Chapter 2: The City. Basically only nobles live inside the city walls and permission is required for commoners to enter, but since Sarkont was with one of the nobles, he passed the guards without any problems, dressed in metal armour and armed with halberds and swords on a belt full of various vials and scrolls of magic.
As soon as the boys passed through the city walls it began to get dark and the city began to light nterns equipped with wax candles, and these candles were lit by a special worker who went round the city in the evening for this purpose. When he reached the main square with the nterns already lit, Sarkont marvelled at the beautiful view of the city fountain, powered by magic, whose jets and spshes of water reflected the fire from the wax candles like a jewel; he had not seen such beautiful views since he had been in the city with his friend a few years ago.
— You haven't been here for a long time? — Dirtalt started the conversation.— Yes, it's been five years, it's nice and peaceful, just as it was back then.— That's right mate, here comes my house, it was good to see you and thank you for the lesson, Sarkont.— It was good to see you too, you know I will always help you, Dirtalt, I know how to remember the good things you have done for me.— You still remember that, heh, but thank you for your guidance, and just be careful on your way home, the town looks safe during the day, there's no telling what might happen at night, here, take this whistle just in case, it's filled with magic and if you blow it the guards will hear the sound and come to your aid.— Thank you, but I don't think you should worry too much, see you ter!— Bye, take care!
The boys said goodbye and Sarkont walked back outside the city walls to his rural home, where his family was waiting for him. He was thinking how interesting it must be to study at the school of magic and he wished he could be there too. But then his thoughts were interrupted by a muffled and rough voice:
— Wait, boy, what did that rich man give you, and show us.
Sarkont turned round and saw three men in ragged clothes with homemade clubs in their hands, and their intentions were quite obvious. ‘He only took pity on me and shared the leftovers for my family,’ Sarkont barely said, clenching the scroll in his fist with excitement and fear, though he had another feeling, what is usually called disgust.... or contempt, but it was so weak that he didn't even notice it. The boy started to back away, but his new acquaintances quickly surrounded him and there was nowhere to go.
‘Well, maybe you can share a little with us then, my friend, we are starving on the streets too, as the new nobles came to power, so they took away our fields, houses and servants from us, and we are left beggars and are now begging on the streets, don't you think it is an unfair thing to do? Come on, show us the food,’ said the rgest of the men, with a sly look in his eyes that showed his cunning nature. Then Sarkont drew from his pocket a clenched fist with a whistle on it, and, gathering his remaining courage, quickly began to bring it close to his face and tried to blow the whistle to alert the guards. *Boom*, there was a thud, Sarkont's eyes went bck and he colpsed to the ground, the member of this gang of former lowborn nobles standing behind him smirked and said:
— How did I do him, head, did you like it?
And the one named head, the rgest of the gang, bent down and took the whistle from Sarkont's weakened hands. Drops of blood began to roll down the young man's face. ‘What's this trinket? — Resented the chief of them all. — And why do we need it, hmmm.’ After examining it, he decided to do what Sarkont himself had recently tried to do. He took in air and began to blow his whistle as hard as he could, but it was very difficult for him, and no sound came from the whistle. ‘Some rubbish,’ muttered the head and leaned over to Sarcount. ‘Look here, d, nothing has happened; are you deceiving us, little fellow?’ — he resented, clutching the whistle in his fist. Sarcount's clouded mind saw the scene of the compression of the whistle given by Dirtalt. Sarkont was from a poor family and hardly ever received gifts, much less expensive ones, in his entire life he had only received a gift twice: a quality sewn belt for his tenth birthday from his friend, which he still wore, and now the second was this whistle. In the depths of his soul began to ignite echoes of the fmes of rage and anger towards these wretched types who dared to spoil the gift of someone dear to him. He had lived the life of an ordinary farmer all these years, and such a life was not easy, and only meetings with his friend brought something new and happy to his ordinary life, all three magic that he knew had been learnt during the lessons with Dirtalt. It was the magic of levitation, which allowed him to lift something or someone in the air and helped him in his work, the magic of water collection and compression, which he also used to work in the field, and the st magic of resistance to heat and sun, so that he could work in the field for a long time without interruption. It took him 2 months to master it, as this magic is at the junction of 2 schools — the school of light magic and fire magic. It was the 2nd year of the school of magical arts, but he didn't even know it, he just learnt it from a book once lent by Dirtalt, the owner of the book himself mastered this magic only after half a year, using the instructions of his friend.
Every moment the anger in Sarkont's normally pure soul grew and began to take over, he intuitively reached out his hand towards the bandits, trying as if to protect the gift, but suddenly they stopped and began to cough, and then grabbed their necks and fell down, without realising it Sarkont used the magic of levitation and concentrated it so strongly on the necks of his enemies that they began to choke. It was only at this point that Sarkont realised that all his life he had not understood the nature of this magic, which was not to reduce the weight of anything, but to apply a load to the target of the magic, but he, still in shock, had not realised the fact that he had used this magic without any seals or words.
A few seconds after the bandits had fallen to the ground there was the sound of heavy metal hitting the paving stones, it was the guards rushing to the sound of the whistle. They were confronted with the sight of 4 people lying down, including Sarcount. The guards, being battle mages, immediately realised that the young man had used magic on that gang and quickly dispelled it, thus protecting them from fainting from suffocation, while also quickly applying shackle magic on the young man and the gang. The whistle meanwhile was crushed by the heavy metal boot of one of the guards. The defenders of the peace of the city then arrested all four of the intruders at once for further proceedings, Sarkont lost consciousness and heard only the vague sounds of a moving wagon and the country road.
