Family...
When she heard this familiar yet unfamiliar word, Mary felt a little dazed for a moment.
It wasn’t until a few seconds later that she slowly remembered that she had indeed told her instructor her decision a few days ago—she wanted to see her family.
The young female mage pursed her lips and looked at her mentor with some hesitation: "They are..."
"In the living room upstairs," Daniel said with a yellowed face. Eyes fixed on Mary, "You'd better freshen up before going up - especially your hair."
"Okay...ok."
Mary agreed hurriedly, Then she left the basement where the immersion chamber was housed with some confusion. She returned to the first floor, entered the public washroom, reached out and opened the water valve, and watched the clear water supplied by the magic water pump flowing out of the metal pipe. The sound of water gradually calmed her down.
Her family.
She can no longer remember what it was like when she left that home... an ignorant little girl who went to the mountains to "adventure" with the older children, and got separated from her friends after nightfall. She accidentally stepped into the magician's ancient tower, which changed her life. She cut off contact with her family. Now more than ten years have passed, and her childhood memories have long been blurred and weathered. The only thing she can still remember is the relationship with her family. The only impressions of "home" are a low, drafty old house, a dim lantern hanging at the door, and those bedtime stories used to scare children.
Unfortunately, a lot of those scary bedtime stories - about dark wizards, about castles, about mountain monsters and magical servants - came after her. It has become a reality one by one in more than ten years of life.
The water flowed loudly. Mary picked up the cold water and slapped it on her face.
She could no longer remember what her parents looked like, but she still wanted to see them.
Leaving the bathroom, the young female mage gradually calmed down. She saw that her mentor was already standing in the corridor, looking at her expressionlessly. She saw herself appear, wearing a black robe. The old mage just nodded and walked towards the living room in silence.
Mary followed closely behind.
They came to the door of the living room, and a servant immediately stepped forward and opened the door of the living room for the master.
Mary saw the scene in the living room.
The fireplace is burning quietly on one side of the living room. The red light of the fire shines on the nearby copper shelves. A dark red couch is placed in the center of the living room. A pair of dirty clothes An old couple wearing gray cloth coats, with gray hair and wrinkled faces were sitting on the sofa.
They sat very carefully, with most of their bodies outside the sofa, as if they were afraid of soiling the luxurious furnishings here.
——It seems that the tutor only brought her parents, but not her sister.
On the sofaThe old couple also saw the person appearing at the door. They stood up almost instantly and showed awe and flattering smiles to Daniel. Then they saw Mary standing behind Daniel. At this moment, they were separated by more than ten people. Nian's family finally met.
Mary looked at the old couple steadily, watching their cloudy eyes move, their eyes falling on her robe, watching them slowly reveal expressions of humility and awe, watching them Bend down slowly.
This series of actions is like a conditioned reflex.
"Dear Master Mage." She heard the couple call her this way.
Mary was a little at a loss. She heard Daniel speak next to her with a cold tone: "This is your daughter, no need to bow."
The old couple straightened up. She glanced at Mary with a hint of surprise, but there was still obvious tension in the surprise. Mary didn't know what she was feeling at this moment. Her lips wriggled several times before she finally squeezed out a voice from the gap between her lips: "Father , mother..."
She uses a very standard, citizen-like pronunciation, and the words are also more solemn and upper-class titles - because no matter how her life has been in the past ten years, her The tutor was always a high-level mage from the imperial capital with outstanding knowledge and education. Under the tutor, she did not learn any other way of speaking.
The rural habits she was exposed to in her childhood have long been blurred in her mind.
The old couple seemed stunned for a moment after hearing what Mary called them, and then they nodded solemnly and repeated dryly: "Okay, okay, that's great..."
After everyone sat down on a few sofas, the living room quickly became awkwardly quiet.
Mary thought hard about what she should say to lighten the atmosphere, and it took her a long time to formulate a complete sentence: "Is everything okay at home?"
"Okay, okay... ...The food is enough," the hunched man nodded repeatedly, "How about you? Is the food enough?"
