"She can actually win this?"
As Kova toppled into the pool of blood, the whole arena erupted in an uproar.
"She can actually turn this around—it's absurd…"
"No, seriously, can someone tell me why a Sequence 8 mage-girl can single-handedly mow down all three of her opponents? Kova included—Kova, who's practically invincible at the low Sequences?"
"Intermediate battle-qi, Intermediate Natural Magic, Foundational Chaos Magic… plus an unparalleled will to win."
The students buzzed with discussion, still digesting this scarcely believable fact.
"If Kova hadn't given her the chance to open a scroll…"
"It wouldn't have mattered—using a scroll isn't the same as casting a spell. Miss Spell-Encyclopedia can open a scroll while running, and Kova couldn't have stopped her."
"..."
By contrast, the fangirl squads were far more direct; they gazed longingly at Li Fei as she was carried off for treatment by the Life-system mentors, some biting their handkerchiefs and weeping, others confessing their kinks.
"She really… I'm dying of feels."
"Fei-bao's so cool, Mama loves you so much."
"I want Fei-bao to bite my neck hard too."
"I want to belly-punch Fei-bao…"
"Get lost!"
Equally giddy was Class 2-2; the girls were jubilant, chattering away nonstop.
"Lilith's made something of herself! Slumped her way to runner-up!"
"The future's bright, the future's bright!"
"A double harvest of love and career, I'm so envious, so envious… though it does feel like Miss Grace is a formidable rival—how about we run a honey-trap scheme and clear out Lilith's love-rival for her?"
"That's not unworkable, but don't you all think… the three of them actually look pretty good together too?"
"Sssss… seconded."
"Seconded!"
...
Li Fei lay there serenely, eyes closed.
Her mage robe, tattered after the fierce battle, was draped over her body.
While the Magic Academy boiled over on her account, she looked as though she'd departed this world, lying utterly motionless.
But as the saying goes, a scourge lives a thousand years—Miss Top Courtesan was still breathing, her injuries completely healed; at this moment she was enjoying Grace's lap-pillow, breathing easily, a smile tucked at the corner of her mouth.
Lilith propped her chin in her hand and stared at her, lost in a daze.
One had to admit, Miss Stepmother, when she wasn't moving, truly was a classical beauty brimming with Eastern charm; even a semi-fluid heart couldn't spoil that reserved, refined allure, as if she gathered all the spiritual grace of heaven and earth into one being.
A pity she did move—making a pouting motion—and Lilith, grudgingly, brought the straw resting in the iced fruit juice up to her lips.
The team's absolute core must, of course, receive the treatment of an absolute core; Li Fei, taking proud credit for her merit and pulling rank by her stepmother seniority besides, ordered her teammates around with the greatest of ease.
One was perfectly willing; the other, in light of the fact that in the last match Stepmother truly had been gravely wounded and had played a tide-turning role, pinched her nose and put up with it.
It was just that Lilith, watching Li Fei—too lazy even to open her eyes, biting the straw with her mouth askew—felt that the decadent, dissolute air the fairies had pampered into her had utterly wrecked that ethereal, reserved, ice-skin-jade-bones temperament, and in the end found it rather hard to take.
"Haah…"
Li Fei suddenly let out a sigh.
Lilith's heart tightened, and she hurriedly asked:
"What's wrong? Don't tell me the wounds still haven't healed? Should I go apply for a postponement…"
Li Fei opened her radiant, sparkling eyes, planted both hands on her hips, and hollered with utter self-righteousness:
"I want to drink iced cola!"
What's iced cola?
Lilith was at the end of her patience; were it not that the next match was about to start any moment, she'd surely have climbed onto Stepmother and let her experience the agony of being throttled by the throat.
And Li Fei, her cola craving flaring up, squirmed this way and that, her face screwed up in misery.
For a modern person, going over three months of summer without taking in a single iced carbonated drink—that kind of suffering rivaled a month without touching one's phone.
Suddenly, something icy-cold and metallic pressed against her cheek.
That hard texture, the water-vapor soaking its surface…
Masaka!
Li Fei's eyes went wide; she twisted her head around and saw Bai Mengtian, a smile in her brows and eyes.
In her hand, she was swinging a red metal can.
That familiar logo… and the black sugar-free marking…
"Mua!"
How this thing came to be no longer mattered; Li Fei planted a fierce kiss on her, then yanked open the pull-tab, unable to wait, sat up, and went glug-glug-glug.
The feeling of icy carbonated bubbles stimulating her mouth and throat…
Li Fei shut her eyes and very nearly cried out loud.
Draining the entire can of cola dry in one breath, only then did Li Fei's mood finally settle.
She blinked and discovered that beside her, Lilith and Grace had been "freeze-framed," holding their original motions and expressions, yet she could sense no heartbeat or breathing from them.
