Defeating the Imperial Capital Magic Academy
"My turn!" Mo Fan's grin blazed like the midday sun — reckless, arrogant, and impossibly bright.
"You think you can be faster than me?" Mu Ningxue had been stirred to fierce battle-readiness by his bravado, a trace of pride rising on her frost-cool features.
"How would you know without trying?" Mo Fan kept smiling.
Mu Ningxue held his gaze, the magical resolve in her eyes unwavering and absolute.
Even as they traded words, Star Motes were already streaking through their inner cosmos like meteors. Even as their eyes locked, Star Trails crossed and wove through that empty inner world — and the power of destruction blazed forth the instant the Star Charts took shape.
"Coiling Ice — Ice Lock — Bone Crush!"
A crystalline voice rang out, touched by the cold breath of ice. Mu Ningxue was the first to complete her Ice Element magic. She had reached the intermediate level far longer ago than Mo Fan; her fundamentals were, without question, more solid.
"Qianjun — Thunderbolt — Yaksha!"
A heartbeat later, Mo Fan's resonant voice answered.
His Release was a fraction slower than Mu Ningxue's, but it left him unmoved. He watched the Ice Lock chains coil and swirl into being around her without concern, and with absolute, unshakeable resolve unleashed his Lightning Element magic.
Intermediate Lightning Element moved faster and cleaner than most other elements. While the Ice Lock chains were still manifesting on Mu Ningxue's side, Mo Fan had already raised a finger to the sky, gathering a roiling mass of violet-black thunderclouds overhead.
**CRACK!**
The terrifying bolt lashed down with savage force — a vast violet-black dragon plunging headfirst toward the earth, thick-bodied and unstoppable.
Halfway through its descent, the diving dragon shattered apart into several branches, like claws suddenly spreading wide.
Mu Ningxue looked up. The instant she saw the thundercloud, she knew this had gone wrong. She abandoned any thought of directing the Ice Lock outward — instead, using both hands, she swept all the ice-spirit chains above her head.
Under her control, the massive chains moved with devastating force. When thunder slammed against that dense canopy of Ice Lock, everything became pure force colliding with pure force — the intertwined breath of utter destruction and death.
The lightning's speed had given Mo Fan the initiative. Thunderbolt: Yaksha alone might not have been enough to fully pierce the thick Ice Lock — but Mo Fan's lightning carried the Qianjun.
The Qianjun's powerful spatial-shockwave effect proved overwhelming. Those ice chains, supremely hard yet brittle, cracked in countless places simultaneously. The fractures raced through every link, and when Yaksha's power reached its peak, every last chain shattered at once.
**Clang — Clang — Clang —**
The chains dissolved into a torrent of ice shards, raining down from above.
Mu Ningxue stood amid the cascade without flinching.
She looked up to see one last branch of Yaksha lightning bearing down — aimed squarely at the ground right beside her.
A scorched black patch. A thunder crater. Mu Ningxue swept a hand upward and turned all the shattered ice crystals into white powder; swept again, and the powder became fine snow, dancing and swirling across the entire arena in a display of breathtaking, immaculate beauty.
"Dual Spirit Seeds," Mu Ningxue said, watching Mo Fan through the drifting snow.
That last branch of Yaksha lightning had clearly been on a path to strike her directly. The deflection had been deliberate.
She knew — she had lost.
Ice Lock was not a true defensive skill. It could not fully withstand Thunderbolt: Yaksha.
What she couldn't comprehend was how Mo Fan — with no resources backing him and never having aligned with any faction — had come to wield such extraordinary power.
Noble Clan disciples were present in no small number at these events, and even they didn't necessarily possess a single Spirit Seed. Yet Mo Fan, a Mage with absolutely no background, had Dual Spirit Seeds.
Each family's allocation to its disciples was necessarily limited. Between Stardust Artifacts, Star Nebula Artifacts, and Enchanted Gear, the cost of standing above others was already enormous. Few families could then spend even more to purchase Spirit Seeds for their disciples — unless that disciple was truly, exceptionally outstanding.
Spirit Seeds that even Noble Clan disciples couldn't claim. Mo Fan had two. How could anyone not be stunned?
And that wasn't even the most remarkable part. He had three elements. By all rights his cultivation should have suffered from spreading the effort too thin — yet there wasn't the faintest sign of it.
Fire: second tier of intermediate level.
Lightning: also second tier of intermediate level.
Mu Ningxue had known Mo Fan walked an extraordinary path as a Mage. But she never could have imagined he would be this far ahead.
"Did Mo Fan win?" Bai Tingting murmured softly.
"He won, but..." Teacher Gu Han took a long moment to find his voice.
"I'd heard before that the Great Demon was terrifyingly powerful, but turns out that was only a fraction of his real strength. Born with Dual Elements, Spirit Seeds in both Lightning and Fire, and already at the second tier of intermediate — holy hell, any one of his elements alone would steamroll half of Pearl Academy!" Peng Liang blurted out, lurching from one shock to the next.
"Whatever else you say, he won — he beat the Imperial Capital's trump card!" Zhao Manyan broke into a grin and gave Mo Fan a thumbs-up from the sidelines.
*So this is Mo Fan's real strength. Finally got to see it.* If the Imperial Capital Magic Academy hadn't produced someone as monstrously gifted as Mu Ningxue, Mo Fan probably would have kept it all hidden indefinitely. Pearl Academy's Great Demon — a title he'd genuinely earned.
"Magnificent! Truly magnificent!!" Teacher Qiu Yuhua exclaimed.
On the field, with Mu Ningxue defeated, she said nothing more and walked off the arena herself.
The moment she left, the balance shifted dramatically. Song Xia's Fire Element magic was no longer suppressed by the other side's powerful domain, and freed from that pressure, the hot-tempered powerhouse immediately took out her frustrations on the Battle-General-class Shadowmark Berserker Wolf.
Mo Fan had already eliminated two of their opponents earlier with Blazing Fist and Earthstrike. Now with Mu Ningxue gone as well, only Lu Zhenghe remained — and he stood no chance against the rest of them bearing down on him from all sides.
Lu Zhenghe was seething, but in the end there was nothing for it. He recalled his Shadowmark Berserker Wolf and shot Mo Fan a withering glare before stepping back.
"Pearl Academy won... I can't believe it."
"Damn, the Imperial Capital's second team alone could match four or five of our combined teams, and Pearl Academy still beat them? That Mo Fan guy is a freak — which Noble Clan is he from?"
"A monster like that could only have been raised by the Tribunal. He's probably one of theirs."
Students and teachers from the other academies had already broken into animated chatter.
The Imperial Capital Magic Academy's own students and teachers stood where they were, unable to shake off their disbelief for a long time.
Mu Ningxue and Lu Zhenghe fighting together — and they had actually lost?
It was too hard to accept.
Where had this Mo Fan character even come from? Was he really not some veteran student who had been quietly biding his time at the academy for years?
No — even among veterans, few would have power this terrifying.