Chapter 697: The Opening Ambush of the League Hunt
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 697: The Opening Ambush of the League Hunt
After enjoying one last day of peace, outdoor camping, and barbecue with Lifaeya, we departed early the next morning.
Since we had both decided to act independently, we didn't linger or cling to one another. I set off on a purposeless trek, waiting for the Joint Exam Hunt to begin.
As the clock struck eight in the morning, I felt the power within my body instantly constrained and sealed. Even for me, it took several seconds to adapt to this state.
For now, it was manageable. My perception hadn't been obscured, and the power still belonged to me—I could feel the strength of the Tree of Great Knowledge still residing within me—but I simply couldn't use it.
The only thing I could utilize was the Power Network function of the Knowledge Seed that I had once completely "integrated."
Furthermore, every Knowledge Seed served as a livestream window, much like the livestreaming platform I had built using the Tree of Great Knowledge. It allowed for real-time sensory synchronization, standard video feeds, or even third-person perspective broadcasts.
Currently, within the vision provided by the Knowledge Seed, a prompt indicated the livestream was active. However, likely to avoid putting extra pressure on the examinees or participants, there was no bullet-chat display. If it weren't for the "Live" indicator, one wouldn't even know they were being watched.
Aside from the livestreaming element, there was another crucial design feature: the health bar.
Right now, my health bar was full, though the design didn't quantify it into specific numerical data. As for whether there was a mana bar... there actually was, but since the energy governed by the current Power Network was drawn from the environment, the mana bar essentially represented the ambient energy density. It didn't have much practical value to display.
Given the leakage of transcendent resources in the current Expansion Realm and the drop in energy levels of transcendent Original Crystals, the ambient transcendent energy was, needless to say, abundant.
"So, the Joint Exam Hunt has begun..."
I walked through an undeveloped forest of ruins. Remnants of buildings from the original small worlds were still scattered here, buried by vegetation until only their silhouettes remained.
Such places were common in the Ninglan Territory. They were mostly areas slated for development or planning, but because the population couldn't keep up, some places remained wasteland that could never be fully developed.
In a place like this, you might find small clusters of herbivorous Variant Beasts, or at most, a few solitary carnivorous ones. I recalled that an entire pack of these small Variant Beasts might only be worth a single point, and the materials harvested from them would barely fetch a three-digit price.
Just as I was wondering which unlucky examinee I might run into, I sensed someone tailing me.
Having lost the Ley Line Identification Art, I now had to rely solely on my physical senses. Similarly, it had been a long time since I’d had to use Spirit Vision to find a voyeur hiding in the shadows.
But even without Spirit Vision, my Heart Sense could feel the other person's heartbeat and their current Heartfelt Resonance.
"Tsk. Come out. You've been following me for a while—you started even before the exam, didn't you? That means you aren't examinees," I said.
I wasn't in a hurry to use Spirit Vision on these people. As for Heart Sense... well, it was instinctual, but I was trying to restrain it. I wanted to train my counter-reconnaissance awareness using the most basic methods. The current test result was... honestly, a bit pathetic.
However, once I factored in the abilities I just listed, my counter-tracking awareness jumped several levels.
"Hm? Not coming out?"
I turned sideways to look into the empty woods. To an ordinary person, the dim forest shaded by the canopy would make it feel like someone was hiding behind every tree.
I didn't stand on ceremony. A watermelon-sized fireball condensed in front of me after a brief casting bar. Without even charging it, I fired it instantly at a large tree.
Aiming a spell triggered by the Power Network required manual precision. If your aim was off, there was no second chance for correction.
Although the initial Fireball Spellbook operated in this mode, students who were proficient with it had their own tricks. While they couldn't "mod" the spellbooks at this stage, the spellbook, acting as a magical platform, would eventually "sync" with the user. This was essentially a passive, minor modification to the spellbook, allowing mental energy to guide the fireball toward a target to some extent.
The Power Network, however, currently lacked this functionality.
Boom!
Accompanied by the explosion of flames and the ear-piercing crack of a trunk shattering, a figure was forced out from behind the tree.
"Hey, there's no need for this, is there? I just didn't want to cause trouble. Why force me out? Couldn't you just go your own way?"
The person who emerged looked slightly disheveled. Her tone was one of grievance, carrying the indignant resignation of someone who had been bullied.
"Oh, you've shown your head. That means it's time to die." I raised the Book in the Box in my hand, and the magical structure of a Fireball Spell began to condense at one corner of the case.
The person I was aiming at showed a flash of shock and fear before belatedly pulling out her wand to begin casting.
