Morah leaves shortly after I agree to go to the ball with her, and I’m left alone with the kid again. Just as I’m about to start so more training, Daniel walks in with a few small pies of so kind and so at skewers.
“Miss already?” I ask.
“As if. No, Corvax took a real beating at the training grounds and is recovering from that. I was bored and decided to co here. Have you just been sitting in here all day?” He says as he puts the food on the desk and drags a chair over from across the room.
“Pretty much. I managed to learn two new skills in the anti, though.” I say as I feed mana into [Gravity Shift] and use it to launch a gold coin at Daniel's chest with the force of a light toss.
He catches it with no issue before launching it back at with his own skill. “Soon enough you won't even need anymore.” He says with mock disappointnt.
I use a burst of gravity to slow the coin down and then create a column of zero gravity around it before stabilizing the coin mid-air with a few clumsy attempts. “That’s not true. I’ll always need soone to stand between and the scary monsters. And soone to shape the tal for my aweso magic items. You’re really like the perfect sidekick now that I think about it.” Another burst of gravity sends the coin back at Daniel, a little bit faster this ti.
The coin instantly stops about a foot from his chest, held in place by the power of [tal Manipulation]. The coin starts to change shape, shifting into a small dart over the course of a few seconds. He does all of this while maintaining direct eye contact with .
“I’ll show you who’s the sidekick.” He starts to spin the golden dart, probably for dramatic effect.
Even though this is a friendly challenge, I refuse to concede or let him win too easily. I gather up a big burst of gravity and direct as much of it as I can into the dart. I notice a good amount of resistance before the burst of gravity barely overcos his grasp on the dart and softly launches it into his chest, where it then falls to the floor.
“See, only a sidekick would make that mistake.” I say while pointing at the dart.
He looks down at the dart and then back to , a slightly embarrassed look on his face. “Nobody’s ever tried that before.”
“And that’s why I’m here, my disciple. To teach you what you are too stupid to realize on your own.” I say in as wise of a voice as I can.
The dart floats back into place in front of Daniel. “Try it again. I’m ready this ti.”
I turn to the food on the desk. “Patience, young one. All will co in ti. For now, let us feast on these offerings.”
Daniel stares at for a few seconds before reluctantly floating the dart over to the desk. “Fine, but you have to cut out that wise master talk. I’m like two decades older than you.”
I shrug my shoulders. “It’s a kind of wisdom that surpasses age. I’m older in a different sense.”
“Is that the sa wisdom that led to you cutting off your own arm?” He asks sarcastically.
“You people love to point out that I cut my own arm off.” I take a bite into one of the pies, finding it’s full of at and vegetables of so kind. “But not that it was necessary, and very badass.”
Daniel gives a questioning look and says nothing.
“Okay, maybe I’m not the wisest guy around. Anyway, let's eat.”
We eat, talking about so ideas we both have. Daniel is serious about the subdermal tal weave idea he had when we were working on Clark’s implants. He’s going to make a section of the weave for us to test out soti soon. It’s kind of insane when I think about it, implanting magic wires under your skin, but I’ve already etched an enchantnt into my bones, so this isn’t that far off. I agree to help him test it out whenever he gets around to creating it.
During the end of our al, the door opens again, and Doctor Hari walks in and looks surprised to see the two of us here. “Aww, how sweet. Both of you are waiting here so he doesn’t wake up alone. How long have you been here?”
“Got here this morning.” I say, deciding to do Daniel a solid and make it seem like he was also here the entire ti and didn’t just show up because he was bored.
“Your mothers did a good job of raising you both.” She says as she walks over to the sleeping boy.
Daniel gives a single nod both in recognition of and as thanks for the act of wingmaning I just did.
Doctor Hari places a hand on the boy's chest and activates a skill for a few seconds before pulling her hand away. She then repeats the process on his forehead and belly before turning back to us.
Unlawfully taken from , this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“He should wake up within an hour or so. He'll be hungry and thirsty when he wakes, and probably confused.” She tells us as she heads for the door.
“She’s totally into .” Daniel says.
“Maybe she'll invite you to the ball if you keep up the knight in shining armor act.” I joke.
“What ball?”
“Oh, I didn't tell you?” I say with a sarcastic smugness. “Morah asked to be her date for so monthly ball that all of Barad’s important people attend.”
His face turns contemplative for a few monts. “Do you think Doctor Hari already has a date?”
“She’s probably still in the building. Go find her and ask.” I say. “The worst she can say is no.”
“You're right. This is nothing compared to facing those bears. Wish luck.” He says as he stands up and leaves the room.