At least 5 gigs' worth of time-stop.avi instantly popped into Li Fei's mind.
"Where'd this come from?"
She shifted her body, made room for Bai Mengtian, and, circling an arm around her waist, asked.
"Based on the taste in my memory, I worked it up using extraordinary materials and a ritual."
Bai Mengtian said with a smiling squint: "Though, formula-wise, the ingredients in here no longer have anything to do with cola—as long as it looks exactly like cola, and tastes exactly like cola, then it is cola."
"So then, may I ask where one can buy it?"
Li Fei hinted with a smiling squint.
The words had barely left her mouth when Bai Mengtian stuffed several stiff paper slips into her hand:
"Here, admission tickets. The aquarium's about to open—there are shops inside selling all sorts of fizzy drinks, plus instant noodles, potato chips, and sausages~"
"You actually didn't just send a few crates straight to my place. Bai Mengtian, you've changed, you don't love me anymore."
Li Fei puffed out her cheeks, the very picture of righteous indignation.
Then Bai Mengtian rattled off a whole string of things like "a new store has to drive up its numbers" and "business is business."
"Fine, fine, fine, I'll come show my support."
Li Fei raised both hands and threw out a French military salute.
"Mm-hm, it's settled then. I'm off to the next one, seeya~"
After their brief exchange, Bai Mengtian's figure vanished, as abrupt as when she'd arrived.
The smile still hanging on her face, Li Fei carefully wrapped those tickets up in her ruined mage robe and tucked them into her storage locker.
The faint, lingering ache across her body had vanished.
That just-finished battle, fought to her heart's content, had earned Li Fei an enormous harvest: not only had her swordsmanship and Cloud Dragon Fold footwork both leveled up, but her combat awareness and combat technique had also seen immediate, visible breakthroughs.
The foundation accumulated over half a month of intensive training had been utterly unleashed in the single fight against Kova—but after burning her potential, what remained was indeed a deep exhaustion. Although her injuries had been thoroughly repaired, a faint, barely-there pain still lingered everywhere on her body; the memory of fractured bones and a churned-up gut was still fresh, and an even stronger opponent was about to take the stage. She had to pull herself together—for her teammates, and even more for herself.
Yet a single can of iced cola made it all vanish like smoke.
"If one day the Seven Supremes hold a ranking battle, and Tingbao can fight her way to the final match, I'd probably not be able to resist sneaking into her waiting room before she goes on, either."
Li Fei slowly closed the storage chest.
"What happened?"
Lilith eyed her stepmother suspiciously.
A moment ago she'd only seen a blur before her eyes, and Li Fei had shifted out of place; her whole bearing had changed somewhat too, giving off a sense of soaring fighting spirit, as if someone had secretly slapped multiple buffs on her like "Invigorate" and "Inspire."
"It's the final match. I have to win it beautifully."
Li Fei smiled, crushed the red pull-tab can flat one-handed, tossed it precisely into the trash bin, and pushed straight through the door of the waiting room.
Tap, tap, tap…
The crisp footsteps of high heels meeting the floor grew ever denser, like a heartbeat steadily accelerating, until she passed through the long corridor and bright sunlight spilled into her eyes.
Li Fei did not pause, walking straight toward the field.
The Academy mentors could easily mend the hem of her skirt, but they couldn't patch the mage robe Kova had torn to shreds—no matter, though. The last barrier standing before the championship was the Cleaver Squad; Li Fei needed no spell resistance, and the only spell she meant to unleash was a single one.
As Li Fei walked step by step toward the focal center of all gazes, the spectator stands turned from clamorous to silent. Then, the students rose to their feet one after another, and the clamor spread like a rising tide.
"Look, it's Li Fei."
"So beautiful…"
"Even though I know she'll lose, I want her to win."
Li Fei was utterly unmoved by all of it. She wore a red sleeveless dress, its knee-length hem and her ink-dark lovely hair drifting in the breeze, sunlight spilling over her shoulders—yet it couldn't steal away her radiance; on the contrary, it made her all the more pleasing to the eye, more enchantingly resplendent than the unrivaled rainbow altar of Loxibrook, and as serene and luminous as the unicorn forest under moonlight. Beneath jade-white calves were slender, graceful ankles, the red high heels elegant and dazzling, carrying her toward her opponents at a leisurely stroll.
Were it not for the sword in her hand, at this moment she ought, one feared, to have appeared at some banquet of softly lilting music.
Alex and the other two had been waiting here a good while.
Daniel was lean yet firm-fleshed, his back ramrod-straight, clad in a tight-fitting base layer with leather armor over his torso, long boots on his feet, twin sabers sheathed at his waist—looking keen and vigorous, like a bamboo shoot grown out from a crack in the rock, sooner snapping than bending.
Zack had a fiery-red crew-cut of spiked hair, blocks upon blocks of bulging muscle propping up a brawny, towering build, his thick right arm gripping a two-man battle-axe whose blade carried a dark-red gleam of blood.
