“What did those wizards say?” Anders asked his son.

Everyone left their room to listen to what the ship’s powerful wizards said to Anton.

“They just basically said that it was impressive that I reached my level of power at a young age but they would still prefer for me not to barge in on their fights,” Anton told everyone and Anna laughed.

“What movie are you planning to show the captain and the others tomorrow night during dinner?” Anders asked.

“I’m planning to show the movie Titanic,” Anton replied.

“Isn’t it in bad taste to show a movie about a sinking ship to an actual ship’s passengers? Even though to be honest, I like that movie. It’s an epic love story that is so hopeful at the beginning but truly sad at the end,” Nemina said.

“It is but the movie is an epic one and it will show the captain and the ship mages how immature I am. That’s a message from me to them not to treat me seriously and just treat me as a teenager since I don’t want to embroil myself with the ship’s wizard politics, if there’s any, so don’t tell anyone that you know what movie I’m planning to share.”

“When are we planning to taste that Kraken tentacle?” Devon asked.

“I’ll ask Harun’s help with that,” Anders said.

They cleaned up the living room of everything they used to watch the television show then after that they rested for the night.

The next day, Harun guided them to the dining hall since their guide wanted to make sure that they went to the right table assigned to their suite since they had just upgraded their suite. While they were eating breakfast Anders asked Harun’s help regarding tasting the Kraken tentacle meat and their guide informed Anton’s father that he would lead them to a restaurant wherein the chefs could prepare the food expertly when they were ready to do so Anton suggested that they should do it the next day since he wanted to explore the ship by himself and that meant that they wouldn’t be able to meet during lunch and during dinner, they were scheduled to present a movie to entertain the captain and probably some of the ship’s mages.

At first, Anton thought of asking Harun to guide him but then decided that it would be much more exciting to discover the amenities of the ship by himself. After breakfast, they all went their separate ways. The girls still grouped themselves together followed by the two newly hired female bodyguards.

Devon and Frederick went together while Colin, acting as Ander’s assistant went somewhere else. Lucas and Nemina continued their second honeymoon.

Anton didn’t know where to go so he just walked around and enjoyed the ship’s decorations. He was walking around when he saw a group of serious-looking youths heading toward somewhere. He decided to follow them since he knew that where the youths gathered should be a fun place since the young men and women looked like they were just in high school which meant the same age as his apparent age of around sixteen to nineteen years old.

He saw then entered an ornate door and thought maybe it was some sort of secret party or a gaming club but when he entered the door it was disappointingly a library. The room was huge and filled with bookshelves and in one corner, the chairs and tables and lounges were placed and a lot of people were sitting there reading.

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There was a counter with a pretty librarian reading a book. Anton thought of checking out the books in the library but a read on some of the books casually displayed, the books were just a combination of facts and fiction and not magic books. He had access to the internet so he was not interested in checking something like a fiction library for now. He would inform the girls about this library though since they might be interested. He immediately went out of the library to continue his exploration.

Anton knew that a year was a long time and that meant that this was not going to be the last time he would enter the library. He walked around some more and overheard a noise coming from another room. When he entered it, it was some sort of a bar with a stage or should he call it a tavern?

A female minstrel was singing on the stage and Anton was impressed at the beautiful voice coming out of the woman. She was playing a stringed instrument that looked like his old lute. The main difference was that the minstrel’s voice and instrument could be heard clearly in every corner of the room as if the minstrel was singing and playing using a microphone. Anton knew that it was some sort of sound amplification magic.

Anton tried to find a table with empty seats but all of them were occupied by customers. He found a table in one corner occupied by a couple of women but there was one empty chair so he went there and asked the ladies if he could join them.

At first, the two ladies examined Anton but when they saw that he was focused on the minstrel’s singing, they allowed him to join him. Anton understood that they just didn’t want to be bothered by men hitting on them when they clearly just wanted to listen to the minstrel as well.

Anton was impressed by the lady minstrel’s voice but the song that the lady minstrel chose was too simple and didn’t allow her to display her voice’s range. He almost laughed loudly at himself for pretending to be some sort of music expert judging others on their singing and their song choice.

After the minstrel finished, everyone clapped then it appeared that it would take a few minutes before the next performance but he could see that the next performer was already readying himself.

Anton knew that the time gap was to allow the audience to have a bit of conversation or order some drinks and food from the tavern’s waiters but he concluded that this place was primarily focused on watching and listening to musicians.

“So what do you think of Lady Blue’s performance?” One of the girls who were sitting with him on the table asked.

“Her name’s Lady Blue? How odd. Her voice is beautiful but the song that she picked for this performance was not enough to display her vocal prowess,” Anton said and the two girls laughed.

“Did I say something funny?” Anton asked.

“Lady Blue is just her stage name and since it’s only around nine in the morning, she will not pick a song that will strain her voice so early. Most of the important and rich customers that could potentially hire her as her patron usually arrived late in the afternoon,” One of the ladies said.

“Hello ladies, my name is Anton. So you’re saying that this place is where bards or minstrels that don’t have a patron perform to potentially find clients?”

“I’m Antonia and this is Lucia. It’s funny that our name is the same. This is called the Patron Tavern and the owner of this tavern is a famous musician but also the relative of the ship’s owner. The purpose of this tavern is for the rich folks who are staying on the ship to find a private entertainer that will entertain them in their suite during their travel. You know thirteen or fourteen months is a very long time and some of those very rich people wanted to have music all the time,” The girl called Antonia said.

“I see. How can the performers have the opportunity to play on the stage of this tavern?”

“Just put your name on the list then one of the waiters will tell you what time you can play. Normally, the morning list is almost always clear since the performers wanted to begin performing late afternoon when the rich folks arrived,” Lucia added.