Erin's Excitement

Erin did not look like a noble Magic Apprentice at all. She was dark and thin, and her snow-white Magic Apprentice robe had been washed until it was pilled.

She had few friends, and no one was particularly willing to associate with her.

Because her ideas were always strange.

While everyone at Felix Magic Academy mocked Asheff for mobilizing the entire academy just to cultivate crops, she alone felt delighted inside.

No one knew that she had chosen Wood Spirit magic not because of its versatility or economic value.

It was because she wanted to cultivate crops.

In the academy's Magic Apprentice records, her mother had died of dysentery.

Only she knew that her mother had died of hunger. Desperate with starvation, she had eaten unknown weeds and ultimately died of dysentery.

Hunger was a distant word to most Magic Apprentices.

But she knew it was a torment that lasted through countless days and nights.

Her mother had once boiled stones in an empty pot, only so she and her younger brother could fall asleep while waiting.

After unexpectedly becoming a Magic Apprentice, she had devoted nearly all her spare time to researching crop cultivation.

Unfortunately, she had achieved very little.

She could make a grain crop sprout and bear fruit within a day. She could make it produce seeds larger than fists, and even use grafting to grow seven or eight kinds of fruit from a single fruit tree.

But what use was that?

Without magic to sustain them, all of it was nothing more than flowers in a mirror and the moon in water, painfully illusory.

She wanted to solve the food problem, yet she did not even know which direction to strive in.

Again and again, she wandered in confusion. The image of her mother on her deathbed told her every day that her life had been traded back from the God of Death by her mother.

So when she learned that the mysterious Asheff wanted to cultivate crops, her eyes reddened with excitement.

After the gathering ended, she immediately summoned the Internet and wrote down, bit by bit, the meager knowledge and clumsy insights she had accumulated over the years.

By the time she finished writing, it was already late at night.

After carefully reading through what she had written several times, correcting a few typos, and sending it to Asheff, her vision suddenly went black. A wave of dizziness nearly sent her collapsing to the floor.

Being connected to the Internet for so long had greatly depleted her Soul Power.

She hurriedly sat cross-legged and meditated. Only after a long while did she recover some Soul Power.

Ignoring the hunger in her stomach, she quickly opened the Internet again, only for disappointment to flash across her face.

—Asheff had not replied to her.

A self-mocking smile appeared on her face.

Of course. Even her friends did not approve of her ideas, so how could she hope for some important figure to value them?

Forget it! Admit it! You were just an insignificant Magic Apprentice.

If cultivating crops were really that simple, would crops still be as they were after thousands of years?

Thinking this, Erin dejectedly lay down on the couch, buried her head in her pillow, and faint moisture gradually soaked the pillowcase.

She tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep.

The next day, Erin barely lifted her spirits through meditation and forced herself to attend class as though nothing was wrong.

After finishing her regular magic lessons, she returned to her private dormitory, secretly used Wood Spirit magic to grow several fruits and vegetables to fill her stomach, then began cultivating.

That afternoon, she went to the Magic Forest on time.

Just as he had yesterday, Asheff stood calmly atop the platform and required every Magic Apprentice to sign a confidentiality Contract.

To that end, he had prepared a gigantic Contract scroll.

The Magic Apprentices went onto the platform one after another and signed their names on the Contract scroll. Once they had done so, he said, "Before I formally assign the experimental tasks, let me mention something first."

He paused, then asked, "Who is Erin?"

Erin's entire body jolted. Only when the classmates beside her looked over did she hurriedly raise her hand. "I am, Mr. A... Asheff."

"Come forward."

"Yes!"

Under the gaze of countless classmates, Erin's slightly dark face flushed red as she quickly walked toward the raised platform in the hall.

"Mr. Asheff!"

When she approached, Erin respectfully bowed her head. Her heart pounded wildly as she wondered why Asheff had called for her.

"Yesterday, I said that anyone with ideas or suggestions regarding the experimental topic could send them to me privately, and that good writing would be rewarded. So far, only Erin has written anything, and it was excellent. Now it is time for me to fulfill that reward."

As he spoke, Yu Sheng'an reached into the air and drew out a wand from his Space Ring. He handed it to Erin. "Here, this is your reward. I read your insights; they were excellent and full of ideas. Are you interested in being my assistant?"

"Whoa—"

At that moment, an uproar erupted throughout the vast hall.

Every Magic Apprentice's gaze was drawn to the wand in Yu Sheng'an's hand.

It was a wand made of dark-red wood, with natural wood grain forming magic-conducting Magic Runes that made it impossible to put down.

Most astonishingly, a dark-red gemstone was set into the wand's crown. Within the gem, surging magic power had condensed into mist.

It was unmistakably a Purple Snow Wood High-Grade Wand!

The wand used by Ferguson, the academy's Archmage, was a Purple Snow Wood Wand!

Everyone was stunned by Asheff's extravagance.

Though some clever people guessed that this was likely a gesture meant to inspire others, they still regretted it so much their intestines turned green.

If they had known Asheff was so generous, they would have written up some thoughts and insights no matter what!

They did not even dare hope for a Purple Snow Wood Wand. Even a wand one grade lower was worth a fortune and almost impossible to obtain!

While the Magic Apprentices regretted it so badly their eyes turned green, Erin's attention was caught by the latter half of Yu Sheng'an's words.

"Assistant? Mr. Asheff, can I do it? I-I... I'm only a Magic Apprentice."

"Don't you trust my judgment?" Yu Sheng'an asked.

"No, no..." Erin's dark, thin little face turned red as she hurriedly nodded. "I'm willing, Mr. Asheff."

"Very good!"

Yu Sheng'an patted Erin's shoulder and placed the wand into her hand.

The jade-like warmth of the wand left Erin in a daze. This... seemed to be the first time in her two years of studying at Felix that an important person had praised and valued her so highly.

She bit her tongue, holding back the burning heat in her eyes. She bowed as calmly as she could, then stood behind Asheff and listened to his arrangements for the experiment.

After a while, Asheff finished giving instructions and led all the Magic Apprentices into the basement beneath the Magic Forest.

As expected, the Magic Apprentices who entered the basement were all stunned by this strangely styled experimental site.

However, they had no time to marvel before being assigned task after task.

Asheff's assignment was very simple.

He divided all the Magic Apprentices into several groups.

Each group received different crop seeds and planted them in Microgravity Glass Boxes.

He required the Magic Apprentices to use Wood Spirit magic to rapidly accelerate the seeds' growth to maturity, faithfully record their growth process, and send it to the group chat.

To be honest, this magic experiment exceeded every Magic Apprentice's expectations.

It was simply... too basic!

How was this an experiment?

It was practically a vacation!

Normally, when their instructors dragged them into participating in magic experiments, those were truly difficult.

Either they were required to cut different plants in half and splice them together, attempting to cultivate plants compatible with multiple traits.

Or they had to strip plants of certain functions and focus solely on catalyzing the expression of another function;

In extreme cases, some instructors even madly planted seeds inside animals to study lethal Wood Spirit magic.

Compared to those, Asheff's simple task of rapidly ripening crops was child's play.

Yet when everyone planted the seeds in the Microgravity Glass Boxes and began rapidly cultivating the plants, something that shocked them all happened.