"Intermediate Battle-Qi!"
On the highest tier of the spectator stands, the bald, burly man shot to his feet, like a colossal pillar erupting from the earth, his gaze blazing.
As the dean of the War Academy, Barrett had heard tell of Li Fei, the most outstanding new student of their sister school — but no matter how he tried, he could never have imagined that her talent was so astonishingly, shockingly superb.
How long had it been since she stepped into Sequence 8? How long since she set foot on the path of the Transcendent?
And yet her Battle-Qi cultivation had already left many of the War Academy's second-years far behind!
"This girl's Battle-Qi talent surpasses Alex's."
Barrett slowly sat back down, voicing his assessment in a low tone, while a bold idea surfaced in his heart.
...
Crack.
Amid the uproar of the spectator seats, the sound of a shattering glass was effortlessly drowned out.
Lannister had no spare thought to mourn the wasted top-grade champagne; both hands pressed hard against his thighs, and the joy on his face had vanished without a trace.
Reason told him that even with Li Fei's dazzling, peerless talent, she could not, at the Sequence 8 realm, contend against Kova — let alone Alex.
Yet Lannister still felt waves of panic, the image of that harmless-looking pink-haired girl rising unbidden in his mind.
"That's the last thing Mother left me…"
Lannister folded his hands across his chest and, in fear and urgency, sent up a prayer: "O Pandora, goddess who governs fortune, please be merciful. I swear, if I just win this time, I'll never gamble again…"
...
Crimson Battle-Qi ran rampant. Li Fei stomped the ground to pieces, sending great swaths of floor tiles bursting apart.
The surging power gave her unparalleled courage; she charged at her opponent without hesitation, three feet of Flowing Silver aimed straight for Kova's head.
"Urgh…"
The cruel reality of the very next second snapped Li Fei back to her senses, shattering her swollen confidence.
Kova easily dodged the edge of her blade, and at the same time drove up a knee; the mighty, powerful impact lifted Li Fei's feet a good few dozen centimeters off the ground, her features twisting along with it.
Amid the searing agony of having her stomach all but churned to pulp, Li Fei spat a mouthful of old blood onto Kova's face, hoping to disrupt her vision.
But once again Li Fei had miscalculated. Under day-after-day of high-intensity combat, how could Kova be disrupted by such a petty trick?
She tilted her head, letting the scalding blood splash across the side of her face, but her peripheral vision stayed firmly locked onto Li Fei, and the fist wrapped in blazing Battle-Qi came whistling down to hammer into Li Fei's chest.
The great treasures so cherished by Lady Annie, so adored by Eva, that Miss Grace could never tear her eyes from — were nearly smashed flat; even a few ribs caved in with a teeth-aching crunch, though thankfully none pierced any organs.
Spitting blood, Li Fei reeled backward. Thanks to her diligent, unceasing "Sensitivity Aura training method," she stayed lucid even through the pain. Her slender right leg lashed out viciously, intending to repay Kova for the harm done to her with a [Heartshatter] — but the latter, utterly merciless, swung out a fist; her knuckle-duster collided with the sole of Li Fei's high heel, and the recoiling force left the bottom of Li Fei's foot numb with pain.
Her fists are so heavy!
After smashing through a floor tile, Li Fei used the impact's momentum to roll several times in a sorry heap, putting some distance between herself and Kova for the moment.
"Your footwork is exquisite, your Battle-Qi is pure…"
Kova did not press the assault. Instead she stood her ground, watching Li Fei, suppressing her own battle-lust.
She shook the beads of sweat from her short hair, her smile arrogant: "But if this is all there is, there's no point continuing, Miss Spell Encyclopedia."
"You're right."
Li Fei struggled to prop herself up, her voice flat: "My close-combat ability is inferior to yours."
Both had Intermediate Battle-Qi, and their equipment levels were nearly identical.
Her own advantage lay in the attributes gained from reaching Level 21, and in the unmatched ferocity and overbearing output granted by the top-tier Battle-Qi art, the"Furnace".
But Kova's physique, forged through nothing but grueling training, was enough to wipe out the better half of that System-attribute advantage; her Battle-Qi was likewise refined and powerful, not much inferior to Furnace Battle-Qi.
Add to that the gap at the levels of "Sequence rank" and "class," and it was enough to form an absolute advantage in combat power.
To say nothing of combat technique, where the gulf between Li Fei and the battle-hardened Kova was even wider.
Having been confident she could open up the distance, Li Fei had probed Kova's combat level, but the result was far from satisfactory — the oppressive pressure bearing down on her was suffocating.
"But I'm still a mage."
Li Fei reached into her robes and, at the speed of light, bought several scrolls from the System Mall.
Forget the elimination rounds — even in yesterday's group matches, few mages ever resorted to spell scrolls; and even when they did, it was almost always just tier-one or tier-two scrolls.
