"Of course not!"

"Good, because otherwise you would have had to run all the way back to retrieve this." Syn dangled a crystal earring in front of him.

Aleister tapped his palm against his forehead. "Damn, I can't believe I forgot!" He grabbed it from her and put it on.

"Did you just, where did you—" an unknown voice stammered several questions.

Aleister turned around to the bystander. "You owe me five gold coins for witnessing my magic practice without my consent."

They squinted their eyes at him and just walked away.

"If you wanted to extort him, you should have asked for more gold," Syn said.

"Did you even take a look at him? There was no way he would carry much more than that. In fact, five gold was already a stretch."

"Sure, but what would you even do with five gold coins?"

"With only five gold? I don't know," he waddled his head a bit. "To be honest, I'd rather just add that five gold to my now dwindled stockpile of gold."

Syn let out an overwrought gasp of air. "Not good enough. Think up a better answer."

With a frown, he folded his arms open. "This isn't one of your test questions. There is no right or wrong answer here."

"Still, you could have come up with something better."

"Fine then, I change my answer."

Syn raised one of her eyebrows and looked at him with a faint sparkle in her eyes. "Pray tell."

"I would buy," he couldn't hide his smile as he continued, "a pet bird that didn't bother me with mundane and trivial questions every other minute."

She stayed silent for a moment but with a smirk, said, "Now that's much better. A well thought out joke with multiple layers is more of what I expect from you."

"Please lower your expectations."

"They already are at rock bottom. You can only go up from here."

"I appreciate it." He opened up his fist and attached his earring before rushing towards Castle Kaynmur. He passed by the Crystal Throne, where Mitre still sat and entered Crystal Lake. The process should have only taken him one or two weeks, but it had already been over a month, which caused mom and dad to worry.

Kyoko told him that they didn't need to worry. One of her ancestors ended up sitting on the throne for over a year. While talking to her, he tried to gain more insight into what the process entailed, but she couldn't tell him. Neither could his father or Myra. He wanted to ask the Empress even though he already knew the answer, but contacting her was difficult. Which made sense. He didn't understand why he thought it would have been easy. I wasn't as if he carried much of a status or reputation in the first place.

Whatever. Aleister let go of the koi in his hand. It wasn't important information in the first place. He was just curious. He rested against some rocks and stared up into the Vitreus. The brilliant purple luster never failed to amaze him. From where he sat, the reflections across the bottom faces almost tricked his mind into thinking their was another Crystal Lake right above him. Unfortunately, the sensation caused him to feel a bit dizzy and nauseous. He closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his temples with two pressed fingers. An attempt to rid his head of the sick feeling.

A loud snap echoed in front of him, causing him to open his and jump up. "It's about to start," Syn said, finger pointed upward.