The practical combat class was even more dangerous than Jiang Cha had expected.

The moment she entered the forest, her innate magic started screaming warnings. Her mind raced. Of the thirty-four dormant thought circuits in her brain, fifteen were forcibly awakened to gather and process the magical information coming from the air.

“Lina, due west. One hundred targets.”

“Oh! Cha Bao is awesome!”

The moment she heard the order, the little blond girl froze for a beat. That didn’t sound like Jiang Cha at all.

But when she turned and saw the faint blue light shimmering in the girl’s crimson eyes, set in that cold, indifferent face, she immediately snapped into action. Empowered Casting and multi-casting at once—dozens of enormous fireballs appeared around her.

She followed the locations Jiang Cha had marked with magic and fired!

Each fireball hit with the force of a rocket. Dozens of them together packed as much firepower as a rocket launcher truck firing its entire salvo.

Under Lina’s precise control, she and the others wiped out more than a hundred first-tier magical creatures of all kinds, each seemingly infected and wreathed in black smoke.

“Easy~ Easy~”

The little blond girl turned around and flashed a peace sign, looking completely relaxed. Jiang Cha, however, still hadn’t let her guard down.

“He Qin, defend us. Magic Shield.”

The girl’s instructions came in quick, orderly succession. The moment He Qin received hers, she summoned three enormous golems from the Void.

“Guardian Unit 032, deploy shield.”

At her command, the largest and roundest golem—a sleek, sci-fi-looking machine, entirely silver-white and shaped like a massive mechanical fortress—flashed. A huge magic shield sprang into existence, protecting the ground beneath the girls’ feet.

The goal of this combat class wasn’t simply to kill ten second-tier creatures and one third-tier creature! The forest’s dangerous environment was their greatest threat!

Mentor Vladimir had set the task simply to stop them from avoiding combat the whole time!

The instant the magic shield went up, Jiang Cha—her face still expressionless—summoned a vast amount of magical power. All thirty-four thought circuits awakened, and she temporarily constructed another fifty.

With her extraordinary processing power, she rapidly and precisely completed one spell model after another. Thousands of Lightning Bolts hovered outside the magic shield, methodically and accurately picking off nearby threats.

“Lina, follow the markers and take care of the threats.”

“Got it!”

Lina didn’t have Jiang Cha’s freakish processing power, but her innate magic was Chain Fireball. Controlling a hundred shots at once to land precise finishing blows was no problem for her.

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!”

Amid the roar of explosions, the three of them barely managed to intimidate the magical creatures around them. The hidden threats gradually withdrew to hunt other prey, and Jiang Cha exited Full Power Mode.

Jiang Cha rubbed her temples, which had begun to throb after suddenly being pushed past their limits, and complained irritably, “Nobody told me the creatures in this forest were so enthusiastic.”

“Aw, it’s fine, it’s fine~ Qin Bao and I used to get through here safely all the time, just the two of us~”

The little blond girl waved a hand with a cheerful grin, trying to comfort her.

But she wasn’t wrong. The two of them could’ve handled that situation easily on their own.

Lina had dragon traits and enough defensive power to fear none of these low-tier creatures. And He Qin could control far more than three golems at once.

After all, this was an academy. The mentors had to take the weaker students’ abilities into account.

Jiang Cha and her roommates were the class’s undisputed elite team. In a class where the average amount of magical power was fifteen thousand, every one of them had at least twenty thousand.

They could handle their class assignments with ease. The other teams couldn’t clear the threats around them the moment they entered, the way these girls had.

“So? What’s with these magical creatures? I’ve never heard of this kind before.”

The girl shook her head, putting the matter aside, and looked puzzled at the strangely shaped corpses.

The creatures killed by He Qin’s golems and Jiang Cha’s Lightning Bolts were still more or less intact. They hadn’t been blown straight to ash like the ones Lina hit.

The girl had seen some of these species in books, like the wolf-shaped creature. But the ones she’d read about hadn’t been wreathed in black mist or grown eight legs.

Their bodies were covered in rotting, pus-filled sores. Just looking at them was enough to make your sanity drop.

“Cha Bao, you don’t know about Witch’s Disease?”

“What?”

“Qin Bao, you explain~ It’s such a hassle~”

Lina patted He Qin beside her.

“Most creatures can only withstand a limited amount of magical power.”

He Qin seemed used to seeing these bizarre creatures. Amid the charred flesh, she quietly explained, “Especially top-tier supernatural races like Witches. Every move we make releases magical information.”

“That information doesn’t affect Witches at all. A gifted Witch like you, Jiang Cha-chan, can even read what it contains, which gives you an advantage in battle.”

“So when they couldn’t withstand it… they mutated?”

The girl glanced again at the wolf with its eight mutated legs, and suddenly felt conflicted.

