Chapter 32: Hard Worker

After class, Teo stayed behind and waited for Dina

“Follow me”

Teo quietly followed Dina. He was not sure why he was asked to stay behind.

All he did was practice breathing techniques and told her of his progress. Even though he did not master the sensing stage on his own, he did not see anything wrong with saying that he did. Even without the upgrade his master gave him, he was pretty close at its mastery on his own.

Dina led Teo towards the central office. The central office was where most of the teachers' office was located. It was a gray stone building that was fairly large. It had a total of 3 floors and had plenty of rooms for each teacher with extra rooms to spare.

As they walked in, Teo noticed all the purple and black robed teachers. Although Teo was only in contact with a few teachers, there were many elective classes available to them after the first 4 years.

Teo also noticed few students who were called into the central office. They were being scolded by teachers and Teo became nervous

'What did I do wrong?' Teo thought he had done something to offend Dina but couldn't figure out what

Dina led Teo down into the basement. The halls were lit up several light stones but Teo noticed that there were very little people in the basement compared to the floors above.

Upon reaching a closed room, Dina took out an identification stone and opened it.

Both of them entered the room and Teo discovered that in the center of the room, a device similar to the one that Senior Sister Riss used within the Emerald Pavilion.

Dina took Teo's hand and pricked it. Taking a small drop of blood and placing it on the device. Once the blood touched the surface of the device, the lines among it glowed, but only a very small portion of the lines glowed.

Seeing the result Dina sighed. She eliminated one possibility. The initial result was correct and Teo's growth potential was only at 1s.

'Can't it be that he is reading my mind?' she thought and started trying to mentally sending out messages. Although mind reading was very unlikely, it was not unheard of. There were rumors of individuals being able to read people's mind but she had never encountered such a thing. From her point of view, they were silly rumors, but she could not completely deny the possibility.

'Teo can you hear me? TEO! TEO!' she stood there as she frowned her brow

Teo was looking at Dina's changing face, as if she was constipated or something. He tried hard not to laugh at the funny faces that Dina was making because he knew how strict Dina was.

After a while, Dina gave up. Carefully thinking about it, if Teo were able to read minds, why would he reveal it. She tried changing her thoughts into something a 10 year old could not resist. Her face blushed a bit as she sent out these messages but after a while she couldn't see any change on Teo's face.

'Maybe he really can't read minds' she concluded

She gathered wind elemental energies again. She manipulated them and wrote another question

“4+2”

“6”

This response made it clear that Teo was not guessing at all. He really mastered his Sensing stage!

Then she finally realized that she forgot one other possibility. It could be that Teo had worked inhumanly hard!

She imagined Teo spending his days outside of the class sweating in his cave working hard sensing wind energies. She could imagine the amount of effort Teo had to put in to master it at such a level. Thinking about these, she asked her self 'Why did he pick wind element?'

Teo had 9 other different elements, so why pick wind?

'Perhaps...perhaps because I.. I am a wind elementalist?' Her thoughts continued to trail

She thought that if Teo invested so much effort into mastering the Sensing stage for wind element, Teo would not be able to progress in other stages at all. She felt a bit flattered because Teo chose an element that she coincidentally chose.

Dina knew Teo also tried to save the other students from the incident 7 months ago.

'Teo is a good student!' She initially thought that Teo was a student who would lie but her attitude towards him changed.

Her eyes became watery as she tried to imagine the kind of hellish practice he must have endured to get to this level. She was also touched at his choice of element.

“I'm sorry I did not believe you right away Teo” she apologized

Teo who still did not know what was going on didn't know what to say. He remained silent throughout the whole thing and Dina led him out of the central office

“Teo, if you maintain this effort, you can rewrite your fate! But you must not over work yourself” She tried to encourage him but also warned him of the dangers of working too hard

Once Teo had left, Dina was too convinced that her new theory was correct but she felt that she had forgotten something crucial. After trying to recall it for a while she quickly remembered that Teo's Qi did not produce a unique rhythm at all!

