Chapter 36 - Flux

For the next few days, a heavy mood covered the whole mansion. Zaos and Jeline that something might happen in the next few days, but aside from the fact that she was sleeping in a room alone, nothing changed in Lyra's life. Zaos waited to see how things would proceed in the weekly family dinner, but much to his surprise, his father didn't show up on a usual day. That never happened before, and Zaos concluded that Jeline had probably told him about the incident.

"I need to do something about this stress I am building up, I feel like I am going to explode if I don't do anything to relieve it," Zaos thought while he watched his mother sleeping in the garden.

That was something that happened several times in the last few days. Lyra was, without a doubt, not getting a wink of sleep in her room. That was why she usually slept during Zaos's training sessions.

Unfortunately, Zaos didn't find a way to relieve his stress, but he managed to find a way to control the power of his spells. As much as that was painful to admit, Lyra's situation made Zaos understand that he could control his flux of mana while he was drawing the symbols in his head, he just had to focus a little less on each symbol, and thus he would be able to control the spell. The inverse was also possible and could strengthen his spells. Zaos essentially discovered Merkin's trick, but he didn't feel like celebrating.

"Maybe moving around the capital in a carriage will be a good change of pace for mom," Zaos thought. "I already learned that trick, so there is no point in delaying this visit."

After the training, Zaos decided to talk about the subject with his mother. Although until now, she never said no to what Zaos wanted to do or learn, she didn't seem very pleased with that idea.

"You should go with Drannor and Ameria, I am a bit tired these days, so I am going to pass," Lyra said.

Zaos would rather go alone than go with those two. He could easily imagine how noisy things could become if he moves around with the next ruler of the kingdom nearby. While he would stand out in a carriage, at least alone, Zaos would be able to stop wherever he wanted.

In the end, Zaos asked Lyra how he could arrange a carriage for himself, and when he learned that those could be rented in the capital. The leader of the guards that patrol their residence usually is the one who can do that for them.

"So, I will need to pay for it?" Zaos asked. "How much do I need to pay to rent a carriage for an entire day?"

"One gold coin," Lyra replied. "But we can pay for you, I am the one who manages the money of our family, so you don't have to worry about that."

Zaos didn't know that, and he had never seen his mother doing calculations regarding money. Still, it was evident that she wouldn't tell a lie about that.

"Speaking of which, how much do the guards that patrol around our home gain?" Zaos asked.

"Why are you suddenly interested in that, you don't need to worry about money, Zaos," Lyra said. "Anyway, ordinary guards receive ten gold coins per month, but the captain receives double that amount."

"When someone is usually suited to become a guard," Zaos asked.

"Around the time they are fifteen, when they graduate from their training and obtain some experience doing certain types of joba," Lyra replied. "However, usually, they only receive ten gold coins per month since they lack experience."

It was only obvious that Zaos didn't have the qualifications to be a guard. Still, he didn't think that he would have such a hard time earning money. He had to find a way to obtain it since he didn't want to rely on his father's money or influence.

While Zaos was waiting for the captain of the guards to rent a carriage, Zaos decided to check a part of the mansion he had never explored before: the warehouse. Since Lyra was sleeping and Zaos had finished his physical training, he decided to do that. Practicing his magic would be good, but since that could be done pretty fast, he decided to do it later. Much to Zaos's surprise, the warehouse was divided into two parts. The first was locked since it was used to store valuable things like the sets of Armor and weapons the guards used. The second was completely open since it was mostly used to store trashy things that could be used occasionally. Zaos found countless broken weapons there, and there was a vast collection of wooden weapons as well.

"Maybe I should take some of them, even at level one, techniques related to those weapons will make me stronger," Zaos muttered.

While focusing on improving his own fighting style seemed like the best way to get stronger, Zaos knew that knowing or at least having a fair guess of what others could do with several types of weapons would decrease exponentially the number of headaches he might have in the future.

At night, training in his room wouldn't be nearly as effective, but Zaos managed to grab a wooden staff and an experiment with. Since those were just lying around, no one will miss it. While Zaos had a room for himself, even though he didn't like it, he decided to put some things in there that would help. The wooden weapons were some of them. However, on his second visit to the warehouse, Zaos also found a lot of books.

"Magic books? How unexpected…" Zaos frowned.

The books weren't covered in dust since the whole place was cleaned rather often, but Zaos could tell that they were pretty old, due to the yellow pages. While he belonged to a family of warriors, they accumulated a lot of magic books over the years. Although Lyra could teach Zaos many other things, he had already noticed that he couldn't ask much of her. Lyra wasn't physically strong, to begin with, and after the recent shock, asking her to teach him magic at the same pace as before would be too much.