The watching elves let out suppressed gasps of surprise.
Sword Intent Condensation—this was something that could only be achieved after one's sword intent reached the initial condensation level.
Moreover, seeing Carlos's nonchalant manner, his attainment in sword intent was clearly far beyond that.
Carlos withdrew his hand, his gaze sweeping over the elves present. He was about to continue his explanation when he suddenly stopped.
His vision moved past the crowd and landed on Jiang Lin, who was standing at the edge.
To be precise, his gaze landed on those golden eyes and the faint, ephemeral aura surrounding him.
Carlos's brow furrowed slightly before smoothing out.
He stepped out of the crowd and walked straight toward Jiang Lin.
The two looked at each other. The surrounding students automatically made space, and the sounds of whispering gradually quieted down.
“Your swordsmanship is also very strong.”
Carlos spoke with a tone of certainty.
“Correct,” Jiang Lin replied.
“What stage has your sword intent reached?”
“Intermediate condensation.”
The hall suddenly fell silent.
The young elves looked at each other in bewilderment. Some whispered to their companions, asking what "intermediate condensation" meant, while others stared at Jiang Lin with looks of disbelief.
Leah covered her mouth, her eyes wide and round.
Elune, however, wasn't too surprised. She had already seen Jiang Lin take action and knew his swordsmanship attainment was exceptionally high.
Carlos stared at Jiang Lin, a trace of a complex expression flashing in his sharp eyes.
After a moment of silence, he suddenly asked, “Where do you come from?”
“The same place as you,” Jiang Lin replied.
Carlos's pupils constricted slightly. “The East Continent?”
“Yes.”
The hall fell silent once again.
This time, even the elves who had been whispering lost their voices entirely.
A human swordsman from across the sea, and a human tutor also from across the sea.
Two people from the same continent and the same race had actually met on this distant elven continent.
Carlos remained silent for a long time—so long that the surrounding elves began to exchange uneasy glances.
Then, Carlos turned around and walked back to the center of the crowd.
“Today's lesson ends here. We will continue at the same time tomorrow.”
The students snapped out of their daze and dispersed in small groups, though their gazes still drifted toward Jiang Lin from time to time.
Soon, only Carlos, Jiang Lin, Elune, and Leah remained in the hall.
Carlos walked up to Jiang Lin.
“Follow me.”
He turned and walked toward the depths of the Moonlight Tower.
Jiang Lin followed behind him. Elune hesitated for a second before following as well.
...
In a quiet reception room on the second floor of the Moonlight Tower.
Carlos closed the door and gestured for the two of them to sit.
He sat down opposite them and remained silent for a moment before speaking.
“It has been twenty-seven years since I came to Alderon from the East Continent.”
Twenty-seven years.
Jiang Lin calculated silently. He hadn't even been born back then.
“I came with an adventurer team,” Carlos continued.
“I was young then. I saw records of the West Continent in books and wanted to see what was across the sea.
“The adventurer team drifted at sea for eleven months and suffered three sea beast attacks. Of the sixty-three people who set out, only nine stepped onto Alderon alive.”
A look of reminiscence appeared in his eyes.
“When the survivors of the team headed back, I didn't go. I stayed here.
“In twenty-seven years, from the Silver Moon Kingdom to the Frostleaf Kingdom in the north, from the Emerald Coast in the east to the Ash Desert in the west, I have walked through almost every corner of this continent.”
He paused and looked at Jiang Lin. “How did you get here?”
“An ultra-long-distance random teleportation scroll,” Jiang Lin replied.
“I ran into some trouble in the demon territory and had to use it. Then I was teleported to the waters near this continent. I drifted for a while before coming ashore.”
Carlos's brow furrowed slightly. “An ultra-long-distance random teleportation scroll... the randomness of those things is too high. To be teleported near Alderon, your luck is already quite good.”
He was silent for a moment before asking, “Do you want to go back?”
“Correct.”
Carlos leaned against the back of his chair and let out a long breath.
“It's been twenty-seven years. I've thought about going back too.
“But a ship that can cross the Endless Sea isn't something you can buy just because you have money.
“It requires a specially made magic ship. The hull must be covered in composite magic arrays to resist sea beasts and storms. The sails must be made from the wing membranes of wind-attribute demonic beasts, and the keel must be the spine of at least a 7th-rank sea beast.
