Angor knew about the equivalent exchange of course. That was why Mara did not teach him Triangle Channeling on The Redbud… Wait! Angor realized something.
“Are you teacher’s relative? No. This is only the second day after you met,” said Flora. She looked around the bookshelves and asked, “The second day, and he allowed you to read his valuable collections. Are you okay with that?
“You know, everything in the wizarding world has a price. Only knowledge is priceless,” said Flora. She turned away and grinned when Angor could not see her.
“So, equivalent exchange. The teacher has granted you such a fortune, what can you give him in return, to finish the deal?”
Flora then waved goodbye to Angor as she said, “Don’t worry too much though. Maybe your talent is just too powerful so the teacher’s willing to exchange all that knowledge for it?”
Flora “beat around the bush” and quickly left the room. She could not hold back her laughter any longer if she did not leave right away while looking at the boy’s poor and terrified expression.
Angor did not realize that Flora just followed her teacher’s suit and joked on him for a second time.
He was still pondering over Flora’s words because they sounded so true! It was only the second day, and Sunders gave him such a big gift. The teacher was surely expecting something. Just like the saying from Earth – there was no such thing like a free lunch. If one could see one, then there must be a cost. So what could Sunders get from him? The only thing Angor could think of was his talent which he still knew nothing about.
Back to the first question. What was his talent? Why did Sunders take him away in such a hurry? What could he bring to Sunders? And how far did Angor need to contribute? Would it cost his life?
As he thought about the bad consequences, he felt his mind running into a dead end.
In the end, his eyes spun, and he fell on the floor, mind short-circuited.
Flora peeked at Angor’s reaction using her spell and could not help to grin. Maybe because of Sunders’ attitude, or out of envy, she always wanted to give her little junior some bullying.
What she said looked reasonable, but they were only to confuse Angor who just came to the wizarding world and did not know about much yet.
True, knowledge was priceless, but not all knowledge. The books intended for apprentices were as useless as toilet paper to wizards. Of course, Sunders’ collection contained valuable books even the other wizards desired. However, they were meaningless to a mortal like Angor and unless Angor actually remembered all thousands of pages in those books and took them away in his brain, there was no “equivalent exchange” involved.
She exaggerated about the books’ value just because she felt a bit frustrated and wanted to pull a prank on the boy.
He was not even an apprentice yet, and Sunders already began to lead him towards “a real wizard”. Meanwhile, Flora had become a wizard herself and she was nowhere near “a real wizard”!
However, the path of a real wizard was not something one could find with the help of another person. It called for the wizard’s own ability to learn as well as finding destiny. Still, Flora was not happy about Angor’s boosted starting point when he was just an ordinary kid.
Looking at how Angor was struggling with his mind on the floor, Flora felt her bad mood becoming a lot better. She left while humming a song.
Not long after, Sunders appeared at where she was and let out a sigh. He shook his head as if he was thinking about something.