'Perhaps that kid really is strange'

She looked into the distance to where Teo had left. She had complete confidence on the results of the divination rite and she was also convinced that Teo could see her wind elemental energies so with or without that unique Qi rhythm to her it didn't matter at all. All she knew that Teo was a hard working student.

….

Within the northern part of the academy, was the academy's training grounds. The training grounds include many different practice stages, a large arena that was often used for the yearly ranking tournament, a large building for isolated training, as well as a large mountain. Students were free to use the training ground's facilities as they wished, the only restriction was that you must be a third year to enter into the mountain area. This was because the mountain area was not completely supervised and accidents could happen.

Students were allowed to spar with each other or train in the isolated rooms to practice their techniques, away from other people's prying eyes. Students often get injured and would go to the medical room nearby. Although it was not as large as the medical center, the staff was highly skilled in healing.

Within an isolated training room, a figure was releasing flames in the air. This elementalist was manipulating the red flames with such complexity. The flames spread around him and a wall of fire surrounded him. After a while, the flames vanished

-pant- -pant- -pant-

Windle's face dripped with bead size sweat. He was practicing his manipulation of the fire element for a few hours but his personal Qi ran out.

He collapses to the ground as he tries to regain his breath.

'Heh I did it' a wide smile appeared on his tired face. His usual carefree and friendly look was replaced with eagerness and excitement

As his breath recovered, Windle sat in lotus position and started his breathing technique and began to gather Qi. As his breathing absorbed world Qi, he circulated his Qi to gather Fire elemental Qi as well.

His sweat drenched clothes quickly dried as fire elemental Qi heated the area around his body. Once his clothes dried he walked out of the isolated training room and headed towards the hot springs near the residential area.

Students who wished to use the hot springs had to pay a certain price. If students couldn't afford it they would have to go by the lodge near the river and bath there instead.

To use the hot springs were somewhat expensive, but gave great benefits. The hot springs help students relax and helps heal wounds or sores, but the main benefits were that it was easy for fire and water elementalists to quickly gather elemental Qi

Windle would often train in secret and head to the springs without Teo nor Lia knowing. Although Windle was friendly and carefree on the outside, he was hard working and cunning inside. Because he was always well informed, he knew that he had to work himself hard to have a bright future. He spent his countless earnings within the hot springs. The hot springs helped him increased the quantity of his Qi, which in turn allowed him to train his flame manipulation longer than before.

There were a total of 2 student rankings. The first tournament was a free for all. Any students of fourth year to eight year can choose to participate and the second tournament was among students of the same year.

The first tournament was a free for all match. It did not matter which year you were from, the only thing that matter was strength and skill. The rewards were astounding; third place gave 50 gold coins, second place gave 70 gold coins and first place was given a low ranked Qi stone and an item from the Treasure Pavilion's second floor. Although the rewards were great, the free for all ranking tournament required participants to pay 1 gold coin and if there was less than 200 participants the tournament would not be held.

The second tournament also had many rewards but it smaller compared to the first tournament. Third place was 10 gold coins, second place was 20 gold coins and first place was 30 gold coins and an item from the first floor of the academy's Treasure Pavilion. Every able student was forced to participate in this ranking, but unlike the first tournament, there was no fee to participate.

Aside from the rewards student could gain prestige and experience. The higher the rank, the easier they would be offered a position within a faction outside the academy after they graduate. There were also many benefits within the academy depending on one's rank.

Windle had one goal. he wanted to be placed in the upper rankings. There was still a lot of time until his first ranking tournament, but he had to work hard to gain some advantage among his peers. Not only that his future would be determined if he showcased his skills and dominance throughout the years, but would have fame and prestige.

Windle was like a swan moving gracefully through the water, but underneath the surface was crazily paddling his webbed feet. He wanted people to notice him and to praise him, but did not want to show how much effort he put in to be at a higher level.