"...I have enough food and clothing," Mary said awkwardly, "You guys? Are you still living in the country now?"
"Where else can we go?" said the wrinkled old woman, "The houses and land are over there, as well as the livestock."
"How did you get here?"
"The mage sent someone to pick us up." The old woman glanced at Daniel cautiously, "The carriage we are riding in is very big. "The carriage."
Then she looked at Mary's robe, and couldn't help but have a hint of awe in her eyes - as if this awe had been deeply imprinted in her bones, so that as long as Seeing similar things, even if she knew that the person in front of her was her blood relative, she would involuntarily become nervous: "You are a mage now..."
"Yes, I am about to be promoted. It’s the middle level..." Mary said, but she wasn’t sure whether the old couple in front of her could understand what the middle level was.mean.
"Okay, you...you are promising," the hunched-backed man nodded again, with a flattering smile, glanced at Daniel next to him, and then withdrew his gaze, "You were taken away by Master Mage. This is your luck. Your sister and your brother are not as lucky as you..."
Lucky... Mary suddenly felt that she didn't know how to face this word. .
The topics that could be used for conversation seemed to end quickly, or in other words, the topics did not exist from the beginning.
Mary felt more and more uncomfortable, and she believed that the old couple in front of her felt the same.
They are strangers, related by blood, but thousands of miles apart. They sit in a seemingly very close place, trying hard to talk about topics that both parties can feel harmonious about, but they can’t even pretend to be. Can't pretend.
Shortly after the second awkward moment began, the old woman began to look at the door frequently, and her husband became more and more embarrassed - they did not know how to hide their emotions appropriately. Emotions, Mary can see through their thoughts and feelings at a glance.
After sitting in this "luxurious" place for such a long time, this old couple from the countryside was already restless. They did not feel any joy from Mary at all about being reunited with their daughter. They just They came here because of the order of a mage master. Every minute they spent here was a kind of torture.
They occasionally glanced at Daniel secretly, and there was even a hint of pleading in their eyes.
Mary stood up on her own initiative.
"That's it," she whispered, "I... still have some magic experiments to do."
"Oh, oh, okay," the old woman said tightly. Then he stood up, "Then...then you go do your thing."
"How many days do you want to stay here?"
"No, no, "The old woman waved her hands hurriedly, "The animals at home still need to be taken care of, and we are worried if we leave them to others for too long."
Mary didn't say anything more, just nodded lightly, and then seemed to. Escape generally and leave the room.
It wasn't until she hid in a nearby side hall that she realized that she had recklessly left behind her mentor - and if this was done a year ago, she would probably have incurred a terrible punishment.
Just when Mary realized she had made a mistake, the door to the side hall suddenly opened and Daniel stepped in.
The old mage in black robe just glanced at Mary quietly and said casually: "I arranged for them to rest elsewhere for a day and will send them back tomorrow."
"You If you don’t want to see them again, you don’t have to see them again during this period.
"After that, I will send someone to take care of their lives."
Mary lowered her head and whispered: "...Thank you."
" No need."
"Tutor, am I... bad?" Mary raised her head boldly and looked at her tutor., "They are my parents..."
Daniel interrupted her calmly: "They didn't want to come at first, until the apprentice I sent showed the identity of the mage and gave them a They are willing to come and meet you because of the payment."
Mary was a little confused: "The payment..."
"This is no one's fault," Daniel said calmly.
"Mentor, have you foreseen this situation a long time ago?"
"Yes," Daniel said without any change in expression, "But this is your own choice. You have to face the situation, so I didn't intervene."
Mary bit her lip, then lowered her head and looked at the robe on her body and the mark near the collar of the robe that represented the mage level. Silver badge.
It is not only the separation of more than ten years that creates barriers.
"Teacher, is the gap between extraordinary beings and ordinary people really that big?"
"In most places, it is like this."
< p>Mary lowered her head and didn't speak again for a long time.Daniel turned and left the room without disturbing his apprentice again.
He still has tasks assigned by his master to do.
......
Alder South, in the dark alley of the East District, a man with a messy beard, deep eye sockets and an ordinary appearance was staggering through the street.
