Chapter 1: The Awakening of the Young Man! Thaumaturge...

  In the secret training grounds of Sheng Li Ming College.

  Ailing quietly faced a wooden stake that was one foot higher than him, which two people could just surround.

  On this tree stump, there are circles of tightly wrapped ropes, as if wrapped in a thick layer of armor.

  Ailin stared at this giant stake with an enemy's gaze.

  "Hiss!"

  Suddenly, his body burst into the air, his left hand pressed against the giant wooden stake, and his entire left hand was filled with an astonishing number of technique particles, as if a dazzling purple-red sun rose on his hand.

  A white ice block of roughly the same size as the giant stake suddenly appeared between his left hand and the giant stake. At the moment when it violently collided with the giant stake, the thick ropes wrapped around the outside of the stake all burst open, flying out in fragments.

  The entire giant stake was pulled out of the ground and was about to fly backwards.

  But at this moment, Elin's body also emitted a terrifying voice like hundreds of thousands of ropes bursting simultaneously.

  This sound is entirely due to the massive shockwave of air outside his body!

  His entire body at this moment gave a thorough and terrifying explosion of power, as if his whole person was about to burst open.

  His right fist, with this torrential power, heavily punched the white giant ice in front of him.

  "Hehehe...."

  The white giant ice was like a living thing, and the power burst out again. The whole block changed shape, with strips of ice shooting forward, and the originally nearly square white ice block formed a long, narrow shape that shot forward, just like a huge snow crown lying flat!

  "Ah!"

  The giant tree stump that had just taken off was shattered by the power that burst out again in an instant, and countless pieces of wood were frozen into white ice and snow, flying backwards and splashing everywhere, sprinkling dozens of meters around.

  Ailin's face was dull and expressionless.

  After a few seconds of stagnation, he suddenly jumped up and jumped six or seven meters high.

  "That's amazing!"

  "I did it! I finally succeeded, successfully exerting both physical and technical strength!"

  "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! …."

  ……

  Kate walked out from the shade of a tree not far behind Ailin, looking at Ailin who was jumping and shouting excitedly, she couldn't help but shake her head, thinking that Ailin was getting more and more terrifying.

  "How's that, Teacher Kate? Did you see it? I did it! I can use 'Ice Snow Crown' now!"

  "I've seen it."

  Looking at Ailin who jumped in front of her, Kate let out a long breath and said: "You are ten days faster than my fastest estimate. Since that's the case, you rest for two days, then start full-force strength training again."

  "Take two days off?"

  Ailin looked at Kate with some incomprehension: "But there are still ten days until the match against God Shield Academy, my mental strength has not yet reached the level of condensing technique particles... shouldn't we continue to work hard and train?"

  "Trust my judgment, I will arrange the most suitable rest or exercise for you based on your physical and mental condition." Kate explained gently and patiently: "You take a two-day break first, then continue training according to my requirements, the effect will be better than if you were to train intensively for ten days straight. Your body and mind are currently under too much pressure, further intense training would do more harm than good. After proper relaxation, when your body and mind have relaxed, a strong stimulus can be given, and progress will be faster. Tension, relaxation, tension... Cultivation must follow this rhythm, and you must also find the most suitable rhythm for yourself. Also, I will control the timing of your condensation of the Tao Yuan particles. Do you still remember what I said to you at the beginning?"

  "Believe in yourself, you will take me to win victory after victory!" Ailin smiled, "Got it, teacher Kate, I'll do as you say."

  "Go ahead and take it easy."

  ……

  "Teacher Kate! Teacher Kate!"

  Kate had barely left the secret training ground after seeing Ailin off when she saw Ailin running back to the secret training ground in a flurry.

  "What's wrong?" He couldn't help but feel a little dazed.

  "Is Kris's home in Saint Lauren City?" Elin looked at him and asked, "I just went to the Thinker's Stone Forest, she wasn't there. Then I heard from her two classmates who were practicing there that Kris had gone home. Teacher, you're in charge of registration, so you must know where her home is in Saint Lauren City, right?"

  "Are you going to look for her?" Kate hesitated.

  "Yeah." Elin scratched her head in embarrassment. "I didn't know what to do during the break, so I thought about going to watch her practice, but she wasn't there either."

  Kate hesitated for a moment, but still said: "If I'm not mistaken, her home should be in Weiling District, which is at the foot of the mountain south of Shenglaoren City. There are many small second-hand shops and antique shops there. If you want to find her, you can first find a shop that specializes in repairing boots. Her home is near that shop, ask around and you should be able to find it."

  It took Ailin half a day to find the shoe repair shop that Kate had mentioned.

  This is a small shop with black or brown shoe polish all over the walls and shelves, at the entrance there are several dirty little kids playing some unknown game with their buttocks exposed, without even a signboard.

  Weiling District is a slum in the entire city of Saint Laurent.

  Like most cities in the kingdom of Aichi, the higher you go, the more it's a gathering place for the wealthy and large families. On the other hand, the lower slopes are where some low-ranking artisans, failed merchants, disappointed artists, and magicians gather.

  Take the simplest example, the sewage pipes in the city are all arranged from top to bottom, and every day a large amount of sewage flows down to the foot of the mountain. In some areas, people may face a stinky river when they go out.

  However, for affluent family districts and slums, Ailin didn't have much intuitive concept. After all, the town of Korolinn where he used to be was far more impoverished and desolate than the slum district of Saint Lauren City, so even in Weiling District, he felt that there were many interesting small shops, and life seemed quite convenient.

