Pride and Prejudice

Ignoring his two buddies' usual bickering, Lanlos studied the brief transfer order, his expression turning somewhat inscrutable.

'Tell Lanlos the Windrunner Blade is his. This is thanks from the Windrunner.'

Thanks? What for? And that was it? He'd done plenty, hadn't he? Where was the promised reward?

"Brother, don't lose heart." Halduron had clearly noticed something was bothering Lanlos. He slung an arm around his shoulders. "You have to remember, you're not one of the Farstriders. Neither Lor'themar nor Sylvanas has the authority to decide your rewards and punishments, much less carry them out. Fastherin and the Grand Magister certainly won't shortchange you."

Unexpectedly, Lanlos smiled and shook his head. "That's not what I'm worried about. It's just..."

"Ooh." Halduron flashed a knowing grin. Every man understood that look. He tightened his arm, squeezing the air from Lanlos's lungs. "Sylvanas? That woman's certainly beautiful, but don't get your hopes up. A rose may have thorns, but at least there's somewhere you can grab it. Have you ever seen anyone pick up a hedgehog with their bare hands?"

Just because he'd never seen it didn't mean no one had.

Lanlos shrugged and chose to end the conversation with silence.

He was interested in Sylvanas, sure, but not in the way Halduron thought.

As the Windrunner family's second daughter, Ranger General of Quel'Thalas, and Dark Lady of the Forsaken, the tall, beautiful elf had once been the undisputed number one on players' popularity rankings.

Lanlos had been one of her fans, too.

Of course, not of the Ranger General, but of the future Banshee Queen who would rule Undercity.

With painstaking focus, he traced something in the air, as though what he held in his hand were not magic but a paintbrush for creating art. The fine beads of sweat on Lanlos's brow showed that the task was pushing him a little beyond his limits.

It was already his third day back at the academy. Including the time spent on the road, he had devoted nearly a week to this spell.

Third-circle spells were even harder than he had imagined. Even with the help of Sargerite's 3D projection, progress remained slow.

Pyroblast model construction complete... Completion assessment: 73.14%... Activation failed...

Another failure. Despite a much higher completion rate than before, Lanlos was still dissatisfied.

Pyroblast wasn't unfamiliar to him. He had even used it himself when wiping out the Trolls in Golden Branch Village. Although his innate affinity for fire magic, granted by Fel, had helped, there was no denying he was fairly experienced with it.

Yet now he was stuck at the threshold, the door only half open. He was just one step away—just one step—from mastering this devastating spell.

Gradually, Lanlos grew restless.

Just as he was about to continue building the spell model, the 3D projection before the elven boy abruptly vanished. After a moment's confusion, Lanlos hurriedly questioned the Keystone. "Sargerite, are you glitching?"

'Detected that the host has left a focused state. The failure rate of continued model construction is high. Energy-saving system automatically activated.'

"I..." Lanlos gritted his teeth, but there was nothing he could do. He knew it was right.

With a soft sigh, the boy sat on the cliff's edge, absently swinging his legs over the drop. His gaze followed the shimmering sea all the way to the horizon, where sky met water.

This was the downside of advancing too quickly.

The complexity of Pyroblast's spell model wasn't much greater than that of a second-circle spell, but constructing its spell nodes required far greater precision and magical strength.

That was why people said that only third-rank casters had truly stepped through the gates of Arcane magic. Lanlos had enough understanding of and reserves of magic, but to successfully cast a third-circle spell, he needed to compress and refine his magic again and again.

It was like a cup. Before, filling it with water had been enough. Now, he needed to fill it with mercury.

Rustle!

The grass beside him shook unnaturally. Lanlos immediately stopped reflecting and began gathering magic. But after seeing the message from Sargerite, he slowly let it disperse. "I thought Sylvanas had already given me the Windrunner Blade?"

He turned around, and a familiar, slender figure came into view.

Vereesa's beautiful eyes blinked rapidly. An awkward smile flickered across her face. "Um, I came to apologize."

"Apologize?" Remembering her usual overbearing attitude, Lanlos looked very surprised. "Are you serious?"

"I've already heard from the Farstriders what happened in Golden Branch Village." Whether from guilt or nervousness, Vereesa clasped her hands behind her back, her fingers twisting together involuntarily. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?" Lanlos smiled and shook his head. "That had nothing to do with you."

Vereesa meant the way Sarell's assignment had led her to assume the worst of Lanlos from the start, making her wrongly believe he had taken the Windrunner Blade purely to keep it for himself.

But naturally, she wasn't about to explain the details, so Lanlos didn't really understand why she was apologizing.

"I mean what happened afterward." Remembering how many ridiculous situations her assumptions had caused, Vereesa's face turned pale, then red, changing colors at a remarkable speed. "Anyway, I've apologized. Now it's your turn!"

"Me?" Seeing Vereesa glare at him with her arms crossed, Lanlos pointed at his own nose, thoroughly confused again.

Had he done something wrong?

"You're still going to deny it?"

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to deny. How can I deny it?"

