Commanding Wind and Cloud
chapter-115

Gabriella passed the roasted meat on the wooden stick between her two beautiful hands, trying to cool it down. She raised her head, and her pointy mage hat naturally fell back. Confidence that was completely opposite to her usual timidity appeared in her eyes as she said, “Qian Jin will come back!”

“Yeah…” The bushes that blocked off the entrance to the cave shook as Qian Jin crawled in with two weapons in his hands. He said, “I’m back.”

Gabriella who just raised her head lowered her head down again quickly. Qian Jin wasn’t sure if it was her shyness or nervousness that took over again. The two smooth and soft hands quietly passed a piece of roasted meat to Qian Jin as she said with her quiet voice, “It was just cooked.”

Qian Jin grabbed the roasted meat as he looked at Gabriella who he hadn’t seen in a few days. “I’m not sure if Gloria successfully condensed her spiritual power into magic power and advanced to a Supreme Mage. But from the look of Gabriella, she didn’t change much,” Qian Jin thought to himself.

Gabriella felt Qian Jin’s stare; the rim of her pointy mage hat lowered even more. After she took a few bites of a piece of roasted meat, she returned to the blanket that was made from knitting the vultures’ feathers and dry grass together and started to meditate again.

Qian Jin took a bite of the cook meat as well as he looked at Gabriella, who had already gone into a meditative state. This girl was the hardest working person that he had ever seen. Although she had no talent, she worked harder and was more dedicated than anyone else. After being “imprisoned” by Four Season Valley, her life got even simpler. Except for sleeping, eating, and physical training, she put all of her time towards meditation.

However, the exception work ethic didn’t give her much results. Although Gabriella’s spiritual power was increasing, it was not proportional to her effort at all.

When Qian Jin was looking at Gabriella, he felt like he was looking at himself. There was only one chance to awaken the bloodline in his body. It didn’t matter if it was before the Bloodline Awakening Ceremony or after the ceremony; wasn’t he also working just as hard as her?

Sophia looked at Gabriella as well; she sighed and shook her head. A bitter smile appeared on her pretty face. As she lightly shook her head, she whispered, “Why treat yourself like that? You can’t succeed no matter how hard you try, so why would…”

Qian Jin’s ear twitched; he heard everything Sophia said. He raised his head and looked at Gabriella who wasn’t far away and asked, “Don’t you respect her attitude and her effort?”

“Effort with a chance of succeeding is persistence.” Sophia crossed her legs as she sat down; she was getting ready to train her warrior energy. “Working hard with no chance of succeeding is being obsessively stubborn…”

Qian Jin frowned as he heard that; a very uncomfortable feeling gushed into his brain. “As long as you don’t give up, no one can take away your right to succeed before the journey is finished,” he said.

Sophia looked at Qian Jin, puzzled. “Why is he being so serious? It seems like he is getting more and more serious. Does he have any kind of special relationship with this girl? After a month of living together, I can’t tell anything at all,” she thought.

“When there is no hope of succeeding, giving up is just a matter of time.” Sophia looked at Gabriella who was meditating earnestly and said, “She is very nice person. Why does she have to waste time on this matter? Wouldn’t she be better off if she did something else?”

“Since your failed to awaken the bloodline in your body, why are you wasting your time on the path to become a great warrior? Wouldn’t you be better off if you worked in the family’s business? The Qian Family has Ultimate Bloodline Warriors; we don’t need those so-called great warriors who don’t even have bloodline powers. In front of the Qian Family’s Ultimate Bloodline Warrior who had the Ultimate Awakening, any great warrior would seem tiny and weak.

When Qian Jin heard the questions asked by Sophia, something that the manager of the Branch Family told him when he first voiced his life goal replayed in his ears; he could still see the managers’ mocking and disdainfully look when he closed his eyes.

“Give up?” Qian Jin’s sneer seemed to make the temperature in the cave drop by a few degrees. “I only know that when I was still in the academy, some people gave up for no reason. If they could just bite their teeth and try to memorize the knowledge a bit more, they would get a good grade. However, they gave up. During the endurance test in the academy’ admission test, if they could have just bitten their teeth and endured the pain a bit more, they could have passed the test; but they gave up and told themselves that they tried. But if a ferocious Demon Beast suddenly appeared behind them and threatened their lives, they would realize that they could still endure and persist a bit more and succeed.”

“Persist?” Sophia looked at Qian Jin’s face; although Qian Jin’s face was gradually maturing after months of hard training and tough living, she felt like she could sense something that couldn’t be considered naïve or immature. “Being persistent requires willpower and perseverance.”

“Perseverance can be controlled by me; perseverance is something that humans can control.” Respect and admiration appeared in Qian Jin’s eyes as he stared at Gabriella who wasn’t far away.

“Perseverance isn’t omnipotent or magical…” Sophia lightly shook her head as she looked at Gabriella with pity, “She is only wasting her life…”

As Qian Jin frowned tightly, Gabriella who was meditating on the blanket opened her starry eyes. Her timid voice sounded in the cave, “Maybe I do lack the talent…”

Her starry eyes dimmed, but soon an unprecedented confidence appeared on her face. Even her voice sounded unwavering, “But I will still work hard! I will become a great mage!”