Morah ends up coming back about twenty minutes later with a short, stout man in tow. She tells he is a tailor, and he quickly takes down my asurents. He works quickly and quietly, never speaking a word and taking no longer than a few minutes to finish.
She tells to et her here in two days at seven p.m. for the ball and that she will be providing my attire. She then leaves again, and I'm left alone with the kid, who should be waking up soon.
It takes about forty more minutes for the kid to wake up, and when he does, I'm sitting in a chair at the side of the bed. He just lies there with his eyes closed for a few minutes, but I know he's awake based on the change in his breathing pattern.
“No one's going to hurt you here.” I say, prompting him to open his eyes and look around.
“Where am I?” He asks, his voice shaky and uncertain as he sits up.
“You’re in the city lord’s house right now. I found you and brought you here when those guys were, well… beating on you.”
He looks at , scared and confused, before speaking, a spark of recognition in his eye. “It’s you, isn't it? The guy who I smuggled that ball in for. What do you want?”
“I want nothing from you, truly. I just saw those guys kicking you and stopped them, and then brought you here.” I say as I offer him a cup of water from the bedside table.
He takes it and drinks after confirming it’s just water, downing the entire cup in a few gulps. Next, I pull out so food I got from the market before coming here, still hot and fresh thanks to the ti dilation in my storage core, and offer so to the kid, who sowhat reluctantly takes and eats it.
After a few minutes of silent eating between the two of us, I finally ask another question. “What’s your na? I’m Ray.”
“Silth.” He says between bites.
“How old are you, Silth?”
“Ten.”
We finish the al in silence, with him eating and drinking a lot more food than I would have thought possible, but Doctor Hari did ntion he’d be hungry and thirsty. I just keep refilling his water cup and handing him food, trying not to scare him away. After about twenty minutes he stops eating and sits back, like he’s full.
We just sit in silence for a few more minutes, doing nothing but getting used to each other. I practice creating mana projectiles, shaping them as fast as I can, and then reabsorbing them only to repeat the process over and over. Silth watches , occasionally glancing up at my face and then back down to my hands. He looks like he wants to ask a question but is too nervous or scared to do it.
He scoots a little bit closer and continues to watch , so I decide to make it a little more interesting. I stop making the small projectiles and instead start making swords purely out of mana. It takes about a second to create one now, and then a few more to reinforce it with all of my relevant skills and add a spatial edge. The kid's eyes start to go wide, and I know that I’ve got him hooked.
Next, I create three baseball-sized spheres of mana, and using [Gravity Shift], I start floating them in front of in a small area of zero gravity. Next, I separate off one of the orbs and start floating it around my head. After I get the first one stable, I add in the next one and then the next one, eventually having three floating spheres orbiting my head.
[You have leveled up an active skill]
[Gravity Shift] lvl 6
“Can you make float?” He asks, hidden excitent in his voice.
I give him a nod. “Sit in the middle of the bed.”
He does so, and I start to create a zero-gravity column around him. His hair starts to float up, unaffected by gravity, and his eyes quickly shoot to mine, a grin slowly growing on his face. I give him an ever-so-slight nudge of gravity from below, and he gently floats upward, his smile getting bigger and bigger the higher he rises. Another small push of gravity causes him to start spinning around and gets a laugh out of him.
Then, I start floating him around the sa way I was doing with the spheres, causing him to start giggling even more.
“Faster!” He says.
I only end up going slightly faster, as my control over the skill is still pretty basic, but he seems to enjoy it nonetheless. I float him around the room for about ten minutes before I gently put him back on the bed with a huge smile on his face.
“That was fun! I’ve never flown before.” He says, beaming at .
“I’m glad. It was good practice for too.”
He scoots closer to , his legs dangling off the side of the bed. “We should do it again, then. So you can get more practice in.”
I give a genuine laugh at that. “I guess we should. I wouldn’t want to get rusty. But not tonight. You need to rest more, and I need more mana. You can sleep here again tonight.” I notice a look of relief on his face as I say that. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
As I get up to leave and Silth gets back into bed, I can see that despite him only being awake for about an hour or so, he is clearly exhausted. The healing must have really taken it out of him.
Just before I reach the door, he asks a question, his voice back to being uncertain and shaky. “Do they know I’m here? They’ll co if they know.”
I turn around and try to give as friendly and strong a look as I can. “No. They won’t ever bother you again.”
He just gives a single nod, as if he understands what I an.
I walk out the door and close it behind . Elsine was right. That kid is far stronger than he should ever have to be.
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