I don't like bargaining, I hate it, but it's not in my rules to give gifts to strangers, so I had to go overboard and bargain with this evil man once again. I had the feeling that he was always trying to test me for something, to amuse me in his own way, but to bend my fingers in front of this old bison is an unspeakable stupidity, so I had to hold back my emotions until the very end, and also use that part of the Japanese I got when I entered Miyazaki Arata's body.
In a way, I had been fully born in that body when Junko gave me my current name, it was the first time I felt like the person I was now, the one who had changed after being reborn in the new world. Yes, the guy who was stabbed by the Caucasian had finally changed during the party at the Miyazaki Mansion, and it was Hoshino Sora, the me who was born then.
The me with responsibilities, the me who now has new dreams, plans, desires. And I want the stones, and not just to make artifacts out of them, I want to keep one or more of them for the collection, and now that I have the alexandrites, I want to get a red diamond, or rather, diamonds of different colors, so that I can just admire them. Not the artificial ones created in the sphere, but the real ones created by nature.
I got distracted. So I had to bargain long and hard, but I didn't even think of giving up, especially to someone for whom such a price was a bargain. That's just Grandpa's nature — stingy, not greedy, but thrifty, that is, to look for profit wherever possible, and if you get a chance, to save money. I understand this very well, because I myself am, if not worse, then at least the same, so I do not take offense at this old wizard.
I even like him in a way, as a person, of course, because we found a common language with him, and when our bargaining was over, we calmly went down to the restaurant and had dinner, continuing to communicate, only in more... lie, no "more calmly" did not happen, but it is really interesting to communicate with this man. Almost as interesting as with Se-dono. Anyway, I let it slip that I wanted to found an orphanage, of course for gifted orphans, even squibs.
The old man agreed that it was important, because there are such orphanages in Russia, and they are all under the patronage of the Council of Old Clans, something like the House of Lords in Britain, and for gifted children who have normal families there are special, separate schools, There are special, separate schools for gifted children who have normal families, where the most normal subjects are taught, but only the gifted, or squibs, whose children will be gifted, study there (there are methods of determining the degree of awakening of the blood, depending on this, and one can find out, with a small error, in which generation of squibs the children will be fully gifted).
Thus, children are prepared to enter a full-fledged magical school, taught the simplest customs, peculiarities, concepts, perform the first magical rituals, no, nothing special or complicated, just holidays on special dates, like Solstice, Shrovetide or other ancient holidays. They also teach children to hear the voices of their ancestors. Admittedly, I don't know what that is, so Stepan Grigorievich began to explain with obvious pleasure.
The fact is that most modern history books do not include much of the "gray antiquity", and when history lessons begin, more or less children perceive the time of the princely states, Kievan Rus and later. But before people were able to organize themselves, they lived rather scattered, in small settlements on the banks of large rivers or trade routes, in general, where there was more or less communication, but not always.
In those times, even before Christianity, there were quite different gods and values in honor, very strong were shamans, they ruled in the magical plan, magi appeared either as a parallel branch, an alternative, because the gods more and more actively manifested in the minds and souls of people, or later — it is not possible to establish exactly. Magi, exactly as a path or class of magicians, came later, together with the Church of the Cross. So shamans were able to talk to the spirits of the ancestors, to hear their advice and instructions, warnings, threats, and so on.
In fact, people were much closer to the spiritual world, and there were cases when the simplest person could hear the voice of a deceased relative, and the spirit soul itself could linger in that reality, that is, in the lower spiritual plane, to protect their family from the many dangers of those times.
People did not close their hearts, they believed and felt that the world around them is really alive, and every single particle is really nothing but a pixel on the screen from which an amazing picture is created — reality, reality. It was the spirits of the ancestors who called to their relatives when the threat approached in the person of the Soviet leaders, who wanted to label everyone, so that every magician had a comprehensible label on his ear.
The wizards, warned of what was coming, gathered together, discussed the available information, then met with the young and eager builders of world communism and further developed a system of cooperation with the government. Hiding from the Muggles would not work, simply because Russia is a very large state, it has a lot of people, and you never know where a first-generation child wizard might be born.
If such a person is found, he or she will definitely be sent to a closed institute, studied thoroughly, and come up with ways to detect such a person, as well as measures to counteract the fact that there is magic. After all, if the mages had simply disappeared, the chiefs would still not forget them, even if the mages used coercive means, they would start looking for them, slowly but methodically getting closer to their goal.
The mages did not want to flee from the land where the clan was born, where the bones of their ancestors lie, so they developed a conceptual alternative in which they retained a whole list of privileges, including aristocratic titles, family estates, and so on.
Of course, all this was hidden with the help of magic, but when they started to launch satellites into space, the wizards just sighed with relief: they couldn't even imagine that ordinary people could do such a thing, and the spells of distraction or fright or whatever were never designed to hide from the eyes of space, or just a powerful electronic camera.
But before that there was a great war, a war in which mages could not help but participate, for Grindewald, like Hitler, was also interested in vast rich lands, but the blond did not even think of changing his behavior, so those who refused to obey were simply destroyed.
Russian magicians did not want to obey — their pride is great, but they also "swing" slowly, so it turned out that while the locals realized where everything was going (in this process the warnings of the ancestors helped a lot), Grindewald's forces managed to destroy more than one family on the adjacent territory of Ukraine and Russia.
It is worth mentioning that at that time there was not a single old family of magicians or witches left in Ukraine, because the policy of the communists at that time was extremely radical, so all who remained there fled, went to Russia, to Poland or further, only in Transcarpathia there were their settlements of magicians.
I don't even want to think about it, let alone get into discussions about who was right and who was guilty. Times were really dark then, people were as if they had lost their minds, and brotherly blood flowed in rivers. I think that everyone is to blame, both Ukrainians and their neighbors. But these clever people, together with non-magicians, almost completely joined under the banners of the conquerors.
They had no time to do anything — Grindewald needed test subjects in laboratories, and Hitler was actively interested in magic, so the incomplete conditional regiment of traitors went straight to the dark walls, from which no one came out... and this is natural, because all three laboratories that studied magicians were struck by "tactical" magic.
Stepan Grigorievich said that all three laboratories were located in special folds of space, which simply collapsed after a powerful blow, irretrievably destroying everything that was there. As for the voice of the ancestors, the magicians drew conclusions, and now this, as well as elementary potions, are taught to everyone in a row, and in the process of training the real talents are revealed, and they are separated.
By the way, these specialists worked in a special government department of "psychics", who, according to rumors, were able to see the territory of the likely enemy without any satellites, to detect military bases and camouflaged missile bases.
It was curious to learn all this, and I did not hide my interest, and an elderly person was pleased with the attention, all elderly people are pleased to teach the young, to feel like a kind of wise man, instructing the next generation to replace them, to pass on their experience and wisdom of their fathers.
And about the fact that on that day the deal was not concluded, only the terms were agreed upon, but in a week Stepan Grigoryevich, either personally or with the help of some of his assistants, would deliver the payment and collect his goods.
A dozen alexandrites, the size of a fingernail of the little finger — this is a serious treasure, and it does not matter what world you live in, because if the Muggles decisive role is played by money, then for a magician are much more variables, and not the last role in this list are personal passions and desires of magicians.
The history of the magical world knows many cases when powerful mages lived in a dilapidated hut, but the object of their passion, desires were quenched by any means. Yes, we, mages, are naturally crazy on the head, and I recognize myself as a part of this world.