Volume 2: Shenzhou Academy & The Battle of Venice
Chapter 110
Renowned in a Single Battle, Sweeping the Condensing Essence Nectar
The atmosphere inside the Skymagic Arena was thick enough to suffocate, coiled like a compressed spring on the verge of detonating.
Fierce gale winds whipped up sand, grit, and the acrid scorch of raw mana, lashing across the faces of the onlookers. Across the four titanic tiers of spectator stands, five thousand freshmen of the Shenzhou Archmage Academy were packed shoulder to shoulder, crammed so tightly there wasn’t room to drop a grain of rice. White-knuckled hands gripped the reinforced steel railings until the metal groaned under the strain, and thousands of overlapping shouts, taunts, and furious jeers crashed down like rolling thunder upon the central dueling ring:
“One hundred and ninety-eight! One hundred and ninety-eight challengers have already fallen!”
“What kind of demonic breed is that black wolf?! How has it fought continuously from dawn until now without collapsing?!”
“Young Master Bai! Miss Liu! Kill that savage beast! Whatever you do, do not let it reach the two-hundred mark!”
High above the arena, suspended within the open air, the colossal magic crystal scoreboard flashed with rapid, blood-red pulses: 198. Every crimson blink sent a violent tremor through the chests of the gathered freshmen. Just two more fallen challengers, and the unbroken historical record of two hundred defeats would be leveled to the ground! If that happened, the entire freshman pool’s cultivation mana stone fund and their allotted hours inside the core of the Spirit Gathering Tower—resources meant to sustain five thousand aspiring magi—would be monopolized by this solitary, impoverished youth from Bo’an City!
Across the granite platform, scarred by gouged trenches and webbed with deep fractures, the Abyssal Thunder Wolf stood towering amidst the ruin. Its massive frame was battered, scored with jagged blade gashes and blackened burns. Several clusters of its sleek obsidian lightning-scales had splintered open, and fresh blood dripped steadily onto the searing bedrock below. The titan wolf’s broad chest heaved violently, each ragged breath expelling flecks of bloody foam accompanied by the erratic crackle of violet static. After a brutal, continuous gauntlet against nearly two hundred elemental magi, its physical endurance and mana reserves had seemingly bottomed out into complete exhaustion.
Standing roughly thirty paces away from the wounded beast were this year’s two most brilliant freshman prodigies.
On the left stood Bai Wei—the Fire element young master of the Magic Capital’s prestigious Bai Clan. Clad in mid-tier Blazing Flame Magic Armor that radiated waves of blistering heat, brandishing a roaring broadsword wreathed in hungry flames, Bai Wei stared at the panting wolf and sneered with venomous disdain:
“A filthy mongrel beast dares bare its fangs before me, Bai Wei? Taking down those one hundred and ninety-eight pieces of trash was already the crowning miracle of your pitiful life! You think you can touch the two-hundred mark? In your wildest dreams!”
Beside him, Liu Qing—the undisputed number one maiden prodigy of the Freshman Ice School—hovered gracefully atop a dais of crystalline snow-lotus, her pale-blue robes fluttering against the biting draft. The icy blue halo beneath her feet expanded rapidly, blanketing half the arena floor beneath a sheet of bone-chilling frost: Primary Domain – Frost Realm!
“Young Master Bai, do not waste your breath on a mere beast,” Liu Qing said, her voice dropping like falling icicles. “End it quickly and reclaim the honor of the Five Great Schools. Trash from the Summoning School has no right to stand beneath the same sky as us!”
With those words, Liu Qing flicked her slender jade fingers. Seven ice-blue Star Particles connected in a seamless flash of arcane light, aligning into a flawless Star Track:
“Glacial Chains – Bone-Sealing Cage!”
The granite floor ruptured. Six spiked chains of solid glacial frost erupted from the bedrock like striking vipers, crisscrossing to coil ruthlessly around the Abyssal Thunder Wolf’s four limbs and neck, instantly encasing its outer scales in thick permafrost and locking the titanic beast dead in its tracks.
The Abyssal Thunder Wolf let out a furious, muffled roar. Its massive claws gouged deep ruts into the stone, its knotted muscles bunching and straining in a desperate frenzy to tear the frost chains apart. But Liu Qing’s ice magic reinforced itself continuously, tightening around its flesh and bone until sluggish trickles of dark violet blood welled to the surface.
