Whole next week, I have spent mostly training my spirit capacity under teachers observation. He also brought me few tier six techniques he wanted me to learn. Two of them were offensive spells [Frozen Spark] and [Light Needle], while last one was defensive spell [Protective Shield]. To his surprise, I managed to learn them all during this single week while still having enough time to train spirit capacity. But I had reason to be unhappy.

As sun was setting, once again, teacher decided he should measure my progress with crystal, as he did every evening.

"Seven hundred and thirty three.“ he said calmly.

I had disappointed look, and teacher could not help but laugh.

"Aiken, don't tell me you are disappointed?“

"But teacher, over today, my spirit capacity grew only by nine. It's growth is slowing down.“

It was truth. First three day of my meditations, I managed to gain over twenty mana, on fourth day, however, it decreased to seventeen, and fifth and sixth day my spirit capacity grew only by eleven mana, even though I tried much harder than first four days. And today, it has grown only by nine.

"Stupid kid. Do you even know what that actually means? You are getting close to unlocking seventh tier of magic.“ he said. "And surprisingly soon at that. Usually one would need to have about eight hundred and fifty mana, but you might be able to reach it even before eight hundred.“ he finished his explanation.

"Teacher. You are so cruel! Why did not you tell me earlier if you knew so?“ I asked, on verge of crying. I was scared that I had reached limit of my growth and that I would betray expectations of uncle, old man Keiran, my parents who even sold land for me and even lady Sable, who decided to pay so much money for my school.

"It was funny to see you finally try so hard. Usually, you slack a lot when you think I am not looking, but when your growth suddenly slowed down, you started working so hard I could not bring myself to spoil it.“

"I hate you, teacher!“ I raged at his mocking expression as I threw [Little Fireball] at him. He however made spell disappear before it traveled even half the distance between me and him.

"Listen, I am sorry. I am truly sorry.“ answered teacher while laughing. Was this what it was like to be father? He enjoyed time he spent teaching me. It was completely unlike when he was teaching his disciple, who was always so damn serious and boring to deal with.

"How about we just skip training tomorrow and instead go outside of school to city, have some good food and buy some nice magic items for you, Aiken?“

As he talked about buying magic items, my expression darkened. I already was indebted to so many people. Teacher Alaric noticed my expression.

"Think of it as me saying sorry for tricking you. After all, it was really too cruel. I will be buying your forgiveness, is that good?“

"Good.“ I said, pouting, and teacher laughed at expression on my face. He knew I was excited to see magic items.

"Its promise.“ he said.

And he kept his word.

"Since we are going out of house and I don't want anyone to notice that I am currently in city, I should use magic to change my looks. Watch carefully, I will be using advanced tier nine spell that I have created myself. It is able to make you invisible to most people. When you reach tier nine, I will teach this magic to you myself. Not even my own disciple knows this magic, because it is too complex.“ teacher said, proudly.

"What an awesome magic.“ I was fascinated by his description and looked towards him demonstrating his own spell.

"I call it [Invisible Man].“ he said and then he casted his spell.

As his spell completed, I was surprised. Looking at teacher, I could not help but wonder, what did go wrong with his spell. I could still see him clearly.

"Did the spell fail, teacher?“ I asked.

"Of course not! Can't you see? It's one hundred percent success.“

"But only thing that changed is that you are now dressed in servant clothings.“ I protested.

"And that is exactly the point. I am not. I still have same clothes I had few seconds ago, it only looks like I have servant clothes. After all no one notices servants, right?“

"Is that all?“ I stated with voice filled with disappointment.

"No, there is one more thing.“

"What is it?“ I said with high expectations again.

"Look at my hair.“ he said while pointing at his own head.

"They... are black?“ I asked after second. I could not notice any difference.

"Exactly. I changed their color from onyx to ordinary black. Now, no one can recognize me!“ he stated proudly.

After we left the school, to my surprise, there was really no one who called him out on his terrible masking. I however was suspicious that it was not because of his spell but because of his face not being well known. He was really good at pretending to be servant helping young master to select low tier storage ring, low tier mana recovery ring and cheap magical wand in magical items store..

"What are magical wands for anyways?“ I asked, while no one was listening to us.

