Destroyer of Ice and Fire

"Teacher Ciaran!"

Ciaran was sitting on the edge of the rooftop on a low building facing Holy Dawn Academy's infirmary.

"I heard you went to brawl in Divine Shield Academy yesterday, and beat a pretty decent senior student from there?"

Ciara didn't immediately turn around when she heard his shout, but a beautiful curve emerged on the corner of her mouth.

"I didn't beat him, I might have lost if we continued. It's a girl from their school called Charlotte who forced Ringel to apologize. That girl called Charlotte seems very powerful."

"Someone who already participated in the operations of a genuine battlemaster team is of course very powerful."

Ciaran stood up and turned around. She noticed Ayrin wasn't alone, the red-haired Moss was there also, so she nodded at the two of them. "Did you come to find me for something this time?"

"Teacher Ciaran, after I fought with Ringel yesterday, I felt as if the first arcane gate opened, and there were even some arcane particles inside already. But Moss used a benchmark tool to measure me before coming here today, and my spiritual power shows twenty on the benchmark tool. Moss says I haven't reached the level for condensing arcane particles yet." Ayrin looked feverishly at Ciaran, asking, "That's why I can't understand, so I came and wanted to ask teacher Ciaran what on earth is happening."

"You felt the first arcane gate open, and there are even arcane particles inside?" Ciara was suddenly taken aback. She came in front of Ayrin in a single step and rubbed the top of his head. "What you're feeling is inside the top of your head?"

"Yes." Ayrin nodded earnestly.

"You have a dwarven benchmark tool?" Ciaran glanced over at Moss. He stood there facing the elite teacher, a little shy about making too much noise.

His palms sweaty, Moss had a little trouble understanding why Ayrin didn't feel the slightest nervousness when standing face to face with an elite teacher like Ciaran. He immediately nodded and took out the dwarven benchmark tool.

Ciaran only swept a glance at the benchmark tool, immediately asking Moss, "You measured too, how much?"

Moss could only answer helplessly, "Thirteen…"

"Then there won't be a problem with it." Ciaran's brows locked tightly together. "Ayrin, your spiritual strength's twice as strong as normal freshmen, but what Moss said isn't wrong. Spiritual strength has to be around thirty at least before compressing and condensing arcane particles. On top of that, this process implies a high degree of spiritual concentration, blending together spiritual strength with arcane strength, as well as the energy residing in every tiny particles of our bodies. The process of compression, this process is very peculiar, and it's a very distinct process that no one could possibly sense. There's no theoretical basis for condensing arcane particles directly in the heat of a battle, it's totally impossible."

"For arcane masters, especially arcane masters in the midst of a battle, arcane particles are very precious things." After a slightly pause, Ciaran explained in even greater details, "Because you consume arcane particles every time you use an arcane skill, and precisely because it's absolute impossible in the middle of a fight to focus your mind and recover arcane particles. On top of that, compressing and condensing arcane particles is very slow in itself. Every experienced arcane master will be constantly calculating the amount of arcane particles during battle, then formulate corresponding fighting methods and countermeasures."

"Condensing arcane particles is very slow?" Ayrin couldn't help but ask.

"It is." Ciaran nodded. "For arcane masters at our level, if we consumed all of our arcane particles stored inside our bodies after a fight, then even if we were to constantly put all efforts into compressing and condensing arcane particles, we'd still need around four days before returning back to full again."

"There's really no possibility at all right now that I condensed arcane particles?" Ayrin was a little discouraged all of a sudden. "Then why do I have this distinct feeling."

"I've never heard about any bloodline having this kind of unique phenomenon."

Ciaran's heart beat faster than usual. She knew there certainly was something she couldn't understand there.

"There's still one method we can try."

She took in a deep breath and said, looking at Ayrin, "I can teach you the way to condense arcane particles, and I can also teach you an arcane skill that only arcane masters can use, that is, only usable when you can condense arcane particles. If you can successfully condense arcane particles, or if you can use the arcane skill, then that would mean you truly opened the first arcane gate, and that we merely can't understand the reason why you can condense arcane particles with that level of spiritual strength, in a situation even you yourself can't detect."

"This is Logic Fingers, watch carefully."

Ciara quietly stood up. She joined her hands together, then her fingers followed an unique sequence and clasped together nonstop, displayed various kinds of postures nonstop. The ten fingers looked like ten tiny people constantly jumping and walking about.

"Constant motions like these, constantly following the motions of your hands with your eyes, cause a high degree of spiritual strength to gather on your hands. After that, use spiritual strength to draw the arcane power in the air inside your arms, compress them, and send them inside the open arcane gate!"

