Waiting

'This is the same girl...so she might be the clue to the advancement formulae or maybe she already has those formulae?' Aren thought.

Nevertheless, he was not in a hurry. As he had violet ring aptitude, his spiritual power was naturally higher than others to match his talent.

To even reach the amount of spiritual power he had, a typical green ring aptitude apprentice would have to advance his rune for nearly a year. This was the disparity between those with high grade talent and those with low grade talent. Only hard work was not enough to become a mage, sometimes aptitude was also the deciding factor.

As many mages were searching for this girl, there was no need for him to personally conduct a search. The only thing he would have to focus is learning other spells.

He ended the ritual there and put the orb in a safe place. Although he was sure that a magical item wouldn't break that easily, there was no such thing as being extra careful.

He then closed the spell book and contemplated which spell he should learn next. It would be great if it could enhance his combat ability but thinking about the spells there were none.

After reflecting deeply on the subject, he decided to learn the spell bestow fortune/misfortune. Though learning unpredictable cards was better, the fact that it was unpredictable was its con.

Gong! Gong! Gong!

At this moment, the distant bells of the bell tower rang in the whole of Havrick city.

"Its High noon already. I should start then."

Aren murmured as he sat on his bed with the white book in his hand. The page of the book was turned to the spell model of the spell he was about to learn.

The purpose of a spell model was to gather and transform the energy and matter from the nature and use it according to the direction in which the spell model directs.

Spiritual power was needed to construct the spell models and maintain it. The more complicated the spell model, the more gathering of the forces of nature which makes the spell more powerful. All the same, a mage will need more spiritual power to maintain the construct of spell model in mind.

That was why higher rank mages had greater spiritual powers than lower ranked ones.

Aren turned the pages and looked at the explanation of how the spell of bestowing fortune/misfortune works and was a little suprised. It seemed that a diviner couldn't bestow fortune or misfortune to anyone as he or she wished. To bestow fortune, there needed someone else fortunate in the surrounding where the spell is casted. Likewise to bestow misfortune, an unfortunate person was required.

Basically, its to take someone's luck and giving it to others. How can being just lucky be that easy? If it was so, then Aren could just bestow fortune to himself everyday and his life would be smooth sailing.

When he read the last note there, it said that there was a prerequisite to learn this spell. First luck sense should be learned before learning that spell or without sensing lucky ones, a caster wouldn't be able to bestow fortune to others.

The day passed with Aren starting his attempts to learn luck sense. Although it was not as difficult as lesser divination, it would still take him a month to learn luck sense and another month to bestow fortune/misfortune.

.....

Two and half months later.

"I have finally learnt the two main spells and another two auxilary spells. With this my fighting capacity is greatly enchanced."

Aren exclaimed as he sat up from the sea of papers on the floor. Those were all the practicing he had done to learn those four spells.

Other than being an apprentice mage, he was also a rank 1 fighter. Learning auxilary spells had made him confident in his power among rank 1s other than mages. Especially, lesser strength and haste. These two spells which could respectively increase his dexterity and strength for short time complimented his profession as a fighter. It was as if the two spells were made for fighters.

He cleaned himself up and headed to master's lab.

Claude was still immersed in his experiments as usual. When he saw Aren entering the room, he enthusiastically beckoned Aren to come over.

"Oh Aren you came, quickly come here. My experiments have finally given some results."

There was some notable change in his attitude towards Aren. Before he would always be cold and indifferent towards him, but as Aren started showing more talent in enchanting than even Rahil, Claude's view of Aren changed. He was now very satisfied with Aren's dedication and talent in enchanting.

Aren came before Claude and decided that it was time to tell him. "Master, I've managed to learn another divination spell."

"Oh...which spell is it?" Claude asked, arranging his apparatuses.

"I learnt luck sense." Aren answered while trying to help Claude.

"A good choice. It seems you have read the book of spells well. Most of apprentice diviners don't choose this spell as their first only to regret it later. Hmm...have you tried the advancement formula yet?"

"Not yet." Aren said truthfully.

He had already learnt his lesson when he lied last time in front of claude. No matter how hard he tried and how innocent his expression was, Claude would immediately find out if he was lying.

He was like a human lie detector. He could just divine if Aren was lying or not with a simple flick of his finger. He didn't even need a medium to do divination.

From that time, he vowed to himself never to lie in front of a diviner.

'Tsk, techniques from earth are useless against him.' Aren inwardly thought.

Claude didn't ask why and just waited for Rahil and Shahil to come. These two boys are late today. It seemed that he had become too lenient.

After the morning training session was over, Aren bid farewell to the brothers and went to the market.

After he got a clue about the advancement formulae by divination, he would frequently visit the market to see if he could find that girl in magicwoods.

Aren reached outside the gates of academy where many carriages were parked. He chose a random one and boarded it.

"To the inner market."

As soon as he said this, the empty carriage came to life. Its door automatically closed and it started moving very fast, without a driver or a horse. This was indeed magical but after using it many times, Aren became used to it.

After fifteen minutes, the carriage stopped. Aren left 10 silvers in the pouch which was tied to the door of carriage from inside and alighted.

Once, that much money was his income after working for two days but now it was spent in a fifteen minutes ride and he didn't even feel a thing. Circumstances indeed change the world view of a person.

Just as he was about to stroll through the market, he heard some apprentices mentioning the white robed beauty in their conversation.

He perked up his ears and listened closely to what they were saying.

"Hey Walter, I heard that someone had seen the beauty, who appeared in the apprentice bazaar, near Hawkrider street." the apprentice leaning against another carriage said to the apprentice named Walter.

As he heard that, a slight smile formed on Aren's face.

He had been waiting for this news.