Sunlight warmly sprinkled down on every corner of St. Lauren.
It was already close to noon.
Inside Golden Lion Academy, someone heavily kicked open the gates to a dorm room with a bang.
Inside the single room, wearing an eye mask, half his body hanging out of the bed, Stingham was still so dead asleep even drool was flowing down.
The four people who’d kicked the door open were dumbfounded when they saw this scene. Then their outrage exploded.
"Stingham, you’re not yet awake even at such an hour!"
"You, you ran alone to Iron Forest Academy and expose your strength without telling us! After you’ve seen Ferguillo’s power you’re still goofing off and skipping on training!"
Wrathful roars exploded inside this dorm room.
However, what made the four of them almost hysterical was, this kind of roaring noise could almost deafen someone’s ears, but Stingham was still passed out, dead asleep.
"You’ve done it now!"
The four of them finally couldn’t resist anymore. They charged forward and pressed Stingham on the bed, then gave him a thorough beating.
"Uh…"
Stingham finally woke up from his dream after taking a beating. He pulled off his eye mask and bitterly looked at the four people blazing with anger, standing in front of him. "When did you guys come in, I saw Ferguillo beating me in my dream, it was really too fearful."
"We’re the ones who beat you! Just look at the time, you’re still sleeping instead of training. If you continue goof off like this, Ferguillo will absolutely beat up you for real!"
The four people shouted, beside themselves with anger.
"I can’t. Captain Hansen, I can’t train today." Stingham looked at the tall and sturdy, thick-eyebrowed boy among the four and said, "I’m sick today."
"You’re sick nine days out of ten! Can’t you at least change your excuse next time you want to be a lazy sod and skip training!" Blue veins suddenly started to bulging on captain Hansen’s head.
"I can do that… My belly hurts really bad, maybe I’m pregnant, I have to rest for three months," Stingham said.
"You…" The four of them immediately turned to stone.
"Whatever, captain Hansen, only ordinary people like you guys need to train so hard. Why does a wise handsome fighting god like me need whatever training?" Seeing the four soon about to go out of control, Stingham tossed his hair and said, "Also, you probably understand why I joined Golden Lion Academy right? It’s precisely because Golden Lion Academy’s teachers are all extremely ordinary, there’s no particularly powerful teacher or freakish teacher who’d force me to train. There’s also the Golden Lion Academy’s secret skill "Golden King of Beasts" that looks especially pretty when you use it, it’ll definitely make hordes of pretty girls go crazy. If you have to force me to train hard even in Golden Lion Academy, maybe you won’t be able to find me just tomorrow when you wake up. Since you guys already woke me up though, we might as well go downtown and eat lunch at Meiran Street? There are a lot of beautiful girl receptionists there."
"Go eat alone if you have to! We’re off training!"
The four people really couldn’t take it anymore. They slammed the door on their way out.
On the road outside the dorm, a team member with hair so short he seemed bald said to Hansen, "Captain, we better go find a teacher and make that guy train. Time is becoming shorter, if it goes on we’ll be totally unable to defeat team Iron Forest."
"Forget it, all of you also heard what he said just now. If we really went to a teacher and forced him to train, he might really jet off somewhere on vacation." Hansen said with an extremely unsightly expression, "After all, he’s the kind of genius who opened two arcane gates as soon as he Awakened, without much training. Now the only ones we can rely on are ourselves, we can only train as much as we can ourselves, increase our own strength as much as possible in this short time left."
…
"You really want to go to Divine Shield Academy and fight that glasses boy?"
"Yes I do, didn’t I say yesterday I’d go beat him today?"
"I actually thought you were just casually saying it, just looking for an excuse to run away yesterday! You don’t even know what he’s called, you don’t know anything about him, you want to go fight him like this? You can tell at first look he’s a senior student of Divine Shield Academy. He talks so big, it’s very possible he condensed arcane particles a long time already. Also, that place is Divine Shield Academy’s territory… You actually want to knock at their door and fight him?" Moss looked incredulously at Ayrin at the entrance to Holy Dawn Academy.
"Faint… How could I possibly find an excuse to hightail it, that guy was too annoying. I just have to punch him!"
"Weren’t you still saying yesterday when we came back that you and Belo wanted to challenge the class tyrant in our second grade class, Rowan Flint? Right now you might not even win against Rowan, but you already want to fight that Divine Shield student that might be much stronger than Rowan outside their academy? If you want to fight, first fight against Rowan, alright?"
"I don’t even know where Belo went," Ayrin said, not stopping his steps in the least. "I definitely have to punch that Divine Shield guy first. Also, brave warrior! You’re talking so much, are you afraid?"
Moss followed behind Ayrin, sweat oozing from his palm. He said, dumbfounded, "Don’t tell me you’re not afraid?"
"What’s this afraid thing?"
"…" Moss was even more dumbfounded. "If you don’t know what fear is, you must at least know what shame is right? Aren’t you worried you can’t beat him at all, and you’ll end up getting hit into a flat cake and pasted on the ground? Aren’t you worried of looking like a fool?"
