Chương 28: Hard Questions

Ch 28: Hard Questions It was night. The blue moon had just risen above the horizon as I waited for Sahirah to return from cultural class. She hadn't told me that the third stage of dual cultivation would bind us together permanently, but I wasn't upset. Not really. Yet, I definitely couldn't understand her reasoning for not discussing it with me.

After all, that wasn't one of the secrets that belonged to her, like her mysterious surname, and the ins and outs of dual cultivation were something the Greys already knew.

Which meant, none of this was information I should have learned through Elitha. At the very least, Sahirah should have told me herself instead of being all vague and mysterious. My chair was turned away from the table and facing the door when I heard the sound of keys unlocking it. I straightened in my chair and took a deep breath as the door handle turned. Sahirah's mismatched eyes of green and amber found me instantly as she stepped inside. She noticed I was acting differently tonight. I wasn't inscribing runes.

I wasn't cursing myself for failing to remember some basic math. And I definitely wasn't reading a book and complaining about the terrible rune documentation.

"Did you catch some kind of human seasonal disease, Eric?" As tempted as I was to reply with a joke, today Eric, the adult in the room, was in charge of talking.

"It's not that," I said.

"I just wanted to talk a bit." Despite my best attempt at a serious tone, she replied teasingly.

"You want to talk?" she said.

"So it really is a human seasonal disease!"

"I mean it, Sahirah." I rose from my chair and, averting my gaze, paced across the room before finally spilling the beans.

"The archmage told me the third stage of dual cultivation will make us permanent cultivation partners. She had been observing us though her spell, and she told me why you don't want to advance to the third stage." I finally locked eyes with her.

"Elitha has her own interests in mind, obviously, but that doesn't change the fact that you knew this. Why did you keep being so avoidant and mysterious instead of just telling me that the third stage would bind us together permanently?" She seemed as though she hadn't even registered everything I'd said. Calmly, she walked toward the bed, dropped her purse beside it, and lay down, extending her right arm upward to stare at the back of her hand against the ceiling.

"A girl doesn't mind discussing those things. But does the human realize there's no point in arguing it if we can't talk about the other important things about our lives? You said it yourself. The achrmage is spying on us all the time." Why was she claiming there was no point in arguing? Of course there was a point. Even if we didn't have the privacy to talk about our planets, just being on the same page about something this important was one hell of a point.

"Well," I said, "if you don't mind talking about it, then tell me what you think about the third stage binding us together for good. Does it bother you? Are you indifferent? Do you wish you had someone from your own species here to do it with?" She lowered her hand, and when I mentioned someone from her own species, her right eyebrow jumped three times before returning to apparent indifference.

"I should be the one asking you that question," she said.

"It's your planet the Greys are planning to build a gate to, isn't it? Two years from now, you'll have plenty of choices when more humans come here for you to bond with." I heard those words without finding a counterargument. It was true. Unless something happened in the meantime, the prospects of me meeting another human soon were much more promising than hers of meeting someone from her species. But did that even matter? Even if there were other humans here, why would I want another dual cultivation partner?

"I get your point," I said, "but I think you're overreacting. Even if there were a lot more humans here, I wouldn't want anyone but you to be my cultivation partner." For a moment, I thought I'd said exactly the right thing. But then Sahirah moved on the bed, sitting instead of lying down, and looked at me with sharp eyes.

"Have you ever thought about what your life will be like when there are other humans here?" She didn't wait for a reply.

"Because I think you spend all your time thinking about runes and your company and forget to consider the hard choices we'll have to make." Now she was standing and coming closer to me.

"You said a girl is overreacting, and you wouldn't want anyone else but me to be your cultivation partner." She stopped right in front of me, staring into my eyes.

"But are you talking about just our path to power and enlightenment, or about everything else?" With a smirk that wasn't friendly, she continued.

"Because we never discussed the future. We never discussed what we want for a family. We never discussed the possibilities and impossibilities of... whatever thare is between us." She took a breath before finishing.

"But a girl will tell you something, since you want to know her opinion so much, Eric. I won't accept a situation where you have a human family and abandon them every night to meet me, your very own exotic 'cultivation partner.' So, you have my answer now, we won't advance to the third stage until I know exactly where you stand on these difficult questions." This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I was speechless at the clarity of her reasoning and the firmness of her resolve. Had she really thought this deeply about us, our future, and everything that came with it? Or was it just me who had thought too little about it? Realizing the latter was probably true, I attempted to salvage the situation.

"That's a lot to think about in a short time, honestly," I said.

"But I'm pretty sure I want you by my side forever, and there wouldn't be any trouble if we just went ahead with the third stage." That was an obvious mistake, one I blamed entirely on my mouth moving faster than my brain, something I realized within seconds. She stared deep into my eyes.

"For my people, saying important things lightly is as bad as lying." She looked away and walked toward the writing table, where she retrieved the Fire Moon book and opened it to the section on the third stage of dual cultivation.

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Eric. How can you say you're 'pretty sure' you want to stay by my side forever?" She lifted the book, practically shoving it in my face.

"You know little about my world. You know nothing about what I represent to my people. You don't even know why my eyes have different colors." She lowered the book, and when our eyes met, she continued.

"If you look into my eyes and say, without hesitation, that you have no problem spending the rest of your life by my side without even knowing all those things about me and much more, then we can start the third stage right now." She crossed her arms and waited. I looked deep into her eyes.

"I..." One second passed. Could I overlook the fact that I knew so little about her? Two seconds. I couldn't say yes and lie to her, could I? Three seconds. And I still hesitated to finish my sentence. When enough time had passed, she sighed.

"I thought so." She moved to our bed and retrieved her purse, heading toward the door. This time, I didn't hesitate.

"Wait." I grabbed her gently by both shoulders, stopping her from leaving.

