"Fulen, you…" Laze's unusually emotional expression made Fulen feel uneasy.
Fulen, somewhat nervously, asked, "What's wrong?" He also looked at his attire and recalled his performance.
"I didn't expect you to have some skill," Laze said, seeing that he had played enough with Fulen. He quickly adopted a playful smile. "When I first went on stage, I was a bit nervous. At least you're better than I was when I was young. But don't get too proud. Our Circus's Magician shows never have many Spectators. It will be different when you get to a bigger venue, like when I was young…"
Fulen knew immediately that this was the part where old people loved to tell stories. But to be fair, Fulen didn't dislike listening to stories. In these times, without the internet, plays, magic, and the Circus, in Fulen's opinion, were all less interesting than storytelling.
Scripts are written by people, so no matter what, you can guess some of the story's development. If a story can truly surprise people, then without a doubt, the plot can be said to be ingenious, a well-deserved classic. However, for the most part, stories written by people are not as interesting as those crafted by reality, the greatest scriptwriter.
Seeing Fulen adopt a story-listening expression, Laze knew that this guy was once again zoning out while listening to him speak. He stopped telling stories, cleared his throat twice, shattering Fulen's thought of going to see a play that afternoon.
Laze's cough indicated that he still had important content to share; he wanted Fulen to stay focused for now and zone out to listen to stories later. Actually, Laze was quite satisfied with Fulen as a listener. This young man was young and had high emotional intelligence. Although he didn't listen to stories attentively, he could still tickle Laze's heart when they chatted. Moreover, this young man was the Magician he had personally trained. With professional identity and personal identity combined, Laze simply loved to talk to Fulen about his youthful stories.
"There are two places in this magic trick that might be major Errors," Laze said, his tone now somewhat severe, though his expression wasn't harsh. But Fulen knew that this was when Laze was most serious, so Fulen gave his full attention, ready to hear about his most satisfying magic performance to date.
"Firstly, you should not risk being discovered by the Spectators by using a mechanism to raise the magic box. This could completely undermine the credibility of your magic. A Magician stripped of the protection of mystery will have all his magic regarded as vulgar. Remember, taking dangerous risks is a great taboo for a Magician." As Laze spoke, his tone and expression seemed to emanate from the depths of the earth, and his eyes drifted erratically.
Laze's greatest treasure lay not in his superb magic techniques, nor in the new magic tricks he created, but in his lifetime of profound experience performing magic on stage. A young Laze had once been full of vigor. During a magic performance, in plain sight, the stage mechanism was discovered by some Spectators. At that time, Laze's magic skills were not as profound as they are now, and his magic techniques were not as effortless, so the consequences were severe.
Some stage magic tricks performed by the Magician in the same Circus were exposed, rendering that set of magic systems unusable for the Circus. The more serious consequence was that the magic tricks Laze had exposed were remembered by people, and these were common magic tricks. Therefore, unfortunately, because of this, most of the Spectators who frequently came to watch magic left.
Laze was just a Magician Apprentice at the time, having performed only two or three magic shows. In that Circus back then, there were many Magicians and Apprentices, and Laze was the most dazzling among the Magician Apprentices. Perhaps due to the exclusion from his fellow Apprentices, or perhaps because the senior Magicians felt threatened, Laze was expelled. Since then, Laze never again used those magic tricks that he hadn't fully mastered.
"As for the other thing," Laze smiled, patting Fulen's head, disregarding Fulen's silent grumbling about "patting someone's head makes them shorter and similar remarks, "don't give me that cheeky smile anymore, kid. For the Spectators, while it doesn't affect your magic performance, it will impact the mysterious Magician image you want to cultivate. How can a cheeky Magician be mysterious? If someone sees it, it's all harm and no benefit. Understand?"
"Understood," Fulen exclaimed, using the universal line Apprentices use to humor their masters.
"Good that you understand, hey, but you're quite capable, kid. The creativity of your magic performance is indeed good. I see you lean towards card magic and fire magic. Work hard to create some magic that belongs to you. Maybe you can even get a nickname like 'Fire Magician' or 'Card Magician,' which wouldn't be bad." Laze began to ramble on.
Laze's words were interspersed with phrases like "Back in the day, I was…" and "Don't laugh, kid…" which brought joy. Amidst their rambling, Fulen and Laze bid each other farewell, concluding their encounter for the day.
All good things must come to an end, and daily meetings were no different for Laze and Fulen. Laze understood this, being wise with age. Although this world didn't have something like Confucianism, the principle of "a gentleman's friendship is as bland as water" was not difficult for an old man who had experienced the vicissitudes of life to comprehend.
The meaning of "a gentleman's friendship is as bland as water," in my opinion, largely means that everyone has their private space. If you insist on intruding into someone else's private space and hear some of their secrets, even if it's unintentional, it will ultimately create a rift between the two. After all, everyone has something rotten in their heart that they don't want others to know, and personal habits are the same.
However, nothing is absolute. Perhaps two people are so congenial that they don't mind at all if the other person infringes upon their inner secrets. But for the most part, people who get along in this way often only don't mind themselves, and it doesn't mean their friends don't mind. There's a reason why their impression score might worsen.
As for Fulen, ultimately, his current mindset differs from Klein's and Rosell's. Klein is sentimental; he quickly formed many bonds after arriving in this world, and these bonds tied him down. Rosell is ruthless; even at the very end, Rosell only had Bernadette as a bond at most, with everything else being inconsequential. As for the Evernight Goddess, there's too little information to comment.
Fulen knows that bonds are burdens, and he largely knows the way home. Fulen doesn't want bonds to tie him down, so he tries not to owe favors, only making simple friends. He doesn't expect them to sacrifice themselves to save him in times of crisis, nor does he expect to put himself in danger for them. At most, they can be friends; as for close friends, it's better not to have any.