Chapter 2751 Traveler’s Hymn <TOC> Chapter 2753 Petal Wind
Translator: SumTLMan
「What do you think of this Shepherd?」Daus looked toward Angel.
Angel blurted without thinking:「An interesting person.」
Daus raised a brow:「Interesting? Only interesting?」
Angel pondered a moment and said:「Also someone with a story.」
Daus smiled:「Who here doesn’t have a story?」
This time Angel was silent a bit longer:「Then he’s someone who’s both interesting and storied, and who’s hiding a few secrets.」
Daus still wore the look of an incomplete answer, muttering under his breath that who here had no secrets anyway?
Faced with a contrarian who wouldn’t be satisfied no matter how he answered, Angel chose silence and to look the other way.
In truth, Angel’s first reply already contained all his views of Shepherd: an interesting person.
From the very start Angel had noticed Shepherd; one could say that among the apprentices opposite, the one Angel paid the most attention to was Shepherd.
The reason wasn’t the vague title of「Rhythm Apprentice」, but that while his peers were laden with urgency, caution, and panic, his emotions were distinctly calm, out of tune with the others.
His calm wasn’t feigned, nor forced composure, and it wasn’t quite the same as the Gray Merchant’s calm either. His calm skewed toward serenity, leisure, and ease.
How leisurely? Earlier, he had leaned against a black-faced sheep with his eyes closed to rest, he was actually asleep.
To maintain such a lighthearted mindset in an environment like this was truly strange.
Perhaps he was very confident in his own strength, indifferent to the world’s joys and sorrows?
Setting aside whether Shepherd was truly powerful, even if he were hiding his strength, under the double pressure of the Sovereign of Wisdom and the Black Count, to still believe one’s own power made all joys and sorrows irrelevant would only be possible for a wizard above legendary. And in the Southern Region today, aside from the Enforcer, there are simply no legendary wizards.
Then perhaps he knew his future course and cared nothing for anything external?
The prerequisite for this is: he is a prophecy wizard, or he has received some kind of prophecy and revelation. Such a「prophet」has a very typical trait, blunted emotion and a preference for looking on with cold eyes. Shepherd, though emotionally placid, hadn’t reached the point of cold detachment; he still had the proper delights and sentiments, this is not the emotional feedback a「prophet」ought to have.
Or perhaps it was a matter of temperament, unmoved by outward things?
That’s very hard to prove; temperament is too subjective. But as things stand, Shepherd’s character does indeed tend toward mildness, or…… laxness? Yet such a temperament is not enough for him to face the present scene and still remain unperturbed.
Eliminating all the above possibilities, Angel still hadn’t discerned the reason for Shepherd’s composure.
This is also why Angel would say:「he is someone with secrets.」
As for what secrets he’s hiding? The fight isn’t over yet. If he truly has secrets, and those secrets support him far beyond his own strength, then in the battles to come, he will inevitably reveal them.
……
On the arena, the wind kept sweeping, and with Shepherd’s flute the wind on the field underwent distinct changes.
When the tune was long and graceful, the wind brushed over Kael’s limbs, inconspicuously shackling them.
When the melody turned heavy and dull, the surrounding wind became a multitude of wind blades, and these blades were like birds that could auto-seek a target, refusing to dissipate until they struck Kael.
This made the wind blades circle back and forth around Kael like bluish-green petals.
And as the tune gradually climbed, the wind’s sense of weight grew ever more obvious, not only pressing so hard that Kael could hardly breathe, but even sealing all the magic around him, making it difficult for him to mobilize any magic and forcing him into constant internal consumption. So long as the magic source did not dry up, this kind of internal drain could be handled for a short while, but as time went on, it would be hard to endure.
And this was only Shepherd’s control over the wind. He himself hadn’t moved at all, hovering in midair with his eyes closed, playing the flute.
Kael knew he couldn’t drag this out any longer; the current wind was still only at the「first meeting」. Judging by Shepherd’s flute, the melody hadn’t even reached its climax; when the true climax arrived, Kael might find it hard even to keep his footing on the arena.
Therefore, he had to deal with Shepherd as quickly as possible…… at least, interrupt his fluting.
By Kael’s own tactics, he had planned to use spatial rifts to sluice the surrounding wind like a flood into the void.
