Chapter 3153

"Over here!"

Duoluoxi waved at Xia De at the bedroom door. After Xia De led the red-haired girl out, he found that everyone was in the living room.

All the furniture in the living room had been moved to the walls, and thick mattresses were now spread on the carpet, spliced together, with quilts, pillows, and thin little blankets scattered all over the mattresses.

The firelight in the fireplace was more vigorous in this "illusion of the old days" about home than in reality, which seemed to represent that Xia De's memory of the fireplace was very deep. And that warm firelight merged with the wonderful background light permeating the illusion of the old days, making the home at this moment look even more hazy and dreamy.

Duoluoxi pushed Xia De gently, letting Xia De take two steps forward, kick off his slippers, and come to the laid-out mattresses.

Luweiya, Duoluoxi, Princess Lei Qianya, Miss Jia Lin Na, Vanessa, Megan/Audrey, Silvia, and Dannister, the eight girls moved toward Xia De until they surrounded him in the center. Purple, golden, emerald, and rose-red eyes looked at him together, and then everyone retreated a step in tacit understanding, stepped barefoot on the mattresses, lowered their heads slightly, pulled their skirts with both hands, moved their left feet behind their right heels, and touched the ground with their toes, then maintained this posture and bowed to Xia De very elegantly while pulling their skirts.

This gave Xia De the illusion that he was becoming some kind of strange sacrifice.

Then one skirt ribbon after another fell onto the mattresses in the firelight of the fireplace. The warm yellow light illuminated those jade statues that looked like glowing mutton-fat jade.

They smiled and surrounded Xia De as if dancing lightly, but also as if arranging something. Until the eight girls gathered inward again, completely sandwiching him in the center. And in that warm and soft feeling, Xia De only felt his eyes go dark, as if something had covered his eyes.

At this moment, he completely lost his visual senses, and even his powerful perception was severely suppressed. However, his ears could still hear their laughter, and his body could still feel their bodies gradually becoming hot:

"Tonight we want to try whether you can distinguish our differences."

Princess Lei Qianya's voice sounded from behind, and Xia De felt her bite his ear:

"Eight choose one, is it?"

He didn't care who was in front of him, so he reached out to catch the girl and hugged her in his arms. His pajamas had already been torn off by someone, and just as he was about to take action, he noticed that the girl he was holding broke free from his arms.

Although the girl hugging him from behind hadn't changed, the voice changed from Princess Lei Qianya to Vanessa:

"No, it's not eight choose one."

The Earth Witch smiled and corrected, followed by a burst of whispering; it seemed everyone was egging Dannister on to say the last sentence. Miss Administrator was finally infected by the atmosphere, leaned to Xia De's ear, and whispered:

"It's... twenty-four choose one. Xia De, can you distinguish us?"

The blindfolded outsider noticed the loophole:

"Wait a minute, counting Megan and Audrey, it's actually nine people, and there's no difference between the two of them at all... If they let a tongue appear where a tongue shouldn't appear, it will be very hard for me to guess."

His ears heard the girls' shy or bold laughter; this time it was Miss Jia Lin Na's voice appearing behind him:

"Xia De, this is your own problem."

It is worth mentioning that although he was only one person and this time the opponents were a terrifying eight people, because there were wonderful pink series of small strange spells such as "empathy," coupled with the application of various wonderful spatial powers, Xia De would not neglect anyone—the world with supernatural powers is indeed quite good.

"Xia De, use your strange spell to turn into a giant again~"

【Outsider, you have gained insight into the "Old Days."】

(Little Miya is running...)

When the celebration of the Year-End Festival gradually disappeared, when the girls bid farewell to Xia De one after another and left Tobesk, and when the brand-new 1855 gradually got on the right track, Xia De, who was gradually walking out of the aftertaste of the Year-End Festival, was actually most worried about whether Dr. Schneider could really return smoothly before the exam week.

The doctor's trip this time was officially granted leave, and Xia De was responsible for temporarily acting as the group leader while the doctor was not in the local area. In fact, there was nothing to do locally during the entire Year-End Festival, and on the day after the Year-End Festival, which was Thursday, the first day of the Month of Birth in 1855, the academy sent an official exam date notification.

The exam time allocated to the group in the Tobesk area was Sunday of this week, which was the fourth day of the Month of Birth.

This date was not particularly urgent for the four people who were already prepared; they even had plenty of time to deal with things after the festival—for example, Xia De had to accompany the ladies to walk around the city and the countryside, and also had to bid farewell to the ladies who came to visit. But for Dr. Schneider, who was currently in Wintercastle City, no one could say clearly whether he could return on time.

