Night arrived and everyone inside the carriage felt the caravan stopping. When Anton and the others went outside, they saw that a lot of people were preparing food and a lot of them were also preparing a section in the camp where they would do their toilet business and another section for baths.
Anton went to where his father was followed by Frederick and Colin while Anna and her maids roamed the caravan.
“Father, where are we getting our water?”
“We are carrying water but we stopped at a nearby stream so you don’t have to worry about providing water. Of course, during emergencies, we will look for you to provide water for everyone but right now, water is plentiful.”
When the section for taking a bath was ready, Anton went and checked it out. There were bathtubs already prepared and most of them were filled with water already. Anton was impressed at how extravagant the entire caravan was. An attendant led him to a separate section surrounded by a tent and the man said to him that the bathtub inside was exclusive for him. Anton nodded at the man and checked the bathtub.
He filled the tub with water from the Frozen Orb spell and heated it using the controlled mana of Fire Ball. When everything was ready, Anton took off his clothes and sank his body into the hot water. It’s so nice to be rich with so many attendants doing what he considered tedious work.
After taking a bath, Anton was informed by one of the servants that dinner was ready so he went to where his father was camping and saw that Anna and his maid and Lucas and his family were there waiting sitting on chairs with the food laid down on a table. Colin and Frederick were also there. Anton guessed that there was no more rough camping since the caravan was huge and it was carrying a lot of things.
“This is nice!” Anton commented.
“That’s what I said! No more eating seated on a log,” Anna said.
“I don’t even need to conjure our Fire Ball lights since the whole caravan is very bright. There are so many lamps! These must have cost you a fortune, Father!” Anton said and Anders just smiled.
“That’s why we still need to gather items from the villages that we will pass through that you can repair so we can fill our caravan with items that we can sell.”
Anton nodded and they started eating. The food was cooked by a chef that Nemina hired and she commented that the chef and his assistants cost them a huge amount of coin.
“Are our coins still okay, Father?” Anton whispered.
Anders laughed and told his son an important thing.
“You don’t need to worry about our coins son. All the things that we purchased and all the people we hired will not even reach thirty percent of the coins we had collected. We’re also not going to be idle and as I’ve said we’ll collect more items from the villages. Remember that the items were dirt cheap when we bought them and we’re selling them for a thousand times or more of what they cost us.”
“I’m glad. It’s nice being rich,” Anton commented and Anders laughed again.
Anna and Lunelle were discussing the first book of the Belgariad series while the maid twins and Frederick were listening.
“By the way, a lot of people told me that you hired a very talented bard since they heard someone singing from the inside of your carriage,” Nemina suddenly said.
When Anna heard what Nemina said she began laughing.
“It’s Anton who was singing!”
“I knew it was him. I heard him sing before, remember,” Nemina said.
“Can you sing us a song after dinner, son?” Anders requested and Anton just nodded.
When dinner was done, the servants cleaned up the table and Anton summoned his lute. He played some scales first to warm up his fingers and thought that their caravan was nice. The lights from the lamps were warm and everyone had cheerful smiles on their faces. It was noisy as well with people comfortable talking to each other loudly. Their table was not the only campsite. There were also other campsites surrounding the entire caravan so there was a festive feeling in the air. The only thing that was lacking was music and it so happened that although Anders and Nemina hired a lot of people, none of them were musically inclined.
Anton thought that it was a pity since a caravan like theirs should be surrounded by music as well.
When he was ready, Anton played the opening phrase of the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believing,” he planned to play a lot of songs tonight to celebrate their first night as a huge merchant caravan so he activated his Vigor Aura.
Anton began belting the song and the whole camp suddenly stopped and listened. Most of them excluding the guard assigned to patrol gathered to watch and listen to the boss’s son sing and Anton was surprised at himself for being able to perform in front of a huge crowd. He had never performed in front of a crowd before when he was still on Earth so he didn’t know if he had any stage fright or something like that but since he was able to perform without any issues, he guessed that he never had something like that.
After performing the first song, his audience clapped vigorously and after a while, Anton started his next song which was the song Faithfully by Journey. He then went and sang some other Journey songs going through Journey’s greatest hit album. He only stopped after the tenth song.
When he stored the lute in his inventory, everyone knew that the performance that night was over.
“Son, your voice is truly beautiful,” Anders said while the others nodded agreeing fully with Anton’s father.
“Thanks, Father but this will probably be the last performance that I will do for a long time. I will need to go back to my meditations and tomorrow, the mage will begin teaching me and Anna basic wizardry.”
“I understand. Do we need to hire some sort of Minstrel for our entertainment or something?” Anders asked Nemina and she told Anton’s father that they would need to talk about it first.
“When are we going to reach the next village?” Anton asked.
“We’ll reach the next village three days from now,” Lucas answered.
“Brother, can you write the fourth book of the Belgariad series? I’m almost done with the second book,” Anna told Anton.
“You’re just on the second book and you want me to write the fourth book already?!”
“I just want to make sure that it’s ready.”
Anton then told his sister that once he had the time, he would start writing the fourth book and Anna informed him that the notebooks were ready inside their carriage.
“What do you mean when you said you will need to meditate?” Frederick asked Anton.
“That’s how I increase my power, through a meditation technique that was inside my bloodline,” Anton bullshitted again.
“You’re magic is really different. A regular wizard would only increase his power by memorizing and casting spells.”
Anton then thought that he would need to ask the mage how it worked. So, during their lessons the next day, he planned to ask several questions regarding how a typical wizard increased their level and capabilities.