Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 55
The Dream Final
The scorching midday summer sun poured down like molten honey, gilding the central magic arena of Bian’an City in a blinding, sweltering gold.
The colossal elliptical colosseum, constructed from towering blocks of ash-gray granite, loomed like an ancient Roman amphitheater, capable of holding over five thousand spectators. At this very moment, not a single empty seat remained across the tiered, amphitheater-style stands. Thousands of spectators packed together shoulder-to-shoulder, forging a seething ocean of humanity that radiated suffocating heat and a deafening roar like a stirred hornet’s nest. Banners and pennants in vibrant hues fluttered wildly in the dry, dusty gale blowing in from the desolate mountain ridges in the distance.
In the exact center of the arena’s sunken basin, an isolated square dueling platform spanning precisely a thousand square meters rose three meters above the surrounding field. The entire surface was paved with half-meter-thick slabs of monolithic granite, renowned for their resilience against Basic-tier magic. Even so, after dozens of brutal qualifying clashes that had raged since early morning, the stonework was already riddled with deep, jagged fissures, blackened scorch marks left by bursts of fire, and piles of pulverized stone dust strewn across the stage. The acrid stench of melted rock mingled with damp earth and the stifling musk of sweat, saturating the air with suffocating tension.
Flanking the four edges of the raised stage stood eight magitech pillars forged from brass-colored arcane alloy, each soaring over ten meters high and inscribed with ancient, glowing runes. Stationed at the bases of these eight monoliths were sixteen military battle-mages from the Cang Lei Ridge fortress, clad in dark-green camouflage fatigues, their expressions solemn and their backs rigid as lances. Under their seamless coordination, churning torrents of Water and Light mana surged along channeled conduits, maintaining a colossal, transparent hemispherical defensive barrier that domed over the entire platform, completely sealing the destructive carnage within from the thousands of spectators without.
A piercing screech suddenly tore from the arcane loudspeakers mounted around the colosseum, cutting through the deafening roar of the crowd:
“Distinguished guests, honored parents, and fellow students! The semifinals of the Graduation Duel Tournament have drawn to a close with breathtaking spectacles! And now, only two peerless contenders remain to contest the ultimate championship crown, vying for a reward of supreme prestige: a seven-day cultivation slot at the sacred grounds of the Spirit Well Tower!”
As the announcer’s booming, impassioned voice died down, volcanic waves of ecstatic cheers swept through the grandstands.
“First, let us give a roaring welcome to the outstanding scion representing the prestigious Ling Clan, the elite prodigy possessing unmatched Ice affinity... Han Yi!”
Clang——!
The heavy iron portcullis at the eastern end of the arena creaked open, rising steadily into the stone archway.
From the pitch-black tunnel, a solitary figure strode into the blinding glare of the sun. Applause from the eastern pavilion—where the prominent noble clans and wealthy merchant consortiums congregated—erupted like a roll of thunder.
Han Yi stepped forward with haughty arrogance, his chin tilted high as though he were a sovereign inspecting his personal fiefdom. He wore a custom-tailored arcane combat uniform woven from deep azure glacial-silk, its hems embroidered with shimmering silver threads depicting the six-petaled snowflake crest of the Ling Clan. Pinned over his chest was an ornate magical brooch studded with a thumb-sized Azure Crystal Gem, which radiated delicate ripples of chilling frost that completely repelled the sweltering summer heat around him. Each step he took up the stone steps leading onto the platform was light and graceful, yet steeped in overbearing disdain that treated all living things as beneath his notice.
Standing in the center of the ring, Han Yi swept his arrogant gaze across the four quadrants of the arena, his lips curling into a mocking half-smirk. He drank in the blind adulation of the multitude as his natural birthright. Then, his eyes locked onto the heavy iron gate on the opposite side.
His right hand, encased in a silver-gray beast-hide glove, slowly rose to chest height. Under the scrutiny of more than five thousand spectators, his fingers clenched into a tight fist—leaving only his thick thumb protruding outward.
Then, before the stunned eyes of the entire colosseum, that thumb sharply twisted around, pointing straight down at the ground!
A raw, unadulterated provocation of the utmost insolence! It wasn’t just aimed at his opponent; it was an arrogant proclamation to the world that whoever walked out of that tunnel was unworthy of standing before him—fit only to be trampled into the mud!
“Dammit! Who the hell does Han Yi think he is?!”
