But similarly to how Evin needed to attend his classes after the heartfelt, life-changing conversation he had with the Voice, life had to move on. No one had the time to care about Evin’s changes, no one was going to come to him and say ‘Good job, you did it’. The Voice’s wisdom pointed out that his parents were supposed to say these things, but Evin didn’t have his parents. His mother left him and after that, he left his father.

‘I’m sure Leanne would say the words to me if I speak of these matters… but I’d rather make her see me as something else…’ Evin sighed as he stole a glance towards Leanne, who was nostalgically observing the small, unused room.

Like the Voice said, only it and Evin could be so bluntly open with each other. But even then, they weren’t spared of the few disagreements here and there.

After the effects of the Chairman’s pill subsided, the Voice stopped sharing his state of mind with Evin as it wasn’t necessary anymore. This turned out to be a terrible thing for Evin, as he was once again reminded of the dullness of his own perspective.

Before that, he would always have an answer or an opinion to share when he was talking to someone, but all of a sudden, all these things were gone from his mind. He begged the voice to share his mind with him again, but it refused adamantly after seeing what the act did to Evin.

<You’re literally acting like a drug addict on withdrawal, and it’s fucking disgusting. Learn to live with yourself, and stop bothering me so pathetically,> it said coldly at one point and promised Evin that it wouldn’t share its mind with him again, as long as it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

Evin did many things to keep his mind busy during those times. He’d practice his magics until he dropped unconscious of mana-core exhaustion, memorize the day’s lectures word for word for the heck of it, and he was sure that at some point during this crazed fit, his feelings towards Leanne started to bloom stronger than ever.

The Voice spat out something about trying to forget one’s dullness by filling one’s head with love, but that didn’t matter to Evin. He had feelings towards Leanne even before all this happened, it was just that they became stronger during this month and a half.

Once again, resolutely, he looked towards Leanne.

“Since you’ve built this room, you must’ve been staying here for quite a long time, no?”

“Yes. I actually used to work as the Vice-chair here under Duchess Klavd’s daughter, Anita Klavd,” Leanne said, smiling, “A very scary young lady. Quite like her mother, I would say. Then she moved towards the Southern front under her mother’s orders after a couple years of working as Chairwoman here. Then Chairman Kent came and appointed Bokh as Vice-chair, so I became only a teacher, albeit a rather authoritative one.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Evin said.

He couldn’t quite follow what she was saying, as he wasn’t familiar with the people she mentioned, but he could tell that Leanne was demoted somehow.

“No, no. Vice-Chairs have too much work to do. I’d rather stay as a teacher,” Leanne said and reached deeper into her bag.

She brought out a metal container of some sorts alongside two other wooden cups. She put the two cups down, uncorked the metal container and started pouring. The way Leanne looked at the purplish liquid with such greed and desire suggested that it was wine.

“Have you ever drunk wine before?” Leanne asked.

“No. Never.”

Evin remembered taking a sip from his father’s flask of brandy and then questioning why the man would ever want to drink the thing every day. But even without the taste, Evin had an unpleasant opinion on alcohol.

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Leanne shrugged. “You’re ten already, so you should at least learn your wines, beers and ales. And when you turn 15… I guess you can learn about the brandies, vodkas and whiskies.”

At Leanne’s invitation, Evin took a sip from the cup and realized that the wine was much sweeter than what he expected.

“Sweet wine,” Leanne intoned and took a few sips herself. “So, what else is going on? Making friends left and right, I’m guessing.”

“He-heh, no. Most of the time, I just practice my magic. And the other times, I spend my time with either Arza, Bella, or Phel.”

The latter two names seemed to shock Leanne quite a bit, especially the last one. “Bellaslayn Borna and Phelippe Narke, right?”

“Yes,” Evin smiled.

“Huh. Well, I guess Phel’s a nice enough lad, friendly with everyone and with an overall likeable personality… But I never thought you’d be friends with Bella.”

“It just happened. I’m teaching her the few things I know about illusions, and she’s teaching me close combat.”

