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"Oh? So some of you DO know Celestial's rules." Wesley's mouth pulled into a grin. "But insects are insects."
Celestial did not casually intervene in contests between its students. If anything, the Academy welcomed them, because nothing drew out a student's potential faster. The single line drawn under all of it: no deaths.
That much, Wesley the senior understood far better than any freshman in front of him.
His words fell, and a vast pressure came down across the column, flushing every freshman face red. A good number couldn't bear it at all. They dropped where they stood, staring in disbelief as an enormous silhouette filled their eyes.
Four limbs on the ground, its shape a great white tiger's, grim cold pouring off it in unbroken waves. Even across a healthy distance, the weaker freshmen were already shivering to the bone.
"The Frost-Soul White Tiger!" Conrad Sykes locked his eyes on the summoned spirit, wariness written through every line of him.
In the same breath, Conrad summoned his own Abyssal Nether Tiger, and with the Nether Tiger shouldering a share of that pressure, he finally pulled in a full breath.
Both were Beast Clan, both tiger-line, both Seven-Star. But the Frost-Soul White Tiger ran higher in quality than his Nether Tiger, and stronger outright.
*「 Frost-Soul White Tiger 」*
Race: Beast Clan
Quality: Collectible
Level: ★★★★★★★ (Seven-Star)
Skills: Mana Burst, Absolute Ice Domain, Bone-Eroding Edge, Heaven Tiger Reversion
A Seven-Star at the Collectible grade, standing a full span of quality above the Nether Tiger's Rare, and the gap in combat strength that came with it ran enormous.
And feeling how deeply his own Nether Tiger dreaded the thing, Conrad's face went solemn.
Because to this moment, not one instructor had shown themselves. Which very likely meant that everything Wesley was doing sat squarely inside Celestial's rules.
I knew the competition in here ran fierce, but ambushed the day we enroll? Does it have to be THIS cutthroat?! Conrad screamed it inside his own skull, where it helped nothing.
"What's there to fear? Look how many of us there are. I refuse to believe they can flatten every last one of us!" Shaken by the White Tiger or not, some of the freshmen decided numbers were an answer. One mouthful of spit apiece could drown the man.
And with that, freshmen up and down the column sent their card spirits forward.
"Newborn calves, truly unafraid of the tiger." Something almost nostalgic crossed Wesley's face. One year ago he'd been exactly this naive, before reality sat him down and taught him the only lesson that mattered: strength was the root of everything. Without it, no conversation existed.
Besides, his own talent ran anything but shallow. Better than ninety-nine percent of the freshmen on this road, by his math. He was last year's exam first. One did not climb to the Magus Society's third seat in a single year on charm.
And while he mused, the Frost-Soul White Tiger had already met the freshman spirits, uncommanded, and it fought the whole crowd of them with room to spare.
Grade and quality told, and they told brutally. Outside Luke and Conrad, not one freshman present owned a Seven-Star spirit. Not even the arrivals from the other three regions.
Which surprised Wesley not at all. Put him in a Head's chair at any of the Four Great Academies, and he'd never allow a Seven-Star-holding examinee to slip away to a rival region either. Students like that were the year's whole harvest.
"Oh? A little cat over here too." His gaze had found the Nether Tiger, and his brow rose. "Conrad Sykes of Farhaven, if I remember right. The Seven-Star Rare Abyssal Nether Tiger. A shade lacking, but you qualify. The Magus Society will take you."
Absolute Ice Domain!
The words had barely landed before the Frost-Soul White Tiger erupted. Cold without end poured off the great beast in every direction, and in one breath, every freshman spirit still resisting froze where it stood, sculpture after sculpture of solid ice.
Bone-Eroding Edge!
The muscles of all four limbs detonated, and the White Tiger became a streak of light, threading back and forth between the frozen statues. Every flicker of its passage shattered one ice-bound spirit without mercy, and in the space of ten short seconds, nothing remained standing inside the Absolute Ice Domain except the White Tiger itself, proud and untouched.
Its gaze slid once across the Nether Tiger, its equal in stars, and open disdain moved through the great cat's eyes. Same level. But with its quality towering over the other's, the White Tiger held every confidence of killing the Nether Tiger without taking one wound in return.
"That's not possible!" The freshmen stood stunned as one. All their spirits together, swept off the board by a single tiger?
"Nothing impossible about it." Wesley's voice carried level and certain across the quiet. "This is simply the difference between me and you."
And in the same moment, he flung out a second card, and the cold inside the Absolute Ice Domain sank another full register.
*「 Giant Ice Bear 」*
Race: Beast Clan
Quality: Perfect
Level: ★★★★★★★ (Seven-Star)
Skills: Frostfang, Giant's Might, Ice Claw and Fang, Avalanche Call
It rose onto two legs, a bear meters tall, and simply standing there it pressed on every watcher's chest. But what truly made every eye contract was the strength of the thing.
Seven-Star Perfect. Quality standing higher even than the Collectible-grade White Tiger, and stronger for it. Nearly every freshman on the road swallowed at once, faces gone bitter.
The distance between themselves and Wesley Brandt was simply too far.
"Well?" Watching it sink in, the corner of Wesley's mouth curled. He did not consider that Conrad held any right of refusal at all. "Tell me your answer."
The Giant Ice Bear and the Frost-Soul White Tiger each took one step forward, and the massed pressure of two Seven-Star fierce beasts rolled over Conrad. Even the Nether Tiger, their equal in stars, had gone flat to the ground beneath it, barely holding on.
"I'll join." A bitter twist crossed Conrad's mouth. Wesley held every advantage on the field, and resistance bought nothing but pain.
Then again, the Magus Society's strength stood second only to the Student Council and the Discipline Committee among all of Celestial. Joining cost him little that mattered. Had it been otherwise, whatever the odds, Conrad would have swung.
"The wise adapt to circumstance." Wesley nodded, well satisfied, and then his gaze traveled on, and settled on Luke. "And you?"
Luke had been the original target from the start. An exam championship carried real gold in its weight, and landing the man would lift Wesley's own name another notch inside the Society.
As for the possibility of refusal? The freshmen scattered frozen across the road made the finest example he could ask for.
Luke might be this year's exam first. But Wesley had been LAST year's, with a full year's head start banked between them. That this freshman could be his match was not a thought Wesley Brandt entertained at all.