  "Uncle, do you know where Christie's home is?"

  "It's the one at the very end, closest to the bridge."

  "Thank you, uncle!"

  Following the shoe repair shop owner's directions, Ailin quickly distinguished which house was Kriss' home.

  There is a dry ditch that seems to be used for draining rainwater, which divides the entire Weiling area in two. Now it's not the rainy season, and this two-meter-wide ditch is full of weeds as tall as a person, with only some larger oval stones exposed. There is an old stone bridge spanning the middle of the ditch that can accommodate a horse-drawn carriage.

  Right next to this old stone bridge, there is a stone path leading to a row of stone houses that are about two or three meters higher than the old stone bridge.

  Those stone houses have courtyards in front and back, some are very clean, some are planted with things, but none of them have walls.

  The house of Christie on the farthest edge was open, but there was no one in front of it on the flat stone yard.

  Ailin excitedly ran to the end of the street, three steps and two steps up the stone stairs. On the flat stone ground, he saw that Kris's home was very simple, with only some of the simplest furniture laid out. The back door opposite the front door was also open, and he immediately saw a small figure helping a man with some gray hair wash his head.

  "Chris."

  He immediately saw that the person seriously helping the white-haired man wash his hair was Chris.

  "Ailin? How did you get here?" Chris turned around in surprise as soon as she heard Ailin's voice.

  At the same time, the man who was originally holding onto the edge of the water basin with both hands also suddenly lifted his head, turned around, and as a result, all the water on his hair flowed down to his body, instantly soaking half of his upper body clothes.

  "Ailing... hehe... Chris... champion..."

  "National Championship..."

  As he turned his head to look at Ailin, the man also smiled foolishly and kept repeating a few vague words.

  Ailin was stunned.

  He saw that the man's face was somewhat old, with wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, but his face looked very similar to Chris', and his eyes were a bit fixed, although he seemed to be smiling at him, but the words in his mouth were unclear, as if they were only for himself and Chris.

  "Look at you, I told you to keep your head down, but you wouldn't listen and lifted it up again."

  Kris snatched a towel and rubbed his hair with it, wiping the water marks off him, then stuck her tongue out at Ailin, telling her to wait.

  And the white-haired man who looked a bit like her was always very happy, hehe smiling foolishly, and then kept muttering, repeating some simple words.

  "Chris... champion... national championship..."

  Among these ambiguous voices, looking at the doting Kriss who was taking care of him like a child, Ailin's nose couldn't help but turn sour.

  "You go ahead and behave... My friend from school has arrived, I'll talk to him first."

  After helping the man dry his hair and cutting some fruit, Chris beckoned to Elin and led her to a clearing on a nearby hillside.

  "Is he your father?" Eirin asked heavily as she sat down beside Kriss, munching on the two pieces of fruit that Kriss had handed her.

  "Yes." Chris also ate a piece of fruit and looked at the small stone bridge below the slope in front of her.

  "What about him...?" Ailin turned her head and glanced at the man in the empty space behind the house, wanting to ask, but hesitated.

  "You should have seen it too." Chris stuffed the fruit in her hand into her mouth at once, and then rubbed her hands together like a child, as if she could wipe them clean that way. "He used to be normal... Seven years ago, a merchant caravan was ambushed by a group of bandit mages near Red Pine Valley in Saint Lauren City. My parents were both part of the mage team protecting the caravan. My mother died in battle, and my father was injured so badly that he fell into a coma for a long time before waking up... After that, he became like this. He's still fine with daily life, it's just that my mother used to help him wash his hair, so if I don't help him wash his hair, he won't wash it."

  Ailin suddenly felt the sweet fruit in his mouth turn dry and rough, he looked at Kris's profile.

  Although Chris said it very simply and calmly, and her expression didn't change much, he could also see Chris's strength and had already been able to bear and get used to all of this. However, his mood couldn't be as calm as Chris's.

  "Was the rogue mage squad caught later?"

  "Got it."

  "And your father... why did he always say champion, national championship?" Ailin looked at Chris's face, he couldn't imagine what had happened to her at that time, and he couldn't help but stuttered and asked: "This... this... is the reason you've been saying you want to win the national championship all along?"

  "Yes." Chris looked up at the sky and said forcefully, "Because my father and mother were also members of two college teams. Although they weren't that strong, their college team was just an ordinary one, but they met in the championship arena... That should be the deepest impression in my father's mind. He might have wanted to see my mother again on the final stage... Or maybe he and my mother wanted to win the championship back then, or maybe he thinks I'm stronger than him and my mother... Now he doesn't remember anything, only me, but it seems like he wants to see me get the championship, so I'll definitely try."

  Is it because that piece of stadium and this game have special significance for him, is the deepest memory in his mind?

  Perhaps there was the most beautiful scene in his life?

  Or was that final trophy the most burning thing in his mind?

  Or maybe he thought he could reunite with his deceased wife there?

  Or maybe it didn't make any sense at all, just a fragment of consciousness, or he himself didn't even know why he wanted to see Chris become the national champion.

  But this is Christie's dream.

  That's the real reason why Kurisu was practicing harder than anyone else, and seemed like a nervous wreck to others.

  Ailin looked at the quiet man eating fruit and gazed at Chris's beautiful profile, he felt that his dreams had more meaning.