"What are these three guys doing there, standing there and not moving at all?"
"What else could they be doing, you can tell at a glance they're three freshmen, they've surely offended Huston so he punished them to stand here."
"Their courage is really worthy of praise. This must even be the freshmen's first class right, they actually had to guts to offend the Notebook Teacher..."
Outside Thinker's Stone Forest, Holy Dawn Academy students going back and forth on the road pointed their fingers at the three of Ayrin, Belo, and Moss standing beside the road.
"Little shorty, is there anything inside your head! Anyone knows what kind of person teacher Huston is, you actually fell asleep in his class." Moss' teeth itching in anger. He felt like he was losing an exceptional amount of face.
Belo shot a glance at him, exceptionally contemptuous. "Isn't it just standing, what's the big deal."
"Isn't it just standing?" Moss couldn't hold back his yell as soon as he heard. "You think it's as simple as standing here? Do you know how sinister the Notebook Teacher is rumored to be? We can't listen to the rest of the content from his lecture standing here. Tomorrow we won't be able to follow, so he'll easily find another pretext to continue punishing us."
"Isn't it very interesting like this?" Belo said full of zest, "I want to see how many tricks he's actually got."
"..."
Moss was thoroughly speechless already, but then he almost fainted in anger when he turned his head around and saw Ayrin.
Ayrin's eyelids dangled asleep, and he looked like he was soon going to snore.
"You're a real pig! You can fall asleep even standing!"
Moss really couldn't hold it back anymore. He pounced and clutched Ayrin's neck, wishing nothing better than to choke him dead.
"Cough cough..." Choked awake, Ayrin burst in a series of coughs.
Belo looked calmly at Moss. "Don't be impulsive. We'd be out of luck if it attracted Teacher Notebook out here and he found out we haven't been properly standing."
"I'm impulsive?" Moss looked in disbelief at Belo. "You're the Impulsive Freshman, you still call me impulsive, don't tell me I'm more impulsive than you?"
Ayrin nodded firmly and said very honestly, "That's right, right now you look very impulsive."
"..."
Moss felt he'd die from anger if he were to continue talking with abnormal people like Ayrin and Belo. Hence he forcibly resisted the urge to puke out blood and turned around, forcing himself not to even look at them.
Ayrin seemed not so drowsy anymore after being woken up. But then he felt himself become hungrier and hungrier as time went on.
"Gurgle..."
A noise came from his belly near noon. He was starting to become so hungry he didn't have any strength left anymore, so he glanced inside the Thinker's Stone Forest and said, "Why isn't teacher Huston coming out yet, I'm hungry."
Belo noticed that Ayrin's face had gone entirely white, his forehead dripping with abnormal sweat. He couldn't resist asking with some curiosity, "Didn't you eat a lot of stuff this morning, how can you be so hungry already?"
Ayrin feebly opened his mouth. Sounds came nonstop from his stomach before he had time to say anything.
"I..." Moss felt alright at first, but he also became hungrier and hungrier when he heard the gurgling noises coming continuously from Ayrin's belly, because he hadn't had time to eat too much in the morning, for fear of arriving late. Then he turned his head and saw Ayrin looking like he could drop down any second. He became immediately anxious and started to yell, "Little shorty, just stop harming people now. Teacher Huston could be coming out at any time right now, if you don't stand properly and he finds out when he comes out, you'll definitely involve all of us. He'll make us keep standing here."
Belo pushed his glasses on his nose and threw Moss a glance. He didn't say anything however, just looked in the direction of Thinker's Stone Forest.
At first, his attitude led Moss to believe that Huston was walking out just at this time. But when he anxiously turned his head around, he saw that it wasn't Huston coming out from between these great white boulders standing tall like giants, but a female student wearing a set of blue school uniform, the same as theirs.
The sunlight seemed especially dazzling in Ayrin's eyes at this moment. This caused the girl's blue school uniform to seemingly sparkle with a peculiar radiance the very moment he first caught sight of her, walking out from between the giant stones. He blinked his eyes firmly. He could clearly see, this was a female student with long black hair, a sheen of shiny perspiration covering her exquisitely beautiful face. Her school uniform was also drenched in sweat; water continuously dripped down even from the tip of her hair.
