The punishment

After the Head's words, all hopes of bloody retribution were shattered. Cal was discouraged by Liam's decision. How could it be that he, too, was being punished? Hadn't the Head seen what had happened, that he was the victim? And what kind of punishment is this "farm work"?

He rose from the floor and faced Grady's hate-filled gaze. His face said, "you're dead." Cal shrugged his shoulders and examined his hopelessly soiled clothes. In the meantime, one of the Mentors came up and demanded the crystals back.

Grady fiercely ripped the glass off himself and handed it to the Mentor. Cal was beginning to realize that his business had fallen drastically, but it was too late to change anything. His crystal was in the Mentor's possession as well. Too bad.

Mentor announced that the punishment would begin at three o'clock and ordered them to report to the first platform no later than that time. The hall was still silent, and the apprentices watched this fascinating drama with both interest and fear, speculating as to how the relationship between Grady and the new apprentice would play out next.

Cal went to his room and locked himself in there to think it over. After a while, someone knocked: Liam stomped outside the door. Cal let him in with feigned restraint and remained standing, though Liam sat down.

This made him feel even more awkward and guilty. Rubbing his sleeve, he turned his head and looked reproachfully at his student.

"..."

Cal felt resentment, but looking at the Head tormenting himself with accusations began to thaw.

"Head, I will humbly accept my punishment and begin packing for a timely departure at once," Cal pronounced, hurting Liam with every word.

His officiousness made Liam's teeth naturally ache. He grimaced and loosened the collar of his shirt as if he didn't have enough air.

Then he stood up and, putting a hand on Cal's shoulder, said:

"I heard you provoking Grady, the whole Academy heard it. Your punishment was inevitable. Conflict in the Academy is unacceptable!"

"I heard you too, Head," Cal said, looking past Liam, and removed his arm from his shoulder.

A new wave of anger was boiling up inside him. Seeing that Cal was already losing his temper, Liam decided to postpone the explanation until a more appropriate moment.

He paused and left the room. Cal sat down at the table and clenched his fists.

"Fool! Are you happy now?!" He turned all his anger on himself and looked longingly at the door Liam had left open.

At exactly three o'clock the two students met on the first platform in the lousiest of moods. The Elder who accompanied them could have sworn that the dark aura of hatred between them could have fried a couple of eggs or boiled a kettle. Without looking at him, they burned each other's eyes.

The sun was monstrously scorching today, and the Elder hurried to get the students to the farm to hide in the shade.

Grabbing the two students by the wrists, he realized he could not touch the crystal. No one noticed the embarrassment, though, and he reversed the formation and moved the students to the Sixth Elder's farm.

At a glance, a lot about him became clear. The scowling old man hated people and adored his animals.

That was why his groomed pigs could give some of the students a head start in beauty. Most of all he respected cleanliness and order.

Students who broke the rules were regularly sent to him to serve their sentences and were assigned to shovel manure and bathe pigs.

Grady had been to this farm in the past with enviable consistency. With a temper, he had often provoked fights and conflicts when he was a freshman.

As soon as he saw the old man in the canvas apron and high boots, he wanted to die on the spot. Clenching his fists, he met the inevitable without averting his gaze.

The old man recognized him at once:

"Look who has come!" - he said with surprise and mockery, "and who swore he would never set foot here again?" The elder laughed smugly, as only old men do, coughing hoarsely. The old man paid no attention to Cal.

He waved his hand, indicating that they should follow him, and walked toward the one-story barrack. Keeping at least three meters apart, Cal and Grady waddled along the dirt road. The air between them was still electrified.

Ahead of him, Grady was the first to enter the barracks, as it turned out, only to take the bed, which was only one.

The old man tossed the baggy mattress on a pile of hay in the corner and paused in anticipation. Cal had already realized that this trip was far from romantic, and he philosophically accepted his fate by tossing his travel sack on top. Grady smirked and turned to the window.

Cal decided not to marinate in the stuffy barracks and went out to look around. He was immediately caught by the pig lord and dragged after him.

～～～

"How could this have happened?" Cal asked himself, standing in the stinking hot slop almost knee-deep. Even the high boots didn't get rid of the feeling that this filth would never wash off.

"Liam, you'll owe me for life."

Nearby, the happy pigs frolicked in the meadow, never having to clean up their shit. While two respectable, or not so respectable, students were floundering in the manure pit, doing the damnedest things.

By the end of the day they were soaked in manure fumes, and even the most thorough bathing did not get rid of the nauseating smell.

Falling onto their beds without a word, the students fell asleep as soon as they became accustomed to their new smell.

Cal was beginning to understand the irony and insidiousness of such punishment. Even after his return, no one would be able to get within a few feet of him. The humiliating smell would remind everyone of his shame for some time to come.

"Damn!"

The next day, fortunately, there was no manure. The elder woke the students at dawn and sent them off to the hayride. Bouncing on the bumpy road in the empty cart, Cal thought to himself that the crystal had not been taken from him for nothing. He would have run away yesterday. But now, enjoying the scents of the herbs and the beautiful dawn sky, he was a little less angry.