After receiving the academy's notification on Thursday, Xia De accompanied the girls to form a "tour group" in and out of the city; everyone watched the grand New Year float parade together and also went to Miss Jia Lin Na's farm outside the city to ride horses.

From Friday, Xia De sent them off on their return journeys one after another. By the time Miss Xiwei and Miss Yilaise, who left last, set foot on the return journey on Saturday morning, the maids had restored No. 6 St. Deran Square to the appearance of Xia De living alone. No. 7 St. Deran Square next door was temporarily closed, leaving only the "door" from No. 6, but Xia De didn't think he would use that side.

Because he was really worried that the doctor would miss the exam time, Xia De even took a carriage to Dr. Schneider's psychological clinic in the East District of the city on Saturday afternoon, but the duty doctor and maids in the clinic all said that Bill Schneider had not returned.

Xia De waited in the clinic until six in the evening before leaving, and when having dinner with Duoluoxi, he also expressed his worry:

"If the doctor hasn't appeared by the time the exam starts tomorrow, I can only ask for leave for him."

Because the living environments of correspondence sorcerers are different, major things like exams are allowed to be excused, but in this way, the grade of the year-end assessment can only get the lowest level, and because correspondence students cannot retake exams, the annual upgrade exam can only be postponed to the end of the next year, which will seriously interfere with the learning progress.

Xia De even thought about whether to find Dannister to open a separate exam for the doctor, for example, letting the doctor go to those areas where the exam time is later and take the exam together with sorcerers from other groups, so it wouldn't be considered a complete violation of the student management regulations.

But fortunately, early Sunday morning, just as Xia De had finished washing the breakfast bowls with a yawn and was about to tidy up to welcome others, he heard someone ring the doorbell downstairs. Stepping on slippers, he went downstairs and opened the door, and saw the blue-eyed middle-aged psychologist standing in the snowy background waving at him with a smile. Only then did Xia De breathe a sigh of relief:

"Doctor, I almost thought you wouldn't make it to the exam."

The doctor seemed to be in a very good mood:

"I said before I left that I would definitely be able to return in time. After receiving the notification letter for the exam time you wrote to me, I set off to rush back immediately. I got off the train at ten last night; look, I brought all the travel souvenirs for you. There were really a lot of travelers around the Year-End Festival in Wintercastle City, and the tourism business there is quite booming."

"Come in first, the exam still starts at nine, they should be here soon. Doctor, how are you prepared? I hope everything goes smoothly this year."

The doctor came here in advance, on one hand to let Xia De not worry, and on the other hand, of course, to talk to him alone about the gains of this trip to the North.

After Xia De prepared tea, the two sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace. When Xia De asked if the trip went smoothly, the doctor immediately covered his forehead:

"I won't tell you about small things like relic loss of control; in a few days, you'll probably hear the story of the ancient alchemical killing puppet reviving in the glaciers of the North. If a sorcerer who can summon pillars of fire in a glacial environment appears in the story you hear from others, that person is likely me."

"This... let's not talk about these, how was the Year-End Festival celebration in Wintercastle City?"

"Quite good; when the ice sculptures and ice lanterns in Wintercastle are combined, and night falls, that kind of atmosphere is absolutely impossible to experience in Tobesk."

The two chatted a little about the details of the doctor's trip, and the topic entered the main point:

"So how is the investigation into the demon going?"

"The records in the 'Soul Story Collection' are true. I left Wintercastle last Sunday and entered the uninhabited glacial area in the far north. It took me three days and three nights to find the seal under the permafrost according to the records in the book and my own sensing of the power of demons and hunters."

"Wait a moment, Doctor."

Xia De raised his hand to interrupt the doctor's story and asked quite incredibly:

"That book records the location of the seal in the Third Era. How did you find it in the Sixth Era? I mean, the terrain of the material world in the Sixth Era is even very different from the Fifth Era. In the Fifth Era, the material world had five main continents: east, west, south, north, and middle."

The doctor shook his head:

"Actually, I didn't know how to look for it according to the terrain of the Third Era, but there are illustrations in the story collection. I matched the shape of the glaciers depicted in the illustrations with the world map of today and found that the place was very similar to a certain area north of Wintercastle, so I went to try it."

"I actually have a guess about the terrain changes of the material world in each era. Currently, it has been confirmed that as the eras change, the total area of the material world is constantly shrinking, whether it is the ocean area or the land area. And the changes in terrain are definitely not disorderly and chaotic changes; it is more like the world of the previous era only completely retained a part, while most of the remaining area directly disappeared, and a small part merged with the still-retained world, thereby allowing the material world of the next era to have a terrain and layout that look completely different."

(End of chapter)