章節 23: Noticeable improvement
As Gaude waited for another training session to put the fruits of his suffering to test, he spent the time by continuing a task he had undertaken since a few weeks ago.
The wheels of bureaucracy had turned to the point that Gaude could finally start the hiring process, which he did, by interviewing people for the human resources and management positions. While Karen's personality left a lot to be desired, if there was an employee-related issue, Gaude was sure to get a call mere minutes after it had been brought to her attention.
Gaude had even ended up hiring a personal secretary. It was a man in his fifties, with an average build, a knack for wearing a bowtie with everything and quite discreet. Other than the house elves, that man was the only one that knew of Gaude's dual identity.
Next up was the hiring of the management for each of his companies. He wasn't going to entrust that task to Karen, due to her very Muggle existence. Gaude had decided to conduct the interviews in person, or at least as Charles Vywin. He was fairly confident that if the management was top-notch, they would be able to find high-quality employees.
Naturally, the interview had been conducted with the help of a healthy dose of Veritaserum slipped into the tea that Gaude offered each of the candidates. After they had been properly dosed, the real questioning had started.
Gaude found out that more than half of the candidates were a colorful bunch of selfish bastards – some wanted to embezzle money from the company and then make a run to somewhere warm, some wanted a nice and cozy place to have a steady stream of income while making the barest minimum of efforts to stay in the office. There were even some that wanted a high position to hire a sexy secretary to have fun with behind their wives backs.
There were two sides to the coin, however. Gaude discovered that there were those that wanted to put their abilities to the test and see how far they can go. There were those that just wanted to do a good job and get good pay for it.
There were even more people with admirable qualities, and those were the group that Gaude ended up hiring. Of course, as they were not a part of a free will experiment, they were all dosed with loyalty-inducing potions and signed away their memories as a standard procedure.
They had ended up being very happy to do so, as the loyalty-inducing potions worked extremely well on Muggles who had low resistance to anything magical.
Once he was done with the interviews for the day, Gaude still had to meet with his Gobbledegook tutor. He was positively pleased with Gaude's progress. Naturally, Gaude knew that he hadn't practiced until his throat was bleeding, but instead the Dragon Bloodline Potion had done minor changes to his voice box, allowing for a much greater range.
By the time Linda's shop hours were about to come to an end for the day, Gaude had already filled more than half of the positions that he deemed important enough to require a face to face with him.
Finally, Gaude returned to the dedicated training room and found Linda already waiting for him. It seemed she was even more eager to train Gaude than he was.
"Good afternoon, auntie Linda!", Gaude greeted.
Yet, she didn't reply for a while Her eyes had stopped on Gaude's face way too long to be a passing glance, indeed, she was outright staring at him.
"Good afternoon, Gaude. What's with the eyes?", she spoke after a while.
"What do you mean?"
Linda simply took out a mirror from her handbag and held it in front of Gaude's face. It was only then that Gaude discovered that there had been quite a change to his body, even though he hadn't discovered anything while he had been bathing – his eyes now had slit-like pupils and the color had gone from the former steely grey to golden.
Nobody had the chance to point it out before, as Gaude hadn't been in his real form around anyone but his elves until that moment, and the elves didn't really care about it too much.
Gaude pushed his brain to the limit to come up with a reasonable explanation and after a moment replied in a dismissive tone: "Oh, don't mind that. Must've been the family blood acting up. Grandpa said something about it, but I didn't really listen too well."
Linda, quite adept at reading people, felt that the answer wasn't quite truthful, but she wasn't going to pry any further into it. She hoped that the 'family blood' or whatever it was would manifest in additional abilities, not just a change in the eyes. Abilities that would give him an edge in duels, that is. Linda knew her own limits, but so far, she hadn't even touched upon Gaude's.
"I don't mind the change. I think it makes you look more like the very special boy you are. As long as you're growing up strong and healthy, I'm happy.", she actually said.
"Now, sit down and let's get started with the lesson."
Gaude did as instructed next to the only piece of furniture in the room, a table. He made sure that the stone tiles that were in front of him didn't have any visible defects and took out his very own Quickcarve knife.
While a dent or two in the surface wouldn't be a big issue, a week ago, he had been blown across the room by a tile that had malfunctioned due to a crack running right through one of the rune clusters he had carved. His back still hurt a little every time he thought about it – in a purely physical battle between a wizarding child and the wall of a chamber carved into bedrock, the wall had been a clear winner.