But after simulating the battle in his mind, Kael gave up on that plan.
Space is quite special on the mysterious branch; whether cantrips or spells, the probability of backlash is higher than in other branches, and once backlash occurs, the damage suffered far exceeds other types.
This has led space practitioners to concentrate intensely when casting, not daring the slightest distraction.
Now, with wind raging ceaselessly all around, Kael simply had no time to cast in earnest; it was very possible a gale would strike him mid-cast, and he would lose to backlash.
Thus he directly chose to abandon the「flood-release」of spatial rifts.
Since his own tactic couldn’t take shape, Kael didn’t struggle further; he directly summoned the alchemy puppet before him, and would fight this duel using the means Angel had provided.
The alchemy puppet’s entire body shone with a dazzling metallic luster, especially its face, as if coated with a layer of paint, the metallic reflectivity all the more evident. And its features bore a grotesque clownish smile carved by its maker; hence whenever it struck, there was always a hint of eeriness and mockery.
Shepherd paid no heed at all to the puppet’s appearance; his whole heart seemed immersed in the performance.
Not until Shepherd was halfway through did he, finding the wind around him thinning, open his eyes in puzzlement.
And the instant he opened them, a huge metal fist came flying at him.
Startled, Shepherd thrust out the short flute to bat the hand aside, then sent a wind vortex from one end of the flute; the reaction force from the vortex made Shepherd retreat rapidly.
In this brief contact neither side was hurt, but Shepherd’s playing was cut off.
As Shepherd’s tune broke off, the wind around them thinned to scattered wisps; the heavy wind that had bound Kael gradually dispersed and vanished.
The battle seemed to have returned to the very beginning.
「Has the wind vanished?」Shepherd murmured:「No, the hymn within the wind hasn’t dissipated. The wind hasn’t disappeared; it’s been converted.」
Previously he had been absorbed in his playing and hadn’t noticed the shifts of wind and cloud outside. Now he finally perceived it: the wind around them hadn’t disappeared but had undergone a「mutiny」, what he called a「conversion」. The total amount of wind energy overall hadn’t changed; the reason he felt the wind growing weaker was precisely because the wind had been converted away by the other side.
Thus the hymn remained, and the wind remained, but the battle situation had undergone an earthshaking change.
The wind he commanded had been converted. This was the first time Shepherd had encountered such a thing in battle.
Generally speaking, only a strong wind can convert a weak wind.
The difference between strong and weak here depends on the strength of the one controlling the wind.
That the wind had been converted earlier meant that Shepherd had fallen to a lower tier in the contest of wind energy.
Which was very strange.
The opponent opposite was a space school apprentice; to deal with wind energy he would ordinarily devour the wind, or banish it into the void.
But he hadn’t used space energy, he had used wind energy for a frontal matchup?
And actually won? How had he managed that?
……
The changes on the field were also taken in by the spectators.
「The wind was converted? Has this opponent cross-trained in wind energy?」Pink Jasmine asked, a bit puzzled.
Shrew and Gray Merchant were wholly focused on the arena and didn’t answer her. It was the already-defeated Ghost Shadow who said from the side:「Even if he cross-trained in wind, could he be stronger than Shepherd, who specializes in wind?」
「If it’s not cross-training, then what is it?」Pink Jasmine also didn’t believe the opponent could beat Shepherd in a wind contest. In fact, even among wind elemental apprentices, those who could defeat Shepherd were few and far between. After all, Shepherd was a wind school「Rhythm Apprentice」!
But the duel on the arena was hard to fake; the opponent had indeed used strong wind to convert Shepherd’s「weak wind」, which was tantamount to saying that in wind energy Shepherd was inferior to his opponent!
Pink Jasmine ventured another guess:「Could it be that the opponent has a dual-affinity talent?」
Dual-affinity talent isn’t all that rare, but as a rule, apprentices don’t split their focus to cultivate multiple schools, because their lifespans are limited and so is the time they can devote to training. Only after becoming formal wizards, with lifespans greatly extended, do they have the time to train multiple schools.
So while Pink Jasmine guessed the opponent had dual affinity, her words still carried doubt.
