Chapter 43. Tutor

In a middle row of the Marshal Pit.

One could see the two seated together. One with green eyes and jet black hair and the lady with violet hair and eyes. Unless you got closer, you would not hear what they were talking about. It seemed that they had just sat down.

There was a slight silence at first but Aurora spoke first. Friends were supposed to spend time together, right?

"You never told me you knew about alchemy,'' she spoke calmly. Alaric was silent for a while and he laughed selfdepreciatingly.

"I have never taken any," he said with a mischievous smile.

"What about array alchemy? That branch surely should be invented," Aurora spoke. One could almost see her hurt expression.

"Who said that we are not inventing it?" Alaric spoke again the mischievous smile never leaving him.

"Then how did you know about the procedure? Its not even studied in the first year," Aurora said. The smile on him only made him more mysterious.

"Thats a secret you will learn about soon. Do not mistake me for hiding things from you," Alaric replied. Aurora feigned a hurt expression which caused Alaric to laugh lightly.

"You better or you will regret it in the future," Aurora said angrily. Well feigned anger.

"Its actually cute, you know... I never thought that girls would be this cute when angry, I think I should make you angry more frequently in order to see this side of yours" Alaric said.

He was slightly serious than the times he would say that she was beautiful to anger others. He actually thought that she was cute... Aurora was lost in thoughts. Something definitely had changed about him.

" Very brave of you to say so," Aurora said not sure what expression to display.

"There is something am worried about though," Alaric said and he was suddenly deep in thoughts.

"Is it about the mayors' sons? You deal with them pretty well," Aurora said and giggled.

"Those maggots could in the least be in my list of worries. What am worried about is you," Alaric was silent and so was Aurora.

What was he worried about? Whatever it was seemed to stress him.

"What do you mean?" She asked as he regained his composure.

"I mean, is there anyone after your life?" Alaric started but he regretted instantly after her silence. "Sorry to ask out of nowhere and overstepping,"

"We all have our secrets right?" Aurora spoke and ended the topic instantly. From her answer, he was right. This was to mean that she usually had people guarding her around. She was a princess to begin with.

"Forget about it, its a very calm moment to get ruined with irrelevant talks," Alaric said in a tone of dismissal. It was not only Alaric who had come to a conclusion. Aurora too had. He was trying to get closer in order to pry into her secrets. But why?

Her constitution enabled her to judge people and from his words, she sensed no malice. What were his intentions? She was going to keep close to him and figure his hidden motives. She was s going to play him in his own game.

Alaric could only curse at himself for ruining the moment. That was one dumb question and probably made her raise her guard. His progress had instantly crumbled to dust. He just stared at her and subconsciously took her hand engulfing it with his own.

She raised her eyes quicly and looked at him. But in his eyes, she saw no malice. Just purity. She questioned herself again and again but her conclusion was that he was worried about something. What had he overheard?

"You can count on me if anything happens," Alaric said and tightened his grip. And once again, she was touched by his words. He said so not expecting anything in return. He also had no hesitation in his voice when he spoke. She just nodded as he changed the topic.

"I got to the third stage," Alaric spoke and Aurora sighed. No words were going to express how she felt about him. Everytime he went to cultivate and took long, he would usually come back with a cultivation worth 4-6months for them.

She was currently in the process of filling her eighth meridian in hopes of entering the second stage while he was still there. Jealous was not the word. She would never even bring her mind to think of being jealous. Friends were there to encourage competition not create enmity.

Maybe she was happy deep down herself but she also felt it as a challenge. Looking up to someone like him was surely going to be a motivating factor. She discarded these thoughts and remembered they were still in a dialogue.

"I might as well stop competing with you. Rey already did. You know you never got to teach me how to form an inscription, you showed off your skill and disappeared," Aurora said giving that hurt expression once again.

"And here I am, all yours," Alaric said with hands wide open."I bet you are also close to making one," he continued.

