"...Ariel! Long time no see."

The girl named Lucy slowly separated from the girl. Looking at the familiar and unfamiliar figure of Ariel in front of her, the expression on her face was mixed with surprise and complexity.

"We haven't seen each other for a long time. We haven't seen each other since graduation. I happened to be passing by the North and remembered your coming-of-age ceremony, so I stopped by to see you."

The girl was equally happy to see her old friend whom she had not seen for a long time again. She pulled Lucy and sat down on the grass behind the wooden house.

The light of the flame in the girl's hand became slightly smaller, and under her control it only illuminated a small area around it. Then it left Ariel's hand and floated in front of the two little girls like a bonfire.

"Wow, Ariel! Your magic control has become really powerful."

Seeing this scene, Lucy exclaimed like a child.

"It's not bad. I've really made a lot of progress recently."

Ariel raised her eyes, remembering the recent days spent with Bai Bai, and the corners of her mouth unconsciously raised slightly.

Lucy relied on the firelight to illuminate it, and now she could clearly see the girl's red eyes, and she let out a little surprise.

"Hey, Ariel, don't you have blue eyes? Is this your magic disguise?"

"This is the Fire Eye. It's just a pupil magic. I use it to see clearly in the darkness."

Ariel explained with a smile, and as she spoke, her red eyes lit up slightly, burning a flame to demonstrate to the girl.

"As expected of Ariel! Fire Eyes is a mid-level spell. You can sustain it for a long time. It's amazing! Have you broken through to the advanced mage level now?"

The pretty girl said in surprise, her burgundy eyes widened and she looked a bit cute.

The girl habitually pinched Lucy's cute little baby face, with a smile that looked like a doting big sister.

But after thinking about it, she still didn't tell the girl the truth. After all, it was rare for her to be a 16-year-old legend, and it was a bit of a show off, so she followed the other person's instructions.

"Yes, I made a breakthrough some time ago."

"That's right, Ariel has always been so good, so it doesn't seem to be anything unexpected."

When Lucy said this, her expression suddenly became a little depressed, and she sighed slightly.

"Oh, so is Niya. I heard that she has also broken through to the level of high-level mage. I am the only one who is still useless. I can't practice my family's martial arts well, and my magic is not good enough. Even when I just ran out, I was almost useless.

Discovered..."

When the already timid girl said this, she felt even more inferior and sad.

In fact, Lucy's current strength as an intermediate mage can be considered good at this age. But it also depends on who she is compared with. There is no comparison with the already legendary Ariel.

The other person in the trio, Nia, has also reached an advanced level of strength. Although it seems that the difference is only one level, the talent gap is still very huge.

You have to know that some people are high-level because their opponents can only reach high-level. And some people are high-level only because their opponents have not yet reached the legendary level.

Everyone understands the difference, and obviously Nia and Sani both belong to the latter.

"What are you talking about? Little fool, you are so cute, how can you be useless?"

However, as a good friend, Ariel knew that she had always been a little inferior and timid. So he rubbed her little head affectionately to express comfort, and then changed the topic.

"You just said you almost got caught when you sneaked out. What happened?"

Lucy scratched her head and said with some frustration.

"I originally wanted to sneak out disguised as a maid, but I bumped into the steward on the way."

"Then I turned around and ran away in fear of being recognized. As a result, he seemed to think I was a maid who had done something bad, and kept chasing after me. I still used an invisibility magic scroll behind me to get away from them and run over."

"Thank you so much for doing such a sneaky thing. Next time I will go directly to your room to find you."

Ariel said with a smile, but she was obviously joking. As a eldest lady from a noble family like her, she always has a maid to serve her all night long. Well... yes, there are those in the room as well.

"I'm afraid there will be no next time..."

But who would have thought that even in the face of such a joke, Lucy just sighed and said.

"Huh? What's wrong?"

The girl frowned and asked after hearing something was wrong in her tone.

"I'm about to have an adult ceremony. How can I have any freedom after the adult ceremony? I'm afraid that during the adult ceremony, my father will find a suitable person to get engaged to me, and then basically wait to get married."

Lucy lowered her head, tears seemed to be rolling in her big wine-red eyes.

"this..."

Ariel was a little helpless when it came to this, as the daughters of nobles were basically like this. During the coming-of-age ceremony, it was almost equivalent to a blind date meeting.

Basically, you find a man you like or is suitable for, then you get engaged, and then you wait for marriage. Especially for a daughter with average ability like Lucy, it is basically used for marriage.

After all, while you enjoy the rights and resources of the nobility, you have to pay something for it.

