As he had expected, the potions weren’t his to consume. The only bright side was his [Body] was higher than average. Both his stamina and body liquids recovered much faster than the average man, and the bigger than average mana pool also helped.

He would have died due to snu snu if that wasn’t the case.

The next time he woke up there was light shining through the window once again. There was no one but him in the room. No naked girls keeping him warm.

He also found a pouch of coins placed on top of a few letters.

“Well, at least I wasn’t dumped and robbed,” Artus chuckled.

He read through the letter while skipping most of its unrelated contents. The promises and good wishes were cute but had no use for him. He learned that the girls had used the teleportation service to get to where they were going.

Verona had made sure they got there safely herself. The lady knew that he would hate it if she had brought him along with her.

All the secrecy and this sudden departure was also a part of her grand plan to recruit him as the family’s Neophyte. They were outsiders that the family found worthy enough to lend their wealth as an investment of sorts. It was one of the ways the magi family grew.

Together with the letters was a rough map and a destination.

The great academic city of Karleaz.

Where the One must go.

Artus snickered.

He took his time in the hot bath before dressed in the set of clothes folded for him at the side of the bed. Verona had chosen a gray t-shirt, a pair of simple leather trousers and a thick dark gray cloak.

The trousers were layered with a soft, comfortable silk-like cloth and all of them had a golden emblem on it. A phoenix with its claws holding burning rocks, the Amberhand family emblem.

Touching the emblems made the clothes clean itself by using a tiny amount of his mana. A nifty addition to the already fine fabric with no seams or thread.

He would have sold the expensive set clothes if they felt any less comfortable than they were. His footwear was boots made from leather with rubber-like soles. Artus groaned in comfort as he got his foot in them, and he got to do it twice. It felt like the boots were lovers who were lightly hugging his feet.

The woman knew him all too well, but he wondered why she advised him not to offer help to anyone along the road. He ignored the warning as he wasn’t that foolish anymore.

It felt odd to wear the cloak over the clothes, but the chilling breeze from the opened window was enough evidence that he would need it. A smile crept on him as he got out of the door and down the stairs. He was practically skipping on his toes before he settled on a stool.

Breakfast was a cured and minced monster meat in between two thick slices of bread. Deep-fried from the texture, but not layered in egg and crumbs, which was a waste. The drink was fruit juice mixed with milk which was wonderful.

“Well, you seemed a lot cheerier today,” commented the barmaid.

“I got no ‘escorts’ anymore, so yeah,” Artus lifted the glass at her. “Do you know where I could get something to write on?”

“You can try the store nearby, they should have it,” she said before shaking her head in a smile.

He said his thanks to the lady after he finished breakfast and slapped a few bits as a tip, well, for everything. The lady swiped it off the counter happily. He was going to do polyhedron surface area calculations and writing utensils would be a lot of help.

Artus smiled and looked forward to it. He couldn’t do anything like that while there were others as they might freak out or something.

A sphere or a hemisphere made a smooth looking magic shield, but it wasn’t as flexible as shapes made of polygons. Changes on a sphere surface would be more complicated to pull off than the opposite. Polyhedron would enable him to make changes to fit his need, well, without busting his own puny brain.

For example, calculating a set of triangles on octagons was much easier than trying to calculate cones on a sphere. The basic shape also might save him some mana.

The shop next door provided him with the necessity and he started to scribble right away. He turned back into the shop when he recalled his estimated mana problem. Better safe than sorry and buy a few Aether Crystals.

Artus headed towards the other end of the road while working the shell spell. He was a bit rusty after being used to computers doing all the hard work, but he didn’t hate it at least. The exercise had reminded him of the bittersweet memories, which he welcomed.

The guards ignored him as he passed them by the gate. They already recognized him as the blue-flamed sorceress’s favorite boy. They also had seen or heard of what he could do, and so all he got was a respectful nod.

He scribed a spell that had a mix of squares and triangles as the platform with rolling cylinders, one at the front and another the back. Imagining himself speeding through the road on a ‘homemade’ skateboard, if he could call it that, was a lot of fun.

The tires are more like steamrollers than anything else but who really cared as long as it worked. He could afford it too, thanks to the Aether crystals he bought with the coins Verona left for him.

