The dry air penetrated through Lea's lungs as he drew in his breath. Surrounding him was the very familiar landscape of tanish brown that continued on for as far as his eyes could make out. Lea scanned the area and set to work in preparation for the day of practice.
He needed to speed up his spells, he understood that but just exactly how he would do that was another matter. Pulling the strings of his shoes, the boy unlaced the threads and removed the cushioned material from his foot. Lea then removed a small indent of sand from the ground and placed the shoe in an upright position which he then outlined with a circle. A shadow fell from the blaring sun light and crossed the circular boundary.
Bending over the shadow, Lea made a slight mark in the earth indicating the time at which he would start to summon his magic. Back pedaling, the boy kept his eyes on the makeshift clock and placed some distance from it to prevent any chance of incineration. The shifting material under his bare foot singed at its touch but he simply embraced the burn and ignored the throb of signals that were received by his brain.
Once at a safe distance Lea rolled his eyes shut and began the journey into his memories. Flicking through the thoughts he again landed on the room with his mother. Warmth enveloped his being and he twisted his wrist in ritual. Eyes flashing open, the boy came back to reality with the familiar pulsing orb hovering above his palm.
He quickly extinguished the small sun and paced back over to the shoe sun-dial. Shock flashed over his face as he starred at the clock. The shadow had moved a quarter of the way around its path. The boy shuddered at the thought. Lea had been completely incoherent of the physical world for three hours. What if something had happened? What if someone tried to attack him? They would have plenty of time to do it apparently, along with eat a full course meal before he would even be able to respond. He needed to fix this.
Wracking his brain, the teen pondered how to make the energy emanate faster. Lea first came across the idea that searching through his memories was what was taking a sizable amount of time. Maybe if he went into the dream world with the precognition of the chosen scene it would divulge faster.
Returning to his stance a few meters away from his time-telling clothing he fully pictured the scene and dove into the world of thought. Appearing right before him, he quickly touched the window and went through the motions to return to his arid landscape. The same ball as he produced previously danced over his hand but that was not what he held interest in. Lea threw the ball at one of the nearby boulders causing it to explode on impact and leave a black skid on the rocky surface.
Shifting his gaze to the circle he stepped forward to mark his latest lap. A slight grin tugged at his cheek as he noted the difference in location. From what he could tell about thirty minutes to an hour had passed with the attempt. Nothing close to perfect, but much more so than the sad displays before.
Rejuvenated with the new-found success, Lea gestured through the motions again and again trying to minimize the time spent away from the present. As the sun started to shimmer its last rays behind the earthy hills to the north, the teen finally resigned to returning to town and back to his mother. Teleaf would want to hear about this as long as Starin wasn't around. The family had grown with the Arts engrained in its history but the sourly pungent man saw it as no more than a devil's trick.
As an adolescent Lea's innocent mouth let slip that he studied under Merlin which generated a raging storm of bright words and threatenings of removal from the residence. The young boy's mother weathered the front with a stoic face and rigid posture until the cross monster retracted its claws from their strenuous activity. Teleaf calmly reasoned that her child was creative and had had dreams about practicing under the known sorcerer and that he was in fact working in a saw mill. Not only would the occupation account for the lack of sun that the boy got in the magician's layer but also allow for the potential burns and smells that might result from a day with Merlin. What Lea truly did had been their secret since.
Lea pulled himself back from the thought and rummaged his pockets for the liquid solution that would take him back. He dropped a miniscule amount and stepped through the veil between realities.