" I think my array is not stong enough to power up the entire inscription," Aurora said.

"I can relate to that. But it usually is an easy task. Could you try creating an inscription?" Alaric asked and Aurora nodded. She then started by creating an array inside her mind.

By the time she completed joining the patterns, she was slightly exhausted. One could see her take a deep breath. The array required to power an inscription needed to be powerful. Overly powerful at that.

" Could you manifest it for me to see it?" Alaric asked. Aurora did so and a greenish blue array appeared infront of them. Alaric stared at the array for long. At times he could say it was beatiful and after scrutinizing it for a whole minute, he came to a conclusion.

" This array is already powerful enough to light up an inscription," Alaric said.

Aurora heaved and a proud smile appeared. From his scrutiny, she had expected him to destroy it with a tap of his finger like he usually did when teaching her. He would usually give her that look that asked 'you call this an array?'

"I can only know where your problem is of we create the inscription together," he said.

"Can you actually do that? Merge your mind with mine and investigate?" Aurora asked. Alaric chose his words well. He had already messed up once by trying to inquire. What if she thought that he was trying to get into her deep secrets.

"Not really," he said and Aurora nodded. " Its a new method that is not common to many. I discovered it recently. This method involves drawing the array with your hand. It might be easier this way," Alaric said and Aurora was dumbfounded. These methods of his, where was he getting them from?

"Is it even possible?" She asked.

"With me, nothing is impossible," Alaric said and his arrogance finally rose up. Aurora could only pout her lips. He was now giving that self appreciating talk.

"Well, follow my instructions," Alaric said and his tone shifted to serious from joking.

Alaric raised his hand and instantly drew the array infront of him.

"What I want you to do is to concentrate all your energy into the into the right hand. Then, using the process of creating one using the mind, draw the patterns and fill them with energy." Alaric spoke and after two tries, Aurora created her first array using the method.

He watched as her mood turned from exhausted to happy. One could not miss the snow white teeth that were closely packed.

"I did it!" She said happily as she drew more than three in an instant.

"Yep, you did it," Alaric said unimpressed. But his inside was brimming with joy. She had done it!

"Having learnt this method, I will make inscribing easy for you," Alaric said and raised his hand. He drew the esay parts of the inscription fast and reached the boundary. It usually took long but now it did not. It took around ten seconds before he crossed the barrier. By the time it was complete it was already disappearing and after he connected the last pattern, it disappeared.

Aurora watched wondering where the inscription had gone but she was surprised to see a shadow. She looked up and above her, spanning almost ten meters radius, an inscription appeared. An inscription was not supposed to be this large.

"Should I test it?" Alaric asked and without even getting an answer, he snapped his fingers and the center of the inscription lit up brightly. Drawing energy from the universe now, a silver lightning struck the center of the Marshal Pit. A few pebbles rose as he disbanded his inscription.

One should know how strong the floor of the stadium was. Battles usually took place here. Not many would even leave a crack on its floor. Aurora sucked in a cold breath. Just how strong was the inscription?

"Your turn," Alaric said to Aurora as he raised her hand.

He moved it in the patterns of forming an array. After the powering array was formed, he helped her create the first patterns of the inscription. By the time he reached the boundary, she was lost. Aurora had lost count of how many times she had failed before reaching this point.

By the way he was directing her, he was making it appear easy. Only an inscriber could understand this. Others may just assume that it was an easy task because he did it easily. Soon the boundary was crossed and he directed her to draw the final patterns of the inscription.

The inscription disappeared and appeared above the stadium. Though, its radius was 5 meters. It could still be called large.

"Creating them becomes easier when one learns the Split Mind Technique. I studied it during tha past seven weeks," Alaric said.

His voice did not carry any hidden message. He actually had mastered such a complex technique...

" The technique is helpful.in other ways. I think you should try it," Alaric said but Aurora just stared at him.

"You know just how expensive the technique is," she said with a self depreciating laugh.