Chapter 43: One headache gone, two or more to go
He was born on Earth and raised twice, so there was no way he would have high talent. Obviously, there were chances of a few born talented individuals, but it was very rare. Aric was lucky when he got the ability to travel between worlds. One thing that the previous lifetime had taught him was that good luck would always be followed by bad luck. And thus, he didn’t hope for too much in life.
Aric talked a bit more about the schools and got a general understanding. Each year for the recruitment, the schools would come in summer to test children and lure them to school. Better the school, better the criteria.
Gopher didn’t wait any longer and left, making himself as ordinary as possible in the cold and chilly night. Meanwhile, Aric was back at his home and proceeded to sleep as he had been roaming around a lot and was tired. Tomorrow his school life would start again, and he was a bit annoyed by it.
------
One more month had gone by since his meeting with Gopher. Gopher had not only asked for more papers over the month but also asked for the new pen that Aric had come up with. The fountain pens were different as they came from the higher civilization. One just needed to use water as the agent, and there was a small ball inside which acted as the dye. With one small ball of dye, one could write up to 10,000 kilometers.
This was insane because before one could finish that much distance in writing, the pen would be out of order due to wear and tear anyway. The pens were sold for a higher amount, and for 20 pens, Aric actually got 1 gold coin. This was an enormous amount of money for Aric, and he was too happy to say the least.
He had gone back to school too. But he was being avoided. Aric was always social with his friends before, and he had that grand belief that he would be friends with them for the rest of his life. But reality was different, and since his mentality had changed a lot after growing up, he couldn’t relate to his class friends at all.
"Bro, why have you become so boring?" Ishan asked, a few days after he came back to school. He never got any response from Aric when he tried to hang out with him during the summer vacation. That had pissed Ishan off, and now Aric was almost ignoring him.
Aric couldn’t tell, but his demeanor had changed a lot. He had an air of mystery around him that made many of his friends curious, and even girls started to look at him with different kinds of eyes. Ishan could see that and even poked Aric about it, but he didn’t seem to care.
He was just like a piece of wood, showing no signs of caring, and Ishan was frustrated with him for this behavior.
"Because my life is boring," Aric replied, not looking into his eyes and watching the distant trees sway in the wind on the hot but windy summer day. Ishan was speechless and didn’t know what had happened to his best friend.