-So that"s what we"re growing up with here, young talent. - A man greeted me, drooping in front of me. Though he said these words with a smile, I must confess, he scared me. He was a tightly folded man with gray hair. But if it was my father"s younger brother, then. .. How much did he have to endure to get gray at that age? - How old are you, boy? -Two and a half.
- I answered, looking back at my father.
- Who are you? By that day I was already talking well, even though I was heavily carved or swallowed some syllables. Either my throat wasn"t working, or my speech system wasn"t fully formed yet. As for my rapid development, no one was surprised at all. More precisely, everyone was tired of being surprised. Guests, of course, were staring at me when I answered their questions, but my father was used to it, or blaming it all on magic, or otherwise explaining it for himself. I didn"t ask.
-Look how grown-up he was, " he punched me in the head as he went up. - Two and a half years, and already speaks well, counts and even takes interest in the world around him. - The man was fervently saying, clapping on his father"s shoulder. - It turns out you"re a good daddy, Nick. It"s not for nothing that you"ve been hustling in your time. - This man turned to my family. - As for your question, I"m Steve, your uncle. But you can call me Snake. My family, no matter how. - He winked at me.
- Nick said you even know how to cast a spell. Can you show me something? Looking back at my father, I showed him my hand in my arms. I thought it would scare the man off somehow, but he admired me and hit me on the head again. Then Dad and his uncle went to the office, leaving me to myself, which was mostly fine with everyone. That doesn"t mean my dad didn"t love me. At my request, he called in tutors who worked with me. The snake was one of them, but it often went away for a long time. He took up my physical development. Soon I learned to read and by that time I had already climbed the entire library in search of any information on magic but found nothing reliable. Only fairy tales and fantasy about evil wizards who cursed, scared and tortured people. Unfortunately, nothing more interesting was found. There was nothing left of my mother. After leaving for her father, she broke off all relations with her family, who left her without any property. By the way, the times were vague, and the magical world was a place of excitement. From my father and uncle, I managed to learn something about the culture of wizards, that they are very small in the world, and they are very boastful of their origins, not taking into account neither the ordinary people they call muggles nor, moreover, squibs (incapable of magic wizards).
How their views on the world get along with the fact that they hide from the rest of the world for me remained a mystery. The snake just gave up and told me not to pay attention to their hang-ups for the time being. The worst time, in my opinion, was in elementary school. Luckily, I missed kindergarten safely. The thing is, I couldn"t communicate with the kids. Well, what could I talk to them about? I could try to pretend to be a child. I even tried on the skin of an unreasonable child for a couple of days, but it quickly started to irritate me, and as a result, I mostly ignored my peers, which caused me to have frequent skirmishes with the kids.
My father, having looked at my bruises, briefly thought about it, put me in the martial arts section, with someone he knew. The greatest joy for me was walking, excursions and travels with my father or the Snake. I never would have thought that my dad was an avid tourist and I was always glad to get out of the usual routine if I could. Unfortunately, his position did not often allow him to do so. That"s why I spent most of my trips with my uncle. We"ve been to a lot of places, both in resort places and in the mountains, and once in the desert. One thing I learned during these trips was that the gold dust that was visible with the help of the styli was a heterogeneous substance. In one place, it could be almost completely absent, as in the ocean or in a large city, and at the same time, in the deepest part of the forest or on top of mountains, its concentration was very high. In addition to magic itself, I tried to understand the differences between Muggle, Squib, and Mage.
The only regularity I was able to deduce was the development of the internal human system (density, number of spark extensions). The more developed it is, the more likely it is that I have a wizard in front of me. It"s rare to see people like my father or uncle with developed energy, but a slow exchange of internal energy. In a few years, I"ve only had two people who I could definitely call magicians. Once, when my uncle and I were in India, I ran away from him looking for some gift for my father. On the way, I ran into a man who had a particularly good internal energy in his right hand. He also had a lot of trinkets on him that glowed in aura vision. I then decided to check my conclusions and approached the magician without knowing any danger.