Hilbert sneered, his voice icy. "The girls of our Hainalson family are rather precious."
Everyone could hear what he meant... Aislin had best keep her distance from such a precious girl.
Yet Hilbert did not end his verbal assault there. "As far as I'm concerned, Russell is a good boy I can trust.
"I don't need anyone else testing him for me.
"Heh."
He looked at Aislin with cold mockery in his eyes.
Although he soon looked away, turning an indifferent gaze toward the front of the hall... Aislin naturally understood his warning: Gilbert knew perfectly well what she had been trying to do, and he was deeply displeased by her suspicions.
But Aislin still believed she was in the right on this matter... there was no way her teacher, Rute, had been unaware of her probing.
If Rute had not shared those concerns, he would have stopped her long ago.
Her ability to take care of things that her teacher's usual way of doing things made awkward for him to handle was one of the reasons she had always been entrusted with important responsibilities.
Gilbert surely understood that too, which was why he had chosen not to spell it out.
At worst, the man would hold a grudge against her... surely he couldn't turn that resentment against their teacher?
No matter how outstanding Gilbert's talent was, he would not be able to defeat Aislin for at least a hundred years. Of that, she was quite confident.
Before becoming a Seventh-Circle Mage, one could indeed rely on talent to advance in leaps and bounds, but reaching the eighth ring... without enough time to attune oneself to the laws and understand them, crossing that threshold was simply impossible.
Just like Rommel, that impossibly brilliant student of the Kament Tower.
Even if