From the very beginning, the battle between the two on the trial field had already reached a fever pitch.

The blond man in black-rimmed glasses merely opened and closed his teal-green eyes. Yet the battlefield seemed to split the heavens and shatter the earth!

The instant the trial began, Mo Feng summoned a massive boulder beneath Ling Yu’s feet at a speed too fast for most eyes to follow. An ordinary person struck head-on by it would be sent flying.

Anyone with slow reflexes might have assumed that was what happened. But those with keen eyes had already noticed that the moment the boulder rose, Ling Yu’s figure seemed to have dodged away from it.

Of course, their “seemed” was not wrong.

Mo Feng had also observed the situation in that fleeting instant. He immediately manipulated the brown spellbook in his hand, its edges inlaid with gold, and activated the magical runes on one of its pages.

After a silent chant lasting less than a second, a powerful aura suddenly burst from the page. It even stirred the ends of Mo Feng’s hair.

At the same time, a circular spell array roughly the size of a pizza appeared on the page of his spellbook.

Under the influence of Mo Feng’s magic, the boulder he had summoned exploded apart. The scattered rubble flew in every direction, but the instant it touched the ground, it suddenly seemed to lose all gravity.

The fragments stopped just before hitting the floor. Guided by magic, they all flew toward the point Mo Feng was looking at.

The shards gathered into a single mass, like a dense swarm of wasps, and surged toward the area beside the boulder.

“So fast!”

Ling Yu had luckily reacted quickly enough to dodge the first strike. But what surprised him was Mo Feng’s casting speed.

It was far faster than he had expected.

Back when Ling Yu had opposed Mo Feng at the academy, Mo Feng had seemed like an entirely different person. He wasn’t even on the same level as the man before him now.

In Ling Yu’s eyes, Mo Feng had gone from a genius mage—someone who could develop new spell structures on his own at a young age—

To a seasoned and powerful mage who could steadily control the entire battle.

The image of the bookworm in Ling Yu’s heart had undergone a complete transformation.

“This is perfect. Otherwise, the fight would’ve been boring.”

Once Ling Yu confirmed that Mo Feng was using greater power against him than he had against the other students, he decided to fight with everything he had.

Mo Feng had executed the move in one smooth sequence. First, he summoned the boulder. Then, he used the rubble blasted from it to cast the earth-element spell Stone Rain.

His control and application of magic had clearly reached an astonishing level of skill.

But Ling Yu showed no weakness.

From his previous matches against Mo Feng, he knew that Stone Rain could track its target. So instead of fleeing, Ling Yu charged straight into it.

“Heh. You’re charging right in?”

Mo Feng watched Ling Yu’s movements and smiled faintly. Then he raised one hand and made a closing motion with his fingers.

The next scene left every student in the arena stunned.

The instant Ling Yu plunged into Stone Rain, the fragments swiftly surrounded him.

Each shard was no larger than a pebble, and every one had a different shape. Yet they fused together without the slightest gap, transforming into stone spikes of identical size and form!

“Whoa! Is this Teacher Mo Feng, the genius mage who’s been creating new spell structures since he was young?”

The watching students were more amazed than the last.

“As expected of a genius mage! He actually turned all those loose stones into perfectly unified stone spikes. Just controlling and shaping them must have taken an incredible amount of work!”

Several students with some knowledge of magical theory praised Mo Feng’s spell.

“Haha! That arrogant guy is definitely going to lose terribly this time!”

Some students who disliked Ling Yu took the opportunity to mock him.

“Heh. Not necessarily.”

The examination teacher who had registered Ling Yu—and had previously helped look after Tongxi—stood at the edge of the trial field. Listening to the students’ uproar, he merely pushed up his glasses and murmured softly.

Surrounded by stone spikes from every direction, Ling Yu stopped in his tracks.

“Student Ling Yu, are you sure you want to continue? These stone spikes have been altered by my magic. Their structure is far tougher than it looks. Your sword won’t be able to break them.”

Mo Feng closed the spellbook in his hand and put it away behind his waist. He lowered his raised hand and smiled as he tried to persuade Ling Yu.

“If you only wanted my acknowledgment, I think you’ve already earned it. The moment you dodged that boulder—”

“Isn’t that just another way of telling me to admit defeat?”

Ling Yu’s face filled with unwillingness. He merged the two swords in his hands, Twin Xu, into a single blade.

“I’ve never lost to you.”

“Fist-to-Blade Technique…”

Ling Yu raised Twin Xu high above his head. The magic within his body flowed into the sword, gathering into a massive force for a brief moment.

Then, with Ling Yu’s roar—

“Earthshatter Fist!”

A scene that shocked the entire academy unfolded.

The sword slammed heavily into the ground.

The next instant, a tremendous impact erupted from the point of contact!

The powerful shock wave unleashed by Fist-to-Sword Earthshatter Punch instantly blew away the stone spikes surrounding Ling Yu. Even Mo Feng, standing far away, was shaken so badly that his feet nearly left the ground. He almost lost his balance.