The reason was simple.
First, mages didn't possess [Do As One Pleases], that noble-class-exclusive skill, so the range of scrolls they could use was severely limited — they could only activate scrolls of the very spell discipline they themselves cultivated, unlike the noble lords, who could use all five disciplines.
Second, the bonuses of the mage class all lay in areas like "spell penetration," "casting speed," and "cooldown reduction," unlike the noble class with its "equipment effect" and "equipment damage" bonuses. This meant that the effect of scrolls in their hands was greatly diminished, falling far short of their own heavily-amplified spells — they'd sooner put their trust in the staff in their hands.
Of course, the two reasons above were both just excuses; the single most crucial reason was: it wasn't worth it.
Reaching the third round of the elimination bracket earned only a fifty-credit reward, while a single tier-three spell scroll was truly worth a fortune in gold. The mentors of the Magic Academy had stressed time and again that, under the rules' restrictions, teams separated by too wide a skill gap could never overturn everything by throwing money at it. Rather than subsidizing the costs out of pocket for that meager reward — and still not necessarily winning — it was far better to focus on the matches and hone oneself through real combat.
Unlike the noble lords, who weren't short on money and had no other choice.
But now, the situation was different.
Reaching the finals, the gap in rewards between champion, runner-up, and third place was enough to offset the cost — not to mention the additional reward the dean himself had promised.
Li Fei did not want to lose, so at the cost of 1,240 Wealth Points she bought seven spell scrolls — the upper limit the rules permitted: one tier-three, two tier-two, and four tier-one.
"It should've been like this from the start."
Battle-lust shone resplendent in Kova's eyes, scalding breath gusting from her nostrils: "Hurry… My two fists are already starved beyond endurance."
——You'll pay the price for your arrogance.
Li Fei kept her gaze firmly locked on her to avoid a sneak attack, her fair, glossy fingers dancing like swans, tearing the scrolls apart with precision and speed — in no way inferior to the speed the noble lords achieved after special training, perhaps even surpassing it.
As for how she managed that — let's just say the household went through a great many pairs of stockings, and the frequency with which Lady Annie bought stockings had gone from once every few months to once every half-month.
Meanwhile, her reserve of potential points plummeted sharply as well.
Intermediate Natural Magic ("Advanced Natural Magic" unlocked after ascending to Sequence 7):
Able to learn and use tier-three natural spells.
Foundational Chaos Magic:
Able to learn and use tier-two chaos spells.
The scrolls shattered piece by piece, their magical luster flashing and vanishing in an instant.
[Giant's Strength]
[Acceleration]
[Bloodthirst]
[Flame Enchant]
[Bursting Vitality]
[Frenzy]
[Lightness]
Boom!
Roiling Battle-Qi swept out, the heat wave radiating more than ten meters, and Li Fei's long hair began to dance.
Layered with seven buffs, she felt her body unbelievably light; the restless, unvented power made her skin itch, as if she could hoist up a road roller and wreak havoc as she pleased.
"Giant's Strength! She's mastered Intermediate Natural Magic!"
Someone recognized the spells represented by the patterns on the scrolls and couldn't help crying out in shock.
"And Foundational Chaos, Bloodthirst…"
"Truly worthy of the name Miss Spell Encyclopedia — her talent is too terrifying."
Amid the commotion, Emma — who had already been sent down from the arena and treated — propped herself up, staring fixedly at the ring, no small note of complaint in her tone:
"Why give her the chance…"
"This is who Kova is."
Klein smiled: "Compared to victory, she craves battle itself more. Besides… Li Fei knows magic — does that mean Kova has no hidden strength of her own?"
No sooner had he spoken than two muffled "clang, clang" sounds came from within the arena.
Kova unloaded the pitch-black guards from her wrists; they looked to weigh at least dozens of catties.
Next came the knee guards and the belt.
The physique-enhancing ability [Frenzied Blood], granted by her class upon ascending to Sequence 7, activated as well. She cracked her neck with a series of pops, a bloody light flashing through her eyes:
"Are you ready?"
"I'm quite looking forward to what kind of harvest this warm-up bout can bring me."
——You're a member of the Sun family too?
Li Fei was first taken aback, then broke into a light smile: "Just a little bit more."
Her right hand slowly slid into her mage robe while she picked out weight-training equipment suited to herself from the System Mall.
——I! Will! NOT! Allow! Anyone! To! Out-pose! ME!!
After her hand groped about inside the robe for a few seconds, Li Fei pulled out an unfastened lace-up black corset and casually tossed it to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust; judging from the sound, it likely weighed one or two hundred catties.
Even Kova was stunned, and the spectator seats held their breath at this maneuver, drawing sharp gasps of cold air.
This… is this really a mage-girl?