"You don't have to leave," I said.

"I'm going to spend a few hours in the library by myself, thinking about all of this. You can have the whole room to yourself. We can talk again once I've had enough time to think, and I promise I'll put real effort into considering our future." She didn't move for several seconds. Then she shook her head and walked back inside.

"You are lucky a girl hates her other room." That was all she said before entering the bathroom and turning on the shower. I left the whole place to her after that, abandoning our room for the library, where I would stay until late into the night.

I slept little that night. When I returned to my room, Sahirah was already asleep. She barely woke when I arrived, but she still made some room for me on the bed. When I woke up, she was already gone. The only reason I wasn't too worried was that she had left her belongings behind, proving that, indeed, our next conversation would be happening sooner or later. I was about to leave for the food court when I heard a sequence of knocks on the door. With no idea who it might be, I approached the matter carefully.

Even without the Mimics, caution had become a habit. Yet when I activated the only remaining wallhack version of the system, I was surprised by the name that greeted me. [Lathara Ozira Melsor, Lvl 343] Seeing the runes teacher looking for me once more surprised me, and I finally decided to open the door. She looked the same as always. Her sleeves contrasted rather aggressively with the black of the rest of her robes. Her deep blue eyes were distinctive, and her gaze was calm enough to make a glacier seem restless.

"Eric Nevermore." She just said my name as a greeting, saying nothing about the reason for her visit.

"Is this about some test I missed?" If I wasn't mistaken, I had once told her to her face that I only intended to attend Runes class for the tests and nothing else.

"You missed a test indeed," she said, "but that's not the reason I'm here today. I gave you the highest score even though you were not there, and your position as number one in Runes class remains unchanged." Wait, what? Ignoring the reason for her visit for a moment, I asked, "I mean, isn't that unfair to the others?" Lathara smirked.

"I asked them to raise their hands if they were against giving you the highest score even though you were not there," she said.

"But since not a single one of your peers raised their hand, it's not unfair." I allowed myself a smile. That was a story I would have to tell again and again for the rest of my life. Was there a bigger flex than being recognized even by people who weren't particularly fond of you like those elves for your talent and effort? For the first time in a good mood after my conversation with Sahirah, I asked, "Why are you visiting me, then, Miss Lathara?"

"Principal Zorik asked me to come here and inform you that your name has been offered as a participant in the inter-school fundraising tournament to help with repairs to the school." I sighed. That was totally expected. I didn't even try to pretend to be surprised. I just complained immediately.

"Oh, amazing! Now, on top of my academic duties and all the classes I have to attend, I have to fight in a tournament. If it's not that expensive, I'd rather donate some funds for the reconstruction of the school instead of having to fight for them." And yes, I shamelessly spoke as if I were a diligent student who attended every single class and helped the school out of the goodness of my heart without being paid for it. Lathara rolled her blue eyes in a display of emotion I had seen for the first time from her.

"I voted against it," she said.

"Zorik doesn't like you, and everyone, even the other teachers, can see that. But since you don't bother attending classes, very few of us would be willing to stand up for you in this matter."

"Sahirah attends her classes, is a straight-A student, and I bet a kidney that she's being required to participate in this too."

"Her situation is different," said Lathara.

"She destroyed too much training equipment with her mana, and now the faculty sees it as an obligation for her to contribute to the repairs."

"So, what will happen if I refuse to participate?"

"I wouldn't advise doing that," she said.

"If you don't participate, Zorik will be easily able to transfer you to another Rift school. You don't want to give him the grounds for such a decision." I sighed once more, deeper this time.

"He should have just picked someone from the Zufi or the Granar. They seem to love these competitions. It wouldn't be a huge effort for them." Lathara's head turned to the side as she glanced inside my room, and even without a word from her, I knew she was trying to check whether Sahirah was inside. When she found nothing, she finally explained.

"You might not know this, but rare species are valuable in school tournaments. Everyone of our adversaries will know what to expect from the Granar, the Zufi, and even the Driari. But how does a human fight? How does a Nadiri fight? Using rare species to gain an advantage is how every school wins its tournaments every year." I remained silent this time. It seemed complaining would accomplish nothing, and all the decisions had already been made for us. So, instead of insisting, I asked one last question.

"When does the tournament start?"

"Ten days from now. The school will be full of nobles, merchants, and people from the other schools." I nodded unenthusiastically, and Lathara finally seemed to have said everything she wanted. After giving me one last warning not to miss it and making a comment about how unfortunate it was that I had marked my arm with ink, she finally left, leaving me alone once more. I had the whole morning for myself today. My daily visit to Elitha's tower would come later. And Magica Principia was a thing of the past.

And since I had already spent most of the night thinking about my future with Sahirah, I was currently in the same mood I had been in when I first arrived on Navar. The mood to invent something new just to cope with all the difficult questions she'd made me consider. Questions I still had no answers for. This meant that now was the perfect time to pick up a side project, so those questions wouldn't drive me crazy.

And since Principal Dickhead insisted I would participate in this tournament, I would do as he pleased. But I would do it my own way. A way that accounted for the fact that a lot of people with a lot of credits would attend the tournament. So I knew exactly what side project I would be taking on. Introducing Navar to the wonders of gambling, with slot machines made of illusions and bets on the outcomes of the tournament. My very own gambling ring! A wide smile covered my face.

It grew even wider when I realized that I already had plenty of experience creating floating windows with the illusion spell, and gambling math was a piece of cake. This project would be easy. Easy, and very profitable. The perfect pastime while I figured out translation for my system and struggled with Sahirah's questions. This totally wasn't an excuse to avoid them!

And while everyone else would be worrying about winning or losing the tournament, Eric Nevermore would be there to remind them of one simple truth: Regardless of who won and who lost, the house would always make a profit.