“Eh! Definitely!”

As if Gabriella was persuading herself, she nodded earnestly; her pointy mage hat also swung up and down. Her quiet mosquito-like voice sounded down the mage hat again. This time, her voice was a lot lighter; Sophia didn’t even notice that she spoke. If Qian Jin wasn’t focusing on her, he would also miss her quiet murmur. “For my sister, I have to become a great mage!”

In the dark cave, Qian Jin saw Gabriella’s eyes get watery. Her eyes were covered by a layer of tears, and her pearl-white teeth lightly bit her thin red lips. An indescribable stubbornness appeared on her face; it was completely opposite to the usually timid Gabriella.

Sophia lightly smiled as she looked at Gabriella. She then shook her head and started to train the warrior energy in her body without closing her eyes. “I was once this committed and hardworking. However… if working hard could really change everything, then I wouldn’t just have the strength that I have today.” She sounded like she was talking to herself.

“Before?” Qian Jin shook his head as well. Working hard before meant that she ended up giving up. “You didn’t persist to the end, so how could you know that real change won’t occur at the very end?”

“Thanks…”

Gabriella’s quiet mosquito-like voice sounded in the cave again. Qian Jin saw a light grateful smile on her face as he heard that.

Qian Jin scratched his head as he looked Gabriella and touched the Magic Cores in his pocket.

“For my sister…” Qian Jin recalled what Gabriella whispered before, and the scene where his father bent his back and walked out of low ceiling room appeared in front of his eyes again. “I’m doing this for my father, and she is doing it for her sister…”

“Whatever! Before I can feel magic elements in my meditation, these Magic Cores will be useless to me.” Qian Jin got up and walked towards Gabriella. He took the Magic Cores from the Green Skinned Three Armed Apes and the Centaur out of his pocket and quietly passed them over to Gabriella. “Since you are meditating, these might help you,” he said quietly.

“This…”

In the small cave, Gabriella’s timid voice was filled with surprise. Her thin lips opened, but no more words came out. She was stunned as she look at the Magic Core in Qian Jin’s hand. Her small body started to shake lightly as shock filled her mind.

“Magic Core! These are Magic Cores! Even the best mage student in the academy doesn’t own a Magic Core! From what I’ve heard, only the talented students in advanced academies or senior members of the Mage Union have their own Magic Cores,” she thought.

“Take them.” Qian Jin grabbed onto Gabriella’s jade-like smooth hands and placed the two Magic Cores that were larger than her hands on them. “If you have someone who you are willing to work hard for, that’s a very blessed situation,” he said.

“These are too precious…”

Qian Jin waved his hands to cut Gabriella off; she sounded a bit timid as usual, but there was some anxiousness in her voice. “These Magic Cores are useless to a warrior like me. Why would they be precious? When you become a great mage, you can pay me back by standing behind me and supporting me when I need help.”

Gabriella looked at the two Magic Cores that flashed a black light in her hands; even her big and fat mage robe couldn’t cover up the fact that she was shivering in excitement.

Although she was persistent and had a lot of perseverance, that didn’t mean she never doubted herself. From all these years of hard work, her spiritual power hadn’t increased much. She doubted herself many times, but it was her belief that supported her. “For my sister Gloria! I must show my sister that passed away and returned to the stars! Gabriella won’t let you down!” she thought to herself.

What did the two Magic Cores represent? Gabriella quietly pack away the Centaur’s Magic Core and held the Green Skinned Three Armed Ape’s Magic Core with her hands. When she entered her meditative state, she sent her weak spiritual power into the Magic Core instead of trying to sense the magic elements in the air.

The magic elements that were packed in the Magic Core shook as the weak spiritual power was conducted into the core. As if someone threw a rock into a pond of calm water, layers of waves were created. These magic elements started to hit and collide with each other as they surrounded this weak spiritual power…

Her spiritual power was growing! Gabriella could feel that her spiritual power that didn’t want to progress started to become more active and stronger with the help of the Magic Core. Her soft and pink eyelids flickered rapidly.

“Magic Core? That is a Magic Core!” Sophia looked at Qian Jin in shock; she was even more puzzled. “If he used this item to exchange for something that he could use or just sell it off, it would increase his resources a lot. That is something that every warrior would do. Why did he give it away as a gift? Doesn’t he understand that a more talented mage student could get far more use out of it than Gabriella?” she thought.

She couldn’t understand Qian Jin’s thinking process. “Did he get angry from our conversation earlier and want to prove me wrong? Out of all the magic elements that are surging out of the Magic Core in her hands, she can only absorb a tiny portion of it. Most of them would disperse in the air and be wasted!” she murmured.

Qian Jin walked back to his usual spot and grabbed his mage hat; he put the hat onto his face without even looking at Sophia. He said with a lowered voice, “As long as you don’t give up on yourself, the world won’t give up on you. When you choose to give up, you voluntarily shut off the door to success yourself. Even if a magical and once in a lifetime opportunity walked by you, you wouldn’t even see it; after all, you have already given up…”