As Aric continued drawing on his consciousness, there were no sudden or random movements from the two balls of light. He thought that making any kind of movement here might interfere with the balls of light. He was hungry for power, but he had his priorities straight.
Those balls of light were his access to two different worlds, and in no way was he ready to negotiate any kind of deal on this. Thankfully, there were no red flags on the balls and he continued with his drawing.
After the circle came the straight lines and curves inside. Drawing the circle was kind of easy and even the straight lines inside, but the curves required his total attention. Aric didn’t find any problem in the beginning, but once the curve drawing came into play...
Aric didn’t like the power system in the world at all and hoped in the beginning that it would be like any other fantasy novel. But reality was different, and maybe the schools had different ways to implement these models.
While drawing the curves, his concentration suddenly broke off and all the progress he had made starting from the circle vanished like dust. This took Aric by storm. He was sure that he had remembered the drawing well and even drew it multiple times on paper. He actually thought that drawing these on paper might produce some kind of reaction.
But there was none, which made him a bit disappointed.
So after multiple drawings and making sure he remembered every nook and corner to the tee, he started the drawings in his consciousness. He thought the whole process would be a walk in the park, and honestly speaking, he looked down on these ’aboriginals’ from the magical world.
Subconsciously, he put the interstellar world in a higher place since the people in power there could even annihilate galaxies, and the magical world, though powerful, never heard of any such stories. The education level was quite low, and people were struggling to make a better life for themselves. Thus, when he heard that people struggled to draw these runic circles and diagrams, he thought it was because of low knowledge.
But he got smacked in the face with reality.
Of course, Aric wasn’t ready to give up with just one failure. He went to work again and started the same way. And this time too, he suffered. The curves didn’t come right, and he lost his concentration.
"I don’t believe I won’t get it right by tonight," Aric declared as he continued in his struggle to draw a simple yet intricate drawing. But being stubborn wasn’t a solution as he couldn’t do it even when the clock struck 12 am.
And by this time, he was tired. He didn’t notice it before, but constant tries had made his body weak, and he felt a splitting headache attacking him. He tried to continue beyond 1 am, but the headache assaulted him like crazy.
In the end, Aric had to sleep because ’his belief’ couldn’t keep up with reality. When Aric woke up the next day, the sun was overhead and his grandparents had already packed by then. Aric felt like he had a bad hangover from the previous night.
In fact, it took him a minute to grasp what was going on and he had to drink a lot of water. He was probably running low on glucose and needed to eat snacks.
"Aric, are you alright? I tried waking you up earlier but you seemed to be dead," Grandfather said.
"Why are you taking the word ’dead’ on your mouth? Don’t you know it’s bad?" The grandmother was agitated and gave her husband an earful.
"I am fine, Grandpa. Just was a bit tired," Aric lied straight to their faces. It was one of those times where both parties knew he was lying, but the other party didn’t want to bother him since it was evident he didn’t want to be bothered at the moment. Thankfully, the grandparents were understanding and left him alone.
Aric, even though he felt like he was in a hungover mode, packed his stuff and left after saying goodbye and promising to come more often, at least once before the vacations were over. After leaving, he didn’t bother to go on a whole journey and just decided to use his abilities and reach his home.
He knew it would take some time for him to reach his home, so it was better he took a detour in Echorysia. After arriving in Echorysia, he asked Apis if his health was fine, to which he got a positive affirmation.
Though the communicator was not a foolproof indication of his health, it was able to tell if his body needed immediate attention. He also wanted some fresh air, and thus decided to go to a nearby cafe and just destress himself.
He ordered a coffee filled with enough calories. Though he wasn’t sure if he had lost calories or if it was just his brain refusing to help, a dose of coffee wouldn’t harm him in any way. After sitting alone and seeing the world pass by at a speed never known to him previously, he felt peace and safety for some reason.
He knew that this place wasn’t as safe as other empires, but for some reason, everything seemed to be in order. Maybe because he was in the rich part of the city, and if he went to the shady part, maybe he would see something he wouldn’t like.
But why would he? He was safe and happy here, and he couldn’t work as some kind of saint, even if he could help the poor and needy. He wouldn’t be able to help anyways. Having abilities didn’t mean he would work himself to the bone for the needy. He would only do what he could.
He spent an hour or so at the open cafe and then decided to go home. He appeared again at a place where he knew nobody would be present and walked to his home.