But just as she thought I would take advantage of my head start to continue charging the fireball, I triggered it and let the spell fly.
Then, my figure vanished from the spot, leaving only a watermelon-sized fireball hurtling toward her!
She had only two choices.
She could wait for her casting bar to finish and use her spell to cancel mine out, but there wasn't enough time. Even if she succeeded, the cancellation would happen right in front of her face! She would take the full brunt of the explosion from two fireballs! She would be the one at a disadvantage.
So, she instinctively chose to interrupt her own casting. Doing this wouldn't cause a mental backlash; she would only have to endure the uncontrolled explosion of her unformed spell. With her Undying nature, she could barely withstand it. Then she would dodge the damage from my fireball—choosing the lesser of two evils.
As she did so, a series of booms and a scream rang out.
Boom—Boom—Crack!
The loudest explosion didn't come from the fireball I fired, nor from her interrupted spell. It came from the ground where I had just been standing—a half-person-sized fireball had landed there and detonated!
The Teaching Assistant, who had planned to trade minor injuries for mobility, briefly lost her vision after enduring the magical explosion in front of her. She instinctively dodged, only to take a direct hit to the face from the Book in the Box I had predicted her movement and thrown. The terrifying impact sent her crashing into a tree before she finally stopped.
"I knew there was a trap. Your coordination is a bit lacking." I caught the Book in the Box as it bounced off her face and looked toward the "camper" who had fired the fireball at my back.
"You knew I was here too?" The other woman frowned slightly as her fireball missed. If the sneak attack failed, her advantage was gone.
"Was it you two that Teacher Lina was talking about when she said even with a fireball, you might not beat a lower-year student?"
I didn't bother answering her question, opting to mock her instead. Since they had coordinated to screw me over, what was there to explain? Killing them was the greatest respect I could show.
"You... you're looking for death!"
"Is that the best you can do for trash talk? Have you been living in luxury so long you've forgotten how to insult someone?"
I continued to taunt her while charging a follow-up fireball. Spells from the Power Network allowed for mobile casting since the medium was the weapon in hand, but movement had to account for the spell's physical state, or it could easily lead to a casting failure.
However... knowing the underlying operational principles and architecture of the Power Network as I did, I had already deduced many things through theoretical data and common sense that others would need testing to discover.
Thus, every time I moved while casting, I was pushing the limit between "casting bar" and "spell interruption."
In the early stages, when everyone only had a single Fireball Spell, there wasn't much room for complex maneuvers. The only real tactic was to trade spells to cancel each other out, but that heavily tested one's aim. After all, the flight speed of a fireball wasn't slow; it was only slightly slower than a kinetic bullet, just much larger.
The fireball I was charging wasn't meant to attack or defend against this woman who couldn't even curse properly. I was waiting for the third person in the shadows.
This ambush wasn't just two people; there were three!
So, after the fireball flying toward me missed, I sensed the third person's movement. I threw the charged fireball in my hand without hesitation.
Immediately after, two fireballs that had reached their charging limit collided, erupting into a terrifying explosion and a wave of heat.
With that, both sneak attacks had ended in failure.
"Has anyone ever told you that your acting is terrible and you're not very bright? If a dozen people had surrounded me from the start, I might have been worried. But a sneak attack... did you really think I wouldn't sense such an intense gathering of fire elements?"
As my words reached their ears, sounding like a massive insult, the three of them were instantly driven to a rage-fueled joint assault. Since their sneak attack had been mocked, they would use their numerical advantage to overwhelm me!
The opponent was just someone who had lost the support of a Great Spellbook and the power of that unknown domain. Why should the three of them fear one person? They were Teaching Assistants! Over the years, even if they weren't known for combat, they had experienced many battles of various sizes. In terms of combat experience, they had nothing to fear!
But once they actually engaged me, they realized they were wrong.
Their past combat experience seemed useless at this moment. They didn't even seem to know the basics of teammate coordination. And facing the incoming close-quarters combat, they had almost no experience dealing with such terrifying physical techniques. Their few experiences fighting Body Cultivators involved going to the Beast Academy to pick fights, then running away after crushing them with spells... they had no real experience to draw from.
However, their numerical advantage was indeed an advantage.
On my end, as soon as the battle began, I locked onto the Teaching Assistant I had first smashed in the face with my Book in the Box. She had recovered, but her depleted health bar proved she was indeed injured, though still well within her limits.
The reason I chose her was that I judged her to be the easiest to handle. As the first bait in a three-person team, she was likely the weakest, and she certainly looked the most like a pushover. When I threw the Book in the Box at her face, her instinctive response had been to block with her arms; I knew then she had no melee experience.
