Chapter 132 - 133
After confirming that his belongings were in their proper places, he locked the door behind him and then made his way to the central gardens where Mr. Albeck had been hosting their lessons as of late. Alistar decided to ask the man to teach him a spell of the earth element that might enable him to create a little nook in one of his room’s walls, just as Servan had done in the past whenever he would hide food in the abandoned tunnels of Crystellum’s upper levels for him and Kaila to find. If he could learn such a spell then he would be able to hide his locket in a secure location whenever he wasn’t wearing it, a precaution for peace of mind when it came to considering the safety of his loved ones.
I wonder what Uncle Caedmon would think if he knew I had an exquisite-class crystal?
Alistar arrived at the central gardens to find them empty, his teacher’s aura idling around the flowerbeds that decorated the grounds near the outer wall of the manor house’s western wing. Wearing only a loose tunic and a comfortable pair of woolen trousers, Alistar couldn’t help but shiver after brief exposure to the bone-biting cold. He remedied this by covering his body with a thin layer of swordsman’s aura, which would slowly drain his stamina for however long he maintained it. After several years of training, he had fostered a significant amount of this unique form of energy and could now keep up with his current expenditure for nearly three hours.
While he waited for Mr. Albeck, his eyes drifted over to a well-trimmed hedge nearby to where he was standing and he recalled the time that he and Emely had discovered an injured Ms. Parsnip within its spindly confines. The thought summoned a light smile to his face. These days, Emely didn’t go anywhere without that rabbit, which had basically become a full-fledged member of the Dozen. Even Woods had taken a liking to the little critter. The portly boy no longer looked at her with the eyes of a hungry glutton and had even formed a habit of petting her whenever she was present.
Looking around at the modest amount of snow that lent the garden an entirely different sort of beauty from when its flowers were in full bloom, Alistar recalled his first winter in Distan. At the time, a heavy snowfall had swept through the region and left so much precipitation in its wake that even the adults had been forced to slog through the knee-deep sea of unending whiteness. The sight had left Alistar at a loss for quite some time, before he’d happily accompanied Anice outside to play around in the fields of the estate. He’d created some of his fondest memories on that day, though had gone to bed feeling quite guilty at having experienced such fun without his family.
What’s Mr. Albeck doing?
Just as Alistar was wondering if he had mistaken the time and place for the day’s lesson, his teacher’s aura suddenly gained a significant prominence in his perceptions. This told Alistar that the location of the lesson had changed, since this was a method that the two of them used to draw the other’s attention.
Alistar arrived at an old bench of weathered wood about a hundred paces away from the manor house’s western exit, along a cobblestone pathway that was usually lined with beautiful blue hydrangeas. Now, the pathway was fenced in by long lines of spindly, lifeless stems, withered heads bowed down in subordination to nature’s whims. Today his teacher was dressed in his usual fashion, a set of long robes in light browns held at the centre with a golden sash, just the sort of outfit a magus was apparently expected to wear.
"That was quick," said Mr. Albeck, a smile tugging at his shaven face. "You didn’t run here, did you?" His pine-coloured eyes hovered over Alistar as if searching for something, eventually settling on his fingers.