"That night, when you felt me up... And what you did with the rope at the Western Temple—you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you?" Vereesa clenched her teeth. Remembering those humiliating scenes, her anger flared again. Her bright eyes seemed ready to shoot fire at any moment.

Seeing her shy, mortified expression, Lanlos laughed without a care in the world. "You can't blame me for that. If you hadn't attacked me without bothering to get the facts straight in the first place, I wouldn't have..."

Thwack!

A streak of light flashed past his eyes, cutting off Lanlos mid-sentence. He watched the exposed end of an arrow shaft quiver, and a spark of inspiration flashed through his mind. But when he turned back, it was gone.

"I knew it! You bastard—you're no good!" At some point, Vereesa had nocked another arrow.

"Little girl." Lanlos watched the arrow fletching tremble slightly. His voice gradually grew low, each word seeming to carry magic, slowly pounding against Vereesa's chest like a heavy hammer. "Didn't Lirath tell you? The academy forbids carrying standard-issue weapons. He got himself into serious trouble for exactly that."

Under the strange pressure, Vereesa opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Lanlos continued. "And attacking a member of the faculty on academy grounds is a serious violation of the rules. You could be expelled."

Silence. A long silence. Vereesa's expression shifted repeatedly under his stern gaze. She felt as if something were stuck in her chest, leaving her inexplicably stifled.

"I've met your two older sisters." Lanlos slowly rose to his feet. His deep, resonant voice was quiet, but it carried remarkably well. "Compared to them, you..."

He didn't finish the sentence. That only left the imagination more room to run wild, and for Vereesa, who was at just the age to overthink everything, those unfinished words were all the harder to forget.

"Bastard!" Overcome with shame and fury, Vereesa's trembling voice erupted in a shout. She released the string, and with a twang of the bow, the arrow shot toward Lanlos in an instant.

Lanlos glanced at the arrow embedded in the ground just in front of his toes. When he looked up again, Vereesa had disappeared from view.

Couldn't anyone sit down with him peacefully and talk about ideals, talk about life?

Lanlos shrugged, utterly oblivious to his own part in it. He pulled the arrow from the ground, then suddenly froze.

There was no arrowhead?

As if remembering something, the elven boy hurried over to the nearby tree trunk and yanked out the other arrow. It was the same: the tip was completely bare, except for the part scraped away by the tree. The end was perfectly smooth. It looked less like an arrow and more like an oversized chopstick.

Not bad, little girl.

Lanlos ran his fingers over the smooth tip, a strange smile appearing on his face. These practice arrows weren't among the weapons banned by the academy. After all, not everyone was like Vereesa, able to drive a practice arrow through most of a tree trunk.

To be precise, she was probably the only one among all the ranger students who could do it.

But the girl wasn't strong, was she?

On the contrary, she was even a little weaker than he was. It was incredible that she could shoot with such force.

Recalling the moment the girl had drawn her bow, Lanlos froze. That familiar spark of inspiration flashed through his mind again—and this time, he caught it.

Grinning from ear to ear, Lanlos laughed excitedly. Then he immediately sat cross-legged and contacted Sargerite again, activating the 3D projection of the Pyroblast spell model.

There was a word for it: chokepoint... And no, not the kind you ate.

In other words, find the critical point.

Most of Lanlos's knowledge of Arcane magic had come from Belash, that Doomguard. The basic approach had been to simply flood the entire spell model with magic until it was saturated. It was simple, but it placed extreme demands on the caster's own power.

Among mortals, aside from Medivh, that Arcane prodigy born into a legendary family, there probably weren't many who had that kind of strength.

Needless to say, Lanlos wasn't one of them.

That was why mortal casters focused on maximizing their use of magic, simplifying its output without sacrificing the spell's effects.

Previously, because he had Belash's soul to support him, Lanlos had overlooked this technique. But now, with Vereesa's help, he was going to put it into practice.

A spell model consisted of countless spell nodes, like building blocks. Energy-conversion nodes, conduction nodes, and gathering nodes each served their own purpose, altering, condensing, and transferring magic step by step to form mysterious and powerful spells.

Every node was constructed differently, and their functions varied greatly.

"Sargerite, analyze every spell node and give me an optimization plan based on my instructions..."

Analyzing...

Node coordinates (2.82, -3.1, 11)... Function: conduction, transmission... Optimized maximum magic infusion: 32.81%...

Node coordinates (0, 0, 0)... Function: fire-element conversion, activation... Node tolerance: excellent... Optimized maximum magic infusion: 195.27%...

Node...

Lanlos watched the Keystone adjust the 3D-projected model intently, listening without a hint of impatience to the mechanical prompts in his ear.

He didn't notice the pair of bright blue eyes fixed on him from the nearby bushes.

Watching Lanlos absent-mindedly play with the arrow in his hand, Vereesa felt an inexplicable sensation spread through her body. It was as if the two practice arrows were extensions of herself. His repeated caresses made goose bumps spring up all over her skin.

"Pervert!"

Cursing under her breath, Vereesa fled the grove as if escaping for her life. She didn't realize her cheeks had already turned red. Nor did she notice that whatever had been lodged in her chest had suddenly disappeared.