“The entire ship takes at least three years from construction to launch and costs over a million gold coins.
“And having a ship isn't enough. You need experienced navigators, guides familiar with the currents and seasonal changes of the Endless Sea, and powerful guards to deal with high-rank sea beasts you might encounter.
“None of these are things that can be solved just with money.”
“So you didn't go back because of these things?” Jiang Lin asked.
Carlos remained silent for a long time.
“It's been twenty-seven years. I no longer know what the East Continent has become.
“I don't even know if my relatives and friends are still there.
“Sometimes I wonder... what would be the point of going back?”
The reception room fell silent.
Jiang Lin spoke up.
“I want to go back, not because it's better there than here, but simply because it is my home.
“And there are many people waiting for me there.”
The room was quiet for a moment.
Carlos looked up at Jiang Lin, a trace of complex emotion in his gaze.
“You are much clearer-headed than I was back then.”
He spoke slowly, his tone carrying a hint of self-deprecation.
“After twenty-seven years, even my thoughts of returning have almost worn away. You've just arrived, and you're already looking for a way.”
Jiang Lin nodded. “My current plan is to study spatial magic and see if I can find a way to teleport back through it.”
Then, Jiang Lin suddenly remembered something and asked, “By the way, Senior, do you know any 9th-rank powerhouses? If there's a 9th-rank powerhouse, they might be able to send us back directly.”
Hearing Jiang Lin's previous words, Carlos had been in a contemplative state, but upon hearing the latter part, he was momentarily at a loss for words.
“A 9th-rank powerhouse? Are you joking? Do you think you can just see a 9th-rank powerhouse whenever you want?
“Forget about here; even in the East Continent, I've never seen a single 9th-rank powerhouse, let alone known one.”
Jiang Lin was a bit disappointed to hear this.
He turned to look at Elune. “Do you know any 9th-rank powerhouses?”
Elune returned his gaze with an equally strange look.
“For us elves, cultivation becomes more difficult the higher you go. Our 9th-rank powerhouses are basically old monsters over a thousand years old.
“Although their numbers aren't small after accumulating over the years, very few ever come out to see people.
“Even if human cultivation speed is a bit faster, it should still be very difficult to meet the strongest people in this world, right?”
Jiang Lin was somewhat surprised. He had originally thought that with Elune's noble status, meeting a 9th-rank powerhouse wouldn't be that hard.
However, if they knew he had chosen to use the ultra-long-distance teleportation scroll precisely because he was being targeted by four 9th-rank powerhouses at once, he wondered what their expressions would be.
At this point, Carlos said, “However, I can still help you a little.
“In twenty-seven years, I haven't been staying in Alderon for nothing. I can't say much else, but I do know a few people.”
He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the towering Moonlight Tower.
“You want to learn spatial magic, right? Silver Moon Academy happens to have a spatial magic tutor named Zoe. She and I are fairly well-acquainted; I can introduce you to her. But...”
He turned to look at Jiang Lin.
“Spatial magic isn't something just anyone can learn. It requires space affinity, and it must be at least at the intermediate level to even get started. Do you have space affinity?”
Jiang Lin answered frankly, “No.”
Carlos's brow furrowed. “Without space affinity, you can't learn spatial magic. That is an ironclad rule.”
“I know. But I can try to obtain the affinity first.”
Carlos stared at him for several breaths before finally shaking his head.
“You kid... Fine, since you say so, I'll take you to see Zoe. As for whether she's willing to teach you, that will depend on your own ability.”
He walked toward the door. Jiang Lin and Elune followed behind him.
The three of them passed through the long corridors of the Moonlight Tower to the other side. This area was a row of private research rooms for tutors, with nameplates hanging on each door indicating their names and areas of expertise.
Carlos stopped in front of the door at the very end and knocked.
“Come in.”
A cold female voice came from inside.
When they pushed the door open, the research room was even more spacious than Jiang Lin had imagined. All four walls were lined with bookshelves that reached the ceiling, filled with all sorts of books and scrolls. In the center of the room was a massive workbench covered in half-drawn magic array diagrams.
Sitting behind the workbench was a female elf.
She looked to be in her early thirties, wearing a simple silver-gray robe. Her dark brown hair was tied in a loose bun, held in place by a silver hairpin.
Her features were exquisite but indifferent, and there was a sense of scholarly detachment between her brows.
The most striking thing about her was her eyes.