Just as Ayrin observed this girl, a little dazed, this girl also actually noticed their existence. She walked toward them.
This female student seemed to already have realized what happened by merely casting a look at the three's appearances. She waved her hand in their direction and said, "What, you've been punished by teacher Huston?"
What answered this girl first thing was a series of noises coming from Ayrin's stomach.
Ayrin was a little embarrassed, but this seemingly very imposing girl actually smiled at Ayrin and said, "Hungry? You haven't eaten much this morning? Even if teacher Huston were to come here soon though, he'd still tell you to continue your stand. He's in fact deliberately making people starve through a meal when he punishes them like this. That's the method he uses the most often when handling you freshmen."
Moss was feeling hungrier by the minute to begin with. Now even his face blanched immediately when he heard this girl say this. Right then, Ayrin saw thick bandages completely wrapping around this girl's left hand, and he immediately asked, full of sympathy, "What's up with your hand, you're wounded?"
"No big deal, merely an injury I got when I tried to block with it during training." The girl gathered her damp hair and looked at Ayrin, all smiles. "You're truly a good person, you're already hungry like this but you still worry whether I'm wounded or not. You guys continue to properly stand here, wait for me."
"Wait for you?"
Ayrin didn't understand what she meant, but this girl had already turned around and walked a great distance away.
The back of this girl vanished from their sights, but she again very quickly appeared once more in their visions.
"Bang."
This girl tossed a big pile of things to eat in front of Ayrin and the others. She then immediately sat on the grassy ground beside them, easy and carefree. She casually grabbed some foodstuff and started to eat. At the same time she directed the three still dazed boys, "My treat, let's eat together."
"Teacher Huston is deliberately starving us, but now you give us things to eat, aren't you afraid teacher Huston will see that and give you a hard time?" The three of them were all a little stunned.
"He's not teaching me now anyway, plus he can't beat me either." The girl made a very careless face and brandished her fist. "Why would I be afraid of him?"
"He can't beat you?" Moss actually sucked in cold air, watched this girl with disbelief. Teacher Huston indeed couldn't be considered very powerful among all the teachers in the academy, but that was merely comparing them between themselves. Even the worst teacher in Holy Dawn Academy could probably handle at least two or three ordinary arcane masters by himself.
"You guys take your time with the food, I have to go back inside Thinker's Stone Forest, I still have to practice. I can also help you stall Huston in passing if he's coming out." This girl actually didn't care in the slightest about Moss's astonishment. She casually grabbed some stuff to eat, then stood up and went in the direction of the Thinker's Stone Forest.
"Thank you." Ayrin subconsciously said a couple words.
The girl didn't say anything and didn't turn around either. She merely lifted her hand and waved it.
Sunlight shone on her body and made the figure of her back appear very pretty. Ayrin then remembered he hadn't asked her name yet.
Belo actually forestalled him. He pushed his glasses and yelled to the girl, "Eh, what's your name?"
Ayrin and Moss didn't notice the odd solemness that appeared inside his eyes from the moment this girl said Huston couldn't beat her.
"Chris." The girl's voice came to them from far away.
"It's indeed her, the Amazing Girl." Belo's eyebrows shot up, muttering to himself.
"The Amazing Girl?" Ayrin and Moss both stared blankly. "What does it mean?"
"It means her." Belo looked at Chris' back and nodded. "I heard she trains harder than anybody, that's why even if it's only her third year, she's already the most powerful among all the students in Holy Dawn Academy. Even some teachers aren't her match. Only, she's got severe facial blindness, and even more peculiarly she keeps yapping her slogan of dominating the national school tournament at all times, that's why she's got the title of the Amazingly Crazily Girl in our Holy Dawn Academy, or Amazing Girl in short."
"The Amazing Girl is the Amazingly Crazy Girl?" Ayrin sweated. He watched Chris' back with great curiosity. "What does facial blindness mean then?"
