"Phew, I'm exhausted! Lin Lei, how do you have so much stamina?" Ren panted heavily, but Lin Lei didn't feel the slightest bit of fatigue.
"Already tired?" Lin Lei chuckled. How far had they even gone?
He used to run from Wushan Town to Ernst Academy without breaking a sweat.
"Hey, put it over here—yes, the chest goes there. Set it down carefully! If you break it, you can't afford to replace it!" A young boy's clear voice rang out from Courtyard 1987. Lin Lei and Ren exchanged a glance and walked in out of curiosity. As soon as they entered, they saw several burly men hauling all sorts of belongings back and forth.
A lavishly dressed boy stood in the center, barking orders left and right.
The moment he spotted Lin Lei and Ren, his eyes lit up and he ran over excitedly. "Ha ha, you must be my roommates! I've been waiting forever—right now it's just me here. Let me introduce myself. I'm Yeru. You could say I'm part of the Holy Alliance, more or less."
"What do you mean, 'more or less' part of the Holy Alliance?" Ren curled his lip. "I'm Ren, from the O'Brien Empire."
"I'm Lin Lei, from the Fenlei Kingdom of the Holy Alliance," Lin Lei said with a smile.
They were going to be living together as roommates for a long time.
"Ah, Ren, Lin Lei, I'm so glad to meet you! Hey—put the exercise equipment over there," Yeru turned and shouted at his servants.
"Exercise equipment?" Ren blinked his big eyes and stared at Yeru. "Yeru, what do you need those for? You want to become a warrior?"
Yeru wrinkled his nose and grinned. "Sure, we're noble mages, but we still need to work on our physique. How else are we supposed to charm beautiful women? There are plenty of gorgeous girls among mages. Especially the mages at Ernst Academy—they're not just pretty, they've got class too. Imagine going around telling people you've got a girlfriend from Ernst Academy. That's a serious status symbol."
"Uh…" Ren was speechless.
Lin Lei didn't know what to say either. He'd actually been thinking about using those exercise tools to train, but it turned out Yeru only used them to sculpt a better body for picking up girls.
"I'm eight this year. Yeru, how old are you?" Ren was clearly the outgoing type.
Yeru was remarkably tall. Lin Lei was already over five feet at nine, but Yeru still had half a head on him.
"Me? Ten this year. Ha ha, but I'm not getting any younger, you know. My brother lost his virginity at twelve, and I need to start preparing early." Yeru's eyes sparkled.
"What do you mean, lost his virginity?" Ren asked, confused.
"Yeah, what does that mean?" Lin Lei echoed, equally puzzled.
Yeru looked at his two roommates and was momentarily at a loss for words. Beside Lin Lei, Derinkoort was clutching his stomach and laughing so hard he could barely breathe. This made Lin Lei ask in a confused mental voice, "Grandpa Derin, what's so funny?"
"Everything is packed and ready, young master." A refined middle-aged man said respectfully.
"Good, you can all head back. Tell my old man not to bother sending anyone over in the future unless there's something important. Oh, and one thing—don't forget to wire money to my Magic Crystal Card every year. You know how it is: staffs, gemstones, all that mage stuff doesn't come cheap," Yeru said carelessly.
The middle-aged man bowed respectfully. "Yes, young master."
Yeru nodded with satisfaction, then waved his hand to shoo the servants away.
"Magic Crystal Card?" Ren stared at Yeru in surprise. "You can only get one of those from the 'Four Nations Bank,' right? The one jointly established by the four great empires. I heard just the application fee alone is a hundred gold coins."
"Exactly," Yeru said, very familiar with the matter. "When you open one, you have to deposit at least a thousand gold coins. But a thousand gold coins probably won't even cover a single month of my spending."
Lin Lei heard this.
Rich. Lin Lei sighed inwardly.
His father's allowance for him was a hundred gold coins a year. In Lin Lei's own view, that was already plenty—after all, an ordinary commoner had to work an entire year to earn twenty or thirty gold coins.
"Seriously rich. My dad only gives me two hundred gold coins a year," Ren said with a pout. "And he keeps telling me to focus on my magic studies."
"I only get a hundred," Lin Lei said with a smile. "But it's enough for a simple life."
"Hey, brothers, whatever money I've got is yours too. If you need any, just ask! We're going to be together for decades, probably. When you've been brothers for decades, why split hairs?" Yeru was generous to a fault. The moment these words left his mouth—