Spring Festival

Spring on the Hells Continent begins in March. To celebrate sowing and pray for favorable weather, a grand Spring Festival is held in late March each year, and the magic academy arranges for students to help with spring plowing on nearby farms. But the students, all from noble families, gradually turned this event into an annual outing, naturally shifting the venue to the more scenic countryside near the academy. The academy tacitly approved this change, even ceasing to organize it, until finally, the Tris Magic Academy's Spring Festival became a loose, student-led excursion.

Spring awakens everything, and it's also the season when young hearts stir. So on this day, girls dress up carefully, and boys prepare gifts and confessions for their crushes. But when the gaily dressed crowd set out halfway, the sky rudely began to drizzle.

This rain, beneficial for spring plowing, caused no small trouble for the preoccupied youngsters.

The girls' wide hats could only shield their faces, keeping their carefully applied rouge from smearing, but their pretty dresses quickly got wet, becoming wrinkled, and the hems were splattered with mud from the ground. Their sullen expressions scared off the hesitant boys, and by the time they reached the destination and ducked into a shelter, there was no mood left for fun.

Through the dripping curtain of rain at the shelter's edge, Donald gazed at the mountains and forests soaking in the spring rain, feeling a bit nostalgic for Lant Island. The annual Spring Festival there had no celebrations; everyone just went to the fields to help farmers sow, and the blacksmith's family was no exception. If it rained like this, the farmers would be delighted, and they'd prepare a better dinner to thank everyone.

"Is Father helping out right now? Is it raining on Lant Island too? There'll be good food tonight." Donald thought, a smile unconsciously spreading across his face. At this moment, the fragments within his Divine Element had, over the past few days, all grown into complete Divine Elements.

"What are you smiling about?" Wesley sat beside him.

"Thinking about Lant Island."

"I have to visit this summer—you'd better treat me well."

"No problem. You can sleep by the forge's fire, and I'll lay out the softest straw for you," Donald said with a laugh.

"As long as you lay it, I'll sleep." Wesley looked utterly unconcerned. "Hey, did you notice Lucia seems different today?"

"Different how?"

"She not only dressed up, but she's all shy and coy."

"Aren't all the girls like that today?"

"What do you know? She didn't dress up last year—oh, no, she didn't even come last year. I heard she's a training maniac. Why would she come to the Spring Festival?"

"She's grown up this year," Donald replied casually.

"Donald, I think there's something off. You don't suppose she's got a crush on you?"

"What, giving up that fast? Where's your persistence and patience?"

"Get lost, I lost interest in her ages ago. I'll bet you she'll come over and talk to you on her own soon."

"Don't joke about me."

"Afraid of losing out?"

"Would she be willing to sleep on a straw pile too?"

Wesley turned to glance at Donald, muttered, "Maybe she would," and fell silent.

"What's a magic genius like?" Donald changed the subject.

"Look at me, and you'll know."

Donald shoved Wesley, who burst out laughing.

"On the Hells Continent, advancing to Formal Magician before twenty counts as a genius, and there are geniuses like that every year. I hear across the whole Middle-earth, hundreds of them are taken to the Magic Continent each year."

"Why go to the Magic Continent?"

"Because magic civilization is way more advanced there—Formal Magicians are everywhere. Oh, and they say there are Bluebird Magicians in their teens on the Magic Continent."

"Bluebird Magician?"

"Mages above level four. Since no bird can fly over the Northeastern Mountains, and no mage above level four has ever been north of them. I really don't know how you passed your magic civilization class... oh, right, you never took it."

"Teenagers reaching above level four..."

"Don't panic. No one has ever advanced to level seven before a hundred years old—except the Divine Son, that is."

"What's the Divine Son?"

"Now I get what you mean by Lant Island being cut off from the world. Temples everywhere pick kids with divine nature, and every ten years, one is chosen to be taken to the Heavenly Kingdom. After living there for a year, they become a Shepherd of God. Every hundred years, there's a gifted child who can live in the Heavenly Kingdom for ten years, becoming a Divine Son, walking the world in God's stead. Right now, I think there are eight Divine Sons and forty-six Shepherds of God. Oh, Divine Sons are also mages, definitely above level seven—exactly how high, no one knows, since no one dares fight them."

"How come you're not devout toward God?"

"I'm not a king. Whether it's Divine Grace or Divine Punishment, it won't come for me."

"So then... advancing to low-level Magic Apprentice in half a year is pretty ordinary, right?" Donald finally voiced the doubt in his mind.

"Low-level Magic Apprentice in half a year? Maybe it's ordinary on the Magic Continent, who knows? Why are you staring at me? It took me almost three years... don't tell me you've advanced?"

Donald nodded slightly.

"Are you a demon or something?" Wesley shot up, exclaiming in shock, then, realizing he'd lost his composure, quickly sat back down.

Donald had actually advanced to low-level Magic Apprentice in half a month, but that was too unbelievable, and he didn't dare tell Wesley.

"Have you constructed any magic? Which element?"

"I'm pretty skilled with the Six Yuan Fireball. I have Divine Elements for the other elements too, but I haven't practiced them yet."

"Practice, my ass! The basic attack and defense models are the same—master one element, and you've mastered them all! Tell me honestly, how much Divine Element do you have now?"

"One hundred and eighty..."

"How much is fire?"

"All five elements... around one hundred and eighty each..."

Wesley stood up again, this time kicking Donald. The people around stared at him in surprise, but he acted like he didn't see them.

"Pissed me off! So infuriating!" he said as he sat back down, this time without asking further.

"So... how many Divine Elements do you have?"

"Not as many as you!" Wesley replied bitterly.

"How many exactly? This is important."

"Two!"

"I created a Meditation Method myself. As long as you have two Divine Elements, each meditation seems to increase the number of elements and also boosts their activity."

Wesley turned to stare at Donald, as if seeing him for the first time.

"Really? Every time?"

"It should be, but it hurts a bit. Come to my dorm tonight, and I'll teach you."

Donald suddenly felt that what he was saying sounded like a creep luring a young girl, but Wesley, usually so sleazy, was now dead serious.

"Donald, what are you two chatting about?"

Just as Wesley had predicted, Lucia indeed walked over and took the initiative to speak to Donald.