Furthermore, entangling them in close combat would make the other two hesitate to fire, lest a fireball accidentally hit their teammate.
I had intended to use her as a deterrent, but their logic actually allowed me to put the theory into practice. It wasn't until I used her back to tank a full-charge fireball that I realized they truly had zero sense of teamwork!
I didn't even want to bother figuring out if they had forgotten that "friendly fire" was active in reality, or if they had simply abandoned their failing teammate.
But she had indeed taken a fireball to the back. She wasn't dead yet—at least, according to her health bar, she was still hanging on.
"That was brutal."
After discarding this "meat shield," she collapsed miserably to the ground. After all, Undying nature didn't come without a price.
Meanwhile, I was looking for a way to close in on the other two. However, a mere advantage in physical stats wasn't enough to let me close the gap instantly. I had the basic physical boost from Body Cultivation, but they also had the physical enhancements from years of Witchification. They were also quite skilled in the combat techniques of long-range spell suppression.
"Let's retreat for now..."
"Tsk... this is making too much noise," the other one nodded without further argument.
Too much noise would attract people. While it might not attract examinees, other Teaching Assistants might come to scavenge. Besides, it was only the beginning. The initial sneak attack was the core of their plan. There was no point in wasting more time with me; it was better to go "farm" for a bit and ambush some lone examinees.
Although they were supposedly the "special hunting targets" this time, in a real exam, it wasn't always clear who was hunting whom!
Seeing those two, whose health bars were nearly intact, flee like that, I felt it was a pity. I could only sigh at how much these "sly veterans" valued their lives.
"But you, the one with low health... do you really think you can get away?" I chased after the Teaching Assistant who had just tanked her teammate's fireball. Aside from her clothes, which showed she had been heavily injured, no obvious wounds were visible on her body.
"Can't you just let me go! I didn't hit you even once..."
"I won't let those two go either, but they're just like you—they didn't hit me with a single fireball."
After a brief chase, I used my fireball and the Book in the Box to predict her movements, wounding her leg. At their level, a graze wouldn't affect their movement, so every strike needed to be aimed at killing or crippling.
"Fine... tsk. Kill me then. I'll just wait to respawn." Falling to the ground, the Teaching Assistant realized she had no room to resist. Moreover, she had been disarmed.
Losing her weapon meant losing her casting medium and the extraordinary power granted by the Power Network. She was a lamb to the slaughter.
"Kill you? That would be such a waste. But before that, I really should thank you."
"Thank me? For what?"
"Thank you for making me understand what the health bar markers represent. They likely denote life level and Undying nature. If you suffer another major injury now, your Undying nature probably won't be able to help you recover, right?"
"If I say yes, will you give me a quick death?"
"To be honest, no."
After saying that, I treated her to another uncharged fireball, further depleting her health bar.
"Ah—wait... wait... I can tell you... a secret..."
"I don't need it. You aren't truly dying; you'll be resurrected. Therefore, your 'deathbed' words have zero credibility. I don't want to waste energy discerning truth from lies. Your words might even subconsciously influence my judgment, so you aren't allowed to speak."
I looked at the last sliver of her health bar, a satisfied smile spreading across my face. Then, I aimed a punch directly at her cervical spine.
Just as I delivered the blow, a figure appeared beside me—a Mentor from the Witch Academy.
"Sorry, Mentor. I didn't expect you to be so efficient, but I'm afraid you've come for nothing. She isn't dead yet." I turned to the Mentor and spoke apologetically.
"Oh? Indeed. I thought that punch would finish her." The Mentor was somewhat surprised. She sensed the girl's condition and checked the health bar; she was indeed still alive. "Are you planning to continue?"
"No. Killing her gives me no benefit. She should still have some utility value." I grabbed her by the back of her collar. That punch naturally hadn't taken her life.
I was a Body Cultivator. When Sister Bai first taught me the concepts of Body Cultivation, the first thing we covered was human anatomy. Right now, she just had targeted damage to her cervical region. She had gone from "potentially paralyzed" to "definitely paralyzed."
My control of force was excellent. And... while her Undying nature could theoretically repair this paralysis, it depended on how much of her self-repair capacity was left.
Don't blame me for being cold-hearted. Since they had the nerve to come knocking on my door, they shouldn't be afraid of me playing rough.
"Oh? And what do you plan to do?" The Mentor didn't find my behavior inappropriate. If you ambush someone and get counter-killed, what right do you have to play the victim?
"I'm going to see if any examinees are willing to spare some 'kill counts' to help me open my skill tree."