While Layla was immersed in studying Aavsh, a thought suddenly flashed through her mind. She remembered that Chinese characters seemed to exist within Solid Script magic. Unable to wait, she eagerly opened Super Archive Magic to search for Solid Script. After carefully reviewing the search results, she finally found it: Eastern characters—"Chinese characters."
"Why are these traditional characters?" Layla stared at the screen before her. It recorded relevant information along with some examples of magic usage, but all those dense characters were traditional.
*Fortunately, I can read alien internet slang, so traditional characters are no big deal.* Layla began learning the characters inside. Overall, she felt it was not bad. After an entire afternoon, she had browsed through almost all of them and was even able to use magic to write them out and produce results.
Compared to Aavsh, this was simply much better! Learning Aavsh required several days of study, mainly because there were too many characters to memorize, and writing them out without being familiar with them took far too much time.
Compared to Aavsh, they were worlds apart! The study of Aavsh actually took several days, and primarily because the characters that needed to be remembered were as numerous as the stars, leaving one overwhelmed. If one was not sufficiently familiar with them, the writing process felt as long and agonizing as a year for every single day.
With no other choice, Layla put the training of the Arc of Embodiment on the back burner. Previously, with August around, Layla had felt relatively at ease, but now he was all alone.
However, it seemed nothing had happened in Magnolia yet, and the safety was quite good. Still, just to be safe, it was best to prioritize security—after all, Layla might still need to embody certain other people.
While Layla was studying hard here, over on the other side, Laxus was also working hard at his training.
Gradually, the sun began to set. A distant figure came up behind Laxus. Seeing Laxus working hard at his training, Makarov felt a pang of relief. He thought to himself: *If Laxus can grow up, I'll hand this guild over to him. Nah, it's still too early, forget it.* Shaking his head, he walked over to Laxus's side.
"Yo, Laxus, still training?" Makarov stood behind him, having come over to call Laxus to get ready to go home for dinner.
"Yeah, Grandpa." Hearing Makarov's voice, Laxus stopped, turned around to see Makarov's figure, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Alright, let's go home for dinner."
"Okay!"
Laxus gave a reply and followed Makarov back. Suddenly, however, Makarov turned his head to look toward the other side of the forest.
"What is it, Grandpa?" Laxus looked at Makarov with a face full of suspicion, his heart filled with doubt, and then turned his head in that direction as well, only to find that there was nothing there.
"Oh, nothing, let's go home." Laxus's words brought Makarov back to his senses. He promptly forgot about what just happened, then smiled and led Laxus back.
Shifting the perspective to the direction Makarov had just looked, there was only a single figure there—Layla.
Just moments ago, Layla was testing something out. He used the Arc of Embodiment to materialize a sword, and then used the Solid Script "Slash" to send a blade beam toward a barrier nearby.
A tiny crack appeared in the barrier, and this crack leaked fluctuations of magical power, which was why Makarov had sensed it.
"This barrier is so fragile. I really don't want to learn Aavsh," a muffled wave of resentment drifted from inside the barrier.
Layla had gone to great lengths to set up a barrier, only for it to crack from a basic attack. Although this barrier lacked the support of Layla's magical power, having it shattered by a basic attack was still indefensible.
It was clear that Layla truly lacked talent in this area. Then again, what else could you expect? How good could someone who struggled with learning English possibly be at relearning an entirely new language from scratch? This barrier was already the fruit of Layla's entire afternoon's work, which wasn't too bad.
The contents compiled within this barrier had very little practical utility; it merely featured a simple visual camouflage and a silencing effect.
Although it might have some shortcomings, for the time being, it was enough. Nobody would normally stroll around the forest for fun anyway.
Layla dusted off his pants; today's training had thus come to an end. When he went back tonight, he would still have to continue memorizing Aavsh "vocabulary." What a fulfilling day.
"Layla, how come you're back so late today?"
"It's nothing, I just went out for a stroll earlier."
Having just stepped out from home, Layla ran into the middle-aged man still rowing his boat and working on the canal. After greeting the man, Layla returned home, washed up, and went to sleep.
Thus, a week later, Layla was finally able to use Aavsh to write a satisfactory barrier—satisfactory to Layla, at least. He wasn't sure about others, but as long as it was enough for his own use, he didn't care about picking faults.
Amidst a flurry of tinkering while squatting on the ground writing Aavsh, Layla established the barrier. He then stood up and stretched lazily.
Clenching his empty palm, a sword appeared in his hand. Holding it up in front of his chest, he formed a sword finger with his left hand, and then let out a soft cry: "Slash!" A flash of sword light had already struck the barrier generated by the script, only to see it hit the screen without shaking it in the slightest.
Through Layla's continuous testing, the barrier had evolved from initially being able to withstand only one of his basic attacks to now being able to withstand over a hundred. Of course, this wasn't tested out one blow at a time, but rather calculated based on the varying amounts of magical power used each time.
"In that case, I'll take a break. Studying is tiring." Layla gazed at the completely undamaged screen. The magical power he used this time was twice as high as before; if he increased it any further, Layla's own magical power wouldn't hold up, and the barrier required magical power to sustain it anyway.
Layla sat down on the grass. The Aavsh gradually faded away, and the barrier disappeared as well. Layla prepared to meditate, though he was still capable of noticing danger around him.
Lost in his meditative state, Layla had no idea that a figure was walking in his direction.
That person walked closer, saw Layla meditating, paused, stopped in his tracks, leaned against a large tree, sat down, and began to close his eyes to rest, occasionally paying attention to Layla's condition and the surrounding animals.
Layla was completely oblivious to all of this. He only felt his own magical power gradually increasing, slowly sensing his own growth in power before opening his eyes with a calm expression.
With the high-intensity training of the past few days, Layla's magical power had been in a constant state of growth, and he had already grown accustomed to it. He clenched his fists, feeling the magnitude of this magical power increase.
Laxus, who had witnessed all of this and sensed Layla's magical power, felt an idea well up in his heart.
"Layla!" Laxus couldn't help but speak up, growing increasingly excited right after.
"Huh? Laxus, why are you here?" A voice interrupted Layla. Layla abruptly raised his head to look in the direction of the voice. His brow furrowed tightly as he thought to himself, *What's going on? Didn't the barrier work? Could it be that my magical power ran out? Talk about bad timing, sigh.*
Whenever Layla meditated, he would specifically sit over on that patch of grass where the Aavsh barrier he wrote was located, yet at this moment, it hadn't taken effect.
"Oh? So you really did know I was training here. Layla, fight me."
"No." Layla still resolutely refused him.
"If you don't fight me, then I'm heading back to the guild to tell Grandpa that someone else is training here too." Laxus had long anticipated Layla's reply, but he still wanted to test Layla's attitude.
"Don't—fine." Seeing Laxus make a motion to turn back, Layla was still easily manipulated and helplessly agreed to Laxus.
Laxus had bet correctly; Layla really didn't want others to know he was training here.