What mage-girl just goes around strapping a thing like that to herself?!
"Magic Academy, Li Fei. Please instruct me."
As the spell-like ability · Partial Transformation — Succubus Empress · Abdomen activated, with the tougher, more powerful core strength of her waist and abdomen at its center, Li Fei stomped the ground to pieces, shattered bricks splashing in all directions.
Sword-light flashed forth, striking sparks against the knuckle-duster; Kova staggered back several steps, actually falling to the weaker side in raw strength.
The corner of her mouth curled up, and after several exchanges, she suddenly twisted her body aside, letting the next thrust pierce through her left shoulder. Her right hand fiercely seized the blade's edge, her right leg snapping open like a bowstring, and amid the whistling wind she kicked Li Fei flying.
The sword left her grip, and Li Fei too was launched like a cannonball more than ten meters away, smashing through a window along the street, followed by the clattering racket of pots and pans crashing to the floor.
Kova pulled the sword free, drawing out a spray of blood, yet without so much as a furrow of her brow. She extended her ceaselessly bleeding right hand and crooked a finger toward the gaping hole in the window.
The instant Li Fei — hair disheveled, clothes torn to shreds — came lunging back out of the window toward Kova, the whole venue erupted, cheers bursting out everywhere.
"Women fighting — now that's exciting!"
"Cut her down the middle, cut her down the middle!"
"Restoring the glory of the close-combat mage-girl — Fei-bao is duty-bound!"
But the two combatants remained blind to the clamor; the dull sounds of flesh colliding and bones snapping rang out without cease, dazzling sparks leaping now and then.
Having her sword taken brought Li Fei not the slightest disadvantage; gripping [Darknight], her strikes were vicious and sharp, aimed straight for Kova's vitals.
In that brief exchange she realized that, with her combat technique being utterly overwhelmed, once they were in close, a longsword simply couldn't be brought to bear — it only tied her own hands.
A dagger was far more useful!
As long as she was vicious enough and fast enough, she could compensate to a great degree for the gap in technique.
"Haa!"
Li Fei let out a delicate cry, all offense and no defense, and actually forced Kova back step by step, driving the fight from one end of the long street to its center.
The dagger split the air, glowing red under the focus of Battle-Qi, as if flames were burning upon it, carving a scorching trail; the Battle-Qi vortex within her surged ever more violently, faintly on the verge of breaking through the sixty-revolution limit. The crimson Battle-Qi was like a roiling furnace, flames soaring skyward, entangling endlessly with the blazing white Battle-Qi — like two vicious dragons biting and tearing at each other. Wherever they passed, masts toppled and pillars broke; wood and even bricks were effortlessly destroyed, as though ravaged by typhoon and raging fire, leaving behind only steaming bloodstains.
Even Li Fei herself didn't realize that, unknowingly, she had nearly attained "street-wrecking"-level destructive power, opening up a gap between herself and ordinary mortals.
"So this is the combat power of the specially-recruited students of the two great academies…"
The spectator stands gradually fell silent too, the students holding their breath as they watched the brutal slaughter.
The lower-year students' clothes were even soaked through with cold sweat; they understood that if they were the ones up there, it would take but a single moment to be torn apart by such ultimate violence.
"We didn't lose unjustly."
George, who had met his Waterloo at the hands of the mage-girl squad yesterday, sighed as he made his assessment.
If Li Fei hadn't been hiding her strength yesterday, his war-armor wouldn't have been enough for her to dismantle on her own.
"No, but she's a mage-girl! A mage-girl who just enrolled!"
Bruce's tone was agitated, gesturing wildly.
The white-haired beautiful girl clutched her staff to her chest, her eyes brimming with Li Fei's hysterical, blood-drenched figure. Her hands subconsciously covered her fair, lovely throat — the sensation of having her windpipe choked with a scalding foreign object while venom was ceaselessly injected lingered and would not fade, making her body twist uneasily.
She even, for a brief moment, became oblivious to Irena, who was serving as referee.
"Augh!"
Struck in the abdomen by another fist, her wound-covered body suffered even more severe internal injuries.
Li Fei spat bloody froth; one hand gripped Kova's collar, the other clenched the dagger's hilt — slick with blood — and stabbed at her neck with everything she had.
She came to a profound realization: in an evenly-matched death-struggle, the fight would lose every shred of elegance, leaving only endless agony and rage.
After her head took a blow, a piercing ringing screamed in both ears, her vision veiled in blood-red; her movements began to lose form, every exertion tugging at her wounds, shattered bone stabbing through muscle, reminding her just how grave her injuries were.
Though she knew she wouldn't die, the instinct of life still made wisps of fear well up in her heart, urging her to just concede then and there, to end this torment and torture.
But she didn't want to lose.
