Flag wings flying! Knights standing tall! The sun pierced through the morning mist, casting its light upon the train station near the Aurel Knight Academy.
Along both sides of the road, the knights of the Aurel Student Council stood in neat, uniform rows.
Their silver, gleaming armor reflected the sunlight with a dazzling brilliance. The Student Council knights were almost all present today, primarily to welcome an important guest. The remaining students were there to watch the spectacle.
They stood excitedly but in orderly rows along the ceremonial road, not daring to cross the barrier formed by just six Student Council knights.
The vast majority of the knights, however, had no idea which important figure this grand welcome ceremony was for! The solemnity of the ceremony, meant to greet a single, special individual, set off a flurry of gossip.
"Any rumors about which big shot is coming?"
"No idea," a female knight said, loosening her armor. She easily hung her twenty-pound helmet on a slender finger, her bright eyes darting around.
"I heard a rumor that this elaborate ceremony is for a truly outstanding student who is returning, and he's a guy!"
"A guy? Could it be Lord Nayre? He's handsome and brilliant. He finished his studies and graduated early in his second year! I think he was the only student to ever graduate directly, right?"
"But he's not a knight; he went home to inherit his title. He's from Farshore, the family that created the magical technology!"
"Why do you all dislike magical technology so much? It's so convenient. Shouldn't it be a good thing that our lives are getting better?"
"That's just the surface reason; if you don't know the full story, don't talk about it."
"Really? But the Farshore family created some kind of 'magical puppet' a few years ago. I heard it's a magical mechanical knight made with magical technology!"
"What?! A mechanical knight created by magical technology? So Lord Nayre created this magical puppet?"
Several knight students huddled together, chattering with gossip. From a distance, they looked like formidable, battle-ready female knights, easily carrying over one hundred kilograms of armor. In reality, they were just teenage girls who liked handsome guys and gossiping about love stories—but they were also girls with the Aurel superhuman physique, capable of smashing walls with their bare hands.
By the way, the Aurel Knight Academy uniform is this armor, which weighs over one hundred kilograms. The shoulder pads and helmet are optional and can be worn as needed.
"Hey! You few, stop talking nonsense and get into formation!"
A cold voice suddenly rang out, and the gossiping knight students immediately fell silent. Just from the sharp and chilling voice, they knew exactly who it was.
Ice Element Knight Tina Lessel arrived, and the few knight students were already standing in a practiced formation, no longer speaking out of turn.
While most knight students have an average height of around one hundred seventy-eight centimeters, the Ice Element Knight, at only about one hundred sixty centimeters, patrolled and maintained order with a terrifying, expressionless chill.
She wore a beret, the symbol of a Disciplinary Committee member, on her severe ponytail, and her cold, beautiful eyes swept over the students.
There was no actual coldness radiating from her, but it was enough to make them tremble with fear.
Ice Tina was not only an Element Knight from one of the Four Knight Families but also the Head of the Disciplinary Committee, a position of great importance in the academy.
Her chillingly sharp ice elemental powers could easily control many enemies, especially with her official duty to maintain order.
Thankfully, her reputation for being diligent and hardworking was excellent, but her coldness while maintaining order and her overly icy abilities were enough to make most people shudder just by hearing her name.
"Miss Tina, may I ask who we are welcoming?" a knight from the Disciplinary Committee asked, voicing the question everyone was so eager to have answered.
Though she was cold, the business-like Miss Tina shook her head, indicating that she also did not know. This made everyone even more curious! What kind of important person was this, that even Miss Tina was only here to maintain order and was not privy to the details?
After answering the question, Tina reverted to her original terrifying, ice-cold persona. "Everyone, maintain order! No talking! Stand in your places and don't push or shove! Act like knights of the Aurel Knight Academy!"
"Yes!"
Under her cold and efficient command, the knight students calmly and steadily lined up, as if their formation had been planned long ago. They stood neatly on both sides of the road, with no signs of chaos or pushing.
This ceremonial road was one of the three main train lines in the Aurel Queen's Kingdom. The three trains run throughout the entire kingdom, and their creator was the previous head of the Farshore family.
Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that the only person who could use it freely would be the current and only young lord of the Aurel Queen's Kingdom. Unfortunately, no one had any concrete information about who the guest was.
Tina stood with a composed stride in the area designated for the Element Knight family. So far, no other Element Knights had arrived.
In the other three sections, people from the Dragon Knight and Moon Knight families had arrived one after another.
The Element Knights and Sky Knights, however, had not yet arrived. This reflected the reactions and attitudes of the four major families.
Tina sighed; for now, she was alone in this area.
"..."
Tina took a crystal from her pocket. It was a perfectly cut, square crystal, with its four corners reinforced with something iron-like.
The surface was as smooth and bright as a mirror. Tina's soft, lovely face was reflected in the crystal.
Her icy blue hair, icy blue eyes, and even her icy blue eyelashes and some icy blue eyeshadow were all there, making her look both enchanting and frigid.
These were the results of her mutation after accepting the blessing of the Ice Elemental King as an Ice Element Knight. Not only her appearance but also her heart had been changed.
Tina had almost forgotten when she was last passionate about something. While she had long known that elemental blessings would alter a person to a certain extent, she never expected to become so cold to most people.
Was it because of the element's nature, or was it something else? Tina admitted that this was not a bad change; it was simply that the nature of the element had caused her to lean in this direction. In her daily work, Tina had indeed become much calmer, which had helped her a great deal.
An example of the opposite effect was her sister, the Fire Element Knight, who had become much more irritable and competitive due to the blessing of the fire element and loved to fight.
Beep, beep...
Suddenly, the crystal in Tina's hand made a strange sound and reacted. A light appeared in the center of the crystal. The information within made the frosty heart within Tina's body give a fierce jolt!