Seeing the colossal wolf completely ensnared, Bai Wei threw back his head and laughed in arrogant triumph:
“Magnificent lock, Miss Liu! Let me sever its head—I’d like to see what pathetic tricks that brat Lin has left!”
“Fire Magic Sword – Scorching Flame Slash!”
Flames erupted around Bai Wei, spiraling violently into the sky. Channeling every drop of his Fire mana into the blade, he kicked off the frozen arena floor like a blazing comet, driving his roaring sword straight toward the space between the Abyssal Thunder Wolf’s eyes, fully intending to incinerate the beast into ash!
Up in the spectator stands, Xie Zhaoyuan clutched his head and screamed in sheer panic: “Lin Feng! Call the wolf back! It’s going to die!”
Thousands of students roared in frenzied anticipation, certain that victory was now firmly within the grasp of the noble clans. Yet right at the epicenter of this life-and-death storm, Lin Feng remained standing motionless at the far corner of the dueling ring. Both hands rested casually inside his trouser pockets, his features eerily placid.
From the very beginning of this showdown to this razor-sharp climax, he had not spoken a single word. Having personally hunted and slaughtered Warrior-class mutated beasts in the treacherous depths of the Azure Thunder Ridge, the flashy, flaw-ridden spells of these sheltered greenhouse flowers were laughably amateurish to his battle-honed eyes.
Lin Feng shifted his heel ever so slightly. In the cast shadows of the arena’s perimeter stone pillars, dancing beneath the flickering glare of flames, a razor-thin ripple of darkness stirred beneath the soles of his boots: Shadow Element – Shadow Slip!
The youth’s silhouette dissolved into the shadows of the arena floor, vanishing like a drop of ink absorbed into the dark abyss of the ocean.
“What?!” Mid-swing, Bai Wei felt a sudden, paralyzing chill race straight up his spine. His primal instincts shrieked in warning—but it was already too late!
Directly behind Bai Wei, the darkness tore open like silk. Lin Feng stepped forth from the void, his dark eyes frigid and devoid of emotion.
No incantation. No flashy Intermediate magic. Relying solely on the raw physical constitution of a wilderness hunter forged between the thresholds of life and death, combined with a surge of Primordial Dragon Force compressed to its absolute limit within his right fist!
Lin Feng tightened his grip, driving a thunderous punch directly into the center of Bai Wei’s spine!
CLANG—— CRACKLE!!
The mid-tier Blazing Flame Magic Armor fractured before shattering into flying shards like cheap ceramic! The terrifying concussive shockwave tore straight through the remnants of the plate, detonating directly into Bai Wei’s spine and internal organs!
“GURK... PUFF——!!”
Bai Wei’s eyes bulged from their sockets as he vomited a fountain of dark, mangled blood into the air! His body hurtled backward like a torn sandbag over thirty meters, smashing clean through a reinforced stone pillar before crashing limply into a puddle of his own blood, dead to the world!
One punch! With nothing more than pure, unadorned physical force, he had obliterated mid-tier magic armor and broken the foremost genius of the Bai Clan! The five thousand spectators in the stands froze as if turned to stone, their deafening cheers dying instantly in their throats!
“Young... Young Master Bai?!”
Astride her frost lotus, Liu Qing was struck with absolute horror. She whipped around in shaking disbelief, but before she could even raise her magic wand, a feral, sky-splitting roar blasted directly into her eardrums:
“HOWWWWLLLL——!!”
It was the triumphant cry of a sovereign returning from the gates of death! The instant Lin Feng sent Bai Wei flying, the Abyssal Thunder Wolf unleashed all the terrifying might it had deliberately kept dormant. Its feigned exhaustion had been nothing more than a ruthless, predatory bait—a seamless stratagem orchestrated between master and summon beast from the very start!
BZZZT! CRACK! BOOM——!!
The obsidian horn upon the Abyssal Thunder Wolf’s brow erupted in a furious tempest of violet-black lightning! Its primordial sovereign bloodline ignited, unleashing hundreds of crackling thunderbolts that blasted the glacial frost chains into fine, powdery snow and vapor! Before the icy debris could even touch the bedrock, the gargantuan dark shadow tore through the gale!
All Liu Qing felt was a rank, suffocating draft and the crushing aura of an ancient primeval predator slamming into her senses.
