bookandnovel Chapter 41 Challenge
Chapter 41 Challenge
"Joel, is there anything I can help you with?" Fafnir asked.
"You are the teaching assistant, a gentleman usher personally selected by Bishop Victor," Joël said.
"Teaching assistants should be better than students."
"and then?"
"Then please demonstrate for everyone, and show them where you excel, and whether you are better than me, your student."
Fafnir was a little confused. What was this Viscount Lorraine's daughter babbling about? What was wrong with her, little one?
"Haha, Mr. Joël, Mr. Victor already demonstrated the fireball spell," Fafnir said with a smile.
"If you didn't see it clearly, you can ask Mr. Victor to demonstrate it again."
Joel shook his head.
“It’s not that I didn’t see it clearly,” she said. “I wanted to see you cast the spell.”
Why?
"Because I wanted to know what it was like for Bishop Victor to tell me that you were the most talented student he had ever seen, someone who was much more talented than me."
Fafnir was stunned for a moment—Mr. Victor had praised him like that outside? He had never heard Mr. Victor mention it before.
The surrounding students fell silent, their gazes shifting between Fafner and Joël.
"Joeler," Fafner said:
"Having talent doesn't mean you're strong right now. Besides, my talent might not even be considered good. When I first came to the school, I practiced fireball for a long time. Your current level is much stronger than mine was back then."
"Are you trying to comfort me?" Joël's tone was flat, but Fafnir sensed something else.
"This isn't just comforting words; it's the truth."
"Then demonstrate," Joelle took a step forward, bringing him within two paces of Fafnir, and stared at his face. "Or are you afraid?"
Fafnir took a deep breath. Sigh, is this kid just being competitive?
"Joelle, you are the daughter of the esteemed Viscount Lorraine. You came to the grammar school to learn, not to compete with the teaching assistant."
“I’m not competing,” Joel said. “I just want to see how a descendant of a servant of the Lorraine family, a ratman, can become a second-level assistant priest.”
The surrounding air suddenly turned cold.
A girl whispered an "ah".
Joël's expression remained unchanged; his azure eyes calmly gazed at Fafner, as if stating a perfectly ordinary fact.
"What did you say?" Fafnir's voice was flat.
"I said you're a rat-man," Joel said, enunciating each word clearly. "Your parents are our family's treasurers; it's not like I don't know them."
They are all human, but you are a rat-man. This is extremely rare in the Holy Kingdom of the Elves.
I know that the ratmen were once slaves, and they still don't have a glorious status.
She paused for a moment:
"But don't you find it strange that you're wearing a priest's robe and sitting in a classroom as a teaching assistant?"
Fafner said:
"You find it strange?"
"I don't think this is normal. How did a ratman manage to climb to this position? Don't you think you're just a pet kept by Bishop Victor?"
Quiet,
The entire open space fell silent. Even the few students who hadn't gathered around in the distance shut their mouths and peered in this direction.
Mr. Victor stood twenty paces away, his expression not clearly visible.
Raymond's face turned bright red, and his lips moved several times, but he couldn't utter a single word.
Fafnir stood still, his hands in the pockets of his priest's robe, his expression calm.
He stared at Joël for a few seconds.
"Oh, Mr. Joël," he said, "have you finished?"
"Now that you've finished speaking, I have a few questions for you. You said I'm a rat-man, yes, I am a rat-man."
You said my parents were human, yes, they were just ordinary employees. Yes, I have nothing.
His voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear.
"And what about you? Daughter of the noble Lorraine family, a pure-blooded elf, heir to a viscountship, you've had private tutors, personal guards, and the best resources since childhood. How long did you practice that fireball spell just now?"
Joelle didn't speak.
"Six months? A year?" Fafner said. "I got to that level in less than two months. And for those two months, I had to get up at six o'clock every day to mop the floor."
Joelle's lips tightened.
"You said I was Bishop Victor's pet," Fafner's voice remained calm.
"Mr. Victor has helped me a lot, and I am very grateful to him, but what you said is very wrong."
He paused for a moment.
"Have you ever seen a pet that gets up at six every morning to mop the floor? I'm the one who mops the corridors of the teaching building and dormitory building. Which pet practices magic until its spiritual energy is exhausted and it has a headache that keeps it up all night?"
Joelle clenched his fist at his side.
"You just said you wanted to see what made me a Level 2 Assistant Priest," Fafner said. "Well, see for yourself."
He turned around and walked towards the center of the open space.
After walking a few steps, Fafnir stopped and glanced back at Joël.
"Look carefully."
Fafnir stood still in the middle of the open space.
He didn't walk to the iron target, but instead faced the stone wall at the end of the open space—the gray stone wall was covered with withered vines, about fifty meters away from him.
He closed his eyes.
The students at the edge of the open space held their breath, and the students who had been chatting idly in the distance also ran over.
Victor stood still, arms crossed.
Joël stood at the front of the crowd, his deep blue eyes fixed on Fafnir's back.
Fafnir entered into meditation.
Spiritual threads appeared in my mind. Now they were no longer threads, but more like flowing silver ribbons of light, flowing slowly, steadily and profoundly in the space of consciousness.
He did not construct the rune for Fireball.
He's building something else.
Fireball
Mr. Victor taught him the second-tier spell last month. When he was teaching him, Mr. Victor told him, "Your total spiritual energy is not enough right now. Forcing yourself to practice this will hurt you. But you can first familiarize yourself with the guiding spell I will cast for you, so you have a general idea of what to expect."
Second-order spells have much more complex rune structures than first-order spells, involving complex nested casting.
The Fireball spell also requires a spiritual overload on top of a first-tier spell—forcibly injecting spiritual energy far exceeding the spell's capacity into a single rune structure, using wind magic to compress the range of the fire's explosion, concentrating its power at a single point.
Fafnir only succeeded twice in this month, and each time he would have a headache all night after training.
Spirituality began to flow into the runes.
The runes of the Fireball spell unfolded layer by layer in my consciousness, like a blooming flower, each petal a separate spiritual module nested within the others.
Fire element condenses.
Wind element condenses,
Spiritual overload
Fafnir's temples began to throb, his fingertips went numb, and he could feel his spirituality being rapidly depleted.