Down in the section reserved for students of Feng Lan School, Zhang Hu slammed both hands against the wooden armrests in fury, his round, chubby face flushing crimson with rage. Leaning forward over the railing, the fatty roared at the top of his lungs toward the ring: “Lin Feng! Get up there and snap that bastard’s fingers off!”
Right beside him, Ling Bai sat in an elegant posture, his fingers interlaced over his knees. Hearing Zhang Hu’s bellows, the corner of Ling Bai’s mouth twitched into a venomous sneer. “Hmph, screaming won’t change a thing, fatty. The clan has poured an obscene fortune in Magic Crystals into Han Yi, and he even has Defensive Magic Armor to shield him. A gutter rat like Lin Feng might have had the dumb luck to crawl his way into the finals, but today he has only one destination: carried out on a stretcher with every bone in his body shattered!”
“Shut your filthy mouth, Ling Bai!” Zhang Hu whipped his head around, his teeth grinding audibly. “Have you already forgotten how you got kicked out in the fourth round like a dog?”
Ling Bai’s face instantly twisted into an ugly, livid shade. His fingers clenched so hard that his fingernails dug deep into his palms, his eyes blazing with rancor as he glared toward the arena.
“And now, Han Yi’s opponent in today’s grand championship...” The announcer’s voice resounded once more, though this time his tone carried an unmistakable hesitation: “...a student from the ordinary class of Feng Lan School, the tournament’s greatest dark horse: Lin Feng!”
The western iron portcullis slowly ground upward.
There were no triumphant fanfares of brass horns, no passionate roars from wealthy patricians—only an undercurrent of murmurs, skepticism, and critical glares converging upon the dark opening.
A silhouette strode out into the daylight with calm, unhurried steps.
Lin Feng emerged, dressed in the simple blue-and-white student uniform of Feng Lan School. The coarse fabric had clearly endured numerous washings, the hems slightly frayed from grueling practical combat sessions in the perilous wilderness, yet not a speck of dust clung to his clothes. Every seam was clean and neatly pressed. He wore no ostentatious arcane jewelry, no gleaming armor; his hands simply hung relaxed at his sides.
Far removed from the bloodthirsty fervor or stifling anxiety typical of an impoverished commoner who had clawed his way into a tournament final, Lin Feng’s steps onto the stone platform were extraordinarily steady and grounded. The rhythmic thuds of his cloth soles striking the granite slabs echoed with mechanical precision—not a fraction of a beat too fast, nor a fraction too slow—measured like the ticking of an ancient pendulum.
He stepped onto the stage and raised his head, looking forward.
Beneath the scorching blaze, the eighteen-year-old youth’s chiseled features appeared resolute and unyielding. His pitch-black eyes were still as an autumn lake—deep, tranquil, without the slightest ripple of emotion. Even in the face of Han Yi’s crude and humiliating gesture, Lin Feng’s gaze remained utterly placid, as if he were staring into empty air. That chilling composure stood like an ancient reef braving a tempestuous tide, causing the sneer on Han Yi’s lips to momentarily freeze.
Beneath his thin shirt, pressed firmly against his left chest, the Primordial Dragon Pendant emitted a warm, soothing stream of energy. It silently seeped into his meridians and blood, anchoring his consciousness in absolute, crystalline clarity.
Murmurs in the stands gathered momentum like incoming waves:
“Is that kid really Lin Feng? He doesn’t look like an expert at all. Look at those threadbare clothes—he doesn’t even have a single defensive magic tool!”
“Word has it his old man is just a freight hauler for the Ling Clan, living in the South Street slums. So what if he awakened the Fire element? Coming from such dirt-poor roots, he can’t even afford Magic Crystals for meditation. How could he ever measure up to Han Yi?”
“Exactly! Look at Han Yi—decked out in top-tier gear from head to toe. Even with the bookmakers offering a three-spell handicap in Han Yi’s favor, everyone is still piling their bets on him. That cart driver’s brat is as good as dead!”
Sardonic whispers and venomous mockeries rippled across the grandstands, voiced by petty merchants and haughty patricians alike.
Up in the topmost VIP loge—where a shaded canopy offered refuge from the sun and afforded an unobstructed panoramic vista of the arena—the atmosphere carried a completely different nuance.
The patriarch of the Ling Clan, Ling Zhuofeng, leaned comfortably into a plush armchair upholstered in snow-bear pelt. Clad in an ash-gray robe woven with gold filigree, he cradled a steaming jade teacup in one hand while leisurely stroking his immaculately trimmed, salt-and-pepper goatee with the other. A self-satisfied smirk curled upon his lips, his eyes gleaming with pride as he watched his foster son, Han Yi, standing commanding and haughty upon the ring.
