Chapter 19: Have a Good Sleep

The sun rose as usual, just like every day in Olympia, rising from the end of the rocks and the jungle, combining its light with every breeze on the empty streets in the morning, passing through the magnificent sand and stone walls and the bronze gates, brushing over the heads of the workers who had finished their night shift, and finally entering the most ordinary lattice window of Lokos, quietly combining with the electric light that was on all night in the room.

Morse held a scraper and held a piece of clay in front of his eyes, concentrating on trimming the smooth surface of the clay.

The brown clay took on the shape of a miniature sword blade in his palm wrapped in black cloth, and the blade was engraved with ancient and natural runes.

A blazing flame burned at one end of the blade, and several painful skulls rolled out of the flames. The skulls, which were not proportional to humans, deformed together with the heat waves, as if they were about to be driven away by the smoke from the flames.

He hadn't devoted himself to the carving process so much for a long time.

Morse put down the scraper and replaced it with a squeegee, removing a little clay from the sunken part and enhancing the shadows in the dim flames.

He pursued those hazy echoes in his memory, thinking of the year - he still remembered that year, when he didn't know that he would live forever - the sword-bearing man wore a crown of green leaves, beast fur covered his shoulders, and the dazzling posture of the long sword in his hand rising with blazing flames, thinking of his endlessly glorious face and the sharp lines of light and dark around him, and then recreated the memory film like broken gold in reality.

The prototype of the flaming long sword was the gift forged by Morse himself. Even if dozens of millennia have passed, he can still remember the sweat dripping from his body in front of the forge, his heart pounding against his chest, and the nervous mood of desperately calculating the strength and landing point of each hammer.

Morse blew away some of the debris of soil and closed his mouth again, but found that the corners of his mouth were now lifted up.

He moved his cervical spine, temporarily letting the clay sculpture float in the air, and turned to observe and compare it with the stone statue next to him.

The clay sculpture was a draft of the steel blade, and the steel blade was one of the two components of the stone statue.

He had to make sure that the finished product of the sharp blade fell correctly into the uncarved hand of the stone statue and held it well.

Then someone knocked on his door. The knocks were heavy and short, and the faster rhythm than usual showed the hidden anxiety of the person outside. Morse looked out the window and realized that it was dawn.

He continued to let the clay sculpture float in the air, without any extra external force, and maintain the appropriate humidity, and said to the door: "Good morning, Perturabo."

"Morse." The door was pushed open immediately, and the lubricated and maintained door hinges were too smooth to cover the boy's anxious footsteps.

Perturabo tried to walk in a straight line to cover up his top-heavy.

In addition, although the material of his robe had been straightened many times, it was only stretched to make some cotton threads deformed and loose, and could not cover the wrinkles of the clothes themselves.

Not to mention that this is exactly the same one he wore yesterday.

"When can you teach me how to carve stone?" He stared at Morse, tough but uneasy.

Morse put the tools aside and looked at Perturabo: "I just saw today's sun ten seconds ago, I thought you would at least leave me time for breakfast.

Perturabo immediately took out a tightly wrapped piece of bread from the cloth bag in his hand, stretched out his arm, and wanted to hand it to Morse's eyes.

Morse sneered, took the paper bag and opened it. Perturabo continued to reach out and flip through his small cloth bag, and asked with his head down: "Do you want fruit? "

Morse took one last look at his stone sculpture, and a thin cloth floated over and gently covered it.

Then he pulled a rattan chair and lay down comfortably, eating the bread that was completely intact because of the perfect packaging, and used a shaking finger to signal Perturabo to stop stuffing him with greaseproof paper bags.

Perturabo threw another round paper bag aside, and then took tools one by one from the table in Morse's room. Finally, a piece of intact new stone appeared in the center of the table.

He frowned and clenched his teeth while doing these things, as serious as if he wanted to eat the whole table alive.

But his hands were shaking.

"You have to teach me how to repair stone sculptures, Morse. I will compete with Andos in a week." Perturabo supported the table with both hands, trying to make himself look taller.

"Oh, I thought you had already learned from the local stonemason in Lokos."

"I went there! "He raised his voice suddenly, then quickly regained his senses, the knuckles of his fingers pressed white on the table, "But they are not better than Andos. Everyone knows that Andos is a talented craftsman, and everyone privately says that he should not be a prince because a stone sculpture can always live longer than a family. "

"Am I better than Andos?"

"Isn't it! "

"Have you seen my finished stone sculpture as evidence?"

Perturabo opened his mouth, glanced at the nameless semi-finished statue covered by soft cloth next to him, and then glanced at the miniature clay model floating in the air, obviously stumped by the question.

He took a breath and said, "When I first met you, you had a finished stone statue."

Morse finished his bread, clapped his hands, shook off the crumbs on the black cloth, and before Perturabo was knocked unconscious by panic, he said sarcastically: "Now it has turned back to raw material. Guess why? ”

“Because you want to carve a new statue. You strive for perfection.”

"Completely wrong. It's because the quality of the previous statue is not superior, and it is not better than the top works made by the best craftsmen of Lokos."

"No, Morse, you are better than them!" Perturabo said. "This is absolute, no one can deny it!"

Morse covered his mouth and yawned.

He didn't really want to know when Perturabo regarded his image so mysterious and tall; nor was he very curious about which non-existent forgotten space Perturabo took the empirical philosophy he read yesterday to.

"Okay, Perturabo." Morse tapped the ground with his heels, causing the rattan chair to rock back and forth. "It seems that you have no confidence in defeating Andos with your own learning."

"I am your apprentice, Morse. My learning is to learn from you."

Perturabo raised one hand and clenched it into a fist. The unconscious gripping movement was like crushing an egg that could not be crushed at all.

Morse stared at Perturabo until the boy showed unnatural annoyance.

Perturabo did not accept failure.

Especially the failure in the competition with mortals.

But he didn't think he could win.

Morse spoke, adding a hoarse softness to the commanding tone.

"Find a chair and sit down, Perturabo."

Perturabo did as he was told.

"Now, close your eyes, imagine your body becomes heavy, your feet step on the ground, do you feel the weight of the land? Very good, your body is relaxing, more relaxed. The chair supports your back, your legs, your body. You start breathing, breathing deeply, inhaling, exhaling, inhaling fresh air, depression floats away with the exhalation..."

Perturabo opened his eyes suddenly and jumped up from the chair: "Morse! Are you hypnotizing me?"

He actually sounded a little aggrieved.

"That's right. I think instead of nervously chasing me and asking questions, trying to get a set of standard solutions for carving from me, you might as well lie on the ground and sleep to nourish your energy."

Morse said, ruthlessly hitting Perturabo's nerves with psychic energy.

The boy fell to the ground and soon snored.

This kid doesn't snore unless he hasn't closed his eyes for more than ten seconds for two days in a row.

Morse helped him adjust his sleeping position, flattened his awkward legs and arms, put a three-layered carpet under him, and threw a white cloth over him to keep warm.

After that, he calmed down and continued to work on his clay sword.