First Encounter

The sun gradually sank toward the west, and the afterglow of sunset spilled across the earth, draping it in a faint dusky golden radiance. It looked a little dazzling, a little enchanting. A breeze rose gently, stirring the branches and leaves with waves of rustling, cool and pleasant.

Christiana walked across the academy's sports field toward the teaching building. At the very edge stood an independent house, roughly a hundred square meters in size, two stories tall. The house was white with a faint hint of yellow, giving it a soft appearance. Around it was a small fence like strips of bamboo, about one meter high. Including the house, the whole area occupied about two hundred square meters.

On one side of the fence, near the very edge of the academy, lay a pool of water roughly twenty meters wide and thirty meters long. The lake water was so clear the bottom could be seen, and some small trees grew around it.

Within Carlos Academy, this house was extremely distinctive. It had been built by the academy's dean as a place for occasional rest, like a villa. Under normal circumstances, neither instructors nor students were allowed to approach it, and it was indeed some distance away from the teaching building.

Now that Christiana had arrived, the dean of Carlos Academy, knowing her identity and acting with a hint of ingratiation, had temporarily given the house to her to live in so that Christiana would not have to go to the dormitory building.

Christiana had originally been worrying over whether she would have to rent a place outside, because she disliked bustle and noise. She had not expected the dean to present such a fine gift. Christiana did not refuse. The environment was good, refined like a small lakeside residence, and its exceptional quiet pleased her very much.

After taking a bath, Christiana changed out of her long robe and draped herself in a thin white gauze garment, then sat on the second-floor balcony and looked at the scenery. The white gauze was somewhat transparent, but Christiana was not worried in the slightest. The dean had already explained earlier that this place was like forbidden ground; students were not permitted to approach at will, and if they did, they would be punished accordingly.

Although the status of instructors in the academy was not equal to that of nobles, the Taskro Empire placed great importance on education and naturally valued the instructors within academies as well. Under ordinary circumstances, no noble would take the initiative to stir up trouble. Besides, it was only a small building. Nobles had plenty of those, so there was no need to cause a disturbance over it.

Moreover, this balcony faced the lake, and from the academy's side, the balcony could not be seen at all. So Christiana was not worried in the slightest. Feeling the caress of the gentle breeze and the warmth of the sunset's afterglow, Christiana nevertheless felt somewhat restless inside.

Pig's words and the students' words kept appearing in her mind. Christiana suddenly felt that she had only listened to one side of the story and had not met Diya himself. Was she really going to give up just like that? Was she really going to decide that Diya was the kind of person they claimed he was?

Even if that were the case, she should verify it herself. No matter what, what others said was ultimately empty. Only what she saw with her own eyes, combined with everything she had heard, would allow her to make the correct judgment.

In an instant, Christiana decided to go find Diya, get to know this student, and see whether he truly was as Pig and the students had said.

But school had already ended, and almost everyone in all of Carlos Academy had left. Only the dormitory building still had students there, yet she did not know a single one of them. And from what Pig and the others had implied, apart from Pig and a few individual students from the summoning class, no one else knew where Diya lived.

The more she thought about it, the more vexed Christiana felt. She rose and returned inside. After a rustling sound, Christiana changed into a new summoner's robe, milky white with a faint touch of pale yellow. The robe was extremely soft, almost clinging tightly to Christiana's beautiful, delicate body and outlining her curves perfectly. The hem of the robe rose and fell with the light breeze, paired with her curtain of incomparably smooth, silk-like black hair, making her look like a fairy descended to earth.

Christiana strolled out of the small building and walked toward the academy gate. The gate guard stared blankly at that graceful figure like a goddess, unable to react for a moment.

"Could I trouble you to open the gate?" Christiana said softly. Toward anyone, her voice was always like this, so gentle, gentle enough to give people a maddening itch deep in the heart.

"Y-yes, yes." The gate guard was a little better than Pig. Although hearing Christiana's voice made him start fantasizing, he ultimately kept a few traces of rational clarity and hurriedly walked over to open the gate.

"Thank you," Christiana said, giving a slight nod.

"No need, it's only right, only right." The gate guard became incoherent. Watching that delicate, charming back depart, he nearly drooled. "Damn, how can someone be so beautiful? Wonder who'll have the fortune to marry a wife like that." As he muttered, he kept looking at her distant back, appearing reluctant to part.

