Chapter 49: Abnormal arcane gate and spiritual strength (1/2)

Chapter 49: Abnormal arcane gate and spiritual strength

“Pop!”

Just as several freshmen walked out of the forest of huge trees, chatting and joking between themselves, they suddenly heard the sound of a heavy object falling on the ground.

“Isn’t that Ayrin?”

“Why’s he in this state?”

They looked toward the source of the noise. These freshmen who were about to go to the commercial street looked with astonishment at Ayrin’s body covered in mud and dirt, looking as if he’d tumbled down who knew how many times. And, looking at the constant, twitching-like tremble of his body, it was very apparent Ayrin’s endurance had already exceeded its limit. His wounds didn’t seem light either.

“Ayrin, what’s the matter?”

“How are you?”

The freshmen stared blankly a moment, then they abruptly rushed forward, chills coursing through them.

But when they rushed to Ayrin’s side, Ayrin had already stood up, trembling from head to toe.

“I’m fine… Almost there…”

The faces of these freshmen became snow white, because they could see that Ayrin’s eyes were even a little out of focus. He seemed almost in a state of unconsciousness.

“His back and chest are both swollen, what on earth happened?”

These freshmen followed Ayrin toward the dorm, a little lost as to what they should do.

Ringel’s strength wasn’t something any previous opponent of Ayrin’s could match up to. Especially toward the end, the impact he suffered was even greater when he nailed his body on the ground so he could give Ringel a heavy strike. He was already hurting from head to toe as if his bones were cracked back when he left Divine Shield Academy. With each step he persevered with, it seemed there were ten thousand ants biting his innards. Every step challenged the limits of his fortitude.

His consciousness was indeed a little blurry when he came back to Holy Dawn Academy. He had no idea how many times he tumbled and fell. Under the escort of these freshmen, he fell asleep as soon as he lay down on his bed and passed out, unconscious.

These freshmen observed Ayrin for a while, making certain his breathing was very smooth and steady. It seemed there shouldn’t be any problem. Then, not long after they went back out of the gates of the dorm, their heads filled with questions, the news about Ayrin going to Divine Shield Academy and challenging Ringel already spread to Holy Dawn Academy.

“Moss went together with him to Divine Shield Academy?”

“He went to challenge Divine Shield Academy just because they insulted Chris, not caring for anything else?”

They stood not far away from the gates to the dorm. Freshmen were coming back in twos or threes, and when they heard from them that Ringel not only had condensed arcane particles long ago, but could also be counted among the powerful elite senior students of Divine Shield Academy, heard again that Ayrin knocked the opponent out by trading blow for blow, to the point a member on the team of the opposite academy made an appearance and told Ringel to apologize, these freshmen who’d escorted Ayrin back to his dorm fell completely silent.

“He fought himself into such a state just because the other side looked down on our team, looked down on our academy.”

“He’s only a freshman, but he still had the guts to go to Divine Shield Academy, to go to someone else’s territory, and go challenge someone like that! What are we, compared to him?”

“He undertakes extra training in class on his own initiative, he ends up more tired than any one of us every single time…”

“Let’ go! We’ll do another set of foundation exercises!”

These freshmen stayed a long time on the roadside outside the dorms, then they all screamed out at the same time and rushed to the forest of giant trees.

“We can’t let other people look down on us either!”

“We have to try harder!”

More and more freshmen, previously preparing for their rest, rushed inside the forest of giant trees instead, hot blood coursing in their veins.

…

“Ayrin!”

“Belo, you came back?”

Early morning. Someone woke up an Ayrin who slept like a log when the first strands of daybreak had yet to fall on Holy Dawn Academy. He subconsciously thought it was Belo who came back, but then, after spending several minutes and finally recognizing who the one who stood in front of him was, he dumbly asked, “Moss, why did you come here. The sun isn’t up yet, why did you wake me up?”

Moss rolled his eyes right on the spot. “You’ve gone dumb from the blows? You forgot everything, you’re the one who told me you might have opened the first arcane gate and condensed arcane particles. That’s why I hurried back home and got the dwarven benchmark tool.”

“Dwarven benchmark tool?”

Ayrin finally understood after staring blankly for a minute. “That’s right, you got it?”

“Are you awake yet or not.” Moss speechlessly took something that glittered with light and waved it in front of Ayrin’s face. “Don’t you see the thing in my hand?”

“So that’s the dwarven benchmark tool?”

Ayrin observed the thing in Moss’ hand. This was an artwork made of crystal, a transparent disk with many scaling marks etched on it. There was a small hole going through it in the middle. There were many beads big and small sandwiched between the two outer layers of the disk, constantly rolling along the grooves inside.