Chapter 17 Back to School

The morning light of the royal capital slanted down, spilling onto the magnificent campus of the Iketerte Academy.

Today was another day full of hope.

On the first-floor balcony garden of the Sage Academy dormitory building, verdant vines grew along the wooden railing, their leaves shimmering with vibrant green, and elegant potted plants were arranged beneath the railing.

The fragrance of flowers and the scent of fresh soil permeated the air. A flock of small birds chirped on the wooden open-air balcony, occasionally hopping onto the nearby stone bricks, singing energetically as if celebrating the beginning of a new day.

Two weeks of vacation had flown by.

Today, Lan Qi was finally returning to the Sage Academy’s school building to resume normal classes.

Even getting out of bed in the morning felt a little difficult.

During these two weeks, Lan Qi had mainly wandered between his dormitory and Talia’s house.

He spent basically half of his mornings training in card creation under Talia’s high-intensity supervision.

Staying at Talia’s house, his card explosion rate was significantly lower.

It was only later, when he detonated a card and thought all was lost, that he discovered Talia had already set up a protective barrier.

Scaring him earlier was just to force him into a state of immersion.

Similarly, Talia also instructed Lan Qi that after returning, his recent card-making practice should focus on studying the sealing system, and to choose a sealing-type magic card as the creation object for the registered card maker exam.

She wasn’t very proficient in sealing techniques. Lan Qi needed to research many of the related sealing spells himself.

As for the "hairstyle transformation magic," she had already begun analyzing the principle of the original "magical beast fur processing magic" and would share it with Lan Qi when she made progress.

However, this magic originating from the fourth-tier Shadow World, even if created, the fully effective product would be fourth-tier, and Lan Qi would not be able to participate in it for the time being.

So, Lan Qi also purchased a set of protective barriers and installed it in the card-making laboratory converted from the storage room in his dormitory.

Every afternoon, he worked overtime researching sealing techniques, and also developed a new type of magic card. In the evening, he rested slightly and went to practice running.

Because Talia told him that he had better be good at short sprints and endurance running, otherwise he would easily be caught and beaten to death.

Although Lan Qi didn’t understand why such a kind person as himself would be chased.

But he still believed in Talia’s teachings.

After all, Lan Qi was already deeply convinced of the demon teaching method.

After these days of research by Lan Qi and inquiries at the academy, he discovered that very few people were good at using sealing magic, because it had extremely complex construction principles, and at the same time, it was also very limited.

Either it needed to be used by high-level casters against low-level enemies to achieve a strong seal, or it could only cause weak or temporary seals against enemies of the same level.

And sealing techniques that violated this principle required extremely high costs to trigger and take effect, even using one’s life to seal other enemies.

"To ignore the level of sealing techniques, you can only start with some small sealing functions."

Lan Qi muttered to himself while feeding the little birds on the balcony in the early morning.

Although he was completely awake from his sleep, he was still thinking about the sealing techniques he had been immersed in for the past two weeks.

The Great Poet of Love, who was quietly watering the flowers next to him, glanced at him.

She would occasionally be released by Lan Qi to act as Lan Qi’s card-making assistant and also learned a little about sealing techniques.

It was not meaningful to seal enemies whose level was lower than one’s own, and if one wanted to ignore the level and seal magic cards of enemies stronger than oneself, or even seal the entire person, the magic card that could achieve this level was estimated to be at least epic.

It wasn’t something Lan Qi could hope to make on his own in a short time.

However, when he thought that if Lan Qi mastered sealing techniques in the future, he could exclude a key magic card from the enemy while fighting, it would not be a bad thing to deprive the enemy of their smile.

"Go for it, Lan Qi. You must become a super Excluder of Saints."

The Great Poet of Love finally finished watering the flowers, squatted down and patted Lan Qi on the shoulder, and blessed him.

“……？”

Lan Qi looked at the Great Poet of Love in a daze.

The Great Poet of Love shook her head with a pursed smile and scattered into orange fluorescent light, returning to his body.

On the balcony filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers, Lan Qi tilted his head and wondered for a long time.

…

After simply tidying up his clothes, Lan Qi left the dormitory building and headed to the long-lost school building.

A truly good student must not be absent from any class without a good reason. This is a respect for teachers and a positive exemplary role.

In the heart of the Sage Academy area, a three-story stone building stood, its dark exterior with classic limestone hues, stone pillars, arched windows, intricate stone carvings, and carefully polished iron railings deeply imprinted with Victorian style.

The corridor was filled with an academic atmosphere, as if one could hear the whispers of the sages.

Following the familiar path, as soon as Lan Qi walked into the classroom, he heard the chatting of his classmates.

"I don't know which family is renovating our academy's dormitory building, but we always hear explosions in the afternoon."

"It’s strange that contraband is not allowed in the dormitory."

"The dormitory administrator seems a little scared and has recently applied to the school to purchase an additional set of fire-fighting facilities."

Noticing Lan Qi’s appearance, they immediately focused their attention on him.

The gaze was neither admiration nor fear, but somewhere in between, more like discovering a new rare creature of the "Lan Qi" species.

Lan Qi walked through the stepped aisle on his own and naturally came to the back row of the familiar classroom.

Just sitting down and looking at the scenery in front of him, he couldn't help but sigh—two weeks ago, in that dreamlike academy, he also opened his eyes in almost the same position.

Any student in the front row who wanted to cheat could not escape his righteous eagle eyes.

Then, Lan Qi shook his head. He realized that he had returned to hell. This was Iketerte Academy.

"Hiberian, good morning."

Lan Qi turned his head, smiled, and greeted Hiberian.

"Good morning."

This time, Hiberian responded to him frankly.

During the days they hadn't seen each other, Hiberian came to class diligently every day, still alone as before.

Now that Lan Qi had arrived, she finally had a companion by her side.

"How have you been these days?"

Hiberian looked at him and said.

She felt that Lan Qi was very busy, so she didn't go to him.

"Fulfilling and real."

Lan Qi said with a hearty laugh.

Not only was he immersed in practicing card making every day, but he was also occasionally visited by classmates knocking on the door, giving him a sense of lively campus life.

"Lan Qi, have you rejected many team invitations?"

Hiberian asked with some guilt.

She had already heard about it.

Many teams had approached Lan Qi, hoping that Lan Qi could join their team, and offered Lan Qi generous terms.

But Lan Qi didn't agree to any of them.

She knew it must be because of herself.

(End of this chapter)