The sun set behind the western mountains, and night fell. In Carlos City, lamps lit up everywhere. The entire commercial street was illuminated brightly. People came and went on the street as a cool breeze brushed past. This was the most comfortable time of day. People liked going out at this hour, right when the day's work was done and they had just eaten their fill. It was suited to taking a walk, and they could also go out onto the street to look at pretty girls.

Diya said goodbye to Uncle Fu and left home with the Crimson Blood Python's skin, heading toward the commercial street. After Diya had obtained the outer skin of the Crimson Blood Python earlier, he had not been in a hurry to sell it. Instead, he had kept it in his room until tonight, when he brought it out, preparing to go to a leather shop on the commercial street and dispose of it.

After several days of training, Diya could already control his own strength very well. Although it still could not compare with before, he believed that after a while longer, he would be able to achieve the same ease and comfort he had had in the past. Moreover, according to Diya's estimation, being able to lift a hundred jin with one hand meant this strength was already no weaker than that of an ordinary mid-level Warrior-rank fighter. After all, Warrior-rank fighters only trained their bodies and basic combat techniques. They were not yet qualified to cultivate battle qi, while most sword techniques beyond basic combat techniques required the support of battle qi to unleash their power.

In other words, the current Diya, in terms of combat power, could absolutely match a mid-level Warrior-rank fighter, and might even be slightly superior. After all, Diya's skill was still fairly good. If his elusive Flick Sword was included, then against an extremely Warrior-rank fighter one-on-one, he still had the certainty of victory.

The changes in his body and the improvement in his strength gradually altered Diya's state of mind as well. He no longer viewed the world with such pessimism. Walking along the small road, his body felt incomparably light, a feeling he had never experienced before.

Diablo had still been sleeping these past few days. Diya could faintly sense that something seemed to exist within his soul. It seemed that was Diablo's remnant soul. This time, it had probably exhausted him terribly.

The moment he stepped onto the commercial street, Diya felt a faint fragrant breeze blow against his face. He could not help raising his head to look, and a flash of astonishment crossed his eyes. Beneath the lamplight, the milky-white robe with its faint pale-yellow hue appeared even softer and more dazzling, setting off that proud, mature, enchanting, delicate body. Her smooth, loose black hair rose and fell slightly with the breeze, and that face, charming whether angry or smiling, carried an indescribable alluring grace as she walked straight toward Diya.

The astonishment in Diya's eyes vanished. After looking at that figure twice more, he abruptly shifted his gaze to the towering breasts of that figure, then walked past her. A faint fragrance slipped into his nostrils, making Diya's mind tremble. He seemed to become even more spirited. Carrying extreme surprise and a little confusion, Diya nevertheless said nothing and walked straight ahead.

The moment Christiana walked onto the commercial street, she was like a bright red flower among green leaves, so conspicuous that she seemed almost to carry a kind of magnetic magic. She drew in the crowd on the street within a hundred meters nearby. Every person, whether man or woman, old or young, turned their gaze toward her.

Pedestrians stopped in their tracks and stared motionlessly at Christiana. Some even had their mouths slightly open, drool leaking from the corners. Others shot lewd, wicked looks from their eyes, wishing they could immediately push Christiana down right there in the street. But the style of the long robe Christiana wore made it obvious at a glance that she was a cultivator.

This point was stipulated very clearly on the Brahma Continent. Cultivators had special styles of clothing reserved for cultivators. Ordinary people could not wear them, or if reported, they would suffer punishment. At the same time, it would also be regarded as contempt toward cultivators, and even if they were killed in public, it would not be considered excessive.

And the long robe Christiana wore, along with the badge at her chest, left the people on the street intoxicated and surprised at the same time. They had not expected such a delicate beauty to actually be a cultivator of decent strength. She was not someone they could casually offend.

Some people with ulterior motives sized up Christiana's entire body with strange gazes, lingering especially on her breasts and hips for a while longer. It made Christiana feel extremely uncomfortable, but looking was no crime. Besides, her nature was comparatively gentle, so she could only endure it and leave quickly. By chance, she headed in the direction from which Diya was coming.

Christiana felt somewhat embarrassed and annoyed that Diya's gaze had lingered on her breasts, but Diya quickly turned his head away, and his eyes also seemed quite clear, somewhat different from those she had encountered before. This made Christiana feel that he was rather unusual.

As they passed each other, Christiana could not help stopping. She turned around and watched Diya's thin, weak back gradually recede into the distance. He actually showed no intention of looking back at all. A strange expression surfaced on Christiana's face. Then she turned and continued walking forward.