SWOOSH!
A massive wolf paw encased in gleaming black lightning-scales, tipped with razor-sharp talons crackling with violet sparks, stopped mere millimeters from Liu Qing’s slender, porcelain throat! The blistering heat of lightning singed several stray locks of her hair, which drifted down onto her shoulders in ashes. The biting, razor chill emanating from those claws pressed right against her jugular, causing her to shudder violently from head to toe. Had the titan beast advanced a single millimeter further, her head would have been cleanly severed from her shoulders!
Clatter...
Her magic wand slipped from numb fingers, shattering upon the stone floor. Her once haughty, glamorous face drained of every speck of color. Her legs gave out completely, and she collapsed onto her knees:
“I... I surrender... Please, don’t kill me...”
Liu Qing’s pathetic, trembling whimper echoed across the deathly still arena, landing like a resounding, stinging slap across the faces of all five thousand elemental students! The Abyssal Thunder Wolf snorted disdainfully, retracting its lightning talons with visible contempt. It stepped with stately, majestic strides to Lin Feng’s side, lifting its head high to gaze imperiously across the four corners of the arena!
Silence! A graveyard silence descended over the entire Skymagic Arena!
Five thousand students stood petrified where they stood. Not a single person dared to breathe. Faces that just moments ago had brimmed with sneering mockery, gloating over how they would carve up the cultivation resources, were now twisted in pale, sickening horror. Two preeminent noble prodigies, armed with mid-tier Flame Magic Armor and the Frost Realm domain—and yet, in less than ten seconds, one had been punched into an unconscious bloody pulp, while the other was forced to her knees with monster talons at her throat, begging for mercy!
At the edge of the arena, the head referee stood frozen, the magic whistle dangling limply from his lips. His hand shook violently. It took several long seconds before his senses snapped back into his body. He looked at Bai Wei lying motionless in a pool of blood, then back at the calm youth standing beside the colossal black wolf at the center of the ring. With trembling effort, the referee hoisted his arm toward the sky, his hoarse voice roaring through the arena’s acoustic mana amplification system:
“The two-hundredth match concludes! Bai Wei is incapacitated! Liu Qing actively surrenders!”
“Total challengers defeated today: EXACTLY TWO HUNDRED MAGI!!”
“THE HISTORIC RECORD OF SHENZHOU ARCHMAGE ACADEMY, STANDING UNBROKEN FOR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS, HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN SHATTERED!”
BOOOOOM——!!
It felt as if a magical nuclear warhead had detonated right in the center of the stadium!
“TWO HUNDRED CHALLENGERS!! IT REALLY IS TWO HUNDRED!!”
Up in the stands of Dormitory Block A, Xie Zhaoyuan leaped into the air, stomping clean through the row of alloy seats before him. He ripped off his jacket and hurled it high into the rafters, his face flushed scarlet as he screamed like a madman:
“LIN FENG! YOU ARE THE REINCARNATION OF THE ARCHMAGE HIMSELF!! Hahaha! Where are those noble lapdogs now?! Come on out! Come try and steal our Summoning School’s resources again, you bastards!!”
Beside him, Zhang Meng’s eyes brimmed with hot tears, his hands quivering with raw emotion. The handful of students belonging to the Summoning School clutched one another, weeping and roaring in ecstatic delirium. Before their very eyes, a living legend had been forged!
In stark contrast, the sections occupied by the Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Wind Schools were plunged into mournful devastation. Countless freshmen clutched their heads and collapsed back into their seats, their eyes hollow, their souls seemingly sucked away. Ten thousand primary mana stones! One thousand hours of cultivation inside the core of the Spirit Gathering Tower... all gone! Stripped clean! He alone had plundered the collective wealth of five thousand people! Meanwhile, on the VIP dais, Dean Xiao Zhenshan’s thunderous laughter boomed across the sky, leaving the other school deans pale-faced and utterly speechless.
Right at that moment, the deep chime of a bell reverberated from the pinnacle of the Skymagic Tower, drowning out all the chaos and din. The space above the central dueling ring warped violently, rippling with pure silver waves across the empty void. A figure draped in robes resembling the starry night sky, embroidered with nine blazing golden stars, stepped out from the spatial rift, descending gracefully onto the cracked arena floor.
