It was not as difficult to walk on this side of the river as I had assumed, since we found a wildlife trail next to the river, leading from the clearing we just slept in.
After a little while, I decide to ask Jo about something.
“You didn’t react at all when I called you ‘my sort of apprentice’”
She looked at me with a sort of sad smile and answered “I still can’t keep up, so I understand that I have not yet truly become your apprentice.”
I mean, she has already joined us, so her being my apprentice is fine. It’s just not something I have thought to hard about. At least I should inform her of it.
“You know, you are already following along. The only reason that I said ‘sort of’ is because having an apprentice is new to me. I’m still young, and you would be my first.”
“Wait really? You have never had an apprentice before? I thought someone as skilled as you would have raised several prominent mages.” she said with a fair bit of excitement.
“Yup, you’re the first, and I have pretty much accepted you as my apprentice.”
She actually cheered at that. “Do I still need to practice mana thruster?”
“Yes. Not the basic one though. The higher tiered ones are really good though, and will help you a lot. Also, you being able to keep up when we travel fast, is still a must.”
Being able to move fast is a necessity, and as I stated before, running away from someone stronger than you is easier than surviving their attacks. The best defense is not being hit, after all.
She easily understood my reasoning when explained.
We continued our travels for a while longer, hoping to find a bridge to cross the river easily. Eventually we do find a bridge, though we end up not crossing it, as it is where the road we are following crosses the river.
After taking a lunch break next to the river, we continue on the journey.
I continue to practice my new flight spell, which is finally good enough that I can call it a spell. It is mana inefficient and hard to control, but I actually manage to hover a bit over the ground for a while. I may have flapped my wings while doing it.
James seems to be impressed, and Jo starts to ask all kinds of questions regarding it. I will teach it to her, once it becomes better, which she accept. She also need more mana to be able to use it.
Lots of work remains on it, with the goal being a continuous distributed force on my body, like the dimensional impulse, and that it takes less mana than my generation can provide. I mean, I can always use more mana, but I would like it to be usable to fly in perpetuity.
Our journey continues, with both me and Jo being more motivated at practicing magic.
As the sun sets, we stumble across what appears to be a camping ground, next to the road. There were already a group of people camping there. Not sure what their occupations are, since some of them wear leather armor, whilst others wear fancy clothing. Maybe a merchant group and their guards. None of them have a lot of mana, but the ones in fancy clothing all have at least some.
After a short discussion, we decide to settle here for the night.
While greeting the other party, we introduce ourselves as adventurers and Jo being my apprentice, which causes her to smile for a bit.
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The leaders of the group introduced themselves as Jerardo and Marlaina Binveolanik. The husband and wife duo run their own merchant company and travel between a few locations to sell their wares which mostly consists of various metalworkings, like armor and tools.
They seem a bit wary of me at the start, but as we introduced ourselves, they softened up.
After setting up our tents, we joined them around their campfire.
“PRETTY!!” I hear the voice of an excited child coming from behind me.
Jerardo tenses for a moment, and tells Alesha, which appears to be the name of the child, to greet me properly. Seems he is still a bit nervous around me. Maybe It’s because of my quantity of mana.
Either way, she goes around me and stand next to me, before greeting me in a more formal manner. I smile and greet her back. During the whole greeting, she keeps glancing at my wings, seemingly barely able to restrain herself.
Once I give her the go-ahead to talk about the wings, she explodes into questions and statements. I answers as best as I can, but not all of them make sense.
After a bit, she asks if she can touch them, to which I answer “you can try”. Jerardo stiffens at that, but Alesha doesn’t hesitate and reaches for them, only to be confused when her hands pass straight through it. That doesn’t stop her from trying again though.
I giggle at her carefreeness, which causes her dad to visible relax. What did he think I meant with “you can try”? Thinking a bit about it, that is what people say when they don't want you to do something and will actively stop you. That might explain his nervousness.
Eventually she gives up on touching them, and goes back to asking questions. One of them being
“Can I get wings like that when I grow up?”
I don’t know how to answer that. On one hand, they are beautiful, on the other, the price to get them is way too high.
I settle on “Lets hope you don’t get wings like mine”, which garners confusion from the father daughter duo. Alesha shrugs it off fastest and asks the infamous “why?”
“Because the price is too high. You can still get different ones though.” I answer hinting at the nature of my wings.
The conversation dies down after that for a bit, at least until more people come and sits down around the campfire.
As the evening goes on, various people tell stories, either about their past exploits or fictitious events, mainly at the encouragement of Alesha. Even me and James join in on the storytelling, by telling of the adventures we had in the game together.
During the evening, I bring out food for our group, and I give one of the candied fruits to Alesha. She seems to really enjoy it, as she listens to the stories being told.
Soon enough, Alesha gets tired, and is carried off to bed by her father. Once she is out of earshot, the discussion turns a bit more serious as Marlaina starts to ask us about where we are heading. We might have built a bit of goodwill by being nice, but we are still not fully trusted it seems.
It doesn’t last too long though, since we soon go to bed as well.