Despite the smell, Konrad followed Zoltan everywhere, eager to learn.
His 'master' restored the tower's illusion, which was fascinating—for exactly three minutes.
"A crazy tribesgirl brings me low-grade stones. But this thing," he hummed, inserting the crystal once he redrawn the runes. The boy had a solid guess who that girl was, too.
No wonder Welf's estimate was off if they haggled with this scamster.
And how many fortunes Lily must have eaten?!
He let his mind wander for the next fifteen minutes. All that time, Zoltan stared at his contraption without a word, and nothing happened. Then a shimmer—and POOF.
The tower materialized in all its glory.
"We had an 'Introduction to Magic', but I didn't bother restoring it," the beastman noted.
The page he held was a foreword differentiating between spiritual and regular magic.
Saints and spirits did all the work for their chosen vessel, but wizards had it rough.
They had to do everything by themselves.
And given the complexity, it was either a huge handicap or an advantage.
A blessing was like having eccentric, rich parents.
Everything was free, but you'd depend on supernatural whims. Starting from scratch was slower, more challenging, but permanent, too. Konrad would have preferred it, but—
He didn't have enough time. Or a choice, to be honest.
"Focus is the most important," the illusionist said. "If you can't clear your mind, it'd be devastating. My first fireball burned down the forest and put me in a coma for three days."
Konrad spent decades in a stressful job. He could've taught a thing or two about focus.
But to his dismay, the spells looked like code snippets from his school. And his teacher would've called them ugly, too. Declaring variables, assigning functions, shapes, mana—
But all in runes, resembling no written language.
No incantations or ready-made spells. No yelling 'EXPLOSION' and acting cool. It was dry programming, but worse. Unlike on a computer, he couldn't see what he was doing.
It was 'do or die'. His stomach knotted, trying to memorize a few runes out of thousands.
Vargas thought he'd learn them in a month?!
"Light is the most forgiving element." Zoltan pulled out his only intact relic, 'The Book of Light'. "After my blunder, my master also said to focus on illusions."
"Why light?" Konrad asked, taking notes.
"Well, you can skip the summoning. And bending light takes less mana than shaping matter."
So 'beginner mode'. If this beastman fooled an entire city with it, that was good enough.
The duke's letter to the king wouldn't wait for him forever. He needed something fast.
"Guess it's light magic, then."
"This rune focuses light, this one scatters it. This binds your spell—"
"Creates light," the boy simplified everything. "And this one darkness?"
"No, um—Let me show you."
Zoltan raised a hand, and light coalesced into a miniature sun in his palm.
"No creation. I redirected what was already there." Then, things returned to normal, and he grabbed a vial. "And this one makes things invisible by scattering light."
The vial disappeared. But when he moved it, it became visible again.
"It's limited without extra steps. If you were to cast it on yourself, you couldn't see, either."
He could still think of a few uses for invisibility.
But the sun was already dipping low, and he took a break from cramming to visit Vargas.
"Boy," he grunted, "took your sweet time."
Given that Konrad was the only one here working his ass off, the captain was sure grumpy.
"Unlike you, I spent the day with research," the boy scoffed, cutting his restraints.
The man massaged his wrists, raw from the ropes.
"So, what's up with the Green Mage?"
"He, uh, created a temporal anomaly." He forgot he promised answers. But this was a solid working theory. "Much of his stuff is gone, and what's still here looks centuries old."
"Is he alive, or not?" the captain whispered on their way out.
"That's anyone's guess." Something was off. He let Zoltan in on the plan, but didn't ask for help, the exact opposite. Things had to be risky, so Vargas felt indebted and kept his word.
So where did all the villagers go?
The road to Aset cut Ejtyangard in half, with an inn at the center. The market square was in front of it, and by the time they got there, they wouldn't even bother sticking to the shadows.
It was all too easy—until the inn's door flew open right in their faces.
They jumped behind a stall, giving them almost no cover. Konrad held his breath as people spilled into the street. To make things worse, a second group came from the other side.
"Those two are too valuable." One was Zoltan. "But I'll listen to your offer."
"Well, how much d'ya think they're worth?" another familiar voice chirped, and he caught a purple glint. "Like, they ain't cheap, but some haggling's fine."
When he wanted a risky escape, he didn't mean impossible, either.
He was lucky that nobody looked their way. But for how long?
"I don't know," Zoltan said, "I had a lucky strike, so I'm not pressed for trade right now."
"Fine, but don't cry when you change your mind," came a sweet giggle.
"How about only one?" Zoltan's question made him shiver. "This shows potential, so I'd like to keep it." Were they talking about them? That bastard—
"That's a tasty one," the other pondered. "I'd keep that, too—"
Konrad decided he had heard enough. "Let's get out of here," he whispered.
"Agreed," Vargas gritted through his teeth. "But how?"
Well, it was a crazy idea, but he spent all day memorizing the core runes.
"I'll try a spell to make us invisible," he claimed, "but, uh, we'll be blind, too."
"What?" Vargas slammed his palm on his mouth, whispering. "You learned for one day—"
"And you said I was a prodigy," Konrad snapped back. He had no better idea.
He knew the variables, the risks, but never tried the process. He saw a written syntax, too. How did that work in practice? It was like coding inside his head, right?
His 'Hello World' school project came to his mind, so he went with that.
Light scatter, tied to Vargas and himself. As simple as it gets. Enter.
The world spun around him, the ground trying to run away. He stomped his feet, desperate to hold onto something. His vision blurred. Which meant he still saw—
Shouldn't he have been blind?
The square and the villagers were all messy, but their eyes followed him. A fail?
"Oh, Konny boy," the familiar voice called. "Fancy running into you here."
Lily grinned, cocking her head. She wore a brown cloak over her signature rags.
No blue war paint or exposed skin, juggling two purple crystals instead.
Her eyes wandered over Konrad's shoulder, widening for a second.
The boy turned on instinct, but didn't see anything.
Except that the captain's grip was still strong on his back. A partial success?!
"L-liliana," he yelled to mask his confusion, forcing a laugh. "Yeah, um, learning magic here."
"Liliana?" she shrieked. "Aww, I was joking. Call me Lily, like everyone."
Everyone? Gabrielle called her Lilith and warned him about her. And Lu warned about Gabby.
"Let's catch up when you're not busy." She winked, turning to continue her haggle with Zoltan. Two large crystals glinted in her hands as she teased the illusionist with them.