Visiting a Town
After seeing Grant had left, Grian turned to look at his son. "I will have a horse ready for you and a map to Mythri wizard school. You are lucky you get a chance to go to one of the best schools in the area. Do not waste this chance." Grian said with a cold stare. He placed a purple token with a red jewel into Ray's hand. "Take this token and give it to the guards when you reach it as a symbol of your status. Also here is a papyrus with a single spell on it, this is our family heirloom that kept our status as a noble. Learn it carefully before you enter the school. Now go."
"Yes father." Ray obediently replied. He still doesn't know how powerful his father is, but he knows it is quite a bit stronger than him. He wasn't a magus yet or he wouldn't be simply a noble of a backwater rural land, but it's best to not go against people stronger than you. Ray didn't understand his father's view on him, whether he disliked him and simply wanted to keep up the family, or was raising him for his mother's sake. Either way it didn't really matter once he left his father's territory. Once he can detach himself from his previous status as a noble he would have no hesitation in doing so. Because he doesn't want to be binded to a silly plot of land, he wants to adventure and keep gaining strength on his path to immortality. Staying down as a noble would not suit him at all.
Ray quickly packed up a few essentials for the trip. Food, water, 100 gold coins gifted from his father, a sword, and some light leather armor. He didn't want to bring too much stuff and slow himself down. Along the 1.5month journey to Mythri school, there was a town that he could stop at, so he wasn't too worried about packing everything. After bidding farewell to be polite, Ray started his first journey as a mage.
A month has passed by and his progress towards becoming a mage has been pretty slow. It took him around a week to understand the process of fusing the plane's energy with his soul. Although in the past month even though he had been working diligently the entire time, the progress he made was negligible. At this rate he would need another half year of training to reach level 2. He wasn't yet sure if this training speed was fast or slow as he had nobody to compare with. But this rate of progress didn't satisfy him.
Although the soul aspect of his training hadn't been going great, his skill comprehension was going smoothly. In only a week of time he had learnt the skill his father gave him, zap. What it does is channel the energy out of your soul and through your body until it comes out of your palm, and you need to control the energy in such a way that it becomes a lightning zap when coming out. Of course, if Ray were to start from scratch and make this technique himself, there is no way he could have been done in less than a month. It would have taken years of research at the minimum to construct a skill like this. But since the blueprint was handed to him on a silver platter, he would gladly accept it.
Ray closed his eyes and practiced channeling the energy from his soul to the tip of his palms, and let the bolt go at a boulder near the road. Within the blink of an eye the tip of the boulder exploded into pieces, and it was pushed back a few steps. "So this is the power of an ordinary level 1 apprentice mage…" He murmured to himself. With his current energy storage capacity he could only shoot 3 bolts before he ran out of fuel. But even one is enough to kill 10 ordinary men in a row, let alone 3. 'If this is only the power of a level 1 apprentice, I can't even imagine a true magus, let alone what's beyond that.'
While riding the horse along the road he continuously sent the lightning bolts towards any animals he saw, or random targets to improve his casting efficiency. The more you practice forming the spell, the faster you will be in a real life battle.
A couple hours later he arrived at the town in between Mythri school and his house. The food was running out, and he desperately needed to clean himself. So a pit stop at the town wouldn't hurt at all.
As he neared the town, he noticed he could vaguely feel like there were souls existing in it. It was a strange feeling, as if he was a human radar. The closer he got to the town, the stronger he could feel the presence of the humans. From then on he decided to pretend to be an ordinary adventurer who happened to come across the town. He didn't know who was staying in this tower, and it would be stupid to go around causing trouble.
When he approached the walls the guards took one look at him, saw he was a skinny 13 year old boy on an expensive looking horse and lost most of his suspicion.
"Tsk tsk, a wandering noble boy again. That poor lad will be robbed clean, he will be lucky to have a pair of underwear on." One of the guards whispered to the other.
"Don't mind him, just mind your own business. You don't want to get into a fight with the local gangs do you?" The other guard replied.
They both stepped aside and opened the gate for his horse to walk through, closing it quickly as if they were scared a beast would come in.
The second Ray stepped into the village he could feel many eyes staring at him. As he walked through the town looking for an inn to rest at, the gazes only increased. Suddenly one of the people staring at him, a young boy who looked about his age, maybe a year or two older, came up to him.
"You look lost, do you need help?" He asked with a polite smile.
"Yes… Do you know where the inn is, a place where I can rest and shower?"
"Don't worry, I have the perfect place for you, the best inn in this entire town!" He exclaimed with a grin on his face.
'This town isn't exactly big…' Ray thought to himself. 'Well whatever, he doesn't seem to be very suspicious. I'll be ready to zap him any time if he tries something funny.'
"And before you ask, I also know where a stable is." The boy said with the same grin. "My name is Carl, what's yours?"
"Ray, nice to meet you."
"By the way, Ray. I have something important I need to ask you." Carl leaned in close and whispered, "Are you an apprentice mage?"