Chapter 53: Elemental Affinity
After one and a half hours of fierce sword fighting, Xiao Lin had to pay a hefty price after his entire body was covered with wounds from Cheng Ming’s sword. The cost of treatment was 50 redemption points and he still felt exhausted, even after his injuries were successfully healed. The healing in the training hall was only effective for physical injuries; they did not eliminate inner fatigue. Nevertheless, he gained a lot during that period too.
His Basic Swordsmanship was finally upgraded to LV3, his strength had also risen by one point, and he even gained a pleasant surprise. Xiao Lin received a prompt from the Central Computer, stating that he had successfully mastered Basic Blocking LV1 after repeatedly resisting attacks that surpassed his own power.
Basic Blocking allowed one to use weapons and block the enemy’s attacks. The effect was to reduce damage or even avoid damage, making it a defensive skill.
Those who were earlier reveling in Xiao Lin’s rough treatment twitched their lips. From the looks of shock and speechlessness throughout the hall, Xiao Lin ascertained that he was probably the only one who had mastered Basic Blocking.
In the Central Computer’s explanation, Xiao Lin had successfully resisted attacks that were beyond his own strength. In other words, the strength gap was the main factor, because the gap between other student pairs was not as large as that of his and Cheng Ming’s.
In fact, there were only a few times whereby Xiao Lin managed to really successfully block Cheng Ming’s attacks. After all, the difference in their strength was too much, and their Basic Swordsmanship was also separated by one level. Most of the time, his sword would either be knocked to the ground or he would suffer a physical injury.
Xiao Lin therefore felt that the learning efficiency his SS-level talent provided played a more critical role, allowing him to master Basic Blocking in such a short amount of time.
“Do you want to continue?” Cheng Ming asked.
“I’m a bit tired. I think I’ll head to Basic Meditation now,” Xiao Lin said as he rubbed his wrist and smiled. The joints in his wrist were still sore and numb, which made it inconvenient for him to continue practicing swordsmanship. The pressure from training with Cheng Ming was greater than he expected.
After leaving the swordsmanship training hall, Xiao Lin walked directly to the meditation hall in Zone B. Just after turning a corner, he saw Cheng Na in a black leather jacket leaning against the wall, narrowing her eyes at him.
Xiao Lin’s face betrayed his shock. He was willing to bet that the woman never actually left the area and was actually observing the training hall in secret. If anyone continued to use wooden swords for training, she would definitely kick that person out of the training hall forever.
“You’re going to Li Meiling?” Tutor Cheng Na asked nonchalantly.
Xiao Lin was blank for a moment.
Cheng Na had to rephrase her sentence again. “You’re going to the meditation room?”
Only then did Xiao Lin remember that Li Meiling was the name of the Lolita who taught meditation. He then nodded in response to the question.
Cheng Na’s expression soured slightly. “Do you know Song Junlang. Head of the logistics department? ”
“I guess you could say that,” Xiao Lin smiled bitterly and thumbed his nose. He already had a guess as to what the T-rex was going to say.
“I was supposed to ban you from my classroom last week, but then a lot of people called me...and I also received a strongly-worded notification from the student union. In the future, you can choose to come to my classes, or not to. No one will interfere with you again...” Cheng Na did not continue further. A proud person like her would probably think it an insult, and a touch of anger appeared on her flawlessly fair face.
After a while, Cheng Na continued, but in a more indifferent voice. “I hate useless and unproductive people. You can pull some strings with your connections and slack off, but I swear that people like you will be forced to return to Earth after your freshman year ends. Of course, it might also be possible that your lifespan will be exhausted during the monthly exam. Dawn Academy is a place to realize your true strength, and I don’t care who the hell you are. It makes no difference if you’re a rich kid from Earth, so you’d better behave yourself!”
“This is a misunderstanding, I was helping Department Head Song complete unprecedented scientific research, so he was... Uh, okay.” Xiao Lin could not even when sullenly noticed Cheng Na turn to leave, allowing him only a glimpse of her slim back. Never in his life did he expect to be regarded as a rich kid, and he was unsure whether to laugh or cry after what happened.
Song Junlang promised Xiao Lin to help him coordinate his course schedule so he would not be too tired from rushing here and there because of his absenteeism. He did that in order to free up some time for Xiao Lin, thus enabling the latter to head over to the logistics department and assist in the food therapy experiments. It also gave Xiao Lin—who wanted to cultivate both magic and martial arts—a legitimate reason to attend all his courses. Otherwise he would not be able to afford the punishment that came with skipping classes.
In all honesty, he had no idea what Department Head Song did, but in short, Xiao Lin had gotten the opportunity. He could choose the courses he wanted to go to in the afternoon without hesitating anymore. If a woman as fierce as Cheng Na could not even vent her rage, he believed that the other teachers would not object either.
That was exactly what happened when he went to Li Meiling’s meditation room. The sharp-tongued Lolita merely stared at Xiao Lin with an unwelcome gaze. Unfortunately for her, gazes did not kill. Under everyone’s puzzled expressions, Xiao Lin calmly chose to sit down in the corner, next to Gu Xiaoyue.
On that day, the students were not left to their own devices to meditate. Like how Cheng Na taught them basic sword moves that morning, if none of the teachers actually taught anything substantial, the academy might as well let the students study by themselves. It would have been much more convenient that way too
“There are four basic elements in the world: water, fire, wind, and earth. I’ve already mentioned these in the last class, and you’ve all entered your meditative state too... So, the topic I’m about to talk to today will be elemental affinity!”
As she said that, Xiao Lin made a point to observe the entire meditation room. At least half the students buried their heads in shame, evidently because they had not entered a meditative state yet. Only half of the people actually succeeded after a week, but Li Meiling did not seem too keen on holding back those who were successful.
The course went on still and the Lolita gave everyone a detailed explanation about the definition of elemental affinity; it had many properties, such as the speed of casting spells and the spells’ power. Everyone’s elemental affinity was different. When first entering a meditative state, the elements in that meditative realm were all jumbled up. In the future however, they had to distinguish each element during the meditation process.
Xiao Lin paid close attention. Compared to pure melee training, he actually preferred the mysticism associated with mysterious spell courses. Whenever he played online games, he usually also chose the mage characters.
At the end of the lesson, Li Meiling gave them some time to practice their meditation again.
Xiao Lin was already at LV1 Basic Meditation. His intelligence value had also increased by one point. He soon entered a meditative state moments after sitting cross-legged.
Meditation was a wonderful state to be in. He was practically free from all his worries, but it could be better described as entering a new microcosm–one that had an abundance of elemental particles.
A person’s mind was still very clear during the meditative state. Xiao Lin immediately noticed a long, dark river where the elements were in a fuzzy and messy heap. Countless elements were bound tightly together to form a faint cluster of light, drifting around in a haphazard rhythm.
The elements he felt during the initial meditation were clear and definite, but a simple bit of critical thinking allowed Xiao Lin to understand why. He had replicated the LV10 Basic Meditation skill from Wu Qin, and LV10 also happened to be the highest level for Basic Meditation.