Chapter 209: Gesture Casting, Wave After Wave
After dropping off the letter, the bright-eyed owl stood on the counter, waiting to be fed.
Salim took out some owl treats and fed the bird, then picked up the letter to open it. But remembering what happened last night, he glanced at the name on the envelope.
"Just as I thought, another hold for pickup."
After looking at the writing on the envelope, Salim's hand stopped.
On it, in large Arabic script, were his own name and the words hold for pickup.
The old wizard placed the letter in a box on the counter for safekeeping, waiting for the generous foreign wizard from last night to come pick it up.
Something like this had happened last night after Ethan and the others left.
Salim had just restocked and was about to close up when an owl flew in.
The old wizard, eager to close up, sent the owl away and then opened the envelope.
But inside was a smaller envelope with writing he did not recognize.
Only then did he realize something might be wrong.
He looked at the envelope he had ignored before and saw the letter was not addressed to him, but left in his care.
He was just about to set the letter down when its owner arrived.
Seeing the opened envelope, the black-haired wizard went pale with shock. But since there was still another envelope inside, he didn't get angry. He simply looked relieved and even gave him a large sum of money.
"This letter is completely intact. I should get even more money than yesterday, right?" the old wizard chuckled.
What he did not know was that the person he was waiting for was already in the sky.
At first, having just taken off, Ethan watched the scattered buildings on the ground, the oases, the occasional pedestrians, and the vast desert with interest.
But he quickly grew bored. The scenery grew too repetitive, and after a while, it lost all novelty.
Ethan stopped paying attention to the ground and carefully thought about the hand movements he had watched Timur use to cast before they left.
He tried the gestures several times but couldn't get the knack. He actually thought his imitation was quite close, but he still failed to cast.
So, as he stared at the empty air, a voice suddenly asked, "How much longer until we get there?"
It was Ethan who asked. He wanted to land early so he could ask Nadim about the key to gesture casting.
"About three more hours," Cyril Shafiq said, glancing at the instrument in his hand.
"All right."
Ethan felt the time drag. After a while, he spoke again.
"Nadim, can you tell me the key to gesture casting? I saw Timur cast this morning, but I have been trying for a long time and still have not succeeded. I do not know if my gesture is wrong or if something else is the problem."
"Are you trying nonverbal gesture casting?" Nadim had not heard Ethan say any incantation just now.
"Yes, the water-making charm. I have been able to cast it nonverbally for a long time, but when I switched from a wand to a gesture just now, I kept failing. I watched Timur use Aguamenti this morning and he created a huge amount of water with just one gesture. Is that something all desert wizards can do, or is he just especially good at this charm?"
"He is quite skilled, or rather, the wizards of Semheret are skilled. It is with this water-making charm that they manage to survive here. My own use of this charm is probably better than yours, but it does not reach their level." Nadim shook his head, though Ethan could not see it.
"Gesture casting is indeed harder than using a wand, because logically, this method of casting is somewhat different from using a wand."
Nadim shared some of his own insights with Ethan. Everyone on the flying carpet listened quietly, wanting to try this novel casting method to see if they could learn it.
However, to stay hidden, he could not lift the Disillusionment Charm to demonstrate for Ethan and the others, so he could only talk theory and could not show them directly.
After Nadim finished, there was nothing on the flying carpet except the sound of wind. Presumably, everyone was trying to cast.
After thinking for a while, Ethan started practicing again.
He copied Timur's gesture with his hand and silently thought *Aguamenti*, trying to replicate the casting process.
But even though Ethan felt his imitation was very close, not once did the spell succeed.
If Ethan had not been sure he could cast this magic nonverbally, he would have suspected he misremembered and actually did not know the nonverbal Aguamenti at all.
But Ethan did not give up. There was still plenty of time on the road.
Suddenly, a ball of water appeared in the air. It fell outside the carpet, scattering in the wind into glittering droplets that brought a trace of precious moisture to the dry desert.
But the amount was too small. Carried by the wind, it could only wet a few grains of sand.
Since they couldn't see each other, Eno asked tentatively, "Did you succeed, or did you use your wand?"
"I succeeded," Ethan said, his voice bright with delight.
Although it was still far from Timur's result, Ethan had successfully cast the magic with a gesture.
The feeling was indeed somewhat different from casting with a wand. It was quite marvelous.
"Hm?" For a moment, everyone on the flying carpet turned to look.
They had all started trying at about the same time. Even if Ethan had been thinking about it earlier, how long had the rest of them been wizards? And yet none of them had outperformed a child.
"Not bad," Cyril Shafiq said, pleased as well. Once he learned the first charm, the others would come easier. With a way to cast without a wand, Ethan's ability to protect himself was strengthened further.
"A real genius," various voices chimed in, though it was hard to say how much was sincere.
So Ethan activated his special sight, wanting to see if their souls matched the admiration in their words.
Robert genuinely admired Ethan. His soul even seemed to smile. The others were more complicated.
Mael and Eno were half sincere. They envied Ethan's talent somewhat, but they truly did think he was a gifted wizard.
But Isaac's expression did not match his words at all. He said nice things, but his face was cold, even grave.
Nadim was a stranger after all. Although he praised his employer's child, inside he was unmoved.
*Looks like you're not harmless either,* Ethan thought, looking at Nadim's soul with its many cracks, and grew a bit more wary.
After trying a few more times and getting proficient with the charm, Ethan grew bored and began observing the souls of the group to see how they differed from what he had seen at Easter.
Among them, only Mael and Eno were still practicing the spell, their focused expressions making it difficult to discern any changes in their souls.
Robert's face lit up with joy. Cyril Shafiq had presumably promised him a handsome reward for this trip, leaving the aging wizard thoroughly satisfied.