"It slightly increases power of your magic similar way soul power does. Truth is I am not sure if it will work with your condition, so I bought one of cheaper ones.“

Even though it was one of cheapest magical wand in store, it still costs five gold coins which was same as mana recovery ring and gold costier than storage ring.

After that, he brought me to slightly secluded area, where he had me test it. According to him, it worked and it was similar to me having soul power of between twenty and thirty. How he managed to measure that without crystal, I had no clue, but I decided to believe him.

Then we had lunch from food-stand in market, and bit later we found another store with magical equipment, where we sold magic wand we just bought for two golds and bought really costy one for forty six gold coins.

At that point, i was sweating bullets, since this wand was worth much more than all people from village who wanted me to study were able to gather.

"Teacher, you should not waste so much money on me.“ I said with low voice.

"Waste money? Boy, do you know who I am? I could build tower out of iridium coins for myself and still have enough spare to build gold doghouse for you next to it.“

I did not ask why he would build doghouse for me, ever since I had seen his masking spell, I was thinking he was completely crazy. Of course, I have not noticed that if I asked anyone who had seen face of Wizard of South before, if this servant here looks like him, he would give me confused look, since that brown haired ugly servant next to me looked nothing like legendary Wizard of South.

What can I say? Teacher was just kind of person loved pulling tricks on people and I was very funny target for him, unlike his disciple, who mostly avoided or at least did his best to ignore them, never showing any emotional reaction.

"Do not worry about money boy. I don't care one bit. I would pay for your tuition as well in branch of generous, but I wanted you to have some ally in this city. After all, in few weeks I will be leaving, and then you are on your own. Well, not completely on your own anymore, since lady Sable said she would support you.“

As sunset covered city in red color, I smiled.

"Lets return to school, I want you to try your combat spells now that you have all equipment necessary.“ said teacher, seeing my smile.

After we entered to school area, I tried using spells with help of magical wand and this time, even I could easily tell they were stronger than usually.

"This one has effect similar to one hundred and twenty soul power. I can see it is well made and will last for years, so I think it is money well spend. After all, for you this is not small effect. If someone with soul power of few thousands received such wand, he would probably not even notice difference. To compensate for your lack of soul power, you will certainly need powerful magical wands in future.“ he said.

We returned back to guest house, but to our surprise, someone was already waiting for us. Sitting by table, drinking cup of tea elegantly, with bewitching smile she welcomed our arrival.

"I thought I could maybe visit you two in afternoon, but it seems like you did not bother to leave any note in case someone came.“

Since he had still his [Invisible Man] spell active, teacher wanted to back out of it. "Who might you be talking talking to? I was instructed by sir Wizard of South to bring boy here, and he ordered me to return back to him right after I do so. So now, if you excuse me...“ he said with old sounding voice very different from his usual voice.

"Don't think you can trick me with this spell Alaric. You had used it to sneak into house of my family on many occasions in past, don't you think I would be able to remember it and recognize you easily?“

I was genuinely confused why would she fail to recognize him if she did not know about spell, but that was of little importance.

"Listen carefully. Admission day was two days ago and school will be starting in four days of time. I would like Aiken to start school together with other children, even though I heard from headmaster your original arrangement was different.“ she said.

"But I still need to study his condition. Also, I promised I would teach him.“ protested teacher Alaric.

"I however think it would be better for everyone if you just let him study with his peers. He has already learned lot from you and but he is still only tier six magician. Waiting for few years before he reaches tier eight or nine would be much more effective if you really want to teach him. I also heard there is certain person in the city who asked who really wanted you to pay her visit. Maybe you should take chance before she decides waiting for you is not really worth it.“

Hearing her, teacher instantly had change of heart.

"Alright Aiken, it seems like it will be better if we finish everything in next four days. After all you are still only tier six magician, so it will be better if I teach you after you grow bit more. I will prepare some tier seven spellbooks for when you manage to break through tier seven and give them to you in advance.“ he said to me and then he turned to lady Sable.

"Problem is, what will we do about soul power measurements? It would not be nice to have other people notice he has no soul power. While most would not think anything about it, some could decide that it was too interesting to just ignore it. I still did not come with good solution for this.“ he continued, now with disappointment in his voice.