Their expressions grave, they watched Li Fei.
In the previous showdown, they had fully witnessed the whole of Li Fei's strength, and understood just how powerful and terrifying this woman was—inferior only by a notch to Alex.
An opponent like this warranted being taken seriously; otherwise, for a lineup such as theirs to end against three mage-girls in a pyrrhic victory, unable to claim the crown cleanly and beautifully, they'd likely be reduced to a laughingstock.
And that young man of upright bearing and dashing vigor stood at the center, facing the morning sun, his pale-golden armor glittering, like a young male lion, radiant and high-spirited.
He gazed at Li Fei and suddenly let out a self-mocking laugh, recalling his earlier arrogant notion of "in a year or half a year, once she steps into the mid-Sequences, fight her then."
Then Alex reined in his smile, battle-intent like fire in his eyes:
"I'll fight you with all my strength, Miss Spell-Encyclopedia."
"Mm, so will I."
Li Fei said breezily, lightly.
As they regarded each other in silence, space began to shift and transform; a pitch-black field unfurled, electric light leaping within it.
Time stretched out in this moment; even the spectators held their breath for it, realizing the final had begun ahead of schedule.
A little over an hour ago, everyone had thought the deciding round would be the third match—the mage-girl team defeated in succession, with Kova and Alex fighting to the death.
But this three-mage-girl team—originally counted as victorious just for making it into the group stage, made up of two freshmen and one healer—had, under the miracles Li Fei kept creating, forcibly dragged the final forward.
And the ultimate result was about to be revealed.
Should the mage-girl team win, then it'd be two-to-zero and the crown straight away; should the Cleaver Squad win, then they, swept along by the momentum of victory, would be unstoppable, crushing the mage-girl team that had already fallen to defeat.
Mountain rain about to come, wind filling the tower—even the spectators felt the heavy, sinking pressure, and the whole arena sank into stillness.
The girls' tender cheers shattered the silence.
"Lilith, you can do it!"
"Champion, champion!"
Class 2-2, Lilith's classmates, heedless of the whole arena's gazes, cheered and rooted for her.
Lilith's eyes grew hot; gripping her staff, she beamed a sweet smile toward her companions.
Grace, too, felt the concerned gaze Ms. Ye Shu cast toward her.
She wasn't good at smiling, so she gave a light nod toward the teacher who had treated her so well.
"I really do envy the young…"
Barrett, the Dean of the War Academy, rubbed the back of his head and sighed: "Even my blood is about to catch fire."
"If only Li Fei were a second-year—no, just half a year more of cultivation would be enough…"
The moment these words came out, the gazes of the three people beside him fell upon him in unison.
The bald Dean froze on the spot, a great big "?" flashing through his mind.
That Her Excellency Nicole and Melodia would be protective of their own cubs he could understand, but why was the Vice-Dean on his own side also staring at him with a blank face?
"It seems Your Excellency Barrett has great confidence in his own student."
Nicole, evading any mention of identities like foster-daughter or biological son, smiled benignly: "I'm bullish on my student too—how about a little wager?"
"Inappropriate, inappropriate—we're models for our students, how could we…"
Barrett broke into a sweat like rain, declining over and over, until Nicole took out a bottle of Water of Life.
Those big bronze-bell eyes of his went rigid in an instant, and he laboriously changed his tune: "Teachers ought to have private lives too, I suppose—a small bet for fun… isn't entirely out of the question."
Nicole's smile grew all the more benign:
"I've heard Your Excellency Barrett has a bottle of fine wine…"
...
Rather than call it a rainy night, it would be better to call it a thunderstorm night.
Pitch-black storm clouds shrouded the starlight, the rumbling, muffled booms set the four directions trembling, as if a man-devouring monster were coiled across the canopy of the sky, baring fangs and brandishing claws, the oppressive force suffocating.
Torrential rain scoured the ground, making the grass and trees crackle, and now and again a vast white flash of electric light lit up all things, leaving only the dancing shadows of trees roaming beneath the night sky.
In the rain, the three-mage-girl team broke from their usual pattern, choosing an inverted-triangle formation: Lilith and Grace guarding the front, Li Fei alone at the rear.
Where things turn abnormal, there must be a demon—Alex and the other two caught the scent of something off, their gazes locking firmly onto Li Fei, lying at the ready beneath the curtain of rain, battle-qi held within and unleashed, the edge in their eyes all but running Li Fei through.
Several dazzling silver serpents danced wildly, swiftly dispersing after bursting forth in resplendent electric light, and the referee seized the chance to send out the signal for the final to begin.
As the points of light burst apart, the battle-qi vortices that had been gathering their momentum began to run wild like horses slipping their reins.