"Not following through on your words, that’s the real shameful thing." Ayrin forcefully waved his fist. "Even if I can’t beat him now, I’ll certainly be able to beat him in the future. Didn’t we say that fighting, especially fighting against stronger opponent than ourselves, will make us progress faster. Not having the guts to fight against people stronger than yourself, eternally unable to defeat your opponent, that’s the really shameful thing isn’t it?"
Ayrin wasn’t looking at Moss when he said these words, but Moss actually quieted down all of a sudden.
…
"Where’s that glasses guy from yesterday! I came to beat him up!"
A voice filled with fighting spirit rang in front of a store sitting near the walls around Divine Shield Academy, immediately attracting a bunch of people.
"Ah? You really came."
The thirty-something shop owner stared dumbly when he saw the two Holy Dawn Academy freshmen from the day before. He’d mocked them for a real long time together with the Divine Shield students When he saw them run away like the wind, but he didn’t think Ayrin would actually really rush in today and look for a fight.
"Where’s that guy from yesterday, hurry up and call him," Ayrin said aggressively.
Things were sometimes just like this. When someone looked grand and imposing, people would think he must certainly be a powerful character. If Ayrin weren’t acting so overbearing, looking secure in himself, then maybe the other Divine Shield students gathered there would have joined hands to beat him up, together with Moss. But now that he had the guts to stand inside the encirclement of countless Divine Shield students and while still clamoring like this, no one actually had the courage to stick their head out.
The message passed on very quickly.
Not even ten minutes later, that white-faced glasses student and his hair standing up like a broom, together with five or six other persons, appeared like ferocious devils in Ayrin’s and Moss’ visions.
"The glasses guy? It’s senior Ringel?"
"This Holy Dawn kid, the one he’s challenging is senior Ringel?"
Such voices came one after another into Moss’ ears, making Moss feel as if something very bad were about to happen.
"Boss, give me fifty kebabs!" Ayrin told the thirty-something shop owner at this moment.
"I think that won’t be necessary."
Walking over, the glasses Divine Shield student insidiously said when he heard Ayrin’s voice, "Since you actually dared to come, then my beating will certainly make you puke. It’d be a waste to eat now."
"You’re called Ringel?" Ayrin actually told him with an entirely serious face, "I’m not going to eat these fifty kebabs right now, they’re my rewards for myself after I defeat you."
"Is that so?"
Ringel took off his glasses and handed them to a companion beside him. Then he clasped his hands together and stretched them forward. "Let me see if you’re really as strong as you sound like."
All the onlookers immediately retreated backwards, clearing up a wide space.
"Ok, I’m coming!"
Ayrin didn’t waste many words. He dashed forward straight away, charging toward Ringel.
"Hiss…" In an instant, his body produced piercing, tearing sounds through the air.
Moss’ expression changed immediately, because he could see that, even compared to the previous day, Ayrin’s speed and strength seemed to have made another obvious leap forward.
"He’s really fast!"
Quite a few Divine Shield students quietly exclaimed in worry.
"Pa!"
However, everyone felt a blur in their vision, and before they could come back to their senses, Ringel’s body had already vanished. It reappeared behind Ayrin’s body; a punch viciously landed on Ayrin’s back.
"Which arcane skill is that, he doesn’t even make any sound when he moves!"
"How can he be fast to this extent!"
"It’s Silent Blink!"
A chorus of comments and cheers rose in the streets.
Amidst the commenting voices and the cheers, Ayrin heavily crashing on the ground without fooling around, even rolling backwards a few times on the ground.
"He’s done now!" Moss suddenly felt numbness run across his scalp. Dazzling arcane particles were flashing around Ringel’s feet at this moment. He clearly was a senior student of Divine Shield Academy who could already condense arcane particles, and on top of that he was the kind of powerful arcane master who was already very proficient with his arcane skills!
"You can’t condense arcane particles yet? Just a freshman with a body that’s a bit stronger than ordinary. You dared challenge me even with a level like yours?"
Ringel was actually a little stunned after hitting Ayrin with a single punch. Following which, an even louder mocking laugh came from him. "Did you hit your head on your dorm room’s door or something?"
"You actually dare to strut and bluster in our Divine Shield Academy with just this level?"
"You think there’s no one in our Divine Shield Academy? Or maybe you’re already among the strong ones in Holy Dawn Academy and think our Divine Shield Academy is the same kind of trash as your Holy Dawn Academy?"
Every onlooker from Holy Dawn Academy also breathed in relief along with Ringel’s mocking laughter.
They had still been worried beforehand that Holy Dawn Academy produced some particularly powerful character, and they were extremely anxious whether Ringel could be a match at all or end up losing face for Divine Shield Academy. Now they didn’t expect the one who came to be someone who couldn’t even condense arcane particles. In a short moment, mocking laughter also came from many Divine Shield people.
"Are you an idiot?"
"Hurry up, go back to Holy Dawn Academy and obediently stay there, don’t come out and make a fool of yourself."
Among such voices, Moss felt hot blood flow again and again through his veins. However, the voices suddenly decreased a little at this moment.
"What are you shouting for, it’s just the beginning."
Because Ayrin’s voice came right at this moment. Everyone saw him propping his two hands on the ground, slowly standing up.
