The stream babbled as it flowed. Lin Lei sat cross-legged, holding a flat knife and a palm-sized stone in his hands.
"Start with the basics. I'll practice on this small stone first…"
On the back mountain of Ernst Academy, Lin Lei was alone, learning to sculpt under Derinkoort's guidance. As his understanding of the craft grew clearer, he also came to understand why the Flat Knife School could enhance one's mental power at the mid and advanced stages.
Other sculptors needed to use a whole array of tools.
Just figuring out which tool to use for which part took a great deal of thought, which was naturally exhausting both mentally and physically. Every finished work was the product of painstaking effort.
The Flat Knife School was different.
The only tool was a single flat knife. There was no need to think about switching between various implements. Of course, using only one tool made things far more difficult in their own right. Parts that could be carved with a jade bowl knife required an almost苛刻 degree of mastery over the stone's properties when using the flat knife instead.
Then there was strength.
Larger pieces of waste stone needed to be split with an axe. If one used only a flat knife, then sufficient strength was essential.
Understanding the stone could be achieved through the unique abilities of an Earth System mage. But wrist strength—that required training. Lin Lei was already a second-level mage, so his wrist strength was decent enough. However, it was only sufficient for carving small works. For anything larger, his strength was still lacking.
Still…
Right now, Lin Lei was only laying the foundation.
******
When that academic year ended, Lin Lei returned to Wushan Town.
After the New Year, little Wotton spent only a few days with his brother Lin Lei before heading to the O'Brien Empire under the care of Steward Xili. Lin Lei could only watch helplessly as little Wotton left, and the six-year-old, sobbing uncontrollably, was parted from his ten-year-old brother.
Time passed.
At Ernst Academy, Lin Lei continued to march to the beat of his own drum, spending the vast majority of each day training on the back mountain.
As he entered puberty, Lin Lei's appetite surged, his height shot up, and his physical fitness and strength improved dramatically. In the art of stone sculpting, with Derinkoort's instruction and his own tireless effort, he made steady progress.
…
Spring gave way to autumn, flowers bloomed and fell, and in the blink of an eye three years passed.
At a waterfall on the back mountain of Ernst Academy.
"Rumble~~~" The waterfall cascaded down like a curtain of water, crashing into the deep pool below.
Lin Lei stood beside the waterfall, wielding a flat knife nearly thirty centimeters long, carving away at a stone that stood waist-high. The blade moved so fast it had become a blur of afterimages. Wherever it passed, chips of stone flew away, and the rough shape of a sculpture gradually took form.
From morning until evening, the sculpture grew clearer and clearer.
Lin Lei's gaze was entirely fixed on the work. In that moment, he seemed immersed in nature itself, his mind in perfect harmony with the interior of the sculpture. That wondrous sensation made him completely unaware of the passage of time. This state of being in total communion with nature actually caused his mental power to begin recovering, and even to flourish and grow.
Lin Lei himself seemed oblivious, still wielding the flat knife with effortless precision.
The continuous shedding of waste stone caused the sculpture's features to emerge ever more clearly. When the sun set, Lin Lei's flat knife finally came to a stop.
"Whew!"
Lin Lei let out a soft breath. Stone dust scattered, and the completed sculpture was fully revealed. There, standing vividly before him, was a mouse nearly half a meter long—so lifelike that at first glance one might think it was a real mouse. The sight set little Shadow Mouse "Bei Bei" squeaking excitedly beside it.
From start to finish, in one seamless flow!
"What a wondrous feeling." It was only now that Lin Lei realized his mental power had surged by a massive leap.
Derinkoort, dressed in his moon-white robe, stood nearby with a warm smile: "Lin Lei, from today onward, you can barely be called to have entered the door. You felt that wondrous sensation, didn't you? But your work can only be considered superficially similar. It's only fit for the Ordinary Exhibition Hall at Pruxus Hall. If you put it on display elsewhere, you'd only embarrass me. Destroy it."
"Yes, Grandpa Derinkoort."
Lin Lei's flat knife flashed several times in quick succession, and the sculpture was cut into over a dozen pieces. That year, Lin Lei had officially entered the preliminary stage of stone sculpting.
And that year, Lin Lei was thirteen years old!
Day after day, year after year.
Once Lin Lei entered the preliminary stage, his mental power grew at a much faster rate. To be precise, he had reached the second level at nine and a half, become a third-level mage at eleven, and by thirteen he was already a fourth-level mage!
The difficulty of advancing through mage ranks increased dramatically with each level. In theory, progressing from fourth-level to fifth-level should have taken Lin Lei at least three years.