Belo said, "That means she very easily forgets what someone looks like. For example, just now even if we told her our names, next time she sees us she'd only remember our names but wouldn't distinguish who's who between us. Maybe she'll call you Belo, and maybe she'll call me Ayrin."
"Really?" An astonished Ayrin continued with another question, "What's the national school tournament then?"
"You don't even know this?" Moss immediately whipped his head around. He felt himself once again on the verge of fainting to death. "Little shorty, you're really a pig! We only talked for a few sentences, how much stuff have you eaten already?"
Ayrin hadn't been still during these mere few sentences. The meat pies in front of him had all been cleanly swept away already.
Moss remembered the rumors about Ayrin's endless stomach. With no time and focus to spare for insults, he immediately sat down and started to gorge himself on food instead.
"The national school competition's full name is Hegemonical Cup of Starry Skies Academy Braves." Belo tore a piece of ham and ate it, neither slow nor hurried as he calmly explained, "All the academies in our kingdom of Eiche will participate in the tussle of this competition."
"Since all the academies participate in this competition, there's nothing strange about her wanting to snatch the title of champion right? Why would they call her the Amazingly Crazy Girl because of that?"
"That's because there are really too many powerful opponents out there. Our Holy Dawn Academy hasn't been able to step out of St. Lauren for four years running. We can't even defeat the few other academies in St. Lauren, but she actually keeps cycling her slogan of defeating opponents from every academy, that's why they say she's an amazingly crazy."
Ayrin suddenly understood somewhat. He thought about it for a bit. "So that means our Holy Dawn Academy can't be considered a strong academy?"
"The strength of an academy and a tournament like this are two entirely different things. Our Holy Dawn Academy is one of the academies with the longest traditions in the kingdom. It can definitely be ranked in the front if we're talking about the entire strength of the academy. Only, in this interschool competition, the most important thing to consider is whether there are powerful students." Belo looked at Ayrin and continued to say, "Because this is a competition between teams of five. You can say that the strong students in our Holy Dawn Academy have precisely been few in number, that's why our achievements have been so bad."
"A competition between teams of five?"
"Right." Belo pushed his glasses and glanced at Ayrin. "There will be a preliminary match in three days if I haven't gotten my math wrong. Our Holy Dawn Academy's opponent is the Southern Monsoon Academy. Our Holy Dawn Academy will only be able to participate in the main qualifiers and fight for a quota from St. Lauren if we win this match. If you're interested, I can take you there to watch. I'll talk about it by then, it's very easy to understand the rules, you'll see."
Ayrin said without thinking at all, "Ok."
…
Huston took the other freshmen out of Thinker's Stone Forest from another exit, then went back inside the stone forest after the meal, and then lectured a lesson about foundation training. Only after that did he leisurely stroll through the forest of stones and appear in front of Ayrin, Belo, and Moss.
"How is it, are you guys hungry?" Huston felt his mood brighten a little when he saw the three of them looking withered under the sun.
"Gurgle..." Ayrin's stomach made noises again.
"Remember to respect my class' discipline next time. This time though, it's better if you keep standing here until the end of class today. Remember to practice the Explosive Blazing Fist when you go back. You also have to do a full hundred squats, a hundred backward leapfrogs, and one hundred full-speed sprints... Of course, it doesn't matter if you don't practice, or if you don't do it fully. There will be tests sooner or later during class anyway. If you can't pass them, you should know the consequences already eh."
Huston was even more satisfied when he heard the gurgling sounds from Ayrin's belly. He turned around and went away after saying his piece, all high and mighty.
"Shorty, I couldn't tell before, you have a talent for scamming people." Moss sighed in relief when Huston's figure disappeared for good. He turned his head and told Ayrin, "You can actually even fake the sound of a hungry stomach, now he definitely thinks we've really been starving all this time."
"I wasn't deliberately faking it." Ayrin said, a little distressed, "I'm really a little hungry."
"I..." Moss almost fainted straight away. "You're really a pig right! You ate even more than both of us combined. How much time has it been since, now you say you're hungry again?!"