The man exuded a strong smell of alcohol and was holding a cloth bag with food in his hand. His hair seemed to have not been taken care of for a long time, and his clothes were as shabby as most in this neighborhood. People's living standards are average.
The winter sky always darkens early, and the dim skylight has enveloped Aldernan. The sparse magic crystal street lamps light up from far to near, illuminating the old and dilapidated streets of the East District. . There are few pedestrians on the road, and those who go to work in the factory have not yet returned home. Occasionally, people appear on the roadside. If they are not homeless people who look suspicious, they are mostly low-level prostitutes wearing heavy makeup who have just arrived on the street.
The drunken man was walking on the street. Suddenly, an inexplicable palpitation came to his heart, making the man wearing a shabby coat stop.
He seemed to be holding on to the wall next to him because he was drunk and uncomfortable, but his right hand was quietly placed on his waist, quietly holding a gold spike in his hand.
There is a shimmer of magic flowing on the surface of the spikes.
A homeless man with a slovenly beard walked past him. When the two of them passed each other, the homeless man suddenly turned his head and looked over.
In the eyes of the drunken man, the image of the tramp suddenly twisted and squirmed, turning into a figure wearing a black robe with his face hidden in the shadows.
A voice came into his ears: "Meet at No. 14 Black Iron Lane."
The drunkenness in the man's eyes had completely disappeared, and he calmly put away the golden tip. Stinging, feeling another will beating quietly in the brain, aWhile changing direction, he whispered: "Yes, Bishop."
The man turned and left the street, and on the road he walked, there was never any slovenly homeless man. Han, as if it was just an illusion from beginning to end.
......
A dazzling light cut through the darkness, illuminating a plain shrouded in clouds. The plain was barren and dry, and the desolate building ruins and plant remains were buried by the wind and sand. The endless wind blows across the entire world, and between this ruined world, countless shadowy figures are trekking on the plains.
Their expressions were numb and their eyes were blank, as if this journey had no purpose or end.
And in the far distance of the plain, at the end of the light, stands a splendid city. The city hall is towering and resplendent, like the perfect city in myths and legends.
In the high sky covered with dark clouds, two figures suddenly appeared.
One figure was wearing a long white dress and holding an illusive lantern in his hand, while the other figure was tall, thin and elegant, with black hair and a gentle monocle.
"Archbishop Selina," the elegant man wearing a monocle said to the woman holding a lamp beside him, with a hint of respect in his tone, "This area is the largest overflow projection discovered so far, and it is also the largest overflow projection currently found. The only overflow projection that has been discovered so far is completely separated from the dream city and is generated in the 'imaginary number area'."
"This place looks like a ruin, a ruin that has existed for countless years. Selina Gerfen frowned, "All the previous overflow projections showed normal running cities or villages, and our retarder also successfully controlled the time flow rate of Sandbox No. 1 to be synchronized with the real world. To the extent that, theoretically, such an area that has been abandoned for so long should not appear in the sandbox... Archbishop Yuri, what do you think?"
"Perhaps, the historical process in the sandbox No. 1 It has been separated, and time is no longer distributed linearly," Archbishop Yuri said thoughtfully. "Perhaps the world inside it has expanded to an extremely large scale, so that some areas are functioning normally, and some areas have actually been abandoned for hundreds of years. Thousands of years."
"...Unfortunately, this is just an overflow projection, and all the interference we do here cannot affect the operation of Sandbox No. 1."
Selena· Gerfen said softly. She stared at the plain shrouded in darkness below, and then she was silent for a moment, gently swinging the lantern in her hand.
The entire overflow projection dissipated silently amidst the shaking of the lantern, returning to the basic black and white grid lines and the gray fog that shrouded the sky.
"Summon that Daniel next week," Selina said to the elegant man next to her. "I want to talk to him personally."
"So soon?" You Archbishop Li couldn't help but be a little surprised.
"Yes, faster than expected - because Daniel seems to have noticed some problems and is conducting some investigations privately.Just in time, we can talk to him. ”
(OMG!!!)