Ghost Shadow:「Even if he had dual affinity, how strong do you think the opponent’s wind energy would have to be to convert Shepherd’s wind?」
Before Pink Jasmine could answer, Ghost Shadow gave the answer himself:「At minimum he’d have to be a 『Sequence Apprentice』 to steadily convert Shepherd’s wind.」
「And how many Sequence Apprentices are there in wind? And among those we know of, not a single one fits the opponent’s profile.」
Rhythm, Sequence, Nature-Shift, Transition, Reincarnation, these are the single-discipline extremes pursued by elemental branch wizards.
While Rhythm Apprentices exist in every school, the one that truly reaches for extremity at the apprentice realm isn’t Sequence of Wind, but Rhythm of Water.
And the school that can reach an extremity in wind is Sequence of Wind; the apprentice-stage counterpart is what’s called a Sequence Apprentice.
Neither Rhythm Apprentice nor Sequence Apprentice means they have mastered rhythm or sequence, it only means they have glimpsed a sliver of truth on that path.
To truly comprehend and set foot on that road of pursuing extremity, one must at least become a formal wizard.
Even so, to glimpse a sliver of truth while still an apprentice is proof of tremendous potential.
In the Southern Region’s Wizarding World, apprentices who glimpse truth are almost never nobodies. Even if the apprentices themselves keep a low profile, the formal wizards who can teach such disciples will not help them hide; it’s a fine chance to prove one’s ability as a mentor.
The existence of the tea party also makes it very hard for such high-potential apprentices to conceal their identities.
Therefore, though Ghost Shadow floated the name「Sequence Apprentice」, he did not believe the opponent was one.
But if he wasn’t a Sequence Apprentice, how had the opponent managed to convert wind energy?
As Ghost Shadow and Pink Jasmine pondered, Shepherd on the arena offered a new line of conjecture.
「Is it that?」Shepherd pointed at the alchemy puppet:「Can it convert the wind?」
Kael held his tongue.
Shepherd didn’t mind; with a soft chuckle he said:「Since you’re unwilling to answer, I’ll just run the test myself.」
The instant his words fell, Shepherd blew a transverse note, no longer a ditty but a crisp sheep-calling air.
When the yodel-styled notes sounded, four black-faced sheep, lifting their hooves in a left-left-right, left-left-right neat cadence, filed out from behind Shepherd.
It was as if there were a great door behind him that had summoned these four sweet-faced lambs from some lush green to the arena.
As the four black-faced sheep stepped onto the arena, the formerly somewhat solemn tone of the scene suddenly changed.
The four black-faced sheep paid no heed at all to Shepherd’s calls, bleating「baa, baa, baa,」circling around him; their footfalls were perfectly in sync, as if they were performing a tap dance.
Shepherd’s always serious expression grew awkward thanks to these four black-faced sheep who refused to play by the rules.
Most embarrassing of all, the alchemy puppet opposite even wore a「clown face.」
Paired with the bleating and the self-absorbed tap-dancing black-faced sheep, the arena seemed to have turned into a circus act.
「Black One, Black Two, Black Three, Baby, if you still won’t stop, then for the next month don’t even think about eating windmill grass.」Shepherd’s steady mindset was utterly wrecked by the four black-faced sheep.
Fortunately, the four black-faced sheep seemed to care very much about their rations; when Shepherd used feed as a threat, they immediately behaved.
Shepherd coughed lightly and offered Kael his thanks…… for not attacking while he was in that awkward spot.
Then, with a touch of drama, the fight began again.
Only this time, Shepherd didn’t resume the flute; instead, he roamed the arena to the rhythm of the black-faced sheep’s tapping hooves.
At the same time, each tap from the black-faced sheep produced a wisp of breeze; these wisps curled around them and ultimately coalesced into vortex-like presences.
The black-faced sheep became vortices of wind, leaping and galloping about the arena, and every obstacle Kael created was drawn into them and ground to dregs.
They weren’t even afraid of spatial rifts. With a single bound they passed straight through a rift, and apart from losing a tiny bit of breeze, they suffered no other attrition. And the lost breeze would be replenished by the black-faced sheep’s next tapping steps.
Like perpetual-motion machines they chased…… the alchemy puppet.
Yes, the alchemy puppet.
They ignored Kael entirely…… perhaps on Shepherd’s command.
Even so, Kael wasn’t without danger. While the black-faced sheep pursued the alchemy puppet, Shepherd, roaming the arena, began to launch attacks at him.