Team Competition!

Morning was set aside for other academies to spar against Imperial Capital Magic Academy. The afternoon belonged to Pearl Academy versus Imperial Capital Magic Academy.

This match was the main event. If the fighting hall had been open to the general public, it would have been packed to capacity.

Mo Fan had been up all night fiddling with the little Loach Pendant and hadn't slept a wink. Everyone else had followed Gu Han to watch the morning matches early, so Mo Fan didn't bother joining them — he crawled back under the covers to catch up on sleep instead. Otherwise, where would he find the energy to take on Imperial Capital's golden elite come afternoon?

While Mo Fan slept, the others made their way to the fighting hall.

The schedule had the other six academies competing against one another — schools from the south, north, west, and east of the country, all prestigious names in the world of magic education.

The students of Imperial Capital Magic Academy, however, weren't particularly invested in these bouts. The people they truly wanted to deal with were the ones from Pearl Academy.

From the very first exchange of pleasantries that morning, the antagonism had been bleeding through the façade of courtesy. The more hot-tempered types — Xu Dalong and Luo Song in particular — had already come to blows verbally.

"Luo Song, I'll give you credit — you're smart. Didn't want to be the tail of a phoenix, so you ran off to be the head of a chicken. Makes sense, honestly. With your caliber, you'd be completely average at Imperial Capital — you'd never even get picked to compete." Xu Dalong had no filter whatsoever; whatever came to mind came straight out.

Gu Han stood nearby, his mood souring with every word.

*Oh, give me a break. So you're the phoenixes and we're the chickens?*

"Xu Dalong, mind your manners. Everyone, I apologize — Xu Dalong has always been, ah, direct. Please don't take offense." Teacher Lu Yiming stepped in quickly to smooth things over.

"Direct, he says. Does that mean Teacher Lu Yiming actually shares that view?" Gu Han let out a cold snort.

Gu Han ran cold and proud with a hair-trigger temper. As someone who had once studied at Pearl Academy himself, and now served as one of its teachers, he had absolutely no reason to lower himself just because the other party was from Imperial Capital Magic Academy.

"That's... well..." Lu Yiming smiled awkwardly and hastily changed the subject. "When we received your group yesterday, there should have been nine students. How is it that only eight are here today?"

The elderly professor Qiu Yuhua was a more agreeable sort. He smoothly cut in before Gu Han could respond. "That student didn't sleep well last night. He's catching up on some rest."

"Ha! No need to put that much pressure on yourselves — this is just a friendly match. How bad must the nerves be that someone can't even sleep?" Teacher Lu Yiming laughed.

"......" Qiu Yuhua's face darkened.

*Strange — when Lu Yiming was hosting them yesterday, he'd seemed completely fine. Now that they were actually spending time together, not a single decent thing was coming out of this man's mouth.*

"Whether that guy shows up or not is irrelevant. We're more than enough to deal with you." Shen Mingxiao stepped forward at once, his gaze fixed on the Imperial Capital group like the edge of a drawn blade.

"Oh really? Anyone can talk a big game." The impeccably composed Liao Mingxuan scoffed.

"The hell did you just say?" Shen Mingxiao's temper ignited instantly.

"Enough. What's the point of trading insults? This afternoon, we let our strength do the talking." Gu Han cut them off, his voice cold and sharp.

"Yes, yes — let strength decide it." Lu Yiming maintained that hollow smile, utterly unbothered by the appalling state of relations between the two academies.

"Where's Mo Fan? Where the hell has that guy gone?"

"He's up, but he said he was going to see an old flame. He'll turn up on his own for the afternoon." Zhao Manyan said.

Mo Fan slept until nearly noon. Everyone else was already gone, leaving him alone. He sorted out lunch on his own.

Imperial Capital Magic Academy was vast, and the most obvious difference from Pearl was the ancient, towering trees everywhere — shaded pathways winding between them at every turn. The architectural style leaned toward the classical, a world apart from Magic City's relentless obsession with the modern.

Rightly so, perhaps. Imperial Capital Magic Academy had produced generation after generation of remarkable talent. Even a small muddy ditch here seemed to carry a faint air of scholarly gravitas, with notable figures to name at every corner. No wonder its students carried themselves like the chosen elite. In a place teeming with the strong and touched by something close to destiny, even showing humility risked being read as false modesty — better to lean into confidence and pride, to carry oneself with the bearing such a place demanded.

Whether it was Qiu Yuhua's civilizing influence or simply his own mood, Mo Fan found himself wandering the campus with an air of quiet contemplation, privately marveling at every turn... and then, well — he was completely lost.

With the cheerful help of several senior female students, Mo Fan eventually found his way to the fighting hall.

The hall was enormous, as grand as one would expect — a row of massive white columns at the entrance immediately brought to mind the sweeping scale of an ancient Roman colosseum. The hall shared that aesthetic: built in a wide circular ring echoing the Colosseum's design, with deliberately crafted honeycomb-patterned lattice cutouts rising along the walls that gave the whole towering structure a striking visual elegance.

Stepping inside, Mo Fan found his timing was perfect — the Pearl Academy versus Imperial Capital Magic Academy match was just about to begin.

He wasn't sure how, but the moment he rejoined his group, he felt it: the kind of charged, crackling tension where a single spark could set everything off.

"What happened? What'd I miss?" Mo Fan asked Zhao Manyan.

"What do you think? They've been at each other's throats. Luo Song and that Xu Dalong used to run in the same Imperial Capital circles — old enemies — and once those two started going at it, the whole team got dragged in." Zhao Manyan said.

"Good. I love a good open brawl," Mo Fan said with a wicked grin. "When everyone's being polite and courteous, it always makes me feel awkward about hitting hard."

"Same." Zhao Manyan gave an unhesitating nod.

The history between Pearl Academy and Imperial Capital Magic Academy — everyone watching already knew the story.

Look at the faces of the spectators: every one of them radiating pure anticipation. Given that, there was really no point in either side keeping up the pretense. Better to come out swinging and settle it — find out once and for all whether Pearl Academy truly had what it took to challenge for the top, or whether Imperial Capital would live up to its reputation and put Pearl in their place.

"So how does the match work?" Mo Fan nudged Mu Nujiao's arm with his elbow — she was wearing a soft, fluffy pale-yellow knit sweater — and raised an eyebrow at her.

Coming from anyone else, that would have earned them a Wind Disk—Dragon Cyclone to the face on the spot. Pure as freshly fallen snow, Mu Nujiao had exactly zero patience for men who touched her without invitation.

But after living under the same roof, she had built up something of a tolerance for Mo Fan's little liberties. Moves like this she simply chose not to see.

"Four from our side, four from theirs. Team match." Mu Nujiao calmly put a step's distance between herself and Mo Fan.

"Now that sounds interesting." Mo Fan rubbed his hands together, practically buzzing with eagerness.

Everyone's spell repertoire was still relatively limited at this stage. One-on-one fights mostly came down to trading blows, with the outcome hinging almost entirely on whose foundation was more solid. A bit dull, all things considered.

Team battles were a different creature entirely. Multiple elements clashing, Enchanted Gear flying, teammates covering gaps and coordinating openings, spells layering and cutting through one another — the variables were endless. It was a genuine test of a Mage's combat instincts and ability to read a fight as it unfolded in real time.