“I see… What about Kona?” Leanne asked curiously.

“I sometimes spend a few moments speaking with Kona before classes start, but aside from those moments, I’m not very close with the girl at all,” Evin articulated. “Kona’s like the acquaintance that I know and act politely towards, but there was a weird gap between us that just doesn’t seem to go away.”

“Well, she was a 4th grade before she turned into a mage, so I’m sure it’s weird for her to suddenly mingle with all these people she wasn’t allowed to speak to before. Just give her some time.”

“Well, there’s not much in common between us in the first place, so… she’s just there,” Evin shrugged. “And besides, I usually have my hands full with Arza bothering me every chance he gets. With Arza, I usually spend my time exploring the city of Ankelite, or going towards the forests and rivers nearby. He has a knack of finding interesting places wherever he is, so if we don’t have a plan for the day, we would walk around the city, idly looking around, before Arza decides to choose a random tavern or a shop to enter.”

“Definitely sounds like Arza,” Leanne chuckled. “So, what did you find during your adventures?”

“I found which tavern in town sold the best meat stews (so far), and which stall in town sold the best grilled potatoes. We also found a shop which sold some criminally expensive handmade charms. The things cost anywhere from 10 silvers to 10 golds so they were definitely off-limits for me, but that didn’t stop Arza so he bought one charm that supposedly supported his strength. But after using it for half a day, Arza concluded that the charm definitely worked, but it was useless for him. Saying so, he gave it to me. Telling me to grow tall and strong mockingly. It was a necklace made of some pink-silvery material and it was made in the motif of a spiral of some sorts… or is it a snake coiling around itself?” Evin said and showed the necklace to Leanne.

Evin didn’t mention the part where he thought of selling it, but the Voice insisted he keep it. It was two weeks since Evin received the charm, but he really wasn’t feeling like he’d become stronger by any measure. He had one very lucid dream about seeing a giant pinkish snake sleeping under a tree stump, but aside from that, he felt no changes.

Leanne looked at the necklace with interest, before giving it back to Evin. “There’s definitely something magical about it, but I can’t really say what exactly… Do you remember where was the shop you found?”

“Yes,” Evin replied and described the charm shop to Leanne.

“Maybe we can give the place a visit later on. You mentioned meeting with Bella and Phel, right?”

“Yes. But like I said, with Bella, it’s mostly training and magic. She’s happy to just teach me certain combat maneuvers and in exchange, she would listen to me describe the imagination process of illusions and spells… If we’re not training, then she would sometimes drag me along to some amusements popular among the nobility.”

“That sounds nice,” Leanne sounded proud, and looked at Evin as if she was looking at her socially inept son finally making friends. She then pestered Evin for more details, no doubt thinking that there was something more going on between Evin and Bella. Evin did his best to dispel these thoughts from Leanne’s head, always reminding her that most of his time together with Bella was spent on training and nothing else.

Of course, Evin didn’t talk to Bella about the scientific knowledge that the voice offered, instead parroting the voice’s words when Bella asked for something specific, like what does it imagine when creating an illusion or starting a fire.

Bella often fell into thought after these sessions, no doubt pondering about the feasibility of these imaginations. There was always a tingling feeling in Evin’s head that he was scamming the girl, but he swallowed his conscience and learned what he could about close combat from her.

Naturally, he was still learning from the Vice-chair in the Combat Training class alongside the other students, but those lessons were either too difficult or too easy for Evin. The easy parts where when the students were training long distance spells. More often than not, the students would be tasked with hitting a target from a distance, and almost always, the Voice took care of those.

But in close combat lessons, most of the hard work fell on Evin’s shoulders. So far, they haven’t learned to incorporate spells while they were fighting, only learning normal martial arts.

Evin was the worst in those classes, as the nobles and the other commoner students had already trained for a few years before the Academy even started. Evin was the only one who was a complete greenhorn there. The private lessons with Bella helped greatly in reducing the gap between Evin and the rest of the students.

“And Phel?” Leanne asked, curious about Evin’s other new friend.