Teaching

"Donald said to come to his dorm tonight—he's going to teach me something really useful, but it might hurt a bit. How about it? Want to come along?"

"Go to hell!"

Wesley deliberately put on an innocent look. "You're the one who doesn't want to come, so don't blame us later! Haha, alright, I'll leave you two alone."

Lucia sat down beside Donald, following his gaze as they watched the rain together for a while, then couldn't help asking: "Was Wesley telling the truth?"

"Yeah... but not what you're imagining."

"I'm not imagining anything!"

Then why did you curse him? Donald thought, but didn't say it out loud—this topic really wasn't worth pursuing further.

"Why did the king reward you?" This was the first time Lucia had asked this question. Before this, Donald had already roughly explained the Natia Vida matter to Victor and Wesley.

"I don't really know, just that it has something to do with the Gnomes and Dwarves. I helped them out a bit."

"I see... that's not surprising, then."

After that, the two fell silent, just sitting quietly. The rain showed no signs of stopping, and the view was filled with lush green. In the distant mountains, streams formed by the rain were faintly visible. The young men and women taking shelter had finally calmed down, and some had already started exchanging gifts and confessing their feelings.

"No girl giving you a gift?" Lucia spoke first.

"On Lant Island, everyone goes to help with spring plowing today. At night, the farmers treat everyone to a meal. Besides New Year's, the Spring Festival was the happiest time for Richard and me... because we could eat our fill." Donald's answer was off-topic.

Lucia was a bit confused, not knowing why he suddenly brought this up.

"Have you ever gone hungry?"

Lucia shook her head.

Donald smiled and continued: "Of course you've never gone hungry. To you, that's a story from another world. Just like how I look at you all now—it feels like looking at another world too."

"But you've already walked out of that world. You and Richard won't go hungry anymore, right? Richard will become a Knight—Roger told me he has great talent. As for you, haven't you thought about becoming a Magician? You entered the Magic Academy to become a Magician, didn't you?"

"Then let me become a Magician first."

I'll wait, Lucia said to herself.

***

Before dark, Wesley knocked on Donald's door. Aside from chasing girls, this was the first time Donald had seen him so eager.

"Alright, what's the method?"

"First tell me how many Divine Elements you have in each element."

"Wind Element two hundred eighty, Wood Element one hundred ninety."

"The numbers are a bit off, but one ninety is enough."

"Your self-created Meditation Method really increases Divine Elements every time?"

"I gained twelve in Fire Element and thirteen in Water Element in three days."

"God! Really? Whatever, I'll try it first!"

Donald carefully explained the meditation process. The more Wesley listened, the more astonished he became. Even without trying it, he could already see how remarkable it was.

Rotating two types of Divine Elements in opposite directions to cancel out dizziness was actually a fairly common method, but simply increasing Divine Element activity wasn't very meaningful. Very few Magicians had equal numbers of Divine Elements in two elements, and most of the time, the Dance of Divine Elements was only used to restore Divine Elements that had lost their activity from being compressed.

Running two types of Divine Elements at high speed in opposite directions, using collision instead of compression—that was a method no one had ever thought of.

"Can you collide the same type of Divine Elements?" Wesley immediately thought of another question.

"I tried it, never succeeded. I think when the same type of Divine Elements get extremely close, the repulsive force is enormous—even greater than between different types. So using this Meditation Method requires having at least two elements."

"Alright, let's try it now!"

The two sat in opposite corners of the room, far apart, and both entered meditation at the same time.

About two hours later, Donald came out of his meditative state. Even though he had anticipated the intense reaction from the Divine Element collision, it was still painful.

The pain faded after a few minutes, and then Donald rested while waiting for Wesley. A full hour later, Wesley suddenly let out a scream and clutched his head. Donald left him alone to recover on his own.

"Damn! Wind Element increased by four, Wood Element by three! That's incredible! Donald, this is incredible! Ow, it hurts..." Wesley gave up trying to stand. "At this rate, I'll advance to Formal Magician within a year! Just thinking about it gets me excited!"

"I calculated that at a rate of four per session, reaching the one thousand Divine Elements of a Formal Magician would take eight months. Two years to reach the three thousand of a Level 2 Magician."

"Right! Seven years to reach ten thousand Divine Elements—Bluebird Magician! Hahaha, Level 7 Flowing Cloud Magician at one hundred thousand—only seventy years! Level 10 Star Magician..."

"You'll probably be disappointed. Don't forget, with dual elements, the higher the level, the worse the interference. Above Level 2 Magician, there are very few dual-element Magicians. Even in the best-case scenario, if we don't encounter interference before reaching Level 4 Magician, it'll still take seven years. We won't make it before twenty—still far behind the geniuses of the Magic Continent."

"Hahaha, if that's really the case, what's seven years! Bluebird Magician Wesley! Beautiful women of the Magic Continent? Are you ready?!" Wesley didn't care about the geniuses of the Magic Continent. Before this, his biggest dream was just to advance to Formal Magician before twenty. But after the excitement passed, he had a new idea: "Donald, we can do more meditations each day!"

"I tried it. After each Divine Element collision, I can't enter deep meditation again for the rest of the day. So at most once a day."

"Maybe once our Divine Elements increase, each meditation will yield more!"

"Probably not that optimistic. Every time just two Divine Elements collide, the meditation ends automatically. Even if we have more Divine Elements, increasing the chance of collision only shortens the meditation time—it's impossible to collide many at once. And I tried speeding it up—no use. I think the tiny Divine Elements split off during collision dissipate. I suggest you don't get too optimistic. Have you ever heard of a Level 4 dual-element Magician?"

"Never heard of one. Ah, don't think that far ahead! That old bastard is only a Level 2 Magician—I'll surpass him in two years! Hahaha..."

"Who are you talking about?" Donald was confused by the outburst.

"Oh, sorry, I never told you—my father is the dean of the academy." Wesley said it casually, like it was nothing important.

"Why do you call him..."

"Old bastard? When I was five, my mother was gravely ill. That old bastard watched her die without even asking for Divine Grace. Hah! And some people still say he loved my mother. Pah! My uncle says that with everything he's done for the empire, if he'd just opened his mouth, the king would have granted Divine Grace as a matter of course. Oh, my uncle is Victor—he's my mother's brother."

Donald now understood why Wesley had felt an instant kinship with him. He must have learned through Mr. Victor that Donald had also lost his mother at a young age—the same experience. Even Victor, when he saw Donald, might have been reminded of his own nephew. And Wesley's lazy, cynical attitude was likely born from resentment toward his father, a deliberate act of playing the irredeemable slacker at the academy.

"Wesley, do you know what the Silver Iris represents?" Hearing Wesley's story, Donald suddenly remembered the keepsake his mother had left him.

"No idea. Could it be related to the twelve stars of the Iris constellation in the northern sky? Why are you asking?"

Just then, a knock came at the door. It was Lucia's voice again.