"Cheers!"
Inside the Secret Garden, the quartet of the Sword Flower dorm sat in the main hall, raising their glasses in celebration.
Today, the booths were completely full, so they had taken a small table in the hall. Surrounding students stole constant glances at them, but they had already learned to accept the baptism of those gazes with calm composure. Whenever anyone looked ready to come over and strike up a conversation, they only had to sweep their eyes across them, and the intruders would tactfully scurry off to the restroom to check their own sorry faces in the mirror.
Four days ago, before the watchful eyes of the crowd, Sonia had challenged Leonie once again.
This time, Leonie made no concessions whatsoever. Treating Sonia as a formidable foe, she gladly accepted the challenge. Both donned astral garments, took up sharpened swords, and brought out all their skills, holding nothing back!
Four medical sorcerers had been stationed on the scene, terrified that these two Sword Saint seeds might cut each other down before blooming!
Sword sorcerer against sword sorcerer, the pinnacle of sharpness against the pinnacle of sharpness!
Although both their astral garments shattered at the exact same moment in the end and the supervising instructor declared a draw, everyone knew that from that moment on, the Red-Haired Sword Princess had used the Orange Dancer as a stepping stone to become the foremost favored prodigy of Sword and Rose Sorcerer University!
After all, Leonie had been a Silver Sorcerer for over two years, while Sonia had been one for less than... a month!
Before, when Sonia sent Leonie's sword flying, one could still call it a stroke of luck. But this had been a full-strength one-on-one duel; even the most stubborn contrarian could at most question Sonia's beauty, never her strength!
What was more, Sonia had not even finished her first year yet, and many believed she would be able to become a Gold Sorcerer before graduation.
Even at Truth University, where geniuses gathered in droves, students who could step onto the Time Continent before graduation were among the most brilliant meteors. As for the first-years at Sword and Rose, their college lives were destined to pale beneath the starlight of the Red-Haired Sword Princess.
Many even felt that the greatest achievement of their lives might simply be having been a classmate in the same year as Sonia Servi.
If someone was just slightly ahead of you, you might feel jealous. But if someone was so far ahead that they left you completely in the dust, you could only feel admiration, or even fanatically worship her, looking forward to her winning more glory in the future so that you might have the chance to boast about this rare connection.
It was said that a Sonia Servi fan club had already appeared on the school Curtain, though they were still arguing over whether to call themselves "So-fans" or "Ser-skins."
On the other hand, since Sonia commanded such intense attention, her roommates naturally became a focus as well. After all, Sonia was already a peerless genius too dazzling to gaze upon directly; people could only look from afar without daring to strike up a conversation. But if they could befriend Sonia's friends, wouldn't that offer a roundabout way into Sonia's inner circle?
One look was enough to astonish anyone: people quickly discovered that Sonia actually had a group of hidden gems for roommates.
Ingrid went without saying: aside from Felix and Sonia, she was the top student in the Swordsmanship Department—diligent, eager to learn, and heroic in bearing.
Lois was one of the most radiant and beautiful girls in the Water Sorcery Department—and after Sonia transferred to the Swordsmanship Department, that "one of" could practically be crossed out.
Adele was even more formidable: she had been the original founder of the Sonia fan club, and later, relying on her status as Sonia's roommate, she had undeniably become the club's president, worthy of being called the Red-Haired Sword Princess's number-one stalker fan.
With Adele's sly pushing behind the scenes, the graceful moniker "Sword Flower Dorm" spread far and wide throughout the academy. Everyone knew Sonia's dorm was blessed with outstanding talent; for a single humble dorm room to produce four Sword Flowers, Sword and Rose University had truly struck gold, and in the future they were bound to become Jialesi's top super-group, and so on and so forth...
Faced with this mounting spotlight, Sonia and Lois naturally reveled in it. Both of them possessed histrionic personalities that drew superiority and energy from people's gazes, heading off to class every day brimming with vitality as if they had absorbed a Spirit Bomb.
While Adele wasn't as flamboyant as the two of them, she also thoroughly enjoyed being the center of attention, bragging every day about how many new love letters she had received.
Only Ingrid was initially uncomfortable with this attention, finding it utterly bothersome whenever someone tried to chat her up during her morning running drills.
Later, however, she underwent a complete makeover by Sonia and Lois. They changed her hairstyle, trimmed her eyebrows, and bought plain-colored yet more form-fitting sportswear. Coupled with Ingrid's naturally excellent physique, her appearance instantly caught up to Sonia and the others. At present, she was only slightly behind Adele—and if Adele's weight kept climbing, surpassing Adele wouldn't be a distant dream.
After becoming prettier, though Ingrid was still a bit shy, she quickly grew more and more confident. She showed no stage fright when approached, and recently she had even begun learning skincare and sun protection from Sonia.
Makeup was a woman's armor, and admiration was a man's surrender. Ingrid had not cared about her appearance before simply because she felt a sword sorcerer shouldn't waste time on such things; it didn't mean she truly had no desire to be pretty. The reason she had wanted to become a sword sorcerer in the first place was seeing the handsome, beautiful female Sword Saint played by Daidalos on the light screen.