He checked the spell matrix thrice for silly mistakes. Artus braved himself and hoped for the best as he drew the spell in the air.

But nothing came out when he cast the spell.

He checked the matrix again and found no problem with it. The root cause of the failure must be something he had no knowledge of.

Artus spent more time under a tree scribbling simpler objects this time. A sphere and a round platform for him to stand inside. He tested it without spinning the sphere, and it worked. The successful activation came along with skill.

[Skill Break]
[[Spell Scribe] skill acquired.]

[Attribute Break]
[Mind +1]

He guessed that his half-assed effort before this had eluded him from the skill. Artus shrugged to nobody as he had foreseen something like this would happen. The attribute break was surprising but not totally unexpected.

He was more surprised by the fact that he could stand on the platform inside the sphere while almost floating in the air. His spell had just defied gravity.

Then again, all spells defied physics in one way or another. This spell would be his go-to, all surrounding defense shell, as even attacks from below could be slapped away.

The real test was to see if the shield could turn into his method of transportation. His plan B.

He started the spin slow and the ground inched forward below him. Increasing the speed up a notch had once again defied the laws of physics. He didn’t feel his body falling back as the sudden increase in speed. There was no inertia affecting his body.

Artus didn’t know what to make of it as it could be devastating if the laws decided to work all of a sudden at a higher speed. He gave it a thought while rolling along the road, but he quickly gave up on theorizing. The shell would still protect him from any falls or mishaps regardless.

His observation had supported this statement. The laws of physics only applied to the shell as a whole with him included.

He had to lean to the side while taking sharp corners or to the back at emergency stops, but that’s about it. No inertia that would cause him to bounce around inside the huge round shell.

Moreover, the bumps on the road only seem to affect the outer shield, not the platform he was standing on. The spinning shield rocked about whenever it met resistance along the road while he was enjoying the breeze.

“This is freedom,” he said with hands feeling the wind and his cloak flapped about.

His worry might be unneeded, but still, he found the skateboard stand to be the most comfortable to be in while speeding. He also had set the air permeability value to be relative to the shell’s spinning speed. The faster he got, the less air was allowed to go through the shell. Soon enough, he was speeding past animal pulled wagons and magic carriages along the road.

He had to slow down a bit to ease the alarmed guards, if there were any, and gave a polite bow to whoever peered out to see. Showing some road manners would avoid him getting arrows shot towards him out of spite or shock.

His Aether affinity increased by a tiny amount along the ride and everything was all good news to him. The best news, however, came from how the spell mana returned to him when he dispelled it. His only cost was the spinning of the shell and the random huge bumps he should have avoided.

He soon stopped because he was in a good mood to lend a helping hand. He couldn’t find any reason not to help if he could without much effort.

He had passed by a wagon filled with stuff stuck in a pothole, and he had found just the thing that could help. The farmers had tried using their limbs to lift the wagon, but they had trouble holding on as the animal moved forward.

He could tell that his sudden reappearance had broken cold sweat out of them. The long log on his shoulders should have been a huge contribution to that matter. Artus knew that action spoke louder than words, and so he had offered no words but a tiny smile to them.

His road manners had given him a good impression when the three men cleared away as he got close without much suspicion. The three of them watched in silent wonder as he pushed one end of the log under the wagon. Artus had only to lift the log up high enough to give the farmers enough hint of what he was doing.

Two smelly sweaty men huddled around him while one of them went to the front. They didn’t say anything as he backed away as they hadn’t needed his help pushing the wooden pole up while the animal pulled.

The wagon lifted up easily and it slid on the log as the animal pulled the wagon. The log broke in two on the way forward but not after the wheel had been freed from the pothole.

A small cheer erupted out of the men as he watched from their back. He could have helped but enduring smelly men was another whole different thing.

Strangely enough, the smell had reminded him of food for whatever reason. He had been too excited with his newfound spell until it was already late afternoon when he stopped. One of the smells got close when he was thinking about his problem.

“Sir Mage, I’m afraid we have nothing to compensate for your kind help,” said one of them worried.

“Well, what about a simple lunch?” he asked them.

The farmers looked at each other for some reason before they nodded warily. He thought nothing of it. These people could never harm him and what the worst could happen anyway?

 

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