Challenge Week

Zheng Jiahui stared at Mo Fan in disbelief. In his mind, acquiring a superior Star Nebula Artifact required enormous effort and exceptional power — it was extraordinarily precious. He simply could not imagine that anyone would actually lend such a treasure to someone else for training. His small eyes stayed fixed on Mo Fan for a long moment before he finally shook his head. "Stop pulling my leg. I need to get to the training grounds."

"What's wrong with you?" Mo Fan said. "You're already dead last in the entire Fire Hall — what are you doing running around looking so diligent? You're an insult to the title of bottom-feeder."

"If I don't work hard at training, I'll have even less chance of beating the people ranked above me," Zheng Jiahui said earnestly.

"Let me be clear — your problem isn't training. What you're lacking is resources. Everyone here was selected from Pearl Academy's incoming students; they're all Intermediate-Level Mages. In terms of raw ability, anyone ranked below a thousand is roughly the same — nobody's clearly better than anyone else. The way I see it, you're at the very bottom because the moment you face a challenge, you start trembling so badly you can't even remember how to trace a Star Trail."

"How do you know that?" Zheng Jiahui asked.

Mo Fan was done arguing. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the Star Nebula Artifact — the reward earned for placing hundredth among the students — and pressed it into Zheng Jiahui's hands.

Zheng Jiahui stood frozen, staring at the Star Nebula Artifact for a long moment. He simply could not comprehend that someone would actually hand over a Star Nebula Artifact for another person to use.

Time passed quickly, and Challenge Week arrived. The students of Fire Hall had long been champing at the bit, ready at any moment to give a thorough thrashing to the fool who had dared call them all worthless.

That day, the entire Fire Hall gathered once more in the main hall. Eyes kept drifting — intentionally or not — in Mo Fan's direction. Everyone was genuinely surprised. *That guy actually had the nerve to show up?* Did he not fear being beaten to a pulp by the whole crowd?

Mo Fan took his usual seat behind Huang Xingli and Ding Yumian. To his considerable disappointment, he still hadn't managed to catch a proper look at the Fire Element goddess's face.

Huang Xingli turned around, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and disbelief. "Are you actually tired of living? Today is the first day of Challenge Week. Anyone ranked below you can issue you a challenge, and you have no choice but to accept — refuse, and all your resources are forfeit. Do you have any idea how many people are eyeing what you've got? Are you out of your mind?"

"This is only the second time we've met," Mo Fan said with a grin. "No need to be so concerned about me."

"You're impossible!" Huang Xingli turned back around.

Wei Rong stood at the front of the hall as usual. His gaze swept the crowd and found Mo Fan without difficulty, the corner of his mouth curling upward. *Let's see just how arrogant you manage to be today, kid.*

"I have the challenge list right here," Wei Rong announced. "Any match conducted on our official arena floors is considered valid. I trust everyone already knows the rules, so I'll skip the formalities. Let's begin."

Every month, grudges accumulated among the higher-ranked students, and their matches always drew crowds. For the children of Noble Clans, building a reputation at this school meant issuing challenges, one after another.

Unfortunately for those who had spent the past month carefully scheming to climb the rankings through challenges, their plans had been completely derailed. Every last bit of attention had been stolen by Mo Fan — without question the most spectacularly reckless individual in the entire school.

The arena where Mo Fan's matches were scheduled had already filled beyond capacity. Chosen specifically to accommodate a thousand spectators so the entire department could witness the spectacle, it was packed beyond all expectations.

And packed it truly was — the thousand-seat arena was nearly full. Fire Hall students made up the majority, but a healthy number from other departments had come purely out of curiosity.

Wei Rong settled into the judge's seat. He had come today specifically to watch this arrogant brat get beaten senseless by the very students he had written off as worthless. Crushing inflated egos was practically his speciality at this institution.

"I will be presiding over today's challenges." Wei Rong produced the list and let his gaze run over the dense column of names. "The challenged party, Mo Fan, is ranked one hundredth. He has two hundred and thirty-one challengers today." He paused. "Kid, why don't you step forward right now, apologize to me, write a formal self-criticism, and then bow and apologize to every student in this department, one by one? Given that you're a transfer student, I might be willing to let this go."

"Not a chance," Mo Fan said, chin up.

"Fine." Wei Rong had expected as much. "First challenger: Zhang Youhe, ranked 736th."

The words had barely left Wei Rong's mouth when a young man rose from the waiting area — nose tilted slightly to one side, face lit with a beaming smile, eyes sweeping the crowd every few seconds as if broadcasting to everyone present that he was the luckiest person in the building.

The arena floor was roughly the size of a football pitch, blanketed in vivid green grass.

"Do you have any idea how many people are jealous of you?" Zhang Youhe said. "Resources that we break our backs for — you just ran your mouth and walked away with them. Too bad about that monthly resource redistribution system. Hand over what was never rightfully yours, and you might just save yourself some medical bills."

Wei Rong watched the two standing on the arena floor. "Mo Fan," he said, "Zhang Youhe here, at rank 736, is presumably one of that vast majority of 'worthless' students you were referring to. If you can't even beat him, you either do as I said earlier — or you see yourself out of Fire Hall. I can admit that my Fire Hall may have a few dead weights mixed in. But I have zero tolerance for students who lack ability and feel no shame about it. Students like you."

Mo Fan glanced at Wei Rong, whose every word had been a pointed provocation. A smile crossed his face. "Instructor Wei, aren't you jumping the gun a little?"

Wei Rong offered only a cold smile and said nothing more.

Mo Fan's gaze returned to his opponent.

*Ranked 736th. This shouldn't be too difficult.*

"Wei Rong, why do you have to butt heads with a student?" said the white-eyebrowed instructor who taught materials courses in Fire Hall. "You had him placed at the hundredth rank and made sure the whole school knew about it. With that many people challenging him in a single day — even someone who genuinely belonged in the top hundred might not be able to hold up through that many consecutive battles."

"Baimei, you've always been too soft on students," Wei Rong replied. "Everyone who gets into Pearl Academy walks in thinking the sun shines out of them. This kid had Dean Xiao personally handle his transfer paperwork — you can imagine what kind of backing he has. A student like that — coddled his whole life, handed every resource imaginable, convinced he's invincible — if no one knocks him down a peg here, that arrogance is going to get him killed by a Demon-Beast someday." His tone was perfectly calibrated to suggest that every bit of this was entirely for the student's own good.

In truth, Wei Rong had simply lost his temper. "Tempering the student's character" was just dressing — what he really wanted was to vent his fury.

*The nerve — standing in my own hall, openly insulting Fire Hall and my teaching... you've got a death wish.*