“Haha, Commander Lei Zhen, what do you think?” Ling Zhuofeng rested his teacup upon a low marble table and tilted his head toward the man seated beside him, his voice dripping with thinly veiled vanity. “Little Yi has trained relentlessly since his youth, nurtured by our Ling Clan with the purest cultivation resources available. This duel... it seems the victor was decided before the first step was even taken.”
Seated in the adjacent chair was a burly middle-aged man built like a fortress wall. He wore a faded moss-green military trench coat, its collar unbuttoned to reveal a rugged, muscular chest crisscrossed with jagged scars, his jaw bristling with coarse stubble. This was none other than the supreme commander of the Cang Lei Ridge frontier garrison—Commander Lei Zhen.
Hearing Ling Zhuofeng’s boastful words, Lei Zhen merely arched a bushy brow. Folding his massive, pillar-like arms across his chest, his calloused fingers tapped idly against his bicep. His eagle-sharp gaze completely bypassed the flamboyant Han Yi, locking intently onto every subtle movement of Lin Feng’s body.
As a powerhouse who had clawed his way out from oceans of blood fighting wilderness monsters, Lei Zhen saw what money-counting aristocrats could never fathom.
Han Yi appeared overwhelming in aura, but his footwork was superficial, his center of gravity compromised by sheer hubris. In stark contrast, the Lin youth walked without a shred of wasted motion. His shoulders were loose and natural, yet every sinew in his body was primed to unleash explosive violence at any microsecond. His breathing was frighteningly deep and steady. That was not the bearing of a student fresh out of a classroom—it was the demeanor of a seasoned, blood-soaked hunter who had looked death in the maw and knew precisely how to retract his claws until the moment of the lethal strike.
“Patriarch Ling, don’t celebrate too prematurely,” Lei Zhen rumbled, his voice gravelly and low. “A battlefield isn’t an arena to compare who wears prettier silk or swallows more Magic Crystals. A wild wolf reared in the mud might just tear out the throat of a caged tiger raised in a palace of gold.”
The smile on Ling Zhuofeng’s face stiffened. A cold snort escaped his nostrils, displeasure clouding his eyes. “Then keep your eyes wide open, Commander Lei, and watch how your wild wolf fails to even scratch the Defensive Magic Armor of our Ling Clan!”
In stark contrast to the leisurely indulgence of the elite in the VIP pavilion, down in a neglected corner on the lowest tier of the commoner stands, a solitary figure stood trembling.
It was Lin Hai.
The middle-aged man wore a tattered, ash-gray work jacket, ingrained with stubborn streaks of black magitech grease that would never wash out. His shoulders were slightly hunched beneath the relentless grind of decades spent surviving at the bottom. To make it here in time, he had wrestled his rattling magi-truck across dozens of miles of treacherous mountain passes since the crack of dawn, unloaded tons of raw ore by hand, and bolted across the city on foot without even pausing for a single swallow of water.
Lin Hai stood glued against the rusted iron railing overlooking the arena floor. His rough, cracked, heavily calloused hands clamped onto the freezing metal with such force that his knuckles blanched white, shivering uncontrollably.
He stared at his only son, standing solitary in the middle of the dueling platform, surrounded by thousands of sneering eyes and vicious jeers. The agonizing memory from three years ago stabbed into his heart like a freshly twisted blade—the day he had swallowed all dignity and knelt in the dirt at Ling Zhuofeng’s feet before the grand gates of the Ling Manor, begging for a single chance for his son to enter Feng Lan School, only to be answered with cold disdain and venomous humiliation.
Today, his son stood on this very stage, standing eye-to-eye with the colossal behemoth that had once ground their family underfoot.
Lin Hai didn’t pray for his son to become a glorified champion; nor did he covet that illustrious cultivation slot at the extravagant Spirit Well Tower. Within the poor father’s chest, there was only a suffocating terror: terror that his boy would be maimed, terror that the ruthless magic of the Ling Clan’s ward would snuff out Lin Feng’s future.
His dry, cracked lips quivered endlessly, his trembling murmur swallowed by the deafening clamor of the crowd: “Xiao Feng... don’t push yourself too hard, son... Just come back safe... You must come back unharmed...”
As if bound by an invisible cord of shared bloodline, Lin Feng tilted his head slightly. His gaze swept past thousands of unfamiliar faces across the stands, locking with unerring accuracy onto that distant, worn-down corner of the cheap seats, where the frail, weathered silhouette of his father gripped the iron railing.
