Beneath Hyacinth

8𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥

Soleil

"SHI-WHOA..!", I yelled, feeling the agonizing temperature of the boiled water cling against my skin. I've been standing on this god damn pole for more than an hour, balancing porcelain pots on each of my outstretched hands. Even maintaining my balance has already been way too difficult on this tiny pole, yet Cali made me hold these pots, so I couldn't avoid occasionally spilling its contents whenever I lost my focus which made the pole grow thinner. He said it would help me develop my concentration.

I began internally praying that my fall into the lake wouldn't be that painful once my body gives out. The height from up here was frightening after all, if I hadn't gotten used to heights through climbing trees before, maybe I would've already fainted before this torture had even started.

I heard him sigh below me, "At this rate, it would take you centuries before you could climb up to my level..", I was about to banter but I lost my balance, my voice filled the surroundings as I fell down the waters.hard. Thank god the pots didn't hit any part of my body; they surely would've left a bruise if they did, seeing how thick they were.

I swam back to the surface and gasped sharply for air. I glared daggers at him as I made my way out of the body of water. "I doubt that..I bet I'd die before I could even reach your level.." I mean, which normal person could survive this..this kind of torture?!

You're not a normal person, dimwit..., I could clearly hear myself backfire at my stupidity.

I get it. Being a conceiver isn't considered normal, but the least Cali could do is make me suffer less which I hope he would. But I don't think he will. Heaving out a sigh, I squeezed the water out of my clothes. I've learned a lot of skills from Cali including combat and magic weilding which were quite  easy from the beginning, if I might say.

Perhaps it was because of the training that I've gone through under the druids. If only...if only then that they would've taught me I wouldn't have suffered sooner?? I should just face the reality that I need to suffer..er work hard so I would grow stronger and be able to protect Adan, Zieon..and everyone else.

"You should hurry up if you don't want to catch a cold, it's almost dusk.", Cali said, walking away from me. I picked up my bag from the ground and followed in suit. 3 days have passed and I couldn't wait any longer to go back to Mereille. We took the longer path this time, in order to stall our pursuers and hopefully confuse them. The first 2 days were fun and beneficial in my case. We would search for anything edible in the forests just so we could eat, it turned out that Cali was the same as me - we didn't like the idea of eating meat, although we needed it, so we would fish as an alternative.

There were also times when we had to create something out of the resources around us, so my handicraft skills came in handy...it was nice creating makeshift objects, it reminds me when thing would go wrong whenever the children train and random objects would end up being wrecked.

It was too much of a hassle to go to a nearby village to get them fixed, so I would either fix them or make another one of them. Adan taught me how to do them. He was surprisingly good at it too.

I smiled at the memory, I hope he's doing alright.

"Oh- mister, thank goodness both of you are back." A boy who was wearing an attendant's attire came first into our view as we entered the inn. In his hands were 3 massive boxes which seemed too heavy for his body to carry. We came to this place yesterday night, and I couldn't be more thankful finally arriving at a place where we could sleep and eat more comfortable. Of course, there are also things that we should keep our guard up for; we changed our identities and also did a few changes in our appearance and voices using magic.