With every step he took, the scorched gouges, frost burns, and shattered fissures across the granite platform were instantly smoothed and mended by a radiant tide of life-vitality mana. Every elder, professor, and instructor in attendance stood up in unison, bowing deeply with hands clasped:
“We greet the Headmaster!”
The person who had just descended was none other than the supreme authority of Shenzhou Archmage Academy, one of the paramount titans of the entire Shenzhou continent—Headmaster Gu Tianya!
Gu Tianya glanced briefly at Bai Wei being carried away on a stretcher by medical magi, cast an indifferent gaze toward the still-dazed Liu Qing, and then turned his eyes—deep and vast as a sea of stars—onto Lin Feng, shimmering with unreserved admiration:
“Good! Exceptional! In over a hundred years, Shenzhou Archmage Academy has never seen a freshman with such indomitable courage and sheer capability as you, Lin Feng! According to the sacred rules of our traditional arena gauntlet: Defeating one hundred challengers retains one’s base resources; defeating one hundred and fifty doubles them; and should one surpass the milestone of two hundred...”
Gu Tianya swept his gaze across the five thousand shell-shocked students in the stands, his voice ringing with indisputable majesty:
“Student Lin Feng of the Summoning School is granted the EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGE TO MONOPOLIZE one hundred percent of this year’s entire freshman cultivation mana stone fund and all allotted hours for the Spirit Gathering Tower!”
A single decree to settle the heavens! Though all five thousand freshmen felt their hearts bleeding and their guts twisting in agonized regret, before the supreme majesty of the Headmaster, not a single soul dared utter a syllable of protest.
Overnight, Lin Feng had single-handedly claimed the entire freshman pool of cultivation resources, instantly becoming the most infamous and feared demon of Shenzhou Archmage Academy!
Yet Gu Tianya was not finished. He turned his palm upward. From his spatial storage ring, an ancient white jade chest radiating mystical five-colored radiance drifted out, floating gently until it hovered before Lin Feng’s chest. The lid of the box cracked open a sliver, and an exquisite, ancient medicinal fragrance instantly permeated the entire arena. Inhaling merely a single wisp of this ethereal mist caused the mana within Lin Feng’s sea of consciousness to surge violently, his Fire and Lightning nebulae blazing with dazzling brilliance!
“This is the supreme reward reserved solely for the one who shatters the academy’s historical record: the Spirit-Condensing Essence Nectar!” Gu Tianya smiled warmly at Lin Feng. “This bottle of spirit nectar was refined from the millennia-old tears of the Celestial Spirit Tree and the primordial bone marrow of ancient Thunder Beasts. Not only will it double the volume and capacity of your mental sea, but it also aids in the condensation of 4th-tier Star Particles, dramatically elevating your breakthrough rate to the next realm without encountering any bottleneck! Take it, young man! You have earned every drop!”
Lin Feng extended both hands to receive the cool, pristine white jade box, bowing respectfully: “Thank you, Headmaster!”
Cradling the priceless treasure in his hands, Lin Feng tightened his fingers. Beneath his shirt, pressed against his skin, the Primordial Dragon Pendant hummed and throbbed violently, radiating an intense surge of ravenous heat that urged him to immediately refine the Spirit-Condensing Essence Nectar to unlock his next tier of power!
The twilight sun descended over the Skymagic Arena, bathing the skyline of the Jinghai Magic Capital in fiery crimson. Lin Feng stood proudly atop the arena’s pinnacle, flanked by the Abyssal Thunder Wolf treading on arcs of crackling lightning. The seventeen-year-old youth who had walked out from the slums of Bo’an City had today, under the witness of five thousand geniuses and the academy’s ruling archmagi, permanently etched his name into the annals of the Magic Capital!
Renowned in a single battle! The entire realm trembled!
And yet, amidst the roaring, jubilant ocean of cheers from the Summoning School, from the deepest shadow of the VIP tier...
A mysterious figure cloaked in a hooded black mantle curved their lips into a sinister, eerie smile. A withered, branch-like hand gently turned a signet ring engraved with the dark-gray blood-droplet insignia of the Nether Church, noxious, predatory eyes locking onto Lin Feng’s retreating back:
“A mutated Lightning-Darkness bloodline... and a physical body of such monstrous caliber... What a sublime sacrifice for the Cult Leader’s Blood Sacrificial Grand Array here in the Magic Capital...”