By the time Mick returned to the Phil House, it was twenty-seven o'clock in the evening.

The lights in the villa were all turned off except for the hallway, so Mick tiptoed up the stairs and cautiously opened the door, only to feel as if there was someone in his room.

Mick's right hand touched the wall, and when the spiritual power touched the ceiling light on the roof, the magic array engraved on it was immediately activated, casting a first-order magic illumination. Mick looked through the light and saw Kenneth lying asleep on his bed like an octopus.

Mick smiled helplessly, walked to the side of the bed and looked at Kenneth with his mouth wide open and drooling, and after thinking about it, he gave up the idea of waking him up, and prepared to go to Kenneth's room to spend the night.

However, just as Mick was about to walk out of the room, he accidentally hit the desk and made a lot of noise.

Mick turned his head and saw Kenneth sitting up from the bed in a daze, rubbing his eyelids and saying, "Mick, you're back?" ”

Mick smiled, walked over to the edge of the bed and sat down and asked, "Why are you sleeping in my bed?" ”

Kenneth stretched and said, "I was waiting for you to come back, but I accidentally fell asleep." ”

Mick nodded, this was Kenneth's usual style, so he wondered, "Why wait for me to come back, didn't you have to prepare for that match recently?" ”

Kenneth looked at Mick and nodded, "yes, didn't I come to you for that?" ”

Although Mick's brain was very tired now, he immediately guessed Kenneth's intention, and frowned, "I already said I wouldn't participate in this competition, right?" ”

"How can you not participate?" Kenneth frowned and looked at Mick Dao, "Without you, we wouldn't even be able to find a second-order magician in our team, so how can we compete with Ricken's team?" ”

Mick pursed his lips, lowered his head and didn't dare to look at Kenneth's eyes, and said softly, "I'm sorry, I can't accompany you to this competition." ”

"Why?" Kenneth couldn't understand, was this still the same Mick he knew?

Mick let out a breath, he had made up his mind, but when he raised his head to meet Kenneth's eyes hovering on the edge of hope and disappointment, he almost made the wall of his heart that had been built up with great difficulty collapse, and he pretended to be calm: "During this time, I have to work hard to complete the project given to me by Professor Duncan, and I don't have time to play with you." ”

Kenneth was stunned for a moment, as if he didn't hear clearly, and asked, "You—what did you say?" ”

"I said," Mick said, "I'm going to be too busy to hang out with you guys. ”

Hearing this, Kenneth had anger on his face, grabbed Mick by the collar and said, "You guy, what do you mean by that?" Hang out? You call our efforts to save Ming 'gangsters'?! ”

Mick pulled back his collar and said coldly, "Isn't it?" We're here to learn magic, not to save an orc who has nothing to do with us. ”

Kenneth didn't believe that these words could come out of Mick's mouth, and shook Mick's shoulders and said, "Mick, what's wrong with you?" This is not your usual you, huh? ”

How could Mick, who had always been gentle in his memory, say such a thing?

Mick tried to break free of Kenneth, so he pushed Kenneth away, Kenneth was flustered by Mick's sudden change, and was actually pushed to the ground by him, and his back hit the wooden frame on the edge of the bed, making a muffled "thump" sound.

Because of the protection of the fire dragon, Kenneth didn't even feel pain, but for some reason, he still felt a stinging sensation that went straight to the bottom of his heart.

Kenneth lowered his head, his eyes full of confusion and loss, and said in a muffled voice, "In your opinion, Naruto's safety is not as important as your studies?" ”

Mick gritted his teeth, watching Kenneth, who had always been high-spirited and grinning, become so depressed, and his mood fluctuated slightly, but when he thought of Ricken's compassionate eyes looking at him, the shackles in his heart became firm again and no longer loosened.

"Yes." After a moment of silence, Kenneth, who had kept his head down, heard Mick's answer clearly, and he slowly raised his head, the expression in his eyes finally turning to disappointment.

Kenneth pressed his hands on the ground and slowly got up, his chin tense as a hard rock, his cheeks twitching slightly, but finally he didn't say anything, passed Mick without saying a word, his lips moved slightly, and then walked out the door and slowly closed the door.

Mick stroked his shoulder, perhaps an illusion, and only felt a hot numbness.

Mick looked up, his eyes sour, his mind went blank, and the lights above him went out.

"You're not my friend." This was Kenneth's last words to himself.

————————

Time passed slowly, and half a month had passed since Kenneth and Mick's unhappy parting, and the others in the Phil Mansion also felt the strangeness of the two, but there was no way to persuade them, although Brandon knocked Kenneth on the side, but to no avail, and there were only ten days left before the start of the magic football game.

April 15th. Monday.

In Calvin's underground laboratory, Kenneth and Mick sat behind two stone tables respectively, concentrating on concentrating on condensing their spiritual power with their eyes closed, trying to engrave a first-order magic array on the thin iron rod in their hands.

Mick's powerful mental power undoubtedly exerted a huge advantage. At this time, Mick was immersed in a wonderful feeling, and only felt that his spiritual power was like clay that could be kneaded into various shapes, and like water, it would change back to its original shape at any time, and so on and again gradually formed a fixed shape according to his own will, and the whole process, although Mick only felt that it had taken a while, had actually taken a full four hours, and it was already past the end of class.

