Ushering In The Internet Era In The Magical World

Chapter 26: Aileen's Excitement

Aileen didn't look like a noble mage apprentice at all. She was tan and thin, and her white mage apprentice's robe was already pilling from the repeated washing.

She didn't have many friends as people didn't like to interact with her.

Mainly because her thinking was always rather weird.

When everyone was mocking Ajaf for using the entire Felix School of Magic's manpower to cultivate crops, she was actually excited.

Nobody knew that the reason she chose to study wood-spirit magic wasn't because of its universality and economic value.

She did so because she wanted to raise crops.

It was recorded in her mage apprentice's shool file that her mother had died from dysentery.

She was the only one who knew that her mother had, in fact, died of hunger. She had eaten some unknown wild grass as a desperate way to stave off hunger, eventually dying from dysentery.

Hunger, to most mage apprentices, was simply a distant term.

But she knew it represented countless days and nights of painful torture.

Her mother had once used an empty pot to cook a rock just to make her and her brother fall asleep while they waited.

After unexpectedly becoming a mage apprentice, she dedicated almost all of her free time to the cultivation of crops.

But, unfortunately, her results had not been successful.

She could make a grain germinate and bear fruit in a day's time. She could also make it grow a seed that was as large as her fist. She could even make a fruit tree bear about seven or eight different kinds of fruits by grafting.

However, were they useful in real life?

It pained her to realize that nothing could be done without the use of magic.

She wanted to solve the food problem, but she didn't even know in what direction she should work hard towards in order to achieve her goal.

She wandered around in her confusion again and again. The scene of her mother's death was a daily reminder that her mother had made a deal with the Deity of Death, trading her life.

So, she was beyond excited when she knew that the mysterious man, Ajaf, wanted to cultivate crops; even her eyes became red with emotion.

She summoned the Internet immediately after the meeting was over and wrote down her insignificant ideas and thoughts from all those years.

She wrote until it was late at night.

She corrected the text after reading the content a few times and then sent it to Ajaf, then she blacked out and felt her head was spinning. She almost fell to the floor.

Having logged on to the Internet for a long period of time had exhausted her soul power.

She quickly crossed her legs and meditated, only managing to regain a little soul power after a long time.

She quickly turned on the Internet again without caring for her hunger. Disappointment flashed across her face.

Ajaf didn't reply to her message.

A self-deprecating smile appeared on her face.

But how could she expect the big shots to appreciate her ideas even when her friends didn't appreciate them?

Forget it! Admit it! You're just a negligible mage apprentice.

If crop cultivation were so simple, why did the crops still look the same after a few thousands of years?

Aileen slumped back onto her soft couch and buried her head in the pillow with those somber thoughts in her head. Tears began to wet her pillowcase.

She tossed and turned the whole night.

Aileen used meditation to perk herself up the next morning. She acted as if everything were normal and went to class.

She returned to her private dormitory after attending the common magic classes and used the wood-spirit magic to grow a few fruits to eat before she started her cultivation.

She went to the Forest of Magic punctually in the afternoon.

Ajaf calmly stood on the platform like the day before as he requested all the mage apprentices to sign a non-disclosure contract.

He had prepared a giant contract scroll for that.

All the mage apprentices walked up to the stage one by one and signed their names on the contract scroll. Then, he said, "Before I begin assigning tasks for the experiment, let me say one thing first."

He paused for a moment before saying, "Who is Aileen?"

Aileen's whole body shook. Only after her classmates looked at her did she raise her hand and acknowledge, "It's me, M-Mister Ajaf."

"Come to the front."

"Yes!"

Aileen's tanned face began to blush under the gazes of her schoolmates and quickly walked to the great hall's platform.

"Mister Ajaf!" Aileen nodded and said respectfully after she got closer. Her heart was beating frantically as she didn't know why he had asked for her.

"Yesterday, I said you could privately message me if you had any ideas and suggestions for the experiment and a reward would be given. Aileen is the only one who has done it until now and she has done a great job. Now, it's time for me to give out the reward."

Then, Yu Sheng'an made a grabbing motion in the void; he retrieved a magic wand from the spatial ring and handed it to Aileen. "Here, it's for you. I read your opinions; they are rather good and insightful. Do you want to be my assistant?"

"Woah"

A commotion broke out in the great hall at that moment.

All the mage apprentices' attention was attracted by the magic wand in Yu Sheng'an's hand.

That was a magic wand made from a dark red wood. The naturally-formed magic conductivity engravings were beautiful!

The most amazing thing was, on top of the wand was a dark red ruby which had a magic so strong that it swirled around inside the stone.

This was a Purple Snow Wood Advanced Magic Wand!

The magic wand wielded by Ferguson, the school's mage instructor, was a Purple Snow Wood Magic Wand!

Everyone was astonished by Ajaf's generosity.

Although the smart ones had already figured out that it was just a ploy to attract talents, they were still feeling regretful about it.

They would have also written a report if they had known that Ajaf was so generous!

Even a magic wand of lesser quality would have been hard to find.

Aileen's attention was grabbed by Yu Sheng'an's last sentence when all the other mage apprentices were feeling regretful.

"Assistant? Mister Ajaf, are you sure? I-I-I am just a mage apprentice."

"Don't you trust my judgement?" Yu Sheng'an asked instead.

"No, no" Aileen's tan face blushed instantly and swiftly nodded, "I am willing, Mister Ajaf."

"Very good!"

Yu Sheng'an patted Aileen's shoulder and passed her the wand.

The magic wand's smooth sensation left her dazed for a moment. This Was it the first time someone important had praised her since she enrolled into Felix two years before?

She bit her tongue to stop her tears from bursting out while trying her best to bow calmly to show respect. Then she stood behind Ajaf to listen to his arrangements for the experiment.

A while later, after Ajaf had finished with the main introduction, he led all the mage apprentices into the Forest of Magic's basement.

All the mage apprentices were shocked by that weird experiment laboratory when they entered the basement.

However, everyone was given an assignment before they could recover from their shock.

Ajaf's plan was very simple

He organized all the mage apprentices into small groups.

Every group had been given different types of crops' seeds to grow in the microgravity glass box.

He asked all the mage apprentices to accelerate the seeds' growth and maturation with wood-spirit magic, then record the growth and share the progress in the group chat.

Honestly speaking, that magical experiment had exceeded all the mage apprentices' expectations.

This was just too easy!

It wasn't an experiment.

It was actually a vacation!

The magical experiments that their other instructors assigned them were usually really difficult.

They either asked them to dissect different plants into halves and then stick them together in an attempt to breed plants that were compatible with multiple characteristics.

Or, they asked to remove certain functions of the plant to simply enhance others.

There were even instructors who were so extreme and perverted that they planted the seeds into animals' bodies to research wood-spirit magic that could kill and maim.

Under comparison, Ajaf's simple acceleration to ripen the crops was child's play.

However, a shocking scene happened when everyone planted their seeds in the microgravity glass box and began to accelerate the ripening of the crops.