"Today, I'll show you a few different ways to weave together a concealment and protection ward. Start by carving a rune cluster that absorbs magic from the surroundings on each of the tiles and we'll take it from there."
Once Gaude was satisfied with the four rune clusters on as many tiles, he looked at Linda.
"Very good, Gaude. I can see that you've been practicing diligently on your free time. However, try to make the connections as short as possible and try to carve the runes as uniformly as you can. In Runecarving, every aspect of the rune is important.
If you get the shape wrong, the rune will most likely not work as intended, if at all. Meanwhile, the size of the rune determines how much magic can flow through it, or in the case of the magic absorbing cluster, how much magic it can absorb. Additionally, having runes of different sizes or uneven carving depths can cause imbalances, which, once again, can lead to unpredictable results, unless you know what you're doing.
Now, draw a concealment cluster from the para three position."
Gaude did exactly that, planning the cluster out in his mind first, to make sure that the orientation would be correct – the flow of magic in each cluster had to go in a certain direction to produce a fine-tuned effect. The magic absorbing cluster was different in that respect, as it was symmetric around six axes and had a ring around it where the absorbed magic was concentrated. Gaude put double the effort into carving the runes, this time taking extra care to make them as uniform as he could.
Once Gaude was done with the task, he was instructed to draw a shielding cluster into the ortho one position.
"Good job! This is the most basic configuration of the shielding and concealment ward that you could possibly make. This is also the form that is taught in schools of magic worldwide. This is the perfectly balanced configuration, meaning that both functions get an equal amount of magic. However, for a few special applications, you would want to mix things up a little.
For example, if you want the concealment to last even as the shielding is failing due to extreme strain, you would want to connect the shielding cluster to the concealment cluster's main channel. That way, the magic will first flow into the concealment cluster and only then get used up by the shielding cluster. This should really be the standard way to connect it, but somebody decided that the balanced approach is better for some reason."
Gaude then practiced the two other ways, and finally it was time to test each of them out. Linda placed the tiles next to a wall and carved the image of trees into that wall. Finally, she activated all three arrays, causing the 'trees' to become invisible and leaving a plain-looking stone wall in their place. Then she bombarded that area with spells and the bombardment seemed to meet an invisible wall. Yet, after only a few strikes, one of the trees on the wall became visible – it was behind the ward that had the shielding cluster in front of the concealment one.
After a while, another tree became visible. Finally, the spells started hitting the wall behind, even in the spot that had the third tree, but even then, the third tree remained hidden.
"As you can see, the second method is the best when defending an area, as the concealment will remain intact even when the barrier fails. Such behavior makes it possible to attack an enemy outside the boundary unpredictably."
Finally, it was once again time for the dueling practice.
If Linda were to say that she was surprised, it would not be a lie.
Gaude's movement had become noticeably faster and his body seemed to explode with power, allowing him to change direction much quicker than just a day earlier.
Gaude had at the very least reached the same level she had been after a year of training. After a while, Gaude suddenly stopped and said: "You have been casting the spells faster and faster, haven't you? How long has this been going on?"
"Not only have you improved a lot every day, you're also really sharp. I'm very happy with you.", Linda said, beaming. "Of course, I've been increasing the difficulty, that way you'll keep improving every day. I can't let you get complacent, can I?"
'Even if you praise me, I won't do whatever you're training me for.', Gaude thought.
"What? Really? So, I haven't been stuck in the same spot for all that time?", Gaude was genuinely surprised. The change had been so gradual that he had failed to notice it, even after all that time.
'What the hell did I drink that potion for, then?' he thought in self-admonishment.
With each passing minute, Gaude became more used to his changed body. As he did, Linda started feeling a definite void in her magic core, a sign that she was spending more than she was absorbing from the environment. She wondered how long it would take until she was the one that was exhausted first. That boy was slowly becoming terrifyingly nimble.
Linda decided that it was about time to kick the training up a notch.
"I recommend you get yourself a wand for tomorrow. Absolutely do not borrow your Grandfather's wand as second-hand wands almost never perform as well as the one that has been properly matched to you. I recommend you go to Ollivander's to find out the wand that is most suitable to you and then have a replica made to avoid the Trace.
Of course, you can use the Ollivander's wand until the other one gets made, but only in here so there won't be any trouble with the Ministry."
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