Xuefeng Mountain Waystation

The entry-and-exit pass for the main gate was obviously in the hands of the man called Zhankong. Once all one hundred Elite Class students had stepped off the buses, they were ushered into the Xuefeng Mountain compound.

The compound was simple — a single main street flanked by shops and small stalls that looked no different from the market of any ordinary town.

The difference was what they sold. Not chickens or fish, but everything a mage needed to fight and cultivate.

"Step right up, premium enchanted boots right here — let me tell you, these are the genuine article. You know what the fastest demon-beast in existence is?" The vendor paused for effect. "That's right — the Sprinting Fiend. These boots are crafted from the hind-leg hide of a Sprinting Fiend, enchanted with Wind Trail runes and powered by pure Wind Stones. Strap these on and you'll leave any One-Eyed Demon Wolf eating your dust. Buy now and I'll give you a deal — I can tell fate brought you and this treasure together."

"Ertuzi, give it a rest. You call that a magic item? A regular pair of Nikes would be more comfortable than whatever you're hawking."

"Bullshit — we lost two people taking down that one Sprinting Fiend. I got the hind-leg hide as my share. These are one hundred percent authentic enchanted boots!" Ertuzi immediately launched into a heated argument with his heckler.

Further along, another stall displayed magic stones in every shade imaginable.

Magic stones were straightforward in principle: special rocks formed in regions where elements like fire, wind, lightning, or earth were unusually concentrated, they held energy similar to the magical power within a mage's Stardust. While they couldn't be drawn on directly by a mage, they could be embedded in magic weapons and equipment to provide a steady, uninterrupted energy supply.

Mo Fan had learned all of this in class and paid careful attention.

Apparently, fully refined magic stones could serve as currency in many situations.

The consumption of magic stones was enormous. In every practical sense, they were this world's equivalent of fossil fuels.

*I figured phones, computers, and home appliances would still run on electricity here.* Mo Fan had since learned otherwise. Power plants in this world used neither dams nor wind turbines — they ran on Lightning Element magic stones.

As for Light Element, he'd had to accept the unsettling fact that its founding genius was Edison. And then there was Watt — the man who invented the steam engine and launched the Industrial Revolution — a Fire Element mage, as it turned out, whose engine operated on Fire Element magic diagrams and was fueled by Fire Element magic stones.

So this world had no petroleum, no hydropower, no wind or electrical energy. The lifeblood of civilization, the fuel that made everything run, was magic stones.

And where did magic stones come from?

Nature, of course.

The brutal reality was that demon-beasts needed magic stones just as desperately as humans did. Stones were a vital food source for them and the primary fuel behind their growing power.

Which meant the greatest obstacle humans faced in collecting, sourcing, and mining magic stones wasn't the hostile terrain — it was the demon-beasts, who depended on those same stones to survive.

Demon-beasts bore an instinctive, undying hostility toward humans.

Think about it: an entire city's worth of magic-powered technology, all of it essentially demon-beast food — and humans themselves were a delicacy on top of that. The conflict between mages and demon-beasts had never paused and never would.

Perhaps this was the single greatest difference between his original world and this one.

In the original world, humanity held absolute dominion — a single missile could level anything it chose.

In the world of magic, conventional weapons didn't exist. There were only mages.

And perhaps precisely because of that absence, demon-beasts had carved out far more territory.

Most humans could only survive within cities. And cities needed mages to defend them.

This was why mages would forever stand above ordinary people — not merely because of the power they wielded, but because their calling was nothing less than sacred.

"Mo Fan, this expedition — we have to give it everything. I heard the evaluation scores count directly toward our university applications. Twenty percent of the total weight!" Zhang Xiaohou said at his side.

Mo Fan nodded.

Homeroom teacher Xue Musheng had mentioned this long ago.

The Field Expedition was effectively one of the subjects in this world's university entrance exam. Since scores were issued by the military — specifically by each expedition's chief instructor — they carried real consequence.

Whether the chief instructor gave you a C or an A would directly determine whether you ended up at a top-tier magic university or an ordinary one.

Mu Ningxue's Imperial Capital Magic Academy, for instance, required applicants to hold at minimum an A on their Field Expedition score.

*I'm not spending my life rotting away in a place like Bo City.* Higher-tier magic could only be learned at major institutions in major cities, and he intended to reach one.

For this expedition, he needed an A or above — so he'd have the standing to knock on the doors of a school like Imperial Capital Magic Academy.

"These instructors have all been taken care of by the school. Even if you goof off for a month or two, they'll still hand you at least a B or C. Nothing to stress about." Wang Sanpang elbowed his way over with a broad grin.

"Right, that's how it's always worked," another student in the know added with a nod.

"Makes sense — the school obviously wants them scoring everyone high."

"Assembly at the plaza!"

"Fall in! Everyone fall in!"

After Luo Yunbo's shout rang across the compound, the students converged rapidly on the central plaza of the Xuefeng Mountain compound.

One hundred students in all, every one of them in Tianlan Magic High School uniform.

The moment they formed up in orderly rows, the waystation's idle mages drifted over to watch. They gathered one by one, faces wearing knowing, lopsided smirks.

"Look at this — the new batch of interns has arrived! Ha! Time to watch the rookies embarrass themselves again," said a wiry man with a sharp, rat-like face.

"Couldn't agree more. The waystation is always liveliest when the interns show up. How many of this crop do you reckon will wet themselves out of sheer terror?" A broad-shouldered man who looked like a hunter squad captain craned his neck forward.

"I'd bet at least thirty!"

"And the other seventy just drop where they stand?"

Standing at attention in the plaza, the students couldn't help but hear every word of the veterans' commentary.

Most of the onlookers wore expressions of gleeful schadenfreude, making no effort whatsoever to conceal their mockery.

The hundred Elite Class students were divided into five groups of twenty. Positioned at the front stood the two field instructors and one practical-studies teacher.

"The chief instructor!"

"The chief instructor is here!"

Before long, a column of uniformed military mages marched into position before the assembled students, their bearing radiating unmistakable authority.

At their head was none other than the stubbly, rough-edged man Mo Fan had spotted earlier at the guard post — the one who'd been idly toying with a flame in his palm: Zhankong.

He still wore the same unhurried, easygoing air. For a chief instructor, the nonchalance was genuinely unexpected.