18 The Conversation

Dudley corrects himself and looks around him. At first, he did not notice anything different from the forest in front of him. But when he put some magic in his eyes, he found out that everything in front of him was glowing. In fact, it was so bright that he had to close his eyes the second he opened it.

He put his arms in front of his eyes to ease the pain of the light burn. After a while, Dudley turns around and looks at the area his teacher was standing at, with a non-enhanced eyes. When he look at his teacher, he finds that he is not there. He looks around and sees that his teacher is walking towards a section of the forest that he did not pay attention to before because it was ignoble.

As Dudley gets closer, he finds that it is getting harder and harder to look at the area his teacher is walking towards. Recalling that there is a charm like this in the Harry Potter universe, he manipulates his magic to cover his head and the feeling becomes bearable.

When he gets closer to to his teacher, he feels an energy pass through him and the impulses telling him to ignore this place cedes. After the energy passes through him, Dudley finally sees a cabin where there was nothing there before, he stands there for a while observing it.

To Dudley, the cabin looks like a place where five or six people could stay in. He sees his teacher getting further away from him so he quickly breaks out of his reverie and follows him. When they reached in front of the door, Marimo stops Dudley from following him and walks in.

He opens the front door after a while and motions Dudley to come in. When Dudley walks in, he turns around and looks as Marimo does something strange with the lock then locks the door. After that, he walks towards the living room after Marimo and finds that the inside of the cabin is way bigger than the outside.

Apart from that, the cabin looks like a regular house with some couches, curtains and a carpet. Dudley also noticed that there was no tv in the house and finds out the reason why when he checks the house again with magic lensed eyes. He finds from the glimpse he sees that the magic in the house is more concentrated than the ambient magic outside the house and that magic has saturated the house with a cabin appearance outside.

He also finds some runes in specific areas of the living room like near the hearth and under a carpet. As Marimo turns around, he finds that Dudley is mesmerized by the house. Knowing that it will take a while for his student to breakout of his fugue, he walks towards a couch and sits down. He waits a while and hears his student walk toward him.

When his student arrives in front of him, he points to a couch besides him and motions him to sit down. He then gives his charge a stare that denotes that he has answers to the questions Dudley seeks. When he sees recognition in his student eyes, his lips curl up for a second and he returns to his passive face.

When Dudley broke out from his loss of awareness, he walks toward his teacher and sits where Marimo was pointing to. He saw Marimo give him a stare and he recognizes what that stare means. He thinks of the questions he wants to ask him. When he figures out one, he asks

"Sir, the place I woke up at, where is it?"

"In a forest" Marimo answers in a monotone voice

"I know it is in a forest. What I want to know is where it is located?" Dudley asks agitatedly

"You are not qualified to know that yet. All you must know is that, it is in a forest and you are here to train, improve yourself then seek out your goals." Marimo replies in the same voice.

"Then in the test how did you expect a student to find you with how far away the signpost was?" Dudley asks in a resigned voice.

"The place you woke up at was located in a barrier. There are numerous signposts that acts as the anchors of the barrier. The signpost you found was the centermost anchor of the barriers and the furthest one among the others…"

"Wait, there were others? What do you mean by anchors?" Dudley interrupts Marimo. Marimo continues on to speak as if nothing happened.

"In fact, the first signpost was a few meters away from your position. If you had found that one, another instructor would have taught you and you would have only been taught the physical aspect of the of the training." Marimo takes in a deep breath and continues

"The signpost acts as a potential tester and not only as a potential tester, it also tests your will. During your trek to the signpost, if you had developed self doubt in yourself, you would have found a signpost closer to you and you would have failed my test. You also are one of the few people that found the signpost I was standing at. In fact, most of the people who have taken this test were older and more experienced than you so once again, congratulation" Marimo finishes his speech

Dudley reals from the information and takes a while to process it. After he processes it, he takes in a deep breath and asks another question that has been bothering him

"What was the area we passed at that was filled with viscous liquid?"

"Hmm, so you felt that huh, your connection to the energy inside you is stronger than I thought. I have to change some of your training. Anyway, the area with the viscous liquid as you say is the pathway. It works like the floo network used in the magical world. Wait, you don't know what that is I will explain it to you later. Think of the pathway as a connection between two points.It serves as a way to journey shorter. As the non magical will people say, think of it as a wormhole." Marimo explains

Dudley thinks about it and asks another question "How would you know if I was magical or non-magical? And there's a magical world?" Dudley asks excited

"Only magical people or people with some magic in them like squibs would see some of the signposts and since you arrived at the centermost section of the barrier, I deduced that that either you must be magical or you have magic in you and yes, there is a magical world. I will explain it to you later" Marimo answers Dudley. Dudley nods his head as he thinks,

'So, it must mean there is no means to find out if one has magic unless one takes this test or they are found by the Hogwarts book or maybe when they perform accidental magic and the ministry of magic hears about it.' Dudley nods his head. He suddenly shakes his head no and thinks,

'Wait that would not work because when Harry turned her teacher's hair blue, no one showed up. Or could it be that it takes the accidental magic causing a big issue for some obliviator to show up and delete some memories.' After Dudley finishes thinking, he asks another question that has been on his mind since they entered the new area.

"Why did you tell me to shush when we were walking through the pathway and when we entered the new area?"

"This place is where you will be doing most of your training. Meaning there are some dangers here that reacts to noise. I had been fending them when we were walking. Because you walk and breath loudly. Every animal in the vicinity could hear you walk and breath. This is the first lesson we will have before we go into anything. You need to survive outside and there is no way we are doing the training in here."