"What kind of person is Prince Ron?"
Professor Hicks walked along Eckley Street with Mason and asked.
"Hmm..." Mason pondered for a moment, then carefully replied, "Prince Ron... is very easygoing... He doesn't have much of an imposing air. He looks like an ordinary young man, except he's especially... especially handsome..."
Mason's first thought had actually been "pretty," but he quickly changed it to another word.
Professor Hicks was taken aback. He hadn't expected Ron to have that kind of personality.
"Easygoing and handsome?" Professor Hicks summed up. "Anything else?"
"Anything else..." Mason furrowed his brow and racked his brain.
The Elemental Cards Prince Ron had invented were quite fun. After playing them once at the Barbecue Shop, Mason had been itching to play again these past couple of days.
But there was no need to tell Professor Hicks about that.
The Elemental Cards were just a little pastime, not something worth bringing up now.
Apart from that, he couldn't think of anything else to say.
After all, he had only met Prince Ron a few times. It wasn't as if they knew each other very well.
But he had a nagging feeling that he'd overlooked something important.
So he wracked his brain, thinking back over his few encounters with Ron. At last, he remembered what had happened the first time he'd met him. He suddenly understood, slapped his forehead, and said with a wry smile, "I can't believe I forgot something so important!"
"Hmm? What is it? Is there some important information?" Professor Hicks asked as they walked.
"A mage. Prince Ron is a mage." Remembering what had happened that day, Mason grew a little flustered. He paused to collect himself, then continued, "I was so focused on the Nether Orchid at the Academy that I completely forgot about it."
"A few days ago, before I bought the Nether Orchid at Prince Ron's Flower Shop, I saw a crowd gathered outside the shop and went over to take a look."
"Prince Ron was sitting at the entrance with a Nether Orchid in front of him, condensing a Magic Seed and advancing to First-Order Mage."
"Oh?" Professor Hicks immediately grew interested. "And then? How strong was the Magic Tide he stirred up?"
The most direct way to confirm a mage's talent was to observe the scale of the Magic Tide he stirred up while condensing his Magic Seed.
Someone like Mason, whose natural talent only allowed him to advance to Tier Three, had caused just a single splash in the Elemental Ocean.
But a genius like Professor Hicks, who had already reached Tier Six in his forties, had stirred up an Elemental Tide—and done so seven times!
That was why the head of the Magic Academy had made an exception and taken Hicks on as a student, teaching him personally.
"An Elemental Ocean Vortex!" Mason swallowed and silently berated himself for forgetting something like that. "After Prince Ron advanced to First-Order Mage, he stirred up a massive Elemental Ocean Vortex. The surrounding water and earth elements seemed to be drawn in by a bottomless black hole. They were all sucked toward him, forming a huge Elemental Ocean Vortex!"
At Mason's words, Professor Hicks abruptly stopped walking. He stood there in a daze, then turned to look at Mason. "What did you say? An Elemental Ocean Vortex!?"
"Mm." Mason nodded. "That's right, an Elemental Ocean Vortex. I'd never heard of anything like it. I was disheartened at the time, and in the end I focused all my attention on the Nether Orchid, so I didn't make a point of remembering it."
"An Elemental Ocean Vortex..." Professor Hicks lowered his head in thought, murmuring to himself as he recalled something the headmaster had once said—
"The Magic Tide I stirred up back then? I remember it was a vortex, right? The surrounding fire elements came rushing toward me as if they'd spotted the most delicious food in the world. I couldn't chase them away!"
The headmaster had said it jokingly, so the young Hicks had taken it as no more than a jest.
Could a mage really possess the talent to stir up an Elemental Ocean Vortex?
But if it was true, then one thing finally made sense.
Why had Andre III entrusted such an important resource as the Nether Orchid to the Seventh Prince, Ron?
It was because Ron himself possessed astonishing magical talent!
Although the Magic Tide was the best way to confirm someone's magical talent, there were plenty of other ways to do so.
The Empire had clearly learned of Ron's magical talent long ago. That was why it had placed the Nether Orchid supply in his hands and was grooming him!
Was Andre III grooming an heir?
Perhaps not an heir to the throne, but quite possibly a successor to a position like head of the Imperial City Magic Academy or minister of the Empire's Ministry of Magic!
This was a future great man!
Professor Hicks seemed to suddenly understand everything, and his expression grew even more solemn.
It seemed he would have to be even more careful when dealing with Prince Ron this time.
Ron had been entrusted with a mission by Andre III: to establish himself in Chaos City, the city with the highest trade volume on the entire continent, and sell Nether Orchids. He must have earned Andre III's deep trust; perhaps the king had assigned him this task to build up his résumé.
Professor Hicks took a deep breath, gestured for Mason to lead the way, then reminded him, "When we meet Prince Ron in a moment, try to be as respectful as possible. He may be easygoing and not mind, but we should still be careful."
Mason paused, wondering if they really needed to be so formal. At least, the two times he'd met Ron, Ron had treated him like a friend. He'd even brought out the Elemental Cards for them to play, without the slightest trace of an upper-class noble's airs.
But since the professor had said so, Mason obediently nodded. "Understood, Professor. I'll be careful."
A few minutes later, they arrived in the Ruby District of Eckley Street.
Following the direction Mason pointed, Professor Hicks spotted the Flower Shop from a distance—
Ron's Wonderful Flower Shop.
It was a strange name to ordinary people, but to mages who knew the story behind it, "Wonderful" seemed perfectly apt.
For mages like Mason, who were stuck at the threshold and struggling to advance, "Miraculous" might have been even more fitting.
When Hicks and Mason reached the shop, they saw an ordinary man inside, cursing up a storm.
"What kind of lousy shop is this?! You're selling a single flower for 20 gold coins? Why don't you just rob people?"
"And you only sell one kind of flower? If you're going to scam people, at least make it look convincing!"
Ron, with his handsome, delicate features, lounged lazily in a recliner with a book in his hands, paying the man no attention at all.
The man eventually ran out of things to curse about and stormed out of the Flower Shop in a fury, spitting a few more obscenities as he left.
"This is more than just easygoing..." Professor Hicks raised his brows in astonishment. "He practically has no temper at all..."
Diary of a Failed Author: There's a newly successful big shot in the group chat today. His first-month sales were 100 copies, and now his average subscriptions are already in the thousands. If he hadn't revealed his stats today, I still wouldn't have believed it. I vaguely remember him hanging around with us flops lately, joking about the big shots in the chat and mocking his own book as trash, saying he didn't even have a decent hater. But today I found out that this thick-browed, big-eyed fellow has betrayed the revolution too! Sob, sob...
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