They were pale silver, and deep within the pupils, fine points of light seemed to flow like stars twinkling in the night sky.
“Carlos? What wind blew you here?”
She set down her quill. Her gaze swept over Jiang Lin and Elune behind Carlos, finally landing on Jiang Lin.
“A human?”
“His name is Matthew, from the East Continent,” Carlos said, getting straight to the point. “He wants to learn spatial magic. I brought him to see you.”
Zoe's brow furrowed slightly. She stood up and walked over to Jiang Lin, her pale silver eyes sizing him up.
After a moment, she withdrew her gaze and spoke in a flat tone, “You have no space affinity. Forget about getting started; you can't even perceive space elements. You cannot learn it.”
“I know. But I want to try,” Jiang Lin replied.
Zoe was silent for a moment. She turned back to the workbench, rummaged through the mountain of diagrams, pulled out a thin booklet, and handed it to Jiang Lin.
“This is the basic theory of spatial magic. It records the methods for perceiving space elements. Take it and read it first. If you can perceive the existence of space elements within three days, come back to see me. If you can't, don't bother coming back.”
Jiang Lin took the booklet and gave a slight nod. “Thank you.”
He turned and walked out of the research room.
Carlos and Elune followed him.
In the corridor, Carlos asked in a low voice, “Three days. Are you confident?”
“I'll try,” Jiang Lin replied.
On the tree-lined path outside the Moonlight Tower, the silver moonlight roses shimmered with a faint glow in the afterglow of the setting sun.
Jiang Lin held the thin booklet in his hand, his pace neither fast nor slow.
Elune walked beside him, her pale purple eyes occasionally glancing at the booklet in his hand, looking as if she wanted to say something but was hesitating.
“Say what's on your mind.”
Jiang Lin didn't even look up; his gaze remained on the title written in Elvish on the cover of the booklet.
《Fundamentals of Space Element Perception》.
“Do you really intend to learn spatial magic in three days?”
Elune finally spoke, her tone carrying a hint of cautious worry.
“Tutor Zoe is the strictest spatial magic tutor at Silver Moon Academy. When she says three days, she means three days.
“Moreover... you don't have space affinity. That isn't a problem that can be solved simply through hard work.”
“I know.”
Jiang Lin flipped open the cover, his gaze sweeping over the table of contents on the first page.
The nature of space elements, prerequisites for perception, meditation guidance methods, basic spatial models... a dense list of entries met his eyes.
“Then why are you still...”
“There's no harm in trying.”
Jiang Lin closed the booklet, his golden eyes looking at her.
The setting sun's afterglow cast a layer of warm luster in his eyes.
“Let's go. Back to where you live first.”
Elune nodded and led Jiang Lin across the stone-paved streets of the Moonlight District to a dormitory area on the east side of Silver Moon Academy.
This was the exclusive residence for noble students. Each building was an independent small villa hidden among neatly trimmed moonlight rose bushes.
It was much better than the single room Jiang Lin had been forced out of by everyone back at Saint Brilliance Magic Academy.
“We're here.”
Elune stopped in front of a two-story villa and took a silver rune key from her waist, pressing it against the door lock.
The door slid open silently, revealing an elegant living room inside.
The pale gold wallpaper was dotted with fine silver patterns, and the soft carpet was a pale green, feeling like walking on grass.
Several pots of unknown pale blue flowers sat on the windowsill, emitting a refined and fresh fragrance.
“The first floor is the living room and study, and the second floor is the bedroom.”
Elune walked to the base of the stairs and pointed upward.
“You'll stay in the room next to mine. I've already had the servants clean it in advance.”
Jiang Lin gave a slight nod and sat down on the sofa in the living room, reopening the booklet on the basic theory of spatial magic.
Elune didn't disturb him. she walked lightly into the kitchen and returned a moment later with two steaming cups of flower tea.
She placed one cup on the coffee table in front of Jiang Lin, then sat opposite him, holding her own cup and watching him quietly.
The living room fell silent, save for the occasional rustle of pages turning.
The contents of the booklet were even more profound than Jiang Lin had expected.
The nature of space elements was not physical; rather, it was a "possibility field" existing between being and non-being.
It was everywhere, yet could not be captured by conventional means of perception. To perceive space elements, one had to first understand the nature of space itself.
It was not empty, but rather a "medium" that could be twisted, folded, or even torn apart.
...
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