“What?! He knows that sword technique?”

Mo Feng was astonished. He quickly raised his hand and swung it again, manipulating every stone spike scattered by the blast.

He adjusted their direction and sent them flying toward Ling Yu once more.

“What? Did I hear that right?”

“That guy just used the Fist-to-Blade Technique!”

“How is that possible? I heard that sword technique is incredibly difficult to learn! And the only people who truly mastered it were—”

“The Divine King Knight, who fought the Succubus Curse army more than twenty years ago and never returned…”

“And Xue Yu, the Second Knight of Daystar, who recently died fighting the Succubus Curse army!”

The students with knowledge of swordsmanship spoke with certainty.

The overwhelming impact had broken Mo Feng’s control over the stone spikes. They had been blasted apart and scattered across different distances.

Mo Feng adjusted their trajectories again, but he could now only send them toward Ling Yu one at a time. He could no longer make them strike simultaneously.

“Fist-to-Blade Crescent Moon!”

Ling Yu charged toward Mo Feng.

As the stone spikes shot toward him and were about to touch his body, he twisted the angle of his sword and unleashed a powerful rising diagonal slash.

A faint trace of mighty magic appeared. A golden trail of light, shaped like a crescent moon, swept through the air along with Twin Xu.

Twin Xu easily shattered the incoming stone spikes.

From the sound of their destruction, it was clear that they truly were different from ordinary stones, just as Mo Feng had said.

Their shattering sounded more like metal exploding apart. Even Ling Yu could clearly feel that the sensation of striking them was completely different from cutting normal rock.

In fact, Ling Yu had dealt with Mo Feng’s stone spikes long ago.

Back then, Mo Feng’s spikes had been far more brittle than they were now. Perhaps it was because he had only just begun developing his new spell structure.

Even so, they had already been remarkably hard.

“After all these years, I never expected your magic to improve this much!”

Another stone spike flew toward him.

Ling Yu’s Fist-to-Blade Crescent Moon moved like an extension of his own limbs. Every strike was powerful and clean, without the slightest trace of hesitation.

Under his control, the sword in his hand seemed capable of slicing through metal as easily as mud.

As he charged toward Mo Feng, Ling Yu broke apart one stone spike after another.

When he was less than a few meters from Mo Feng, Ling Yu swung his sword in a finishing blow.

But at that moment, the spellbook tucked behind Mo Feng’s waist suddenly began to glow.

A spell array unfolded on the ground beneath Mo Feng’s feet. Its radius was more than five meters wide.

A giant made of stone rose from the ground, revealing its upper body behind Mo Feng.

Just as Ling Yu arrived, the stone giant brought both hands together and smashed its fists down at him.

It still had a move like this hidden away?

I’m so close!

This time, no matter what happens, I’m ending this!

Ling Yu didn’t dodge. He continued charging toward Mo Feng.

The consequence was obvious.

He was struck by the stone giant summoned by Mo Feng.

A single fist from the enormous stone man was enough to crush Ling Yu’s entire body beneath it. If both fists landed, Ling Yu wouldn’t merely lose.

His life could be in danger.

Everyone thought the outcome had already been decided.

Mo Feng even tried to pull back at the last instant, unwilling to injure a student.

But what he never expected was for Ling Yu to charge straight into the stone giant’s fists.

“Fist-to-Blade Third Form: Flooding Sun!”

“!”

“!”

“!”

Everyone in the arena was stunned when Ling Yu released that strike.

His sword collided with the stone giant.

A surge of magic exploded outward like a raging flood. Golden radiance illuminated the entire arena, blazing like the first flames of sunrise.

The burst of power was beyond imagination.

The instant Ling Yu’s sword touched the stone giant’s fists, the enormous creature summoned by Mo Feng turned to dust!

Even the spell array beneath Mo Feng’s feet could not withstand the pressure of that magic. It broke apart completely.

The powerful impact sent Mo Feng flying. He didn’t stop until he slammed into the barrier surrounding the trial field.

Cracks appeared across the barrier under the force of the collision!

Mo Feng landed face-first in a miserable heap. His entire body ached from the impact.

When he finally rose, the spellbook in his hand had already been knocked away and had fallen somewhere else.

“That lunatic!”

Mo Feng adjusted his glasses and searched for his spellbook.

But then he saw Ling Yu charging toward him.

Mo Feng reacted at once.

This time, without his spellbook or the magical runes within it, the earth element he could command was far weaker.

He manipulated the broken rubble scattered across the battlefield and sent it all surging toward Ling Yu.

“It’s impossible! How could I lose to a student? It’s impossible!”

Refusing to accept defeat, Mo Feng continued the battle.

But when Ling Yu collided with the incoming rubble, he dismantled it with ease.

And in that instant, something appeared in Mo Feng’s eyes.

Ling Yu’s movements and every motion of his body seemed to overlap with the image of someone else.