This was also the first time in her life she had experienced confrontation in the truest sense — not the desperate struggle to survive when she'd first entered the wolf's den, nor a one-sided harvesting of experience or being schooled.
The scalding hot blood quenched her timidity, yet could not reverse her decline.
Crack.
Kova seized the opportunity, gripping the strength-drained wrist and wrenching hard, snapping the wrist bone. Li Fei's five fingers, from the pain, instinctively splayed open and twitched, and the dagger fell with a "clang" into the pool of blood.
Facing a Li Fei covered in wounds, Kova only grew braver the more she fought.
Li Fei had already noticed that, although her opponent's reaction speed was declining and openings were appearing in her movements as injuries accumulated, Kova seemed to possess a special ability — the graver her wounds, the more fierce and swift her assault.
In short, her combat state seemed to have been "assimilated" by Li Fei; no longer that great-skill-appearing-clumsy, refinement-within-crudeness fighter, she was gradually turning into a truly "reckless" brawler in the fullest sense.
Li Fei wasn't clear whether this ability of hers was granted by bloodline or by class, but it no longer mattered. She told herself that she had to decide the outcome now, or else she would surely lose.
"Heh."
Having stripped Li Fei of her weapon, Kova, with a savage and intensely aggressive grin, grabbed her by the neck and abruptly exerted force — another knee strike, focusing its attack on the increasingly gravely-wounded abdomen.
Li Fei vomited another mouthful of blood, only this one couldn't be spat far, merely wetting the front of her own clothes.
"It's over."
Kova cupped Li Fei's head in both hands, keeping the teetering body from moving, and declared the result of the match: "Thank you. My condition has never been better — I'm confident I can fight Alex now."
As her words fell, she tilted her neck back slightly, gathered force, then violently slammed her forehead toward Li Fei's head, both hands bursting with immense power at once, pressing Li Fei's skull inward, intending to finish her with a single headbutt.
Evidently, after a round of bloody combat, the barbarian bloodline within her and the [Frenzied Blood] ability had eroded her thoughts, making her want to finish her opponent by brutal means.
"Yes, it's over."
Li Fei murmured softly, and the spell-like ability · Full Transformation — Succubus Empress · Lips activated.
In this desperate situation, she struggled like a fish, her more nimble and powerful neck twisting to slip aside from the headbutt.
"What's the point of this."
In one corner of the stands, Class Three's homeroom teacher Ye Shu furrowed her brow, an expression of unbearable pity on her face.
Ye Shu had a very good impression of this girl — who always waited quietly outside the classroom door after class for Grace, and who always greeted her politely and warmly whenever they met. Her campus romance with Grace stirred a sense of closeness in Ye Shu, too.
Which was why she didn't want to see Li Fei continue to be tormented.
In Ye Shu's view, Li Fei's defeat was already a settled matter, and such an act would only bring herself more harm.
"…"
Her girlfriend, the ice-cold-faced "Polaris" Selene, stared fixedly at Li Fei.
The closeness and familiarity she sensed from Li Fei made her understand that "the other self" must surely have known this new student who was currently in the limelight.
The lingering subconscious within her told her that Li Fei was someone capable of creating miracles.
"Eek!"
Ye Shu abruptly covered her mouth and cried out in shock.
Li Fei — who at the academy had always treated others with a radiant smile, appearing polite and gracefully composed — had actually clamped her teeth down onto Kova's neck!
The blazing white Battle-Qi and the firm, hard muscle crumbled at a single touch before the strength, formidable bite force, and tooth-penetration added by [Partial Transformation — Succubus Empress · Lips].
Teeth pierced deep through her neck, and Li Fei buried her head, drinking deeply of the scalding fresh blood.
"Roar!"
Kova let out a furious howl, her Battle-Qi radiance running berserk. She drove up another knee, the bone-splitting, gold-rending force smashing into Li Fei's lower belly, trying to force her back.
But it was too late.
For the Succubus Empress, although blood wasn't as efficient as orange juice at restoring HP and MP, it still counted as something of a tonic.
Having recovered some strength, Li Fei clamped down hard on Kova's two hands to keep her from snapping her neck, while straining to draw in the blood, savoring the feeling of the scalding liquid flowing into her belly — and wanting more mouthfuls.
The situation reversed; Kova became the one struggling with all her might.
She kneed Li Fei's abdomen again and again, but Li Fei only kept biting down on her neck without budging, spitting blood and sucking blood at once, enduring all the pain and injury.
As the blood drained away, Kova's strength began to wane as well, her Battle-Qi radiance flickering on and off.
In the end, the ashen-faced Kova lay sprawled at Li Fei's feet.
——Using me as a warm-up, were you.
Li Fei, her lips and chin drenched in blood, lowered her head and looked down at her defeated opponent, a soundless sneer rising in her heart.
____
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