Teaching

"Donald said I should go to his dorm room tonight. He wants to teach me something really useful, though it might hurt a little. What do you think? Want to come along?"

"Go to hell!"

Wesley put on an exaggeratedly innocent look. "You're the one who doesn't want to come. Don't blame us later, okay? Ha ha! All right, I'll leave you two alone."

Lucia sat down beside Donald and followed his gaze, watching the rain with him for a while before she couldn't help asking, "Was Wesley telling the truth?"

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

"I'm not imagining anything!"

Then why did you yell at him? Donald wondered, but he didn't say it aloud. This really wasn't a good subject to pursue.

"Why did the king reward you?" This was the first time Lucia had asked. Donald had already given Victor and Wesley a rough explanation of Natia Vida's situation.

"I'm not really sure. I only know it had something to do with the Gnomes and Dwarves. I helped them out a little."

"I see... That makes sense, then."

After that, neither of them spoke. They just sat quietly. The rain showed no sign of stopping. Lush green filled their view, and streams formed by the rain could be faintly seen winding through the distant mountains. The boys and girls who had taken shelter from the rain had finally relaxed. Some were already exchanging gifts and sharing their feelings.

"No girl you want to give a gift to?" Lucia was the first to speak again.

"On Lant Island, everyone helps with the spring planting today, and the farmers treat us all to dinner that evening. Aside from New Year's, the Spring Festival is the day Richard and I look forward to most... because we get to eat our fill." Donald's answer had nothing to do with her question.

Lucia was puzzled, unsure why he had suddenly brought that 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 all of you now and feel like I'm looking into another world."

"But you've left that world behind. You and Richard won't go hungry anymore, right? Richard will become a Knight. Roger told me he has a real talent for it. And what about you? Have you never thought you could become a Mage? Isn't becoming a Mage why you enrolled in the Magic Academy?"

"Then let me become a Mage first."

I'll be waiting, Lucia told herself silently.

It wasn't even dark when Wesley knocked on Donald's door. Aside from chasing after girls, this was the first time Donald had seen him so eager.

"Tell me, what's the method?"

"First, tell me how many Divine Elements you have in each of your two elements."

"Two hundred and eighty Wind Elements, and one hundred and ninety Wood Elements."

"That's quite a difference, but one hundred and ninety is enough."

"Does your self-created Meditation Method really increase the number of Divine Elements every time?"

"In three days, I gained twelve Fire Elements and thirteen Water Elements."

"God! Is that for real? Whatever, I'll try it and see!"

Donald carefully explained the Meditation Method. The more Wesley listened, the more astonished he became. Even before trying it, he could already see how extraordinary it was.

Using two types of Divine Elements to spin toward each other and cancel out the dizziness was actually a fairly common method. But simply increasing the activity of Divine Elements wasn't very useful. Mages with the same number of Divine Elements in two different elements were rare, and most of the time, the Dance of Divine Elements was only used to restore Divine Elements whose activity had been depleted by compression.

Making two types of Divine Elements move toward each other at high speed and using collisions instead of compression was something no one had ever thought of before.

"Would colliding Divine Elements of the same type work?" Wesley immediately thought of another question.

"I tried it, but it never worked. My guess is that when Divine Elements of the same type get very close, their repulsion is enormous—stronger than the repulsion between different types. So this Meditation Method requires at least two elements."

"Enough talking. Let's try it!"

The two of them sat in opposite corners of the room and entered meditation at the same time.

About two hours later, Donald emerged from meditation. He had been expecting the intense reaction from the collision of Divine Elements, but it still hurt like hell.

The pain vanished after a few minutes. Donald rested as he waited for Wesley. A full hour later, Wesley suddenly let out a shriek and clutched his head. Donald left him alone to recover at his own pace.

"Damn! I gained four Wind Elements and three Wood Elements! This is incredible, Donald! This is incredible! Ow, that hurts..." Wesley gave up trying to stand. "At this rate, I'll become a Formal Magician within a year! Just thinking about it gets me excited!"

"I did the math. If I gain four Divine Elements each time, I'll reach the thousand needed to become a Formal Magician in only eight months. In two years, I could reach the three thousand needed to become a Level 2 Magician."

"Right! In seven years, we could reach ten thousand Divine Elements and become Bluebird Magicians! Ha ha ha! A Level 7 Flowing Cloud Magician needs a hundred thousand Divine Elements, so that'll only take seventy years! And a Level 10 Star Magician..."

"You'll probably be disappointed. Don't forget, the more Divine Elements we have, the more interference there'll be between our two elements. Above Level 2 Magician, Dual-Element Mages are rare. Even in the best-case scenario, if we avoid interference until we reach Level 4 Magician, it'll still take seven years. We won't manage it before we're twenty, and we'll still be far behind the geniuses of the Magic Continent."

"Ha ha ha! If that's really how it goes, what's seven years? Wesley, the Bluebird Magician! Beauties of the Magic Continent, are you ready for me?!" Wesley didn't care about the geniuses of the Magic Continent. Until now, his greatest ambition had been to become a Formal Magician before he turned twenty. But after his excitement died down, he came up with a new idea. "Donald, we can meditate several times a day!"

"I tried. After the Divine Elements collide, I can't enter deep meditation again for a whole day. That means we can do it at most once a day."

"Then maybe once we have more Divine Elements, we'll gain more each time we meditate!"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple. The moment just two Divine Elements collide, meditation ends automatically. Even if we have more Divine Elements, the increased chance of a collision will only shorten the meditation time. It won't make a lot of Divine Elements collide at once. I also tried increasing the speed further, but it didn't help. My guess is that the tiny fragments split off during the collision disappear. I suggest you don't get your hopes up yet. Have you ever heard of a Level 4 Dual-Element Mage?"

"No, I haven't. Ah, forget it. There's no point worrying that far ahead! That old bastard is only a Level 2 Magician anyway. I'll surpass him in two years! Ha ha ha..."

"Who are you talking about?" Donald was baffled.

"Oh, sorry, I never told you. My father is the dean of the Academy." Wesley said it casually, as if it were no big deal.

"Why do you call him..."

"An old bastard? When I was five, my mother was gravely ill. The old bastard watched her die and still wouldn't ask for Divine Grace. Hmph! And people still say how much he loved my mother. Disgusting! My uncle said that, given everything he's done for the Empire, all he had to do was ask and the king would have granted Divine Grace. Oh, my uncle is Victor. He's my mother's older brother."

Donald now understood why Wesley had taken to him at first sight. He must have heard from Mr. Victor that Donald had also lost his mother in childhood. Maybe when Victor saw Donald, he had thought of his own nephew, too. Wesley's lazy nature probably stemmed from his resentment toward his father. He had deliberately acted like a good-for-nothing at the Academy, as if he were beyond saving.

"Wesley, do you know what the Silver Iris represents?" Hearing about Wesley's family made Donald think of the keepsake his mother had left him.

"I don't know. Could it have something to do with the Iris Twelve Stars in the northern sky? Why do you ask?"

Just then, there was a knock at the door. It was Lucia again.