Three pillars of battle-qi light surged skyward, seeking to part the black clouds and connect with the stars; surging blood-energy too linked into a single current, melting away even the chill of the rainy night.
But as blades and weapons clanged from their sheaths, the flecks of cold light reflected into her eyes made Lilith's heart instinctively contract.
Pah!
Sprays of water splashed up as the formidable foes came rushing in treading across the water, a murderous intent sweeping across all eight directions.
Without the slightest hesitation, brimming blue points of light surfaced all over Grace's body, the points moving along precise, intricate trajectories, leaving behind dense blue veins that in an instant covered her entire body.
At the moment all the light points converged at her chest, the magnificent, abstruse jigsaw was completed; a single point of red light kindled, then spread along the reverse trajectory, dyeing the countless blue veins a crimson hue.
A burst of flashing red light swallowed Grace's figure, then flashed away in an instant; when the light dispersed, the short-haired girl clad in black-and-red combat attire, wielding a black-and-red longbow, had abruptly become two!
"Buy me seven seconds."
Li Fei's words flashed through the minds of the two poker-faced misses; then, like mirror images, they drew their bowstrings, mana pouring into the longbows as arrows of intertwined black and red took shape between their fingers.
Shff——
Two mana arrows split the air, tearing through the curtain of rain, mounting an interception against the charging warriors.
Boom!
Zack swung his great axe level, using it as a shield to block before him; the mana that exploded with a roar forced the brawny man back two steps. Amid surging battle-qi, he charged forward again, growling in a low voice: "Careful—the lethality's high."
And Alex swept his longsword across, the golden, glittering sword-aura batting aside the stray arrows; then, stepping forward in one stride, forcibly canceling out the impact force, his head of short hair whipping wildly, he cut his way to right before Grace!
The Cleaver Squad, as ever, chose the most grandly overbearing tactic.
Sharp, decisive swift assault, crushing with hard strength, smashing all schemes and tricks to pieces.
Five seconds left.
Daniel, eyes shut, leapt past the aura of [Bright Light], cut his way to before Lilith, his twin sabers sweeping and dancing in a frenzy, slashes denser than the raindrops; in the span of a single second he split open Lilith's shield.
"Forcing one Sequence 8 mage-girl and one healer to hold off three Sequence 7 warriors by brute force—turns out it really is too much of a stretch after all…"
Rainwater pelted down over Li Fei's face, soaking her hair and clothing, then dropping off her chin in strings.
Her gaze deep and dark, she stared motionless at the three flames of battle-qi lighting up the rainy night, as if waiting for something.
[Innate Talent Specialty Experience Card——Silence]
[Description: Using the experience card, the next round of casting can carry the corresponding innate-talent specialty effect.]
[Silence: Completely eliminates the mana fluctuations during casting; casting speed -30%.]
Li Fei needed seven seconds to chant Dragon's Strength, and before that, she could only rely on her teammates.
"What's Miss Spell-Encyclopedia doing?"
"Move, come on, move! Your teammates are getting beaten up! It's killing me to watch."
"Don't tell me she's satisfied with second place? Just waiting helplessly for death?"
"A tiger's head and a snake's tail, huh… all for nothing."
Li Fei's performance made even the spectators anxious for her; they found it hard to believe Miss Spell-Encyclopedia could still win—after all, her cultivation time was too short and her opponents too strong; yet deep down, they still held some hope.
Even if she couldn't win, she had to lose beautifully!
But Li Fei seemed about to disappoint them; for a moment the clamor rose up all around the stands, everyone discussing Li Fei's inexplicable showing.
"Lannister, did Miss Spell-Encyclopedia place a bet with you? And on herself losing?"
Someone poked the gambler's arm, voicing the dark thought.
"Not to that extent—the odds on the Cleaver Squad winning are too low, there's nothing good to be made off it. She probably fought the last match until she was worn out in body and mind and means to accept reality… I don't think there's any need to be harsh on her—after all, the gap in strength is just too great."
Lannister fished out a few more cups from who-knows-where, then swirled the high-grade champagne still over half-full in his hand, beaming with delight:
"Care for some?"
Even as he poured the champagne into the cups, he silently sang his praises:
Miss Spell-Encyclopedia, Miss Kaname Madoka, Lady Pandora… praise be to you all!
"Hah, this girl's talent is outstanding—it's just her temperament that has yet to be honed."
The eight-foot-tall bald man was also beaming with delight, now and again sneaking a glance at the Water of Life resting on Nicole's knees: "Honestly, compared to the wager, I'd rather see her create a miracle once again."
Suddenly, his brow arched, and he praised admiringly: "But her two teammates are both rather interesting too… your Magic Academy really has struck gold."
...
Facing the blade-edge right before her eyes, Lilith ripped open a Spell Scroll.
Not a shield, nor Bright Light.
But [Deep Slumber], a Death-system spell, tier two.
____
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