"Hey hey! See how great my son turned out? You all didn't believe me before! I knew he wouldn't let me down!" Judith came over and slapped my shoulder, standing proud with her hands on her hips. Seeing how smug she looked made me feel annoyed.
Come on! Is it really worth bragging about having a son who looks way older than you?
"Hah, don't forget Adrian also awakened Battle Qi. And he's young - that's the important part! His future potential is definitely much greater than your old fart of a son!"
Even though I don't have Battle Qi, that doesn't mean I can't win against her. I quickly pushed Adrian forward to strike back at her.
"Feliciana, this isn't very nice..." Adrian looked helpless and quickly tried to explain. "Adonis and I have totally different types of awakenings. There's no way to compare us..."
"No way! You were just telling me I wasn't confident enough. How come you've become so unsure when it comes to yourself?" I wasn't happy to hear that and argued back right away. "That old man may be powerful, but he can only control time and space. Your 'word arrows' have endless possibilities. Given time, you'll definitely surpass him! No, you'll leave him in the dust!"
Mainly because Meredith and the other Sage Council members were still standing nearby, and Adonis had just saved him. Seeing me shamelessly boasting on his behalf like this, Adrian was at a loss for words. He could only sheepishly try to be modest. "Actually, I can only add one word at a time. How many functions can that really have? A lot of times the meaning of a single word is too vague, so it doesn't even have any effect..."
Oh well, it's not my fault anyway. Who told Judith to come over and try to compete with me for no reason? Now she's so upset she's puffing out her cheeks and can't say anything back.
The disastrous event was dealt with surprisingly quickly. Once everything was back to normal, we returned to stay at the Adventurers' Guild inn.
To be honest, the time reversal effect was really impressive. Walking down the hallway of the inn, you could see that everything was exactly the same as before. There wasn't a single crack in any of the walls, and even the clothes that had been left on chairs without being put away were still perfectly in place.
"Are you still planning to go to Soul Institute as originally planned?" Meredith knocked on the door and walked in just as we had finished repacking our things that were left in the room.
"Ah... of course we're going!" I had almost forgotten about that. Mainly because the commotion with Nicola's return this morning was so huge. I didn't expect them to still invite us despite everything that happened. It really made me grateful.
Unfortunately, Nicola still wasn't coming with us. Can't be helped, she had caused way too much trouble earlier! But I still hadn't completely given up on her. I just hoped that after some time alone to cool down, she would slowly figure out her own issues. Then she could come back and properly apologize to Adrian and everyone else. Only then could we go back to getting along well. After all, I really didn't want to see this kind of falling out between classmates happen again.
Four hours later, we finally reached the base of the wizard's tower where Soul Institute was located.
"Wah! That was so tiring! Couldn't you have found a horse cart or something?" Cyra bent down to rub her legs, complaining loudly.
Because of what happened this morning, we decided to keep a low profile and not fly to Soul Institute. But the walk was really far, with all sorts of twists and turns through the city streets. It ended up taking over three hours.
"Didn't you just level up to a six-winged angel? How come you still look so weak? Don't tell me those wings are fake?" I snapped back at her, irritated. Of course, the "weakness" was only relative. With Adrian's and my stamina, we didn't feel tired at all. Actually, anyone at this level would have improved physical abilities even without showing their wings. How could walking a few thousand steps be tiring? We mainly didn't take a horse cart because we wanted to see more of this city we'd never visited before. But it was getting annoying having someone constantly whining about being tired next to us.
"Tch, of course you two are fine! You've been all lovey-dovey the whole way, disgustingly sweet. No wonder you don't feel tired!" Cyra glared at me disdainfully, pointing at the hand I was using to feed Adrian. I suddenly felt a bit embarrassed and awkwardly pulled my hand back.
Actually, we had just seen some interesting-looking snacks at a street stall along the way. They looked really fancy, so I bought some as treats for the walk. Of course, as an angel I can't eat much, so to avoid wasting food I ended up giving the rest to Adrian.
Thinking about it now made me feel a bit silly. Cyra had eaten plenty along with us too. How could she complain about me now!