"So you have to first learn this set of finger techniques that can gather a high degree of focus and lead arcane power inside the hands?" Ayrin asked Ciaran.

Then, seeing her nod, he started to watch and learn without even blinking.

"This monster…" Moss suddenly had the urge to spit out blood again.

This sort of finger technique consisted of only a few dozen finger motions cycling again and again. But you could only use them when focusing all your concentration to begin with, and let spiritual strength build up through the repetitions. The placements of the five fingers were different with every motion, hence it was naturally extremely difficult.

Every motion was be very awkward for Moss. He made mistakes at every step. He felt that his own fingers weren't listening to him at all, almost like ten ropes that kept intertwining together.

But he saw that things were entirely different for Ayrin. It seemed he only needed to imitate it once, then he would be more or less there starting from the second time. He actually became more and more proficient with more repetitions, as if he were soon going to be able to do it on his own, without looking at Ciaran.

"Carter was right, the most fearsome thing this kid and his mysterious bloodline isn't only his barbarian-like body, but also his astounding capacity to learn."

There wasn't much change on Ciaran's face, but wave after wave of shock raged inside her.

Whether in Holy Dawn Academy or in other academies, in so many years, she'd simply never seen a genius like Ayrin before! She was certain that even these geniuses with genuine high-level dragon bloodlines had no way at all to compare to Ayrin when it came to the ability to learn.

"On physical strength and the speed of progress in momentum, you could say there's no difference between him and ordinary dragon bloodlines!"

"On arcane power, dragon bloodlines have a stronger affinity for arcane power, and arcane skills used by dragon bloodlines will be more powerful than his."

"Maybe the resistances to blows are about the same, but his ability to recover is actually even stronger than dragon bloodlines."

"It seems there's no bloodline at all with such a capacity for learning."

She even had a kind of feeling. A dragon bloodline on one side, on the other side the bloodline Ayrin possessed currently, a mysterious bloodline no one in the entire Holy Dawn Academy could determine, or even no one in the entire kingdom of Eiche could determine. If she could choose between one of these two bloodlines, she might even choose Ayrin's current bloodline.

"I'll also teach you my gate opening skill first in passing." Seeing that Ayrin could already grasp the "Logic Fingers" with only six or seven repetitions, Ciaran sucked in a deep breath, slowly exhaled, then said, "This gate opening skill is called "Flaming Evil Eye," it's also a finger skill."

"Watch carefully. This secret skill gathers arcane particles on the tips of your five fingers, then compresses arcane particles to different degrees between the fingers, causing the arcane particles and arcane power to reach different degrees of blending. After that, you let the strange power burst out."

Moss never heard of the "Flaming Evil Eye" before. Now listening to Ciaran's explanation, he could immediately feel its fearsome difficulty. He could also be certain right there that this was definitely not an ordinary arcane skill, but one of the secret skills of an elite teacher like Ciaran!

"Ok!" Ayrin didn't seem to have perceived the slightest difficulty however. He merely looked at Ciaran with a face filled with excitement and fighting spirit, saying in a loud voice, "Teacher Ciaran, I'm watching carefully, I'll try my best!"

Ciaran nodded right when Moss again felt a strong urge to spit out blood, then she stretched out her right hand towards the empty air.

She was clearly slowing down the speed on purpose, so that even Moss could clearly see five streams of dazzling arcane particles flowing out from her fingers, then rotating over them, compressing. Every crystalline bunch of purple light was of a different size. The strength used to compress them was obviously different as well.

"Swish!"

A giant eye the size of a fist suddenly appeared in front of her five fingers, shooting towards the air!

This eye was entirely condensed by fire. It was completely real, and seemed to radiate astounding magic power, thoroughly attracting Ayrin's and Moss' gazes and focuses despite themselves.

In Ayrin's eyes, this burning evil eye suddenly became a bunch of delicious food!

While in Moss' eyes, this evil eye transformed into an astonishingly beautiful blonde girl!

"Ah!"

This evil eye emitted terrifying heat and light just when the two of them stared with wide eyes. The two of them felt as if they were irradiated by beams of light from a dozen suns. They shouted miserably, tears of pain immediately flowing down from their eyes.

"Flaming Evil Eye, not only the might of the flames is pretty good, it also contains an unique primordial energy. It can even easily reflect the desires hidden in the deepest reaches of the eyes, making you feel as if you were seeing the thing you like the most," Ciaran's voice rang.

"Amazing! Too amazing! It's already like this just looking at it from here, if it truly were to hit you in the face, then you'd really be beaten into a dried jerky and pasted on the walls!" Ayrin immediately shouted with excitement.

"…" Moss was ashamed to show his face after seeing the beautiful golden-haired girl, his cheeks scorching hot, looking just as if they'd been burnt.