Just As Expected, They Lost
Mo Fan had already experienced Kun Grove firsthand. Its power was enough to imprison an entire group within its clutches.
Vines shot upward at terrifying speed, their thorny barbs sharp and distinct. Beneath the feet, unnamed demon weeds writhed incessantly — look away for a moment and they would crawl up along the boots, their tenacious fibrous strands coiling like ropes around both legs, binding them fast.
The Kun Grove swelled outward, and in no time the entire area where Pearl Academy's four competitors stood had been transformed into a cage-like thicket. Anyone trapped inside who wanted to Release magic would first have to destroy every single plant in that dense living prison.
Even so, the Imperial Capital Magic Academy team seemed to have no patience to wait for their opponents to find a way free. After the girl named Zhao Mingyue completed her Plant Element magic, she strode forward.
**Whoooooosh!**
Flames erupted without warning, their crimson glow flooding the arena with light.
Fire surged into existence around her body first, spreading outward in ring after ring of blazing halos. At Zhao Mingyue's sharp cry, every flame spirit converged onto her right wrist.
"What are they doing?" Zheng Bingxiao asked, puzzled.
"The Kun Grove is still active — if they use Blazing Fist now, that would mean..." Song Xia had barely finished forming her thought when she watched Zhao Mingyue's hair whip up in the blast of heat. What looked like a soft, gentle punch was made razor-sharp by the roiling flames at her back.
The Blazing Fist spread in a fan shape — the farther it flew, the wider the area it struck.
When the massive wall of fire crashed into the Kun Grove, every plant within the thicket caught flame simultaneously.
The ignition swept outward at terrifying speed, and in an instant the Kun Grove became a sea of fire, blazing with ferocious intensity.
Until that moment, Shen Mingxiao, Luo Song, Peng Liang, and Zhao Manyan had only had their movement restricted by the Kun Grove — the impact on their actual fighting ability wasn't severe. But once the Blazing Fist set the plants alight around them, they found themselves trapped inside a forest burning on all sides.
Fire everywhere, combined with vegetation that hadn't yet fully burned — breaking free from this inferno was anything but simple.
"They're ruthless," Zheng Bingxiao said, finally grasping the plan.
Fire Element naturally countered Plant Element — vegetation would turn to ash at the slightest touch of flame. But the Imperial Capital team had weaponized that counter-relationship, fashioning a blazing forest rather than simply hitting their opponents directly with a Blazing Fist. The result was far more devastating.
The crimson blaze had swallowed Shen Mingxiao and the others completely, and no one could tell what was happening inside.
The fire burned fast. The scorched black ash still held the outstretched shape of the vines — but a warm breeze swept through and it all crumbled to nothing.
The great wooded thicket burned down to cinders, and the flames from the Blazing Fist gradually died away. Amid a rising chorus of murmurs, the crowd suddenly noticed something mounded at the center of the wreckage: a dome of stone.
On closer inspection, it was a stone shell — solid and complete, encasing a whole section of the arena beneath it. Though its outer surface had cracked and blistered from the heat, the flames had clearly never breached the interior.
"That's an intermediate Earth Element spell — Stone Wall!" Zheng Bingxiao called out with relief.
They hadn't come without a plan after all. The one with intermediate Earth Element ability was Luo Song. As the stone shell defense crumbled and sank back into the ground, Luo Song lowered his outstretched arms, fatigue etched across his round, heavyset face.
He had used Stone Wall to absorb the Blazing Fist's impact, and he had been holding back the encroaching flames on top of that — all of it had naturally left its mark on him.
"And here I thought people who walk around so full of themselves would actually be something!" Shielded under Luo Song's protection, Shen Mingxiao had completed his own intermediate spell.
Shen Mingxiao channeled Wind Element. Amid the smoldering ashes, a fierce gale was already at work, sending swirling clouds of powder billowing through the arena like a desert sandstorm. The wind kept building — wind itself was invisible, but the suspended ash traced its outline perfectly: a ferociously spinning column, spiraling ever higher. A Dragon Cyclone.
The cyclone was at least two meters across. Under Shen Mingxiao's control, it swept laterally toward the Imperial Capital team, its savage force threatening to drag everything in its path into its tearing, shredding domain.
"Hmph. Leave this to me."
Across the arena, Liao Mingxuan in his white robes curved his lips into a smirk. His hem billowed as a current of air surged upward from beneath his feet.
Wind against Wind — he was going to meet Shen Mingxiao's cyclone head-on.
The Wind Disk—Dragon Cyclone surged to life the moment his Star Chart locked into place. Shen Mingxiao's cyclone had barely crossed half the arena when Liao Mingxuan raised both hands, summoning an identical column of spinning force...
The two vortices twisted against each other, spiraling in opposite, opposing directions. When they collided, the entire arena seemed to freeze — not a single breath of wind could be felt anywhere.
The next instant, a thunderous crack erupted from the point of impact. The two cyclones appeared to fuse into one, then seemed to repel each other and dissolve simultaneously. A new surge of spinning force replaced them both, radiating outward from the collision point in all directions with savage power.
The gale hit like a wave. Neither side had time to brace — competitors on both ends were knocked off their feet one after another.
Fortunately, a relatively soft water Barrier lined the edges of the arena. Without it, the mutually destructive shockwave would have left both teams nursing broken bones.
"Hopeless." Down below the arena, Lu Zhenghe let out a cold snort, his contempt for Liao Mingxuan's decision to counter wind with wind plain to see.
Lu Yiming frowned as well. Taking mutual damage was the last thing they needed — with their actual strength, they could have claimed this match cleanly.
After hauling themselves back to their feet, Zhao Mingyue turned and glared daggers at Liao Mingxuan. "Follow orders!"
Liao Mingxuan stood up clutching his back, his expression one of pure misery.
At least everyone involved was operating at intermediate level — the hit was unpleasant, but not truly serious, and no one's combat ability would be meaningfully impaired.
"Mo Fan, Mu Nujiao, Song Xia, Zheng Bingxiao — the four of you, get ready." Gu Han watched the match from the sidelines while addressing his students.
The battle had been going on for some time. Sure enough, the four up there had proven Mo Fan right — this round was as good as lost.
In terms of raw ability, both sides were actually quite evenly matched, with each team able to wield two elements proficiently. The difference was coordination: Pearl Academy's four were visibly disorganized by comparison.
Gu Han had spotted that problem from the start, and when he called out Mo Fan's group of four, a trace of worry crossed his expression — he feared the same weakness would cost them the next round as well.
"Don't worry, Teacher Gu Han — I'll definitely beat them!" Song Xia said earnestly.
"Good. Just be careful out there."