Isaac was acting strangely. He wasn't practicing, instead glancing at Ethan and Cyril Shafiq with a vicious look, and sometimes at Semheret with an anxious expression.
*Seriously, if I couldn't see souls, I'd never know Isaac was capable of looking like this.* His behavior caught Ethan off guard.
Isaac's soul had cracks in it, which Ethan had noticed some time ago. But the last time he'd seen him, his soul had been relatively calm. Now it had become like this, leaving Ethan with a bad feeling.
Ethan thought, *I need to tell Grandpa about this and ask if he knows what happened to Isaac.*
For the rest of the session, Ethan did nothing else. He just kept staring at their souls to determine whether only Isaac had changed or if Mael and Eno showed abnormalities too.
But after watching for a long time, once the two stopped practicing, he found that while they had also changed, the changes were different from Isaac's. Their underlying tone was happy and excited, mixed with anticipation.
"Land here," Cyril Shafiq said, checking the instrument in his hand once more to verify they had reached their destination.
"All right," Nadim replied, and the flying carpet began to descend slowly.
"It's so hot," someone said. As they slowed to a halt and drew closer to the scorching sand, they all felt the searing heat.
"Get out the ice crystal bracelets before you get heatstroke."
Cyril Shafiq looked around to confirm no one could see them, lifted the Disillusionment Charm, and was the first to put on the alchemical item they each carried.
"Much better," Eno sighed, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Ethan also let out a sigh of relief once he put on the bracelet.
*I underestimated the desert heat. Yesterday we were in an oasis. That's nothing like the open desert,* he thought.
Last night when they went to buy the frost bracelets, he had mentioned to Cyril Shafiq that he knew a Cooling Charm that could lower the temperature and probably wouldn't need such a device.
But Cyril Shafiq had smiled and refused at the time.
Looking back, Cyril Shafiq had probably known a similar charm, and he understood that the spells they'd learned for British and French weather didn't work well in the desert.
Fifty-degree heat was nothing like a British summer that peaked in the thirties.
"It's noon. Let's pitch the tent first, eat lunch, and then start."
Cyril Shafiq took out the white tent they'd rented yesterday and, together with Nadim, secured it in the sand in no time.
Lifting the flap and stepping inside, you would find a whole other world.
Although the ceiling still looked like a tent, the interior was laid out like a standard four-bedroom, two-living-room space.
Cyril Shafiq assigned the rooms first, the same as at the inn. Except for Nadim, they'd be sharing two to a room.
Ethan and Cyril Shafiq's room had its own bathroom. The others would have to use the shared one.
Cyril Shafiq clapped his hands. "We'll rest tonight. Let's eat first, and I'll tell you what we're doing next."
Seven people sat around the dining table while Cyril Shafiq handed out the food he'd bought that morning:
"Conditions are rough, and fresh food doesn't keep. Aside from what's still fairly fresh today, the next few days will be mostly canned goods and biscuits."
"It's fine. It's only a few days," everyone said. Their tolerance was high.
While they ate, two hundred kilometers away in Semheret, the second group of visitors for the day arrived.
"Isaac hasn't replied. He must have left. I wonder if he left any clues," said a blond wizard with a white cloth wrapped around his face.
"He said in his letter last night that he'd set out today. He's probably already arrived. There must be clues at the inn where he stayed, but I don't know how he left them. Gis should know, right? After all, Lord Landorio trusts him so much."
The taller wizard with dark brown hair said sarcastically to the short, black-haired leader.
"Good that you know, Laval. On this mission, everyone listens to me." The wizard Gis snorted coldly and stepped into the oasis.
"Tch," Laval scoffed. He thought to himself, *This time I will show Lord Landorio that I am the most trustworthy. The dragon farm will be mine!*
He shot a vicious glance at Gis's back.
The blond Dusan was pessimistic about the mission. Although the dangerous job offered a huge reward, internal discord would make it even riskier.
"I will talk to them. Let's go," said the last wizard, a smiling, blue-eyed blond, patting Dusan on the shoulder.
"Yeah, let's find where they went first."
"Only two rooms left," Timur said with a pained expression. He had not expected ten wizards to check in within half a day.
The inn only had eight rooms. Suddenly, it wasn't enough.
There were actually two empty rooms, but Nadim had reserved them in advance. Although Timur wanted to earn more, Nadim was a local, and offending him would cause greater losses, so he reluctantly gave up on renting out the reserved rooms.
"Two rooms is fine," Gis said. Although there were six of them, he did not care much. They were not here on vacation.
Seeing Timur's smile, Gis took the opportunity to ask for information:
"Did a group leave today? Do you know where they went?"
*Why is someone else asking about Nadim and the others?* Timur understood and muttered inwardly.
"Don't know. Flew away," Timur said, giving the same answer as before while miming flapping wings.
Gis wanted to ask more, but Timur's English was terrible and his own Arabic was also poor. The others did not understand at all, and they had not brought a translator this time. After gesturing for a while, Gis got little useful information.
Gis had no choice but to drop it, hoping Isaac might have left some information behind.
"Rest for now. Put your things down. I'll check the general store that handles the mail and see if I can find any new clues."
As Timur led them upstairs, several black-robed wizards with gloomy faces and vicious eyes came down toward them.
"Finish up. I'll be down soon," Timur said to them in simple English.
"Mm." The men sized up Gis and his group as they passed, nodded, and continued down the stairs.
"They don't look like good people, do they? They seem like Dark wizards with blood on their hands. Those eyes aren't normal." Dusan couldn't help but look back.
"Ignore them for now. We don't have any conflict with them yet. Don't cause trouble or create unnecessary problems."
"Yeah," they said in French. Timur didn't understand a word and cheerfully led them to their rooms.
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