If you are not strong enough and cannot bring about an improvement in the strength of the family, then you can only help the family through marriage and other aspects.

Ariel couldn't help but think of herself. If she hadn't sneaked out, she might have had to worry about the coming-of-age ceremony not long ago. Of course, her magical talent would not lead to marriage, and she still had great autonomy.

Of course, all this has been solved for Ariel now, just because of her strength. Now that she has broken through the legend, she has initially gained the qualifications to have an equal conversation with her father.

This is the extraordinary world, the importance and privileges that power brings.

But in this situation, Lucy really has no choice at all. With her strength, she has no power to determine her own destiny, and the reality is cruel.

Ariel didn't know how to comfort her for a moment, so she could only pat her back gently to make her feel better. Lucy hugged Ariel with her backhand, and couldn't hold back her tears anymore in front of her friends.

surged out.

The girl sighed slightly and gently stroked the girl's soft silver-grey hair to comfort her silently.

After crying for about ten minutes, Lucy's mood slowly calmed down after being vented. But as the sound of "Gulu——" sounded, the girl couldn't help but blush and said at a loss.

"I...I obviously had dinner."

"puff……"

Ariel couldn't help but chuckle, her memory seemed to go back to her time in the academy. As a little girl, she was a foodie, and she often pestered herself to eat delicious food.

"Are you afraid of being scolded by your father, so you didn't eat enough? You used to always go to my place to steal food."

"Well, I can't help it... My father is very strict and always asks me to abide by some aristocratic etiquette. I can't eat too much, always smile, and be reserved... just like a beautiful doll."

"And I always don't do it well and get scolded by my father... I'm not as smart as Ariel. I've done this very well since I was a child. My former etiquette teacher also highly praised you."

Lucy sighed slightly. When she said this, she couldn't help but think back to her days in the academy. She had always been envious of Ariel's excellence and often fantasized about how great it would be if she were her.

If I were as powerful as her, with such a powerful talent, maybe I could decide my own destiny, right?

Unfortunately, what she didn't know when she only saw the surface was that Ariel's excellence was all earned through hard work.

During the etiquette class in childhood, most of the pampered aristocratic children played after class. However, the girl secretly learned the etiquette movements by herself. Her hands and feet were so tired that she did not rest until she passed the movements.

It was the same when she was learning magic. No one knew how many pens she broke trying to memorize a magic sequence until late at night.

In order to practice releasing a magic, I practice until the magic power is exhausted, and I have to get up no matter how many times I fall down from exhaustion.

It was the same since she escaped from the family. This was how she learned to cook from Wan Wan. She tried, failed, worked hard, improved over and over again... only then did she achieve her current cooking skills.

Later, when I learned how to fight, I fought desperately again and again to squeeze out my potential. In order to learn to fight in the Dark Mountains, I didn't know how many times I was close to death and how many times I was injured.

In order to integrate magic into the body, practice a magic thousands of times. Each time until the magic is exhausted, then meditate to recover, and repeat the practice over and over again.

In order to break through the legend, she wanted to squeeze out her own potential to achieve spiritual transformation. Even if the chance was slim and she was likely to die, she still decided to forcibly release the legendary magic under the threat of the beast tide.

It is precisely because of the hard work she put in behind that the so-called genius girl Ariel was born. She may be a gifted genius, but her achievements today are not solely based on talent.

Perhaps this was her talent that was favored by Wanwan, and it was precisely because of her desperate efforts that he spared no effort to help her become stronger.

What others see is only the praise she gets. Her talent for learning magic, and the magic power she achieves after becoming stronger.

All we see is her bright and beautiful appearance, but we never see the dedication and hard work, sweat and even blood behind her.

It was Wanwan who saw her hard work and dedication, and therefore reached out to help her and taught her to become stronger, so he was able to enter the girl's heart.

She has legendary strength at such a young age, perhaps because of the help of others. But in fact, it is more because of her own hard work.

Ariel didn't care about her good friend's misunderstanding and just smiled and shook her head. Only one person who could understand her was Bai Wan.

The girl touched Lucy's little head lovingly and said.

"Okay, you little fool, you don't have to envy me. Everyone has his own way. Now I'd better get you something to eat, but I won't starve you."

Upon hearing this, Lucy suddenly smiled happily.

"Okay, okay, but what are you going to do? Do you have food in your storage ring?"

"That's not true, but I did bring tools, and isn't there a river not far over there? Just catch a few fish."

The girl chuckled and said, somewhat showing off her cooking skills.

"Ariel plans to do it herself?"

Lucy was a little confused, she had never seen Ariel know how to cook before.
Chapter completed!