After returning to the academy, Lin Feng's life had strangely fallen back into its old routine. Since Dilia had returned to the Yulan Empire and hadn't yet come back, Lin Feng stopped attending wind magic classes and spent all his time alone in the back hills.
Lin Feng knew that the money he had on hand was nowhere near enough to reclaim his family's heirloom blade, Warblade Slaughter, through the proper channels. The Magic Cores and gold coins in his Space Ring were worth at most a million gold coins altogether. So if he wanted to reclaim Warblade Slaughter, he had to make money. He could borrow from his eldest brother, Yale, and Yale would certainly lend it to him, but Lin Feng didn't want to do that. He wanted to use his own abilities to get his family's heirloom blade, Warblade Slaughter, back.
Which profession made the most money? The answer was obvious: stone carving. Even the works of ordinary master stone carvers often sold for thousands of gold coins, while those by grandmasters could fetch tens of thousands. As for works by master sculptors of the highest caliber, they were worth at least a million gold coins.
So ever since returning from his hometown, Lin Feng had been carving stone sculptures in his spare time. He then had Yale send his works to the Proulx Gallery to be put up for exhibition and sale.
Lin Feng was already quite skilled at stone carving, and the distinctive Flat Blade School style made his work stand out. His sculptures soon caught the attention of stone-carving enthusiasts, and their sale prices steadily climbed. Eventually, they even caught the notice of the Proulx Gallery. The gallery's director, Austoni, personally wrote to invite Lin Feng, offering to open a gallery of his own in the Proulx Gallery's masterworks exhibition hall.
Lin Feng gladly accepted such a favorable offer.
A fifteen-year-old master stone sculptor would be admired wherever he went. When people learned that Lin Feng was not only a master sculptor but also a sixth-year student at Ernst Institute of Magic, he became a celebrity throughout the Fenlai Kingdom and even gained some fame across Yulan.
Though Lin Feng had become a household name, his fame didn't affect his life or cultivation. Apart from regularly carving batches of sculptures for exhibition and sale at the Proulx Gallery, he spent all his time cultivating his spiritual power and refining magic, hoping to break through as soon as possible and reach the level of a ninth-rank mage.
But the closer one came to the end of the path of magic cultivation, the harder it became to advance. Lin Feng was already at the peak of the eighth rank, but breaking through to the ninth rank was no easy matter.
More than two months had passed since the Yulan Festival. That day, Lin Feng was cultivating in the back hills as usual.
For some reason, he couldn't seem to settle his mind and focus on cultivation. He had hoped carving would calm him, but the mistakes he kept making only left him more and more irritated.
"Sigh, it's been more than half a year since Dilia left. Why hasn't she come back yet?" Lin Feng sat beside the waterfall and murmured to himself.
At the thought of Dilia, his long-silent heart suddenly burned with warmth.
As he gazed at the rushing water before him, scene after scene flashed through his mind.
That golden cascade of hair, as beautiful as an elf in the moonlight.
The tender moments when she whispered to him in wind magic class.
Her fierce battles against one magical beast after another in the Magical Beast Mountain Range.
Her alluring figure in his arms beside the waterfall, holding him close.
As Dilia's face and voice came to mind, Lin Feng smiled—a foolish, lovestruck smile.
Sensing Lin Feng's state of mind, Doehring Cowart emerged from the Coiling Dragon Ring. Still clad in a moon-white robe, he stood quietly at Lin Feng's side. He said nothing, only watching Lin Feng with an approving, slightly moved expression.
Night fell, then dawn came. A whole day passed, yet Lin Feng remained lost in his memories, not moving an inch.
Ernst Institute, Dormitory 1987.
"Huh?" When Yale got up in the morning and saw that Lin Feng's bed looked exactly as it had the day before, he was surprised. "Second brother, did third brother come back last night?"
"Third brother?" George, still half asleep, echoed the question. Then he said, "I don't know. I didn't see him. Maybe he came back last night, then went to the back hills to cultivate early this morning."
"Yeah, third brother's a cultivation fanatic. Otherwise, he wouldn't have reached the eighth rank at such a young age," Reynolds added as he got dressed.
"Something's not right. Look, third brother's blanket is still folded the way it was yesterday. He didn't touch it last night." Yale might have seemed carefree, but he was sharp-eyed.
"Hm?" Reynolds turned to look at Lin Feng's bed and said hesitantly, "Could it be that third brother didn't come back last night? But apart from when he went home or spent time training in the Magical Beast Mountain Range, he's never slept anywhere else!"
Yale frowned. He knew Lin Feng well. Lin Feng lived a very orderly life and wouldn't stay out all night unless something unexpected happened.
"Get up, both of you. Let's go check the back hills together." Yale knew that nothing was likely to happen to Lin Feng, given his strength, but he still couldn't help worrying.
The three dressed and hurried out without even washing up, rushing toward the back hills.
"Big brother, third brother usually cultivates beside that waterfall. Let's go look there."
When the three reached the waterfall, they immediately spotted Lin Feng sitting in front of a huge rock, grinning foolishly.
"Judging by the way he looks, did third brother sit here like an idiot all night?" Reynolds was the first to speak.
"Maybe. But he doesn't look like he's cultivating. Could he have stayed out all night and frozen himself stupid?" Seeing that nothing seemed to be wrong with Lin Feng, George relaxed and joked.
Yale, who was more perceptive than most, said nothing. He only watched Lin Feng with a puzzled expression.
"Don't worry, second brother. Even if you go stupid, third brother won't. He's the genius of our Dormitory 1987," Reynolds teased George.
"Then why's third brother sitting there grinning like a fool?"
"Why don't we go wake him up and ask?" Reynolds said, heading toward Lin Feng.
"Wait!" Yale immediately called out when he saw Reynolds move. "Fourth brother, don't disturb him. Third brother might have entered a special state."
Reynolds stopped and turned back, astonished. "A special state? Could it be the epiphany every mage dreams of?"
"Maybe. Whatever it is, we absolutely mustn't disturb him." Yale assumed the air of an eldest brother. "We'll stay here and keep watch until he wakes up."
George and Reynolds nodded.
Waiting was tedious, but George and the others didn't complain. After all, an epiphany was an extraordinary boon that every mage could only hope for. If someone interrupted it, at best the mage would lose the state; at worst, their mind would be disturbed and their spiritual power severely damaged.
Half a day later, Yale and the others were hungry. But since they had to watch over Lin Feng, they couldn't leave, so they sent Reynolds to the academy to fetch some food and water and ate right there.
"How long do you think third brother's epiphany is going to last? It's been four days already, and a whole day before that too. That makes five days in total, and he still hasn't moved. He just keeps sitting there with that foolish grin. Who knows what happy thing he's thinking about?" George gazed at Lin Feng, who was still grinning just as foolishly, and sighed.
"This is a good thing. The longer the epiphany lasts, the more third brother will benefit." Yale took a bite of bread and replied unhurriedly.
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