Mick slowly lifted the thin iron rod, carefully fitting his spiritual imprint to it, and then slowly separated, but when Mick opened his eyes, he didn't see any traces on the thin iron rod, so he frowned and looked at Calvin, who was sitting behind the podium, and woke him up, "Professor, professor!" Wake up, I made it! ”

"Huh? What the? What succeeded? Calvin suddenly woke up, wiped his saliva and asked.

Mick held up the thin iron rod and said, "Professor, I should have successfully engraved the magic array on it, but why can't I see anything?" ”

Calvin looked surprised and said, "How is it possible?" It's only been more than half a month, right? You try to touch this thin iron rod with your mental power to see. ”

Mick unknowingly leaned out his spiritual power, and when his spiritual power touched the thin iron rod, something magical happened, only to see a burst of red light immediately bloom on the thin iron rod, and then a fire-based first-order magic array appeared on its surface.

Mick let out a cheer of excitement, and then felt the thin iron rod suddenly become hot, and Mick quickly threw it to the ground, and his mental power was cut off. Then Mick saw the red light on the thin iron rod dim, and picked it up again, Mick was surprised to find that a dark red first-order magic array appeared on the thin iron rod.

"Professor, what's going on?" Mick asked curiously, his face full of excitement.

So Calvin explained to Mick: "This is the activation process of the spirit imprint. When an enchanter first engraves the spirit mark on the equipment, the spirit mark is still in an inactive state, and the magic circle will only appear on the equipment after the person's spirit power is communicated, and this process is called 'activation'. However, it should be noted that because the magic array is engraved on the equipment, the elements will first gather on the equipment and then cast magic, and the additional magic will generally choose to increase its own attributes or heal auxiliary magic, so generally speaking, fire magic will rarely be attached to the equipment. ”

"I see." Mick nodded, excited about his first successful enchantment, but his mood became a little depressed when he touched Kenneth, who was still holding his breath and sweating profusely.

After that day, the two didn't say a word again, and Mick didn't go to the security department again because he had to stay here for the night to learn magic from Calvin. And neither Kenneth nor Mick had any intention of taking the initiative to ease the relationship, so the relationship between the two has been frozen until now.

Mick returned to his seat with a thin iron rod and sighed softly.

After about ten minutes, Kenneth opened his eyes, exhaled softly, and then looked disappointed. Kenneth turned his head to look at Mick, only to see that he was also looking at him, but immediately turned his head away before making eye contact.

Mick is really mad at me...... Kenneth thought silently. But Kenneth still can't forgive Mick for only caring about himself and ignoring everyone's thoughts, but on this special day, maybe things can take a new turn.

Kenneth got up and walked towards Mick, stood still in front of Mick, scratched his face a little embarrassed, and said, "Mi, Mick, can you go back to the dorm early tonight?" ”

Mick also became nervous because of Kenneth's sudden accosting, so he hurriedly responded: "Okay, good! Can I help you? ”

It's just that the two seem to be separated by something invisible, and such an ordinary conversation has become a little strange.

Kenneth smiled and touched his head, a little cramped, "Well, I just have something to tell you anyway." Well, that's it! Twenty-two o'clock in the evening, see you or leave! ”

With that, Kenneth said goodbye to Calvin and Naru, and then hurried out of the underground lab.

Speaking of Naru, Calvin seems to have been teaching Naruto to learn human language lately, and now Naruto is sitting in the seat behind Kenneth learning the basic pronunciation of human language, with a cute look of tangled on his face.

Calvin looked at Mick, who had a complicated expression, raised his eyebrows and asked, "Is there an arrangement for tonight?" ”

Mick bit his lip, then shook his head and said, "Forget it, let's do it as usual." ”

Calvin also saw that there seemed to be some small conflicts between Kenneth and Mick recently, so he persuaded: "The magic thing will not be good for a day, but the loss of friends is a lifetime thing." ”

After Mick pondered for a moment, the sense of crisis that Rickon had brought to him finally prevailed, and he shook his head and said, "What Kenny wants to talk to me about is nothing more than the previous thing, and it is better not to talk about it." I still have more than 900 magic arrays to remember, right? If this day falls, you may not be able to catch up. ”

When Calvin saw Mick say this, he had no choice but to go with him.

——————

Twenty-four o'clock in the evening. Phil House.

I saw the people of the Phil House gathered in the living room, the table was full of sumptuous delicacies, and in the middle was a ten-inch birthday cake with a crooked chocolate sauce on it: "Happy Twelfth Birthday to Mick!" ”

Everyone silently looked at Kenneth, who was sitting at the head of the left, and their eyes couldn't help but flash a trace of distress.

"If, since Mick can't come," Kenneth said, his voice seemed to be choked by something, and he said a little hoarsely, "then let's take care of it ourselves, and it's everyone's heart." ”

"Yes, yes, come on, let's start eating," Brandon hurriedly picked up, cut a piece of cake and tasted it, "Come on, let's divide it, well, it tastes good!" ”

Mona also served a piece of cake, took a bite and said, "Hmm~ It's delicious~"

So the atmosphere in the living room became lively again, but with some deliberate and weird.

Kenneth leaned back, his palms spread out, and the light reflected in the light. It was a very good quality sapphire the size of a baby's fist, which he had bought for Mick on the street after gritting his teeth and spending all the thank-you gifts that Old John had given him.

And this surprise party was also carefully prepared by Kenneth for the people of the Phillip Building.

It's just that I didn't expect him to come.