“Yes. The magical information Witches release is so active that it can linger for a hundred years in a high-magic environment. Ordinary magical creatures don’t have a Witch’s resistance, or enough magical power to protect their souls. The information inside it brainwashes them… I heard there’s a rare spell developed from the theory of magical information. One eighth-tier spell can drive every magical creature on an entire planet insane and make them mutate.”

“When the soul mutates, the body naturally changes too. Magical creatures are beings made of both soul and flesh; in essence, they exist just like we do.”

“Phew… I understand. Thanks.”

Jiang Cha didn’t feel especially sorry for them. She was simply a little shaken by learning all this so suddenly.

So Witches were basically walking ancient gods in low-magic worlds?

Just a thought was enough to drive ordinary creatures mad…

“Jiang Cha-chan… are you okay? You can sit this one out if you can’t handle it.”

He Qin was a little worried. This sort of thing wasn’t easy to accept.

Especially with the corpses right in front of them. They really had died horribly.

This also seemed to be Jiang Cha’s first time killing anything.

Jiang Cha had transferred into the class and missed the earlier adjustment courses. No one would blame her if she sat this one out.

“I’m fine, okay?”

But Jiang Cha blinked and smiled, reassuring He Qin instead. “I’m not that fragile~ Let’s talk about what to do next, okay? Second-tier creatures should be manageable, but we’ll have to go deeper into the forest for the third-tier ones, right?”

These magical creatures had been captured for their training in the first place. There wasn’t much point in feeling sorry for them.

Witches weren’t exactly a kind race to begin with. They’d committed countless atrocities and destroyed countless worlds. If the girl wanted to get by in Witch society, she’d have to accept things like this sooner or later.

“Lina… No, He Qin, can you protect yourself? The creatures over there could pose a threat to us.”

This place looked like a forest, but it was really just where the academy kept its creatures. To prevent them from preying on one another—and to keep Little Witches from wandering into danger—the mentors had divided them into separate enclosures by tier.

So to meet the class objective of killing one third-tier magical creature, they had to venture deeper into the forest and kill one while surrounded by a group of them, whether by ambush or in a head-on fight.

“How about we practice working together in the second-tier area first?”

He Qin cautiously made the suggestion.

“Why don’t I just charge in alone…”

Lina pursed her lips. With her dragon traits fully unleashed, even third-tier creatures couldn’t pose much of a threat to her. She could kill one on her own.

“It’s Cha Bao’s first combat class, after all. Better to play it safe, right? Besides, she’s not in great shape today.”

Seeing that He Qin seemed about to object, Lina added that last part.

The little blond girl might look like a carefree troublemaker, but she always knew exactly where to draw the line. With one breezy remark, she left He Qin speechless.

“That would work…”

“They’re only third-tier. There’s no need~”

Jiang Cha refused.

“Let’s clear out an area in the second-tier zone first. If I rest a little, I’ll be back to normal.”

A tired Witch could easily make a mistake. The magical creatures in the third-tier zone were several levels above the first-tier ones in both strength and intelligence. They could even coordinate simple tactics. One careless move could leave the girls in a hard fight, and these creatures hated Witches with a vengeance. It was still dangerous.

Even a Witch was just a fragile lump of flesh once her magical power ran out. Their seemingly formidable close-combat abilities were still powered by magic.

Besides, this was their first combat class. She didn’t want to take any risks—not even a one-in-ten-thousand chance—so she proposed the safest plan.

“Tell us right away if you can’t keep going, okay?”

He Qin was still a little worried.

Lina didn’t mind. She had a better read on the girl’s combat talent than He Qin did, and didn’t believe for a second that one little combat class could put Jiang Cha in a bind.

To the little blond girl, combat class was just a way to relax and keep her skills sharp.

She’d been through countless similar battles with her family since she was ten.

Looking at the various bizarre monsters trapped in magical cages, snapping their teeth at the girls, Lina’s eyes shifted. She grinned mischievously and said,

“Getting bitten by these things really hurts, you know? Hehe, see the black haze around their teeth? That’s the curse of their soul-deep hatred for Witches.”

“Lina-chan!”

“Pfft~”

He Qin gave Lina an exasperated glare, as if complaining that she was putting pressure on Jiang Cha right before a fight. But Jiang Cha herself couldn’t help laughing.

“Then I’ll leave it to Lina to clear the way for us, okay?”

The girl held a finger to her pink lips and winked, suddenly acting cute. It was adorable.

But the smile at the corner of her mouth was downright wicked.

“Ehh—! Can’t we just send Qin Bao’s golems!?”

“It costs money to repair a broken golem, you know? So off you go. I’ll provide fire support!”

“Cha Bao, I—! Hate—! You—!”

“Aaaaaah!”

Pushed by the levitation spell the girl had cast at some point—or rather, launched by the sheer power of a good shove—Lina flailed in midair before hastily casting a Magic Shield around herself. Before she landed, she still found time to turn and flip Jiang Cha off.

That roar could make anyone who heard it cry, and anyone who listened shed tears (lol).

…