Catching sight of those trembling hands and the profound agony of worry in his father’s eyes, Lin Feng’s palms quietly tightened into fists.
Back then, his father had bowed his head in the dirt for his sake.
Today, upon this very soil, under the witness of all Bian’an City, he would make every arrogant soul who had ever looked down on them raise their heads and gaze up at him! The debts of the past would be settled in full!
Pulling back his gaze, he turned to face Han Yi once more. The distance separating them was barely thirty meters.
Seeing that Lin Feng had completely ignored his thumbs-down taunt, an irritated flame flared inside Han Yi’s chest. Lowering his hand, he took two insolent strides forward, his voice pitching shrill and dripping with venom:
“Lin Feng, do you honestly believe that defeating a handful of useless rejects in the qualifiers gives you the right to share a stage with me? In this city of Bian’an, every man’s fate is carved in stone the moment he leaves the womb! Cockroaches who crawl beneath sewer gutters, subsisting off the scraps tossed from my Ling Clan’s table like you, shouldn’t even dare to dream of climbing upward. Today, I’ll teach you what an insurmountable chasm between social classes truly means!”
He chuckled darkly, a cruel gleam flickering in his eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. I’ll merely shatter both your arms and fry your Sea of Consciousness to ash, so that for the rest of your miserable life, you can sit obediently in a wheelchair alongside that crippled little sister of yours!”
At the mention of “little sister,” Lin Feng’s eyes plunged into pitch-black depths.
The air surrounding him turned chillingly frigid. He did not roar in fury, nor did he deign to engage in petty bickering. The corners of his lips simply curled into a sharp, lethal arc, reminiscent of the Reaper’s scythe.
“All that babble...” Lin Feng spoke, his tone neither loud nor hurried, yet every syllable cut through the air with razor clarity straight into Han Yi’s ears: “...is it just to conceal the pathetic terror of a dog kept in a clan’s gilded cage?”
“What did you say?!”
Han Yi’s face twisted violently into a grotesque grimace, blue veins throbbing against his temples. As an adopted son of the Ling Clan, his rawest nerve was being viewed as a mere hound or lapdog! Lin Feng’s strike had hit him square in the vitals, causing his dormant fury to detonate like a volcanic eruption.
Right as the tension escalated to its absolute peak——
BONGGG——!
The ancient bronze bell perched atop the observation spire tolled like a clap of thunder ripping across the midday sky! The deep, sonorous sonic boom reverberated through the entirety of the arena’s bowl, rattling the massive transparent barrier itself!
The grand final had officially begun!
The instant the chime sounded, Han Yi wasted not another breath. Every trace of superficial smugness on his countenance vanished, replaced by primal, bloodthirsty savagery.
“Die for me!”
Roaring like an enraged beast, he flung both arms wide open!
The hemlines of his glacial-silk robe whipped violently in the howling vortex that materialized around him. In that split second, the ambient temperature around the arena plummeted off a cliff, dropping from the sweltering heat of midday straight into razor-sharp, bone-gnawing permafrost! Ambient moisture in the air was instantly choked and condensed into thousands of pristine, crystalline snowflakes hovering about his form.
Beneath Han Yi’s boots, a brilliant, silver-white magical radiance blazed to life, tracing a breathtakingly intricate snowflake Star Path across the stone!
His casting speed was terrifyingly swift—drawing the complete Star Path in under two seconds!
Crack... Crack-crack-crack——!
A bone-piercing blast of absolute zero erupted violently from beneath Han Yi’s feet! This was no gentle frost; it was a rampaging, miniature blizzard howling into being!
The dense granite slabs beneath him froze over at dizzying velocity. A thick layer of permafrost—crystalline yet sharp as thousands of serrated razor blades—crept outward from the epicenter under his boots, spider-webbing across the stage in all directions with horrifying crunching snaps!
The ash-gray arena floor was swallowed whole by an encroaching tide of deadly white. The surging glacial wave, bearing the catastrophic power to freeze all life solid, surged directly toward Lin Feng like a colossal white serpent baring its fangs to swallow its prey whole!
The thirty-meter gap vanished in the blink of an eye!
The biting frost slammed directly into Lin Feng’s face, dusting the bangs across his brow in fine white frost and violently snapping the tails of his uniform backward in the freezing gale!
Yet, amidst the howling tempest of advancing ice and snow, the youth stood motionless as a mountain, his arms resting loose at his sides, refusing to yield a single inch!