While I was certainly sad that teacher accepted it too easily, after he bought so many things for me and even helped me enter better branch of school, branch of generous, I knew I was already indebted to him. I did not want to be bother for him anymore. So I decided to be honest and show them idea that was on my mind ever since I learned how to move my spirit.

"Teacher, I have an idea. Could I borrow azure crystal for soul measuring?“ I asked.

"I don't know what do you plan to do, but here you go.“ he said, as he took azure crystal from his storage ring.

I held crystal and started moving my spirit. On crystal, for few seconds, number three appeared, before it turned back to zero as I stopped moving my spirit. Disbelief in eyes of both adults made me smile. I realised, that it was not moving spirit towards crystal, but rather moving it at all that made number change. Instead of moving spirit, I started to stretch it and contract it same way like during spirit training. Without proper meditation position, it was much harder to do, but I managed somehow.

Once again number changed and after two seconds, it stabilized on number twelve. It was not much, but I was confident I could do it for whole duration of examination.

"How did you fool the crystal? It should be impossible to fool it!“ asked teacher, who was so surprised his eyes were about to pop up.

"I used spirit training while holding crystal.“ I answered.

"How did you know it would work?“ he asked again.

"I did something similar back in village, where I managed to make it show one instead of zero for about second. Ever since I learned spirit expansion technique from you, teacher, I realised that was how did I manage to do it back then.“

Teachers eyes shined with understanding.

"I see. To emulate soul using movement of spirit, I did not ever thought about it. Aiken, could you use some spell while training your spirit? I want to test if it just fools soul crystal, or if it also improves power of your spells.“ he asked with expression of excitement and delight.

"Teacher, it is almost impossible for me to talk while focusing on moving my spirit, much less cast spells.“ I answered, causing his excitement to lower bit.

"Anyways, it is unbelievable. I cannot make this experiment, because change in power of spell would be impossible to see, but for you, it should be easy to realize difference in power. So Aiken, until next year, you must promise me that you will work hard, so that you will show me spell casted while you use spirit expanding technique at same time.“

At this moment teacher realized he had been wrong all along. When he took interest in my zero soul power, he believed it would be key to improve his understanding of soul. Now he realised it was opposite. With my help, he could probably improve his understanding of spirit by a lot.

"I understand, teacher. I promise I will try my best.“ I said with determination. Even though most of respect I had for Wizard of South has been overshadowed by his terrible personality, I was still indebted to this man.

"I didn't understand anything you two just said. Could you explain to me how did he fool crystal, Alaric?“ said lady Sable to remind us of her existence.

After that, for next four days, I was mostly focusing on training my spirit. Over first three days, my spirit capacity only managed to raise by twenty four, first day by nine, second by eight, and third by seven, but on final day in afternoon, after I measured my spirit capacity, I noticed it has risen to eight hundred and one which was leap by forty three.

As teacher looked at crystal, he laughed.

"Congratulation. As far as I know, you are first kid to ever unlock tier seven magic before starting their school education.“

"Teacher, you will be leaving today, right?“

"Yes, I will. And this evening, you will also be moving to dormitory of branch of generous. But before we say goodbyes, I have few gifts for you.“ he said. Then he placed storage ring he previously bought for me on table on table.

"I know you have clothing from your village, but that is not suitable for student of house of generous. In this ring, there are few better pieces. Lady Sable helped me pick them out yesterday. Together with clothes there are also soul and spirit measuring crystals so you can measure your improvement and about twenty tier seven spell books. You better learn all those spells before you even think about advancing to tier eight, understood?“

I nodded my head.

Then, he gave me few pages of paper.

"Truth is [Mystical Spirit Expanding Technique] actually has five levels. Since you have already learned first level, this is manual for how to train second level of this technique. You are not to give this away to anyone and right after you learn it, please destroy it.“

"Yes teacher.“

"Finally, since I know that lady Sable is cheapskate and will probably give you only two or three silver pieces week, here, this should suffice for next year as you pocket money.“ he said as he gave me leather pouch.

Inside, there were what i though to be eight silver coins. But in reality, they were rare iridium coins, and each had value of ten gold coins.

And then we said our goodbyes.

I might be able to sneak in one more chapter today. But then I will have to go on quest to hunt some exams, so I might not be able to post things until friday.