When they arrived at the site, they split up. Cal went to the far end of the field, and, wielding his scythe deftly, he took out his angry feelings on the innocent grass. Leaving behind crooked stacks of grass, he moved forward.

Slowly sweat began to flood his eyes and his muscles ached treacherously. Cal stopped and looked over the mowed area. Somewhere in the distance, the old man and Grady were raking the grass in their field and even seemed to be having a nice conversation.

Cal waited until they had loaded a full wagon and left. Then he flopped down on the grass and let himself relax. As he watched the sprawling clouds float across the sky and breathed in the suffocating scent of the mowed grasses, he thought about his last days on earth.

He was ready to die, but death escaped him. Cal rolled over onto his stomach and, picking out a thin stalk, began gnawing at it out of boredom. And that grass before death smelled like it had never smelled before, like the last time. Wasn't that how he loved Liam?

"Liam!" Cal sat up and frowned.

"Hey! Hey!" came from the edge of the field.

The apprentice got up and went at the voice. It was the old man returning with a jug of steaming milk. Despite his stern character, he could be quite pleasant, as he was now. Breaking off a slice of freshly baked bread, Cal chugged it down with milk and was surprised to find that this simple meal was very good. As far as he could see, fields of crops stretched out.

Perhaps the grain used to make the flour for the bread was from here.

In the Aether, you could manipulate the creative energy (with the proper status) and get for free, anything, any item. But this thing didn't work with food.

The food obtained from the Aether energy was, unfortunately, tasteless. So it was decided to grow everything themselves.

That's how the famous Sixth Elder farm came into being. A whole staff of assistants worked for him because they had about a thousand hectares of land and over ten thousand livestock: chickens, goats, pigs, ducks, cows, rabbits, etc. The Sixth Elder was a fan of his work.

Fresh produce from the farm was delivered to the Academy's kitchen and then it went to the students' table. Gradually realizing the scale of the farm, Cal began to feel respect for his master but chose to hide it carefully.

He had no desire to remember the place or the man. Cal decided in advance that this chapter of his life would be kept secret and placed on his personal board of shame.

[Billionaire and world-renowned businessman Cal Xavier successfully cleaned the pigsty and mowed two carts of grass.]

"Ha! That's a success!"

The work continued until sundown. The grass was lifted onto the cleanly swept roofs to dry. This clean, almost sterile hay went to feed the goats. The elder said that these cranky animals refused to eat hay that fell under their feet or if a cat or dog was suddenly lying on it.

In the evening Cal was quite chilled and asked Grady why he had been so annoyed the day of their quarrel. He received an unexpected answer. It turned out that when he and Michal were left on the planet with the rift, he had been in trouble and he had been badly injured...

"It's all understandable," thought Cal, "but aren't he and Grady mortal enemies?"

When dawn came again, the old man was waiting outside, handing them each an ax and leading them to the birdhouse. Catching and slaughtering fifty chickens for the Academy was not a pleasant task.

In sweat and feathers, they chased the stupid birds for several hours. Once there were fifty of them, the old man told them to light a fire under a large cauldron. Dipping the chicken in the boiling water, the old man quickly and deftly cleaned the future broth of feathers.

Imitating the Elder, the students also set to work. The disgusting smell of the carcasses caused gagging, but no one showed their weakness.

"At least we didn't have to butcher them," thought Cal, and then, right in front of him, the Elder gutted the poor chicken.

Fortunately, he used it to make lunch for his slaves, but their appetites weren't great. After being in this hellish kitchen, they lost their enthusiasm to fight over the chicken leg.

When they were awakened on a new morning by the neighing of horses, Cal was delighted. Horses made him nostalgic and delighted. He and Grady had been herding cows all day. In addition to the fast and obedient horses, the old man also used dogs. Together they drove the cows from one pasture to another or led them to the watering hole.

The tension between the students was long gone, but awkwardness remained.

In the evening, tired and muddy, they arrived at the river and, jumped into the dark ripples of the water. Cal swam away somewhat, not wanting to be near the explosive Grady, and suddenly something swiftly wrapped itself around his leg and then his hips and dragged him to the bottom of the river. Cal panicked.

Slowly sinking deeper and deeper, he plunged into blackness. He could no longer grasp the water for support, the cold had frozen his mind, and his last thought was, "what a ridiculous death..."

Suddenly someone else's hand grabbed his wrist, and then someone put his arms around him and, with a jerk, began to climb upward toward the life-saving oxygen. The unknown man pulled him to shore almost unconscious. Pressing several times on his chest, the man forced Cal to cough up water.

He gasped for air convulsively with his mouth, experiencing painful spasms inside. When the tears stopped flowing and his breathing returned to normal, he could barely make out that the man who had saved him was lying unconscious nearby.

The thin, snow-white shirt clung to his body, reverently tracing beautiful, feminine curves.

Cal could not believe his eyes and crawled on all fours to the figure on the shore. The last rays of the passing day flashed and illuminated the two drenched men.

One was Cal, who had miraculously escaped death, and the other was the girl with Grady's face!