Beautiful, elegant, powerful! That was the female Sword Saint Ingrid aspired to be!
With Sonia and Lois helping her avoid detours, Ingrid discovered that spending only a tiny fraction of time each day gave her looks that outshone ninety percent of her peers without interfering with her daily cultivation. Naturally, she was delighted to join the ranks of pretty girls, achieving one of the three core elements of her dream female Sword Saint.
And tonight, Ingrid was one step closer to that dream.
"Incredible! First year hasn't even ended, and our dorm has already produced two sorcerers." Adele's face was flushed red as she giggled. "Our dorm really is amazing!"
During tonight's routine training, when Ingrid struck the bullseye of the armored dummy with her sword, a phenomenon of knowledge resonance occurred. She had independently summoned her first natal sorcery spirit, becoming the dorm's second official sorcerer!
"Sonia and Ingrid are the ones who are amazing. What does that have to do with you?"
Lois bluntly called out Adele's shamelessness, though she also turned curiously to the newly minted female sword sorcerer. "Ingrid, can you show us your sorcery spirit?"
"There's really not much to see." Even as Ingrid said this, she took the initiative to stretch out her hand. A sorcery spirit brandishing a sharp blade emerged in her palm.
"So this is the 'Slash Sword' sorcery spirit." Adele studied it for a moment, then gasped in surprise. "Huh? You summoned it yourself, so why does it look like a man? Could it be that you're a boy in disguise, Ingrid? No wonder your chest is so—"
"Independently summoned sorcery spirits reflect a sorcerer's inner projection. Stop talking nonsense if you don't pay attention in class." Lois smacked Adele on the head. "Maybe Ingrid thinks male sword sorcerers are stronger?"
"That's right," Ingrid admitted openly. "Even though I don't consider myself inferior to men, I know that men generally have advantages in strength and agility. I have to put in much more effort to surpass male sword sorcerers of my age. At times, I've wondered if my path in swordsmanship would have been smoother if I were a man..."
"Actually, once you become an official sorcerer, individual physical traits like strength and agility have negligible impact," Sonia said, munching on popcorn chicken. "What determines a sorcerer's strength are sorcery spirits, sorcery power, and faction mastery. Gender isn't even worth mentioning—look at Felix, didn't I hammer him into submission? There's absolutely no need to feel inferior."
"I know, I understand all the logic." Ingrid smiled apologetically. "But some mindsets are hard to reverse overnight. Only when I become stronger and have enough confidence in myself can I truly banish this lingering inferiority... Thank you for caring."
Sonia stared blankly at Ingrid for a few seconds before turning to Lois. "Just you wait. Sooner or later, she will stand at a peak beyond our reach. This woman possesses a power even greater than talent."
"The two of you will both stand at a peak beyond reach sooner or later," Lois said irritably.
"It's the three of you," Adele piped up. "Lois is close to summoning the 'Water Therapy' sorcery spirit, too."
"You still have the nerve to speak!" Lois rapped Adele's head with each pause. "When I tell you—to practice with me—you don't, you lie in bed watching dramas! When I tell you—to come study with me—you refuse, you lie in bed watching dramas! If you keep this up, I doubt you'll even step into the Void Realm before graduation. When you can't graduate, let's see what you do then!"
"Then I'll just get married," Adele said, clutching her head.
"And then? Become a noble lady who knows nothing but romance and frivolity?"
"Aside from romance and frivolity, I can also keep lying in bed watching dramas at home."
"You—"
Seeing that Lois was about to pinch Adele's cheeks into a pancake, Sonia thought for a moment and said, "Adele, I know you aren't interested in water sorcery; maybe you chose the wrong faction... But after studying for over a year, you can't be that far from the Silver tier. Just push a little harder and you can step into the Void Realm. Once you're in the Void Realm, you can take your time choosing a new faction. There's bound to be a sorcery faction in this world that you love.
"Like Ingrid, you know all the reasoning, you just can't bring yourself to do it... So all I can tell you is that the Void Realm really is a wonderful, fascinating place. What books describe doesn't even capture a fraction of it. We sorcerers explore the Void Realm every night not merely to grow stronger, but mostly because the Void Realm is an addictive activity that's even more fun than lying in bed watching dramas.
"What's more," Sonia delivered the fatal blow, "once Lois steps into the Void Realm too, our everyday conversations will gradually shift to little details from our Void Realm explorations. When that happens, if you haven't soaked in the Sea of Knowledge, you might not be able to join in our conversations at all."
Adele fell silent for a moment, then chugged a glass of alcohol, let out a sharp "Hah!", and said, "Fine, fine! Starting tomorrow, no more watching dramas!"
"Tomorrow?" Lois raised an eyebrow.
"I'll pull an all-nighter tonight to finish the series I'm watching... Okay, okay, I won't watch starting right now! For your sakes, this little sacrifice is nothing!"
"It's for yourself!"
Chapter 209