"The person we're looking for is called... Sigrid Prite?" I looked at the introduction letter in my hand, then gazed uncertainly at the empty institute entrance at the base of the tower.
This place was completely different from the other institutes we passed on the way. The entrances to other schools were always bustling with people coming and going. You could always see some students entering and leaving no matter what time it was. But this Soul Institute was completely silent. The main gate was open, with no guards, and fallen leaves everywhere. From the outside, it looked more like a haunted house than a school.
This Sigrid Prite was actually the principal of Soul Institute. Even though they had seen my blue-winged state in Parristol's prophecy and were very interested in my soul situation, Meredith, Adonis and the others still had urgent matters to deal with. They were too busy with official duties, so they could only hastily write an introduction letter for me to give to Sigrid.
"Why are even the magic lamps turned off?" Cyra grumbled. As we entered the wizard's tower, the interior was very spacious. With little light coming in from the main entrance, we could barely see anything after taking a few steps into the pitch-black surroundings.
After a while, we finally got used to the dim light and found the stairs leading to the upper floors.
The internal structure was similar to Chromos Tower. The stairs in these wizard towers always spiraled up around the vertical central axis. The space around the stairs was divided into rooms for various purposes.
Most of the room doors had big locks on them and weren't in use. A few were open or half-closed. Through the cracks, you could see that not only were the lights off, but candles were lit inside. All the windows were tightly shut, making it very dark. A figure sat cross-legged in the center of each room, eyes closed and silent as if asleep.
It looked very similar to Buddhist or Taoist meditation on Earth, and also quite like the meditation pose for communicating with elements when learning magic. The main differences were in the details of the posture and the atmosphere.
"Isn't this supposed to be Soul Institute? Why does it feel like we've come to some cult headquarters?" Cyra curiously poked her head in to take a closer look. The sound of us whispering didn't affect the people in the rooms at all. They remained as still as corpses.
"Don't say things like that carelessly. Be careful not to offend them!" I gave her a warning look, then pulled Adrian to continue climbing the stairs.
Normally, as the head of the institute, Sigrid should live on the top floor with a private office. But as we walked up, we found that almost every room in use had one and only one person sitting inside, as if everyone enjoyed this treatment.
Maybe it's because there aren't many students in this wizard's tower? And all these people were giving off a strong aura of light element energy. Clearly they were all light mages, which made it even more understandable. After all, light mages are very rare to begin with.
Surprisingly, after struggling to climb all the way to the top, we found that the rooms on the highest floors weren't being used at all. We had to go back down to the last floor that had someone "living" there.
"Excuse me, does anyone know where Principal Sigrid is?" This floor was a bit special, with only one room in use. When we entered, we realized that besides the old man sitting in the center, there were actually two or three figures hidden in the dark corners behind him. They were also in meditation poses without making any sound, so they were very hard to notice with the naked eye.
"That's me! What business do you have?" We didn't expect this old man to be the one we were looking for. Hearing us, he opened his eyes and glanced at us, immediately recognizing the true identities of Cyra and me. "Angels? What are you doing here? Don't tell me you've come to learn how to study souls. Has Elara finally come to her senses?"
"No, that's not it. I mainly have some personal questions I want to ask you, to help me understand my..." I quickly clarified his misunderstanding, then remembered to take out the introduction letter and hand it to him with both hands.
Sigrid took the letter, opened it and read carefully for a while. Then without further ado, he beckoned to me and instructed, "Come over here and let me examine you. Sit in front of me, in the same pose as me!"
"Huh? What are we doing? Is this the examination already?" I was confused again. I thought he would chat a bit first, or at least ask about my "medical history and symptoms" before taking the next step. Who knew he'd jump straight into the examination, just like going to a hospital on Earth.
"Close your eyes and clear your mind. Just pretend you're sitting down to sleep!" Sigrid kept giving various instructions. I had finally managed to awkwardly copy his pose, but hearing this I couldn't help but object. "But I'm an angel. It's not easy for me to fall asleep during the day..."
But in the next moment, I suddenly saw a flash of bright white light from his palm. I immediately felt my mind becoming sluggish, as if I really was about to fall asleep. At the same time, scenes of memories I had experienced began to involuntarily appear before my eyes.