Mo Fan vs. Ding Yumian
Neither Mu Nujiao nor Ai Tutu ever wanted to speak to Mo Fan again. Every piece of advice, every warning they had offered — he had let it go in one ear and out the other without leaving a trace.
Top ten. *Top ten.* The person he was challenging today held a spot in the top ten of the Fire Rankings — not some random nobody off the street. Had it really never once occurred to Mo Fan, before he fired off that challenge letter, to so much as glance at the name of the person he was calling out?!
"Calm down, calm down — heh heh." Seeing the two girls' shell-shocked expressions, Mo Fan rushed to smooth things over.
"Let's go," said Mu Nujiao, clearly furious. She grabbed Ai Tutu by the arm and turned to leave.
"Hmph! I went and collected all that information for you, and this is what you do with it. Go ahead and enjoy getting beaten to a pulp by a girl!!" Ai Tutu didn't spare Mo Fan a kind look either.
Mo Fan winced. When he'd sent the challenge letter, he'd simply written down the rank he wanted to contest and hadn't bothered to find out who number ten actually *was*. How was he supposed to know that the Fire Hall's celebrated beauty was also a top-ten monster? And now, apparently, he'd managed to offend three women in one shot.
*All the Flame Queen's fault.* She'd had his nerves fraying for weeks. Raising a child was absolutely not a job fit for human beings.
"Mo Fan, let me be clear — don't think that challenging your whole department on your own makes you anything special. Students below rank 100 and those in the top 10 are on completely different levels. And Ding Yumian's real strength is far beyond what her current ranking even suggests. Challenge her and you're dead!!" Huang Xingli stormed over and slapped a hand down on Mo Fan's desk.
"I just want to give it a try," Mo Fan said flatly.
"Give it a *try*?! Who do you think Ding Yumian is — a warm-up exercise? Anyone who wants to challenge her thinks it over for at least a month before they even dare send a letter!!" Huang Xingli raged.
Mo Fan had nothing to say to that.
Looking at Huang Xingli's furious face, he gave a small shake of his head. It seemed like today he'd managed to offend... three and a half women.
Outside the arena, it was standing room only. Matches between top-ten students always drew enormous crowds — Mages from outside the academy would make the trip just for a glimpse.
The arena had strict entry controls, of course. Not just anyone could walk in.
Mo Fan's reputation was immense. Among the freshmen, he was already a legend: he'd claimed the title of Great Demon Lord at the Freshman Tournament, then returned and challenged the entire Fire Hall. Add to that the growing word of his innate Dual Elements talent, and there was never a shortage of people eager to watch him fight.
As for Ding Yumian — her fame needed no introduction. A top-ten powerhouse on the Fire Rankings and one of Pearl Academy's Ten Great Beauties.
No matter where you went in this country, people loved ranking things into top tens — Pearl Academy's Ten Strongest, Pearl Academy's Ten Handsomest, Pearl Academy's Ten Most Beautiful, and so on and so forth.
Ding Yumian featured on more than one of those lists, and her fearsome strength made her name known to every soul on campus.
The news — *Great Demon Lord challenges the Fire Element Goddess* — had spread early. Even the aunties selling breakfast at the stalls knew about it. A packed arena was hardly surprising.
"Mo Fan, why aren't you heading in yet? You're the main event today — there's a whole crowd in there waiting for you."
Professor Qiu Yuhua had heard about Mo Fan's latest move the moment news broke and had come straight to watch. Finding Mo Fan still lingering outside, he asked curiously.
"I'll head in soon," Mo Fan replied.
"All right. Your opponent is very strong today — try not to lose too badly..." The professor clapped Mo Fan on the shoulder and went inside.
Not long after Qiu Yuhua entered, Mo Fan walked in as well — with a youth of about seventeen or eighteen at his side. The young man had clearly never seen anything on this scale before. He looked simultaneously nervous and excited, visibly bursting with questions he didn't quite know how to ask.
Stepping inside, Mo Fan took in the full scale of today's crowd. The seats were nearly full, row after row of spectators packed in tightly.
Challenges happened every day, but most student matches drew barely anyone — sometimes the only audience member was a single student serving as a stand-in referee. Top-ten matches were a different world entirely.
It made sense, when you thought about it. A top-ten ranking commanded respect far beyond the campus walls, and even a minor shift in the standings could set tens of thousands of people talking.
The Barrier was already in place. Ding Yumian, clearly taking this challenge far more seriously than Mo Fan had, was already standing at the center of the stage. Poised and elegant, she was like a radiant white rose — pure and flawless, yet captivating in her grace. Her hair was swept up into a high coil, a loose braid falling across her chest, as striking as ever.
Had he known ahead of time that number ten was Ding Yumian, Mo Fan would have skipped past her and gone straight for number nine.
Beautiful women came with a special kind of debuff. They made it hard to go all out. Mo Fan considered himself someone who knew how to be gentle toward women — and since the whole point of these challenges was to grow stronger, he naturally preferred not to have that sort of thing clouding his judgment.
What was interesting was that Ding Yumian seemed to see right through him. A quiet resolve settled over her fair features, and she spoke directly: "You'd better use your full strength."
Mo Fan was caught off guard. Was his expression really that obvious?
Or was this woman simply very good at reading people?
When the match began, he got his answer — and every trace of that instinctive reluctance to fight a woman vanished instantly, replaced by an expression of dead seriousness.
"Mind Impact!"
Ding Yumian's Star Trail took shape at breathtaking speed. The referee's starting call was still echoing around the arena when that strange mental force shot forward like an invisible bolt, slamming directly into Mo Fan's concentration.
He had been building toward a fourth-level Lightning Seal to seize the initiative — but Ding Yumian was faster. The Mind Impact crashed into his mind and shattered the Star Trail before it could take form, leaving him frozen in place for a stunned second or two.
*Mind Element. Oh, hell.*
He'd experienced firsthand just how brutal the Mind Element could be, and that had been not so long ago. Now, the very first top-ten opponent he challenged just had to be a high-caliber Mind Element Mage.
The most terrifying thing about a powerful Mind Element Mage was their casting speed. Once their Mind Impact outpaced every other spell on the field, no opposing Mage could complete a single effective attack.
Mo Fan might be a brute-force Mage, and his mastery of Basic-Level magic might make him a rare match for anyone at the same tier — but if he couldn't complete a Star Trail or a Star Chart, he was as good as useless.
"Swift Star —"
"Mind Impact!"
"— Wolf! Come on, the wolf — oh, *damn* it!!"
Mo Fan was completely falling apart.
He'd tried to summon the Swift Star Wolf, hoping at least to ease the disaster of being unable to cast anything — but he wasn't even being given the chance to finish a Basic-Level Summoning Element spell.
This was a complete disaster.