in the most tongue-in-cheek manner.” He didn’t ask what she was waiting for because it was quite obvious. In fact, it reminded him that not becoming a Weaver didn’t just affect him. A couple of awkward moments of silence passed by again. With a nervous chuckle, Aleister broke it as he said, “Why does this always happen.”

Syn grew a light smile. “Well then, you better start packing because you only leave in nine hours.”

“And you’re telling this to me only now?” Aleister said as he stood straight up in a panicked manner.

“I wasn’t here to tell you before right now, was I?”

Aleister turned around and wanted to start grabbing stuff from the shelves before he came upon a realization. “Oh, yeah. I don’t actually have anything to pack up, huh?”

Syn rolled her eyes. “Then I’ll be seeing you in the morning. Sweet dreams.”