Chapter 41: [Ignite] (Requesting Monthly Votes)

"Paul?!" Li Rui was startled. "What are you guys doing?!"

"Don't worry," Millie said from the side, wearing a completely calm expression as if she had long been accustomed to such a sight. "They're just helping Galon train his heat resistance. It's totally normal."

"...Huh?"

This... this was normal? There was no mention of such things in [Jaye's Common Language Memories]... Wait, no?!

Li Rui suddenly realized something.

[Jaye's Common Language Memories] came from Jaye, a low-level adventurer, and every single member of Jaye's party was a warrior. The highest-ranked person among them, the team leader, was only rated as a Tier 2 in the Adventurer Guild's rating system.

As for Jaye himself, he remained stuck at Tier 1 until the day he died.

An adventurer like that could be considered the very bottom of the barrel. How much could he possibly know?

After leaving Goldwheat Town, apart from things universally known throughout the world, [Jaye's Common Language Memories] knew absolutely nothing else.

It seemed that the entry [Jaye's Common Language Memories] had fulfilled its maximum duty and could now honorably retire.

On the other side, when the scalding hot water was poured over Galon, he let out a painful roar, but instead of dodging, he simply stood in his place, enduring the damage brought by the boiling water without moving an inch.

It wasn't until his berserk state ended that he suddenly lost all his strength, dropping with a heavy thud onto one knee.

Paul and Brook quickly hurried over. One of them pulled him up by the arm, while the other pulled out a grease-like ointment for burns and began applying it.

"Barbarians... well... they really have it tough." Looking at the scene before him, Li Rui couldn't help but sigh with heartfelt emotion.

Hearing this, Millie turned her head and rolled her eyes at him. "Did you really think everyone has it as easy as you sorcerers?"

As she spoke, she even extended her right hand, revealing the thumb ring worn on it. "On my entire journey training up to a Tier 3 guild rating, take a guess at how many bowstrings have worn through my thumb rings?"

"Alright, I know you all have it very tough," Li Rui pressed her palm down, "so I'm not going to guess."

Come to think of it, the sorcerer class was truly comfortable.

Even the most miserable among sorcerers, the warlocks, only needed to complete tasks for their patron to acquire spells and grow continuously stronger, leaving them with an incomparably clear career path.

As for other sorcerer sub-classes like bloodline sorcerers and pact-makers, it went without saying. Aside from having their power ceiling restricted by the source of their power, the entire path of their career required almost no effort at all.

Unfortunately, it seemed Li Rui had forgotten one thing.

When everyone finished their evening training and prepared to return to the inn to rest, Paul suddenly grabbed him by the arm.

Li Rui: "?"

"Li Rui," Paul stood at the entrance of the inn, frowning as he spoke. "Back when you returned to Goldwheat Town, you haven't felt the power of nature even once, have you?"

Li Rui: "Uhhhh..."

He couldn't help but recall the past few short days since he entered Goldwheat Town.

He had arrived in Goldwheat Town with Paul and the others in the afternoon, and that very evening, Guild Master Nova had invited him to her home. Then... then he had practically lived off free meals for three whole days straight.

The moment Paul saw his expression, he knew the answer. Without another word, he hauled Li Rui toward the outdoors. "Alright, hurry up and come with me. If you don't want to waste the natural mana inside your body, you'd better follow me right now to commune with nature."

After dragging Li Rui out of the inn, he didn't go far. Instead, he grabbed a ladder and scampered nimbly up onto the roof of a nearby thatched cottage.

Li Rui was somewhat dazed by how fluently he climbed walls.

When he followed and climbed up himself, he found that Paul was already lying flat on the thatched roof, eyes closed and hands resting on his belly, looking as though he were ready to fall asleep, which left him even more bewildered.

"Didn't you say you were going to take me to commune with nature?"

Without even lifting his eyelids, Paul simply extended a finger and pointed at the crescent moon and starry sky above. "Is this nature?"

"Uh, yes."

He reached out again and plucked a stalk of thatch from beneath him. "Is this nature?"

"Um... I suppose so."

This wasn't some artificial product like bricks and tiles; it was merely a stalk of grass that had grown naturally and been dried by the sun, so there was no way it could be considered an unnatural object.

"So," Paul tossed the thatch aside and continued, "you can look up and see the natural starry sky, you are lying on naturally grown thatch beneath you, it's past dinnertime, and the air you breathe has no trace of smoke or dust. That means you are already within nature.

"Now, all you need to do is lie down, let me cast [Guidance] on you, and then meditate properly during your sleep in accordance with the laws of nature. That is communing with nature."

Li Rui had nothing to say and could only go along with it. He lay down beside him and let him cast [Guidance] upon him.

"Communing with nature like this is already a very good treatment... at least... it isn't raining... tonight... Zzz..."

After finishing the spell, Paul lay back down. Before he could even finish his sentence, he slipped into a state of light sleep.

Whether it was due to the spell [Guidance] or the presence of a deep-sleeping bedmate who didn't snore, Li Rui felt his own drowsiness surging up rapidly.

Before long, beneath that brilliant starry sky, his breathing too gradually steadied.

Along with his slow breathing, something slowly rolled out from the pocket at his waist, finally landing in the palm of his hand resting at his side.

It was a coin—a coin engraved with the smiling face of the Goddess of Fortune.

………………

The next day, when he woke up from his slumber, the very first thing he saw was Paul's dumbfounded face.

"!" Startled, Li Rui dodged to the side. Realizing the other person made no hostile move, he demanded, "What are you doing?!"

Getting his face shoved so close to his own first thing in the morning—could this guy actually be gay?

Maintaining the exact posture Li Rui had seen the moment he opened his eyes, Paul extended a finger and pointed at Li Rui's left hand.

"?"

Li Rui looked down—a ball of fire was actually burning in his hand!

A jolt of shock went through his heart, and he instinctively wanted to flick his hand to throw the flame away, but his wrist was caught with a sharp *slap* by Paul.

"Don't move! If you don't want to burn this village down, don't throw it!"

Once grabbed by Paul, Li Rui suddenly noticed something.

Although that cluster of flames was burning right in the palm of his hand, he didn't feel any heat; there was only a warm sensation, as if he were holding a warm water bottle at thirty or forty degrees Celsius.

His curiosity was piqued. He extended his right hand, intending to test the flame, but suddenly discovered something hard nestled in the palm of his right hand.

He opened his hand to look.

*'Huh? Isn't this the lucky coin Priest Catherine gave me? How did it fall out?'*

Casually shoving the coin back into his pocket and casually sighing in his heart that he was lucky not to have lost it, Li Rui reached his right hand back toward the ball of fire.

"Paul, do you know what this is?"

This cluster of fire felt almost illusory, bringing warmth only to the palms of both his hands without harming him in the slightest.

"This is [Produce Flame]."

Paul merely stated the name and stopped.

Confused as to why he wasn't being more detailed, Li Rui turned his head